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How I Built It: $30K/Month Micro-SaaS
Starter Story
Oct 21, 2026
Charlie bootstrapped his micro-saas, Links, to over $30K/month, which allowed him to quit his job... twice! In this episode, he shares exactly how he grew Liinks to $30K/month (even in a saturated market), and his advice for building a side project that might help you quit your full-time job, right now in 2026
Side project ideas you can build with your 9-5: https://clickhubspot.com/xls2
Say hi to Charlie: https://x.com/charliie
Check out Liinks: https://www.liinks.co/
🔔 Follow the Second Channel: @StarterStoryBuild
🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
This video is an educational case study of this founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
Stack
This
is
a
project
that
I
grew
alongside
my
full
time
job
and
I
quit
to
become
a
full
time
solo
printer
I
want
you
to
meet
Charlie
A
few
years
ago
he
was
working
a
full
time
job
as
a
software
engineer
but
on
the
side
he
was
building
this
really
simple
app
And
today
that
app
makes
over
30
000
a
month
I
just
at
that
point
I
just
felt
like
I
need
to
do
this
Like
I
really
want
to
do
this
to
give
myself
a
shot
But
here's
what
I
think
is
cool
He
wasn't
the
first
person
to
build
this
idea
In
fact
he
built
it
in
a
space
where
there
was
a
competitor
with
literally
millions
of
users
and
yet
he
was
still
successful
I
decided
to
give
myself
two
weeks
to
build
a
Linktree
alternative
So
I
asked
Charlie
to
come
onto
the
channel
and
break
everything
down
And
in
this
episode
we're
gonna
dive
into
the
crazy
simple
app
he
built
that
now
makes
over
30
000
a
month
how
he
grew
it
on
nights
and
weekends
on
the
side
and
finally
the
story
behind
how
this
app
replaced
his
full
time
job
Trust
me
this
one's
gonna
be
good
Let's
dive
in
I'm
Gus
and
this
is
Starter
Story
All
right
Charlie
welcome
to
Starter
Story
Super
excited
to
have
you
on
the
channel
Can
you
just
share
with
me
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
So
my
name's
Charlie
Clark
and
I'm
a
software
engineer
and
I'm
the
founder
of
Links
which
is
a
simple
website
and
LinkedIn
bio
tool
doing
about
31
500
in
monthly
recurring
revenue
This
is
a
project
that
I
grew
alongside
my
full
time
job
initially
And
in
August
of
2024
I
quit
to
become
a
full
time
solopreneur
That's
awesome
Yeah
what
is
Links
Can
you
just
explain
to
the
audience
who
may
not
know
what
it
is
just
what
it
is
what
it
does
who
some
of
your
users
are
So
let's
start
there
So
Links
is
primarily
a
LinkedIn
bio
tool
It's
a
way
to
kind
of
take
all
of
the
different
parts
of
your
online
presence
and
put
them
in
like
a
very
simple
mobile
first
webpage
that
links
out
to
your
different
parts
of
your
online
identity
So
bring
it
a
little
bit
closer
closer
to
like
a
full
website
builder
with
some
additional
functionality
that
sort
of
the
typical
LinkedIn
bio
tool
might
not
offer
like
multiple
pages
more
powerful
blocks
and
more
customization
options
So
here
we
are
on
the
Links
landing
page
So
what
you
get
is
a
URL
that's
links
co
slash
username
and
that
gives
you
a
page
that
looks
something
like
this
As
you
can
see
there's
quite
a
bit
of
variety
variety
in
what
you
can
build
with
our
tool
So
it
is
really
quite
a
diverse
types
of
customers
but
fundamentally
these
are
all
either
people
or
brands
that
are
trying
to
make
money
online
All
right
real
quick
What
I
love
about
Charlie's
story
is
that
he
started
this
as
a
side
project
He
grew
it
alongside
his
full
time
job
until
he
grew
it
to
a
point
point
where
he
could
actually
quit
and
go
all
in
We
actually
see
this
a
lot
lot
with
some
of
the
founders
we
feature
on
the
channel
They
build
something
they
grow
it
slowly
on
the
side
until
finally
they
can
go
all
in
So
naturally
you
might
be
wondering
how
can
I
find
a
side
project
idea
to
build
Well
that's
exactly
why
we
put
together
a
free
list
of
side
project
ideas
you
could
start
alongside
your
9
to
5
Every
idea
is
backed
by
a
real
case
study
with
revenue
numbers
pricing
models
and
how
they
grew
it
on
the
side
So
if
you've
got
a
day
job
and
a
little
bit
of
free
time
I
think
this
list
will
give
you
a
good
place
to
start
So
just
head
to
the
link
in
the
description
and
grab
that
100
for
free
All
right
let's
get
back
to
Charlie
Yeah
Charlie
this
is
really
cool
I
think
in
my
past
life
I
was
a
photographer
I
did
like
a
few
weddings
I
used
to
follow
a
lot
of
people
in
that
space
and
they
all
had
something
like
this
So
definitely
I
see
the
benefit
Let's
talk
a
little
bit
about
the
revenue
Like
can
you
just
pull
up
your
revenue
dashboard
just
show
off
to
the
audience
that
this
thing
is
legit
and
maybe
just
walk
through
some
of
your
the
numbers
you
look
at
probably
every
day
Yeah
here's
my
Stripe
dashboard
Currently
sitting
at
about
31
500
MRR
There's
a
big
jump
here
because
I
actually
increased
my
prices
prices
towards
the
end
of
June
And
I
went
from
4
a
month
to
5
a
month
which
doesn't
feel
like
a
big
increase
but
because
this
is
a
business
where
it's
like
a
lot
of
customers
paying
a
small
amount
that
like
1
increase
actually
translated
to
nearly
5
000
in
additional
MRR
And
it's
actually
been
sort
of
on
an
upwards
trend
since
then
so
very
exciting
Awesome
Charlie
Thanks
for
breaking
all
that
down
and
being
so
transparent
Let's
get
into
your
background
a
little
bit
How
did
you
get
to
this
point
Were
you
always
doing
projects
like
this
technical
background
Yeah
tell
us
about
how
you
got
here
Yeah
so
when
I
was
in
college
I
was
studying
graphic
design
initially
And
when
I
graduated
college
I
had
taught
myself
a
bit
of
programming
And
like
the
first
job
that
I
landed
out
of
school
school
was
at
an
ad
agency
doing
web
development
And
then
I
got
my
first
job
in
tech
at
Squarespace
after
a
couple
of
years
of
doing
the
advertising
stuff
That
was
really
where
I
learned
sort
of
like
the
fundamentals
of
software
engineering
and
also
got
exposure
to
a
tool
for
building
websites
And
I
was
always
dabbling
with
little
projects
on
the
side
I
got
really
interested
in
like
the
print
on
demand
space
And
when
I
started
learning
about
like
print
on
demand
I
was
like
oh
this
is
kind
of
cool
but
these
like
print
on
demand
websites
are
not
especially
interesting
or
like
well
designed
So
that's
where
I
came
up
with
this
idea
for
Visual
which
was
like
my
first
big
side
project
that
I
had
this
idea
that
I
was
gonna
build
this
print
on
demand
marketplace
for
artists
where
they
could
upload
their
art
and
sell
their
art
and
have
it
printed
and
fulfilled
for
them
And
the
first
time
I
quit
my
job
in
2019
was
to
develop
that
idea
As
I
was
building
Visual
and
interacting
with
a
lot
of
artists
online
I'd
noticed
that
a
lot
of
them
were
using
Lincoln
BioTools
and
Linktree
being
like
the
big
one
at
the
time
And
as
I
was
kind
of
like
struggling
a
bit
with
Visual
and
trying
to
find
like
some
kind
of
market
fit
there
I
decided
to
like
give
myself
two
weeks
to
build
a
Linktree
alternative
That's
how
Link
started
I
thought
it
was
interesting
you
said
you
gave
yourself
two
weeks
to
build
Link
So
tell
us
about
coming
up
with
that
idea
a
little
bit
more
about
the
backstory
there
As
I
mentioned
I
had
seen
that
people
were
using
a
Linktree
And
so
I
started
digging
into
it
and
I
was
like
oh
you
know
it's
cool
that
this
exists
but
like
the
pages
don't
look
very
good
So
that
was
kind
of
like
how
I
started
thinking
about
it
Like
let's
try
and
make
a
tool
like
this
where
you
can
make
your
page
look
nicer
Just
to
sort
of
test
it
out
I
was
like
reaching
out
to
people
being
like
hey
I
built
this
thing
And
I
would
like
send
it
to
them
Be
like
I
built
this
for
you
Like
do
you
want
to
use
it
And
I
have
artist
friends
who
are
still
using
Links
because
they
set
it
up
And
I
grandfathered
them
into
like
a
free
plan
on
not
making
them
pay
But
that
was
how
I
started
getting
some
early
feedback
which
was
really
helpful
One
thing
I'm
really
thinking
about
is
like
kind
of
the
manually
getting
customers
at
least
that
initial
thing
you
mentioned
there
is
like
you
would
build
it
for
someone
or
you
would
reach
out
to
like
a
personal
connection
and
like
do
it
for
them
kind
of
thing
I
think
that's
just
a
really
practical
first
way
to
start
getting
customers
and
validation
So
hopefully
someone
watching
can
like
learn
a
little
bit
from
that
And
then
second
quick
takeaway
there
is
just
like
it
would
have
been
easy
for
you
to
be
like
oh
Linktree
already
exists
I'm
out
of
the
market
kind
of
thing
But
you
somehow
found
a
simpler
maybe
smaller
way
to
build
an
alternative
And
I
imagine
that
was
something
that
attracted
people
at
the
beginning
So
yeah
let's
talk
about
the
growth
of
Links
Tell
us
the
story
behind
how
you
went
from
zero
to
where
it's
at
today
Starting
from
zero
right
Like
I
built
this
thing
just
warm
or
cold
outreach
trying
to
convince
people
to
try
it
Not
scalable
but
like
a
good
way
to
just
gauge
interest
That
was
like
the
first
phase
And
then
I
had
addressed
some
feedback
made
some
changes
And
I
launched
on
Product
Hunt
and
I
got
quite
a
bit
of
traffic
from
it
And
that's
kind
of
when
I
started
thinking
about
monetizing
it
And
I
was
just
curious
I
was
like
would
people
be
willing
to
pay
for
this
So
I
launched
like
a
premium
version
at
the
time
and
think
it
was
maybe
3
a
month
something
like
that
Got
to
like
100
MRR
within
a
couple
months
and
then
started
looking
into
how
to
sort
of
scale
that
And
my
first
success
that
I
had
was
actually
with
Instagram
ads
Got
quite
a
bit
of
growth
early
on
from
that
And
then
they
changed
their
algorithms
at
some
point
I
can't
remember
if
it
was
like
2021
or
2022
but
that
eventually
became
like
not
a
viable
channel
for
me
anymore
After
the
Instagram
ads
started
not
performing
as
well
I
was
looking
for
other
channels
to
scale
growth
And
I
discovered
that
like
Google
search
ads
were
the
sort
of
easiest
because
it
was
high
intent
traffic
People
actually
looking
for
a
link
in
bio
tool
or
like
a
webpage
builder
And
it
was
quite
easy
to
just
put
money
in
and
get
money
out
And
that's
sort
of
consistently
been
what
I
have
been
relying
on
most
for
growth
I
would
say
over
the
last
four
years
I'm
just
curious
separately
you
said
your
early
on
pricing
was
like
3
a
month
and
over
the
last
four
or
five
years
now
it's
at
5
a
month
month
So
you
haven't
really
increased
it
like
that
much
So
maybe
just
tell
us
about
like
why
that
pricing
it
seems
like
really
small
maybe
it's
because
you
think
it's
a
small
tool
or
something
else
you
see
in
the
market
Just
tell
us
about
that
piece
because
I
think
that's
kind
of
interesting
interesting
and
like
what
that
means
like
maybe
for
the
business
A
big
part
of
it
is
sort
of
anchoring
it
relative
to
the
other
players
in
the
space
And
Licktree
is
the
biggest
competitor
in
the
space
So
I've
always
sort
of
looked
at
their
pricing
and
tried
to
at
least
for
my
paid
version
sort
of
undercut
them
And
I
guess
for
me
the
way
I
like
to
think
about
it
is
I
would
much
rather
have
lots
of
customers
customers
paying
like
a
small
amount
than
fewer
customers
paying
more
The
one
thing
I
do
have
that
sort
of
counterbalances
that
is
that
there's
also
a
pro
plan
which
starts
at
12
a
month
And
mainly
what
that
gives
you
is
custom
domain
and
the
ability
to
manage
multiple
pages
So
12
starts
you
out
with
five
pages
and
you
can
then
sort
of
add
more
and
more
pages
So
I
actually
do
have
a
couple
of
customers
customers
that
are
paying
upwards
of
a
hundred
a
month
month
because
they
manage
a
bunch
of
pages
pages
So
there
is
still
like
a
segment
of
higher
paying
customers
and
that's
how
I've
kind
of
split
it
up
Cool
Yeah
that
makes
sense
Yeah
Thanks
for
breaking
that
down
When
we
were
chatting
before
this
interview
you
told
me
a
little
bit
about
how
you
know
know
building
this
helped
you
quit
your
job
and
do
this
full
time
but
then
maybe
you
went
back
to
work
and
then
came
back
to
Lynx
Tell
us
that
story
of
how
working
on
Lynx
has
helped
you
both
quit
or
come
back
to
a
full
time
job
So
yeah
when
I
first
left
in
2019
that's
when
I
started
building
Visual
I
worked
on
that
for
almost
a
year
and
towards
the
end
of
that
year
which
is
kind
of
like
what
I
had
given
myself
I
built
Lynx
Neither
product
was
really
like
making
much
money
And
if
you
remember
that's
when
COVID
started
and
I
was
self
employed
not
making
a
whole
lot
of
money
And
I
just
felt
like
I
would
be
a
lot
more
comfortable
not
being
self
employed
at
that
point
And
so
I
went
back
to
Squarespace
mentioned
to
them
that
I
had
been
working
on
these
things
I
didn't
want
to
sort
of
feel
like
I
was
doing
something
under
the
table
And
yeah
Lynx
continued
to
grow
during
that
time
Even
though
I
wasn't
spending
all
that
much
time
on
it
Summer
of
2024
is
when
I
decided
like
okay
I
feel
like
I'm
making
enough
money
now
with
Lynx
I
was
basically
in
revenue
making
my
salary
more
or
less
I
was
really
wanting
more
flexibility
to
look
after
my
kid
when
he
would
get
sick
and
stuff
like
that
It
just
felt
like
the
right
time
And
now
it's
been
two
years
and
I'm
really
glad
I
did
it
As
you're
talking
I
was
thinking
about
how
the
first
time
you
quit
to
work
on
your
stuff
you
did
it
with
what
I
would
interpret
as
not
really
a
big
plan
And
then
the
second
time
you
said
you
had
built
it
big
enough
that
it
was
replacing
your
whole
salary
You
know
sometimes
the
narrative
online
with
quitting
to
go
full
time
it's
either
like
burn
all
the
boats
you
know
know
and
just
like
go
all
in
move
to
Bali
and
then
you
know
live
a
cheap
life
and
then
you
grow
your
product
That's
like
the
narrative
I
see
quite
a
bit
at
least
on
like
IndieHack
or
Twitter
Could
you
share
like
your
mindset
behind
those
two
different
ways
that
you
approached
like
quitting
to
go
full
time
on
your
project
That's
a
really
interesting
question
So
I
think
when
I
quit
the
first
time
I
had
an
idea
of
what
I
wanted
to
build
but
it
was
you
know
not
super
well
thought
out
And
my
partner
she
had
a
full
time
job
She
was
making
like
you
know
a
good
amount
of
money
So
there
was
also
that
support
that
was
really
helpful
And
you
know
we
were
way
off
from
thinking
about
having
kids
at
that
point
The
second
time
was
very
different
because
one
big
thing
was
COVID
Like
COVID
really
sort
of
made
life
feel
kind
of
like
scary
and
you
know
unpredictable
And
it
kind
of
just
like
it
kept
sort
of
pushing
back
Like
I
was
always
talking
about
like
I
want
to
go
and
like
focus
on
like
full
time
but
like
things
kept
happening
that
kept
sort
of
pushing
that
back
And
then
we
decided
we
were
going
to
have
a
kid
and
that
pushed
it
back
even
more
And
so
by
the
time
that
that
was
all
in
place
and
also
I
had
sort
of
this
like
somewhat
arbitrary
goal
of
like
matching
my
salary
with
the
MRR
I
think
I
could
have
gone
either
way
with
that
a
little
bit
but
that
was
just
like
a
nice
secondary
goal
kind
of
I
love
that
because
I
think
sometimes
the
big
narrative
is
go
all
in
but
I
really
like
that
you
did
it
slowly
And
you
know
life
does
happen
I
get
that
personally
Like
you
have
a
kid
you
get
married
you
buy
a
house
and
responsibility
starts
to
pile
up
a
little
bit
not
in
a
bad
way
but
just
like
you
know
life
happens
And
so
I
really
liked
that
different
mindset
the
second
time
which
hopefully
someone
watching
you
know
can
relate
to
a
little
bit
Let's
talk
about
the
tech
stack
behind
Lynx
What
are
the
tools
you
use
on
a
day
to
day
basis
to
run
the
business
Tech
stack
wise
I
host
on
a
VPS
on
DigitalOcean
and
I
use
AWS
just
for
posting
assets
So
whenever
people
upload
images
that's
where
that
goes
And
a
couple
other
tools
that
I
use
Resend
for
email
notifications
and
also
sending
out
marketing
emails
And
then
I
use
TinyBird
which
is
a
wrapper
over
ClickHouse
that's
for
analytics
I
have
some
AI
integrations
throughout
the
product
I
use
OpenAI
for
that
their
API
And
then
my
biggest
spend
is
Google
Ads
I
spend
about
100
a
day
on
Google
Ads
Then
as
of
a
year
or
so
ago
I've
been
also
spending
100
to
200
a
month
on
a
coding
agent
That's
basically
it
All
right
so
I
want
to
see
how
Lynx
works
So
could
you
just
give
us
a
little
one
minute
demo
of
how
Lynx
works
Let's
onboard
Starter
Story
So
when
you
first
create
your
account
you're
given
the
choice
between
starting
from
your
Instagram
from
a
link
or
starting
from
scratch
Instagram's
the
best
just
because
it's
a
little
more
structured
So
let's
just
go
through
that
We're
basically
scraping
in
your
Instagram
profile
pulling
in
your
profile
picture
and
any
information
that
is
sort
of
publicly
accessible
It
got
the
profile
picture
and
the
name
name
and
it
put
together
a
little
banner
here
And
then
this
is
where
you
can
sort
of
quickly
kind
of
build
out
what
your
profile
template
could
look
like
and
then
you
can
pick
a
theme
These
are
just
starting
points
basically
can
customize
everything
once
you
finish
And
then
a
little
celebration
Easy
I
mean
obviously
it
would
take
someone
time
to
design
it
and
tweak
it
et
cetera
say
what
they
want
to
say
but
relatively
simple
to
get
started
That's
cool
Yeah
so
now
you've
got
your
link
lynx
co
slash
starter
story
And
from
there
you
can
actually
go
into
the
like
full
fledged
editing
experience
We
have
a
bunch
of
other
features
like
you
can
build
forms
that
you
can
share
with
standalone
forms
QR
codes
short
links
I
recently
just
put
in
like
a
fun
little
like
mock
up
builder
that
I
had
sort
of
built
as
like
a
separate
project
but
like
pulled
it
into
Lynx
just
so
you
can
kind
of
create
like
a
shareable
asset
with
your
profile
Very
cool
Yeah
Cool
yeah
thanks
for
sharing
That's
awesome
Final
question
that
we
ask
everyone
who
comes
on
Starter
Story
If
you
were
standing
on
your
shoulders
six
years
ago
or
for
a
lot
of
people
watching
or
just
getting
started
now
what
kind
of
advice
would
you
give
yourself
or
give
to
them
One
thing
that
is
so
easy
now
is
like
to
just
give
up
as
soon
as
your
thing
doesn't
immediately
work
because
it
has
gotten
so
cheap
to
build
and
it's
so
much
easier
in
a
way
to
jump
to
the
next
idea
you
have
rather
than
like
actually
spending
the
time
trying
to
do
the
hard
stuff
like
reaching
out
to
customers
marketing
doing
outreach
like
stuff
like
that
which
I
think
is
still
valuable
So
that
would
be
my
sort
of
like
adapted
advice
for
the
AI
era
is
pick
a
space
that's
validated
iterate
until
you
feel
like
you
got
something
and
then
lock
in
if
you
feel
like
this
is
what
you
want
to
be
working
on
Well
Charlie
that's
great
advice
and
thank
you
so
much
for
coming
to
Starter
Story
Cool
thanks
guys
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