In the last year, I've shipped 6 products — CashLens, PrivacyPage, InvoiceZen, DeadBy.ai, StackRadar, and Cloudo. No venture capital. No co-founder. No full-time employees. Just me, working from my room in Ahmedabad, India.
I'm not going to pretend I have it all figured out. But I've learned enough to have a playbook, and I think it's worth sharing.
Rule 1: Ship Fast, Fix Later
My first version of CashLens was embarrassingly simple. Basic expense tracking, a few categories, no charts. I shipped it in about 3 weeks. A lot of people would have spent 6 months adding features before launching.
Here's the thing: nobody cares about your v1. The App Store has millions of apps. Your first version is just a ticket to the conversation. Ship it, get feedback, iterate.
CashLens is now on v1.0.5 with spending heatmaps, subscription tracking, weekly digests, and 150+ currencies. None of that was in v1. All of it was informed by real user feedback.
Rule 2: Solve Your Own Problems
Every product I've built started with a personal frustration:
- •CashLens: I wanted to track expenses without giving my data to some company
- •PrivacyPage: I needed a privacy policy for CashLens and didn't want to pay a lawyer
- •InvoiceZen: I needed to send invoices for freelance work without signing up for yet another SaaS
- •Cloudo: I wanted a clean, simple task manager without Notion's complexity
When you solve your own problem, you have a massive advantage: you're the first user, the first tester, and you deeply understand the pain point. You never have to wonder "would someone pay for this?" because you already know the answer.
Rule 3: Stack the Ecosystem
Notice how my products feed each other:
- •CashLens needed a privacy policy → PrivacyPage was born
- •I needed to invoice clients for CashLens consulting → InvoiceZen was born
- •I needed to manage tasks across all these projects → Cloudo was born
Each product exists independently, but together they create an ecosystem. PrivacyPage users might need invoicing. InvoiceZen users might need expense tracking. One user can become a user of all four.
Rule 4: Privacy as a Moat
This might be controversial: I think privacy-first is the best business strategy for indie devs in 2026.
Big companies can't do privacy-first. Their business models depend on data. They have shareholders expecting growth metrics that require tracking. They have ad partnerships that require user profiles.
As an indie dev, I have none of those constraints. I can say "your data never leaves your device" and actually mean it. That's a competitive advantage that no VC-backed startup can replicate without restructuring their entire business.
Rule 5: Spend Money on Time, Not Things
My total infrastructure cost across all 6 products:
- •Vercel: Free tier (hobby plan)
- •Supabase: Free tier
- •Apple Developer Account: $99/year
- •Domain names: ~$50/year total
- •AI agents: ~$200/month (this is my biggest expense)
- •Pro Display XDR: $5,000 (okay this one was an impulse buy)
The AI agents are worth every penny because they save me 3-4 hours daily. The Pro Display XDR is worth every penny because... okay fine, I just wanted it. But the point is: keep infrastructure costs near zero and invest in things that save time.
Rule 6: Build in Public (But Authentically)
I post about what I'm building on X (@rushirajjj). Not the "just raised $2M" kind of building in public. The real kind. The "spent 3 hours debugging a Tailwind class" kind.
People connect with authenticity. Nobody wants to hear your perfectly crafted success story. They want to hear that you shipped a feature at 2 AM, broke production, and fixed it while half asleep. That's relatable. That's human.
Rule 7: India is an Unfair Advantage
I moved back from the US specifically for this. My monthly living expenses in Ahmedabad are a fraction of what they were in Texas. That means:
- •I can survive longer without revenue
- •I can price products lower and still be profitable
- •I can take risks that someone with Bay Area rent can't
This isn't about "cheap labor." It's about buying yourself runway. Every month you don't need to earn money from your product is a month you can spend making it better.
What's Next
I'm not done. The goal isn't 6 products — it's building a sustainable indie business that generates enough revenue to keep going indefinitely. No investors to please, no board meetings, no quarterly earnings calls.
Just me, my Mac, my AI agents, and the products.
That's the playbook. It's simple. Ship fast, solve your own problems, stack the ecosystem, use privacy as a moat, keep costs low, build in public, and leverage your geography.
Now stop reading and go build something.