Creative Tim: Growing a side project into a $17k/month business
Published in 2016, this chronicle by @csallen details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing. Key verified financial milestone: $17k/month.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 445 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 139 comments
I devour indiehacker's interviews and I love the transparency - thanks to both sides of the table.
According to the numbers here, 42% of the 17,000 monthly revenues are spent on 6 people. That's $1190 per person per month if everyone is paid equally.
Is everyone in Romania, and is that a living wage there? If not, how are your employees making ends meet?
Edit: that last sentence sounds accusatory - I don't mean it to. I just mean: do you have a strategy of part-timers who have other income streams, do you take side contracts, etc.
I read some of the comments, many saying that $17,000/mo. isn't a lot of money, but don't forget that Creative Tim is based in Romania.
Salaries in Romania aren't as good as in the States.
I'm currently based in Italy and a programmer can make as little as 1,200/mo. (salaries in Italy are much higher than in Romania, possibly 100-200% more). I make more than that freelancing, but I don't think 17,000/mo. is bad, both in general and for a company based in Romania.
I really love these IndieHackers interviews but surprisingly find them somewhat demotivating.
Even the more successful interviewees make less revenue per month than I can make through straight consulting. And they're the success stories—most people (including myself) make far less per month from their products.
How do people keep motivated to work on side projects when consulting is so much more profitable?
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Hi everybody, here is Alex, the co-founder of Creative Tim. Hope the information from this interview will help you achieve more with your current business or give you the courage to start your own business.
If you have any suggestions or feedback I would be glad to talk with you.
Best, Alex