~$45K/month as of his most-shared public snapshot: TypingMind ~$33K, Xnapper ~$6K, DevUtils ~$5.5K. Crossed $1M lifetime in November 2024.
0 — solo operator
Indie developer tools and AI interfaces
Tony Dinh (@tdinh_me)
Timeline
Early 2020Tony Dinh, then a developer in Vietnam, is pushed remote by the pandemic. Discovers Indie Hackers, listens daily to stories from Pieter Levels, Kyle Gawley, and Jon Yongfook. Starts shipping side projects.2021-2022Builds Black Magic — a Twitter power-user tool (better search, analytics, reply curation). Reaches $14K MRR at peak during the early Elon Musk / Twitter-turmoil era.April 2023Twitter announces $42K/month API pricing. Black Magic's unit economics break overnight. Tony sells Black Magic in May 2023 for $128K — publicly writes about it as a 'successful failure.'Mid 2023Pivots to TypingMind — a better UI for ChatGPT users who want multi-model access, personal prompts library, and offline-first local storage. Ships in days; first day hits $1K in revenue.Late 2023TypingMind compounds: $2K next day, $4K next, $22K in the first 11 days. Tony describes it as 'decoupling input from output' — the app is small but the buyer market is huge.2024Adds TypingMind Custom for B2B teams. Big contracts start to close; this becomes the most profitable line of the portfolio. DevUtils and Xnapper continue running in parallel.November 2024Crosses $1M lifetime revenue. Publicly celebrates on newsletter with revenue breakdown across products.2025-2026Operating run-rate around $45K/month. Focus shifts to TypingMind B2B (higher contract value, lower churn) while DevUtils and Xnapper run as evergreen products.Key insights
- 01The 'failure' with Black Magic paid for the next product. A $128K exit funded Tony's runway to build TypingMind without venture capital, and the learnings about platform dependency informed every subsequent product.
- 02Platform-dependent products are structurally brittle. Twitter pulling the API rug is the kind of black swan that kills solo products built on someone else's API.
- 03'Decoupling input from output' is the real insight from TypingMind — you don't have to build a model to build a valuable interface on top of someone else's model.
- 04Paid-up-front licenses compound differently than monthly subscriptions. TypingMind's mix of perpetual license + optional managed tier reduced churn anxiety for a solo founder.
- 05B2B contracts, once you reach them, reshape the economics of a solo business. One enterprise TypingMind Custom deal can equal a month of individual licenses.
- 06Building in public compresses learning cycles. Tony's newsletter, public revenue reporting, and Indie Hackers presence drove a significant share of his customer acquisition.
- 07Being outside Silicon Valley is an advantage for a solo founder: lower cost of living, no expectation of venture scale, more time to iterate.
Stack used
Electron / Tauri for desktop apps (DevUtils, Xnapper)Web + Electron for TypingMind (cross-platform)Stripe for payments including perpetual license pricingGumroad / Lemon Squeezy for license delivery in early versionsTwitter/X and Indie Hackers for distributionA personal newsletter (news.tonydinh.com) for reports and transparencyMulti-model API routing (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) for TypingMind's model layerSelf-built support infrastructure — Tony answers many tickets directly
What this means for you
- Don't build on platforms that can change their policy tomorrow. Twitter's API move was the obvious cautionary tale; the same logic applies to building on a single LLM provider.
- A 'failure' that pays six figures is a valuable stepping stone, not a setback. Solo founders need to reframe exits from failing products as tuition that funded the next bet.
- Interface-layer products can be huge. You don't need to train a model to build a product around one; the gap between raw API and great user experience is a whole business.
- Go where the pricing model reduces your anxiety. Perpetual licenses with optional managed tiers can be a better fit for a solo founder than pure SaaS monthly billing.
- Internationalize your mindset. You don't have to be in SF or NYC to ship a seven-figure product — Tony's base in Ho Chi Minh City is a feature, not a bug.
- B2B upgrades unlock a different tier of economics once your product has the stability to support contracts. Don't ignore the enterprise angle just because you started consumer.