Lucas found a niche subreddit where video production professionals hung out — he noted these communities were small and hard to find. He posted a single post per subreddit asking people to try the tool and give feedback, with no pricing attached on the site so it didn't feel like a sales pitch. The post received 58 upvotes and generated detailed feature-request lists from commenters who said things like "I've been waiting for such an app," confirming demand. Because there was no price on the site, the community reception was warm — people engaged with it as a genuine tool rather than a product being sold to them. Lucas was explicit that he did not spam subreddits — strictly one post per community. This single Reddit post was the catalyst for his first paying customers, which took 224 days from first commit to arrive.
Stagetimer
Browser-based remote-controlled countdown timer for live events and video production
8 moves, in order
- Pre launch / Idea ValidationReddit niche community
Found a small, niche subreddit for video production professionals and posted a single feedback-request post with a link to the free tool. No pricing was shown on the site to avoid appearing salesy. Limited to one post per subreddit to avoid spam perception.
58 upvotes, detailed feature request lists from commenters, confirmed product-market fit - MVP BuildOrganic direct
Built MVP in 3 days using known stack (JavaScript, Vue.js, Node.js) with a single feature: click a button and a timer starts on another screen. Deliberately avoided new technologies to ship fast.
Working MVP shipped in 3 days - First Revenue (~224 days after launch)Organic direct
Continued iterating on the product evenings (~1 hour/day as a side project) after the Reddit validation post. First dollar came 224 days after first commit.
First paying customer acquired - Early Growth – Product Led Growth / Free TierProduct-led growth
Built the product logo and domain name (stagetimer.io) directly into every shared timer link/view. Freelancers using the free tier would pull up the timer at client events; attendees would see the branded interface and later sign up themselves. Free tier acts as a trojan horse into paid events.
~1/3 of all traffic now comes from word-of-mouth/referrals - Scaling – SEO via Niche Integration ContentSEO — niche content
Identified niche keywords by observing what users were already doing (e.g., using Stream Deck devices). Created dedicated documentation pages and YouTube videos showing exactly how to use Stagetimer with those integrations. Targeted low-volume but high-intent keywords where searchers have a concrete problem and are ready to buy.
~50% of traffic now comes from Google search - Scaling – Content Iteration LoopSeo content optimization
Published documentation and articles, then monitored with analytics to see which pages users actually clicked on. Doubled down on content that showed organic traction rather than guessing keywords upfront.
Compounding SEO traffic contributing to 86,000 unique visitors/month - Scaling – Paid AdsGoogle Ads
Wife (co-operator) took over Google Ads management after joining the business. Spend is $1,400/month against $25,000 MRR, keeping margins at 80–90%.
Contributing to overall growth; exact isolated outcome not stated - Operations Scale – Team StructureOther
Hired wife to handle Google Ads, sales emails, and all customer support after reaching $3,000/month. Lucas retained product, development, finance, and strategic direction. Division of labor allowed both functions to run professionally without hiring outside the family.
Business scaled from $3K MRR (quit job threshold) to $10K MRR by Sept 2023, then $25K MRRMRR $25k Users 20k users
Software developer with 13+ years of experience (since 2007), able to ship a working MVP in 3 days using technologies he already knew (JavaScript, Vue.js, Node.js). Also had a direct personal observation of the problem — he watched a friend in a production studio manually walk across a room to start a timer, giving him a concrete, verified use case before writing a line of code.
seo_niche_content
Nothing explicitly called out as a failed channel. Lucas implicitly avoided learning new/unknown technologies for the MVP (e.g., Vercel) to prevent delays — framed as a deliberate choice rather than a failure.
This App Makes $25,000/Month
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