Pre launch / Idea Validation
Build in public — Twitter
Participated in the Half-Day Build online hackathon community on Twitter, joined a Slack/Discord with other indie builders, and committed to going from idea to revenue in 12 hours starting at noon on a Sunday.
→ Created accountability, community support, and a live audience for the launch
MVP Build Day
Personal website
Built four or five small tools in one week and hosted them all on his personal website homepage, sharing each one on Twitter as he built them. Audio Pen was one of these tools.
→ Audio Pen received significantly more engagement and positive signal than the other tools
MVP Launch
Twitter posts
Posted about Audio Pen's MVP on Twitter while building it during the hackathon, leveraging his existing build-in-public following and the Half-Day Build community for immediate social proof and visibility.
→ Unexpected traction — people responded positively and validated the product concept
Pre launch Waitlist
Email waitlist
About 10 hours into the hackathon, launched a waitlist so interested users could sign up before the full product was ready. Did not ask for payment — just asked people to test the product.
→ Collected early beta testers; received unsolicited Stripe payment notifications before midnight
Early User Research
Twitter dms
After seeing signal from the MVP post, Lewis DM'd interested users on Twitter to ask why they liked it and what their use cases were. Used this to inform the full product design.
→ Identified core use cases (idea capture on the go, meeting notes, writer's block) that shaped the product roadmap
Full Product Launch
Build in public — Twitter
Designed the full app in Figma (using Pinterest for design inspiration), built it using Bubble (no-code), and launched publicly with a paid tier. Continued sharing the journey on Twitter as an indie builder, not a faceless company.
→ Got 20th paying customer — identified as the inflection point where Lewis knew it was working
Growth / Scaling
Freemium conversion
Maintained a free tier giving users a limited taste of the product (shorter recording time, no advanced styles), with a paid plan at $99/year or $159/2 years. Gradually raised price as the product was refined.
→ Grew to 200,000 total users with 5,000+ paying customers at ~$15,000/month
MRR $15k Users 200k users
Retention / Differentiation
Product focus
Deliberately resisted expanding into adjacent markets despite temptation. Focused on doing one thing — voice-to-structured-text — exceptionally well. Maintained indie builder transparency and personal brand as a differentiator.
→ Users cite the personal builder relationship as a reason they pay; sustained $15K/month as a solo, part-time operator
MRR $15k