Six Months, Four Indie Products: My Journey as a Solo Developer and Product Manager
Over the past six months, I’ve been working full-time as an indie developer and product manager, building products for a global audience. During this short but intense period, I launched four different products across different niches:
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🎙 AIVocal– an AI voice generation and speech tool
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💳 Bankgpt – an AI assistant tailored for finance
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💇 Right Hair – an AI hairstyling and matching platform
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✂ EzreMove – a one-click background removal tool
In this post, I’ll share the reasoning behind each product, how I took them from idea to launch, and some personal lessons I’ve learned along the way.
1. From Idea to Execution: How I Choose Products
As an indie maker, I don’t have the resources to build everything. That means choosing the right problem to solve is half the battle. I evaluate every idea against three simple filters:
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Clear demand – Is this a pain point users face regularly?
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Willingness to pay – Would people actually pay for a solution here?
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Room for differentiation – Can I carve out a niche instead of competing head-on with big players?
Looking back, each of my products came from applying these filters:
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aivocal.io → Voice generation is in high demand among podcasters, YouTubers, teachers, and marketers.
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bankgpt.io → By focusing on finance-specific prompts, I could stand apart from generic AI chat assistants.
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righthair.ai → Hairstyle try-ons are fun but also practical—young users often want to experiment before committing.
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ezremove.ai → Background removal tools exist, but I aimed for something faster, simpler, and API-friendly.
2. Building Quickly: The MVP Mindset
I strongly believe in shipping a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) first. Instead of polishing endlessly, I launch quickly, then refine based on feedback.
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aivocal.io started as a very simple demo where users could generate one voice sample. I later expanded to multi-language support, more voice tones, and downloadable files.
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bankgpt.io’s first version focused on providing ready-made banking and investment Q&A templates. Users valued the “instant professionalism” more than advanced AI features.
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righthair.ai faced the challenge of accuracy. My early goal wasn’t perfection, but ensuring hairstyles looked natural enough to give users a realistic impression.
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ezremove.ai differentiated itself with an ultra-minimal UI and smooth developer API, making it easier to integrate into creative workflows.
This approach helped me validate ideas without overcommitting resources.
3. Going Global: Marketing and Growth
Building a product is only half of the journey—distribution is often harder than development. Since all of my projects target an international audience, I invested effort into:
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SEO from day one – I carefully chose domains, structured landing pages, and optimized keywords (e.g., “bankgpt” directly ties finance with AI).
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Content marketing – Sharing the backstory on Product Hunt, Reddit, Twitter/X, and niche communities brought the first wave of users.
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Partnerships & backlinks – For example, aivocal.io got traction in audio creator communities, while ezremove.ai was listed by several design blogs.
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Localization & simplicity – I kept copy straightforward, avoided culture-specific jargon, and ensured the onboarding was international-friendly.
Marketing as a solo indie isn’t about massive ad budgets—it’s about being scrappy, visible, and persistent.
4. Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned
Six months and four products taught me more than years of traditional corporate work. Some hard-earned lessons:
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Speed matters more than perfection → Launch fast, validate, and iterate.
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Niche beats broad → Instead of building a “general AI assistant,” I focused on narrow problems with clear user intent.
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Listen to users, not your ego → Some features I loved were ignored, while small tweaks users suggested drove retention.
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Growth is a second battlefield → Product quality is only step one; acquisition, retention, and word of mouth are the true tests.
5. What’s Next
Being a solo founder feels less like working alone and more like having ongoing conversations with the world. Each product is a question I ask the market, and the users’ reactions are the answers.
Going forward, I plan to:
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Keep improving my existing products, especially in usability and performance.
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Explore new AI applications with specific use cases rather than generic tools.
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Document more of my process openly, to share and connect with other indie makers.
My hope is that the next six months bring not just more launches, but also deeper products that can become part of people’s daily workflows.
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