How I Built It: $37K/Month Notion App
Starter Story
Nov 7, 2024
This is how Julien Nahum left his 9-5 and built a Notion micro-saas to over $37,000/month.
📚 The Academy → https://www.starterstory.com/academy?utm_campaign=julien&utm_source=youtube
Follow Julien's Journey
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💻 Website - https://jhumanj.com/
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🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/thepatwalls
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Stack
I
just
spent
six
days
working
on
it
creating
a
small
MVP
and
now
we
are
close
to
37k
of
monthly
recurring
revenue
How
does
this
guy
make
over
400
000
a
year
with
an
app
he
built
in
just
six
days
Well
turns
out
he
really
knows
how
to
find
customers
Obviously
which
is
always
a
big
one
for
this
kind
of
product
I
was
able
to
get
quite
a
lot
lot
of
users
pretty
fast
thanks
to
this
Julien
Nahum
started
his
journey
while
working
a
9
to
5
as
a
software
engineer
I
was
commuting
three
hours
per
day
I
was
spending
all
of
this
commute
time
on
my
computer
working
on
the
side
projects
years
of
experimenting
with
different
side
projects
Julien
finally
found
an
idea
that
worked
And
now
he's
a
solopreneur
making
a
doctor's
salary
while
working
on
multiple
passion
projects
So
I
gave
Julien
a
call
to
ask
him
exactly
how
he
did
it
and
how
anyone
else
can
do
something
similar
Luckily
he
shared
a
ton
of
good
stuff
How
to
find
and
validate
ideas
the
best
places
to
market
a
new
product
and
the
viral
loop
strategy
that
got
Julien
to
over
400
000
a
year
Alright
let's
get
into
it
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
Alright
welcome
Julien
It's
nice
to
have
you
Tell
me
a
little
about
who
you
are
and
what
you
built
Okay
I'm
Julien
I'm
28
I'm
the
founder
of
NoteForms
which
is
a
form
builder
for
Notion
users
We
have
close
to
100K
registered
users
and
now
we
are
close
to
37K
of
monthly
working
revenue
Got
it
Can
you
tell
us
a
little
bit
more
about
the
story
of
how
you
found
the
idea
for
NoteForms
Yeah
definitely
I
was
a
Notion
user
for
maybe
two
or
three
years
I
really
loved
the
product
and
one
day
Notion
finally
released
their
API
which
meant
that
anyone
could
build
integrations
and
products
around
Notion
I
just
decided
to
copy
a
feature
that
another
database
like
product
named
Airtable
had
which
were
forms
I
just
spent
six
days
working
on
it
creating
a
small
MVP
Timing
was
important
and
it
really
helped
growing
the
project
It's
fine
to
start
small
As
soon
as
you
get
some
users
and
some
feedback
you're
able
to
iterate
much
faster
and
to
focus
focus
on
the
core
value
of
whatever
you're
building
you
built
your
SaaS
around
an
already
existing
platform
Notion
why
do
you
like
this
approach
better
than
doing
a
traditional
standalone
SaaS
Building
around
the
platform
is
easier
You
don't
have
to
build
the
community
around
it
You
can
kind
of
cannibalize
part
of
it
and
try
to
solve
a
sub
issue
which
is
kind
of
what
I
did
with
NoteForms
Notion
already
had
a
huge
community
People
were
really
fond
of
the
products
They
had
a
huge
subreddit
tons
of
Facebook
groups
Of
course
it
comes
with
its
own
set
of
issues
You
have
the
platform
risk
But
I
think
finding
these
kind
of
platforms
is
really
a
good
way
to
start
Okay
so
you've
already
built
a
couple
profitable
projects
now
Are
there
any
other
methods
you
have
to
finding
winning
ideas
Yeah
I
think
the
easiest
way
to
find
ideas
is
try
to
solve
your
own
problems
If
you're
your
own
user
then
it's
definitely
easier
to
build
a
great
product
If
you
use
it
you
get
to
see
the
flaws
and
the
issues
and
improve
on
them
The
drawback
of
this
is
that
sometimes
you
can
have
a
problem
and
think
it's
great
to
build
a
tool
for
this
but
then
you
realize
you're
the
only
person
with
that
problem
Because
of
that
I
think
it's
important
to
ship
fast
and
try
and
put
it
in
front
of
other
people
to
get
some
feedback
early
Other
ways
to
get
some
ideas
I
guess
is
just
to
be
curious
talk
to
people
For
instance
I
really
love
talking
with
my
friends
that
have
totally
different
career
paths
and
talk
about
the
way
they
work
their
process
their
daily
lives
always
amazing
to
me
with
a
technical
background
to
hear
that
sometimes
they
spend
one
two
three
hours
every
day
doing
something
that
could
easily
be
automated
Also
being
on
social
medias
like
Twitter
I
think
is
really
a
great
way
You
hear
about
new
tech
you
hear
about
new
opportunities
you
discover
new
things
that
later
you
can
apply
to
new
problems
I
think
that's
also
a
great
way
Alright
so
once
you
have
an
idea
in
mind
what's
your
process
for
validating
the
idea
and
know
that
it's
something
that's
actually
worth
building
Yeah
so
my
way
of
doing
things
is
just
to
actually
build
a
product
or
at
least
an
MVP
for
it
and
then
share
it
to
as
many
people
as
I
can
and
get
instantly
some
feedback
from
the
users
Focusing
on
a
project
for
a
short
amount
of
time
really
helps
you
get
a
sense
of
whether
this
is
valuable
or
not
Of
course
it's
hard
to
apply
to
many
projects
There
are
things
that
you
cannot
just
build
in
one
week
As
a
solopreneur
I
try
to
avoid
this
and
focus
on
things
that
I
can
build
by
myself
and
quickly
The
more
you
build
I
think
the
faster
it
is
to
build
Now
every
time
I'm
starting
a
new
project
I
can
just
copy
the
code
base
from
the
previous
project
keep
all
the
UI
and
that
kind
of
things
and
I
can
just
focus
on
the
core
logic
and
the
value
that
I
want
to
bring
to
the
users
So
you
get
faster
every
time
My
favorite
part
about
Julien's
story
is
he
was
building
side
projects
while
he
kept
his
full
time
job
And
just
like
Julien
I
actually
did
the
same
thing
I
started
a
million
dollar
business
while
I
was
working
a
9
to
5
And
it
wasn't
easy
It
required
working
on
the
right
idea
getting
tons
of
feedback
and
actually
figuring
out
how
to
monetize
so
I
could
replace
my
9
to
5
income
But
the
hardest
part
above
all
Consistency
Actually
showing
up
every
day
and
doing
the
work
That's
why
we
created
The
Academy
a
five
week
program
where
you'll
find
an
idea
build
it
launch
it
validate
it
all
while
working
just
two
hours
a
day
It's
the
same
framework
I
use
to
build
a
million
dollar
business
and
it's
what
I've
seen
thousands
of
successful
founders
actually
use
It's
what
actually
works
because
it's
all
about
taking
action
and
actually
building
which
is
what
I
want
to
see
you
really
take
a
shot
at
So
if
you're
curious
about
building
a
profitable
side
project
like
Julien
and
me
and
you
still
feel
like
you
don't
have
the
time
to
work
on
it
or
work
on
your
ideas
well
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
if
you
want
to
learn
more
Okay
so
you
believe
in
shipping
fast
but
do
you
have
any
frameworks
on
how
to
build
MVPs
really
quickly
The
best
way
of
doing
that
as
a
technical
person
is
to
focus
on
the
product
and
not
on
the
technology
I've
been
using
the
exact
same
stack
for
the
past
10
years
pretty
much
since
I
started
coding
I'm
actually
using
PHP
which
a
lot
of
developers
like
to
make
fun
of
With
this
PHP
framework
called
Laravel
now
I'm
super
pro
efficient
with
it
I
have
a
ton
of
small
pieces
of
code
I
can
reuse
from
one
project
to
the
other
and
that
really
saves
a
ton
of
time
So
yeah
you
can
spend
some
time
if
you
have
fun
learning
about
technologies
but
if
you
want
to
build
projects
just
do
it
as
fast
as
you
can
Use
what
you
know
and
focus
on
that
Okay
cool
Now
let's
talk
about
marketing
How
did
you
get
users
for
your
app
and
what
are
the
best
places
right
now
for
people
to
find
customers
I
published
the
projects
and
then
I
just
spammed
all
the
Notion
related
communities
I
could
find
online
Obviously
there
is
Reddit
which
is
always
a
big
one
for
this
kind
of
products
Usually
they
have
a
subreddit
dedicated
to
it
with
people
that
are
really
fond
of
the
product
so
they're
curious
about
discovering
new
things
around
it
Usually
people
on
Reddit
and
these
kind
of
communities
they
really
don't
like
people
putting
links
there
trying
to
get
some
users
But
because
it
was
so
new
and
because
the
product
was
entirely
free
there's
not
even
monetization
in
it
I
feel
like
they
were
kind
of
okay
with
me
doing
that
and
that
really
helped
I
was
able
to
get
quite
a
lot
of
users
pretty
fast
thanks
to
this
But
also
another
platform
I
found
to
be
super
useful
are
Facebook
groups
There
are
many
people
using
Facebook
and
Facebook
groups
are
super
alive
There
are
Facebook
groups
for
everything
like
for
your
city
for
sports
for
apps
for
whatever
and
that
was
super
useful
as
well
Twitter
I
mean
is
great
The
only
thing
with
Twitter
is
there
is
a
cold
start
issue
when
you
start
tweeting
you're
basically
on
your
own
Something
really
important
into
getting
started
on
Twitter
is
to
find
the
people
that
you
relate
to
so
the
people
that
inspire
you
and
to
try
and
interact
with
them
genuinely
With
time
they're
going
to
start
recognizing
your
face
they
will
interact
with
you
as
well
you'll
gain
some
more
followers
and
that's
how
you
get
started
Product
Hunt
I
think
is
a
nice
way
of
advertising
your
product
but
I
think
it's
a
bit
overrated
I
see
some
people
spending
weeks
preparing
for
a
product
launch
while
in
the
end
you
just
get
a
bit
of
traffic
a
nice
backlink
and
that's
pretty
much
it
When
I
did
the
launch
for
NoteForms
I
got
of
course
more
eyes
on
the
products
but
I
think
I
didn't
get
a
single
sale
from
the
launch
That's
my
experience
with
it
I
see
Okay
Tell
Tell
us
now
about
your
special
growth
strategy
and
how
someone
can
implement
it
in
their
business
to
get
more
users
today
As
people
started
using
it
they
were
building
forms
with
Notion
Forms
and
they
were
sharing
the
forms
because
that's
the
purpose
of
a
form
builder
You
build
a
form
and
then
you
share
it
you
embed
it
on
your
website
and
because
of
this
people
that
are
supposed
to
fill
the
form
they
get
to
see
what
you
built
It's
easy
for
you
to
just
add
a
link
back
to
your
product
or
do
some
kind
of
advertisement
and
that
becomes
viral
because
the
more
users
you
have
the
more
people
see
your
product
and
then
the
more
users
you
have
I
think
if
you
have
a
product
for
almost
every
product
you
can
find
a
way
of
incentivizing
your
users
to
share
your
product
or
a
piece
of
your
product
It
could
be
just
a
small
widget
that
you
can
put
on
your
website
That's
exactly
what
does
Product
Hunt
by
the
way
They
give
you
this
little
badge
to
say
hey
I
was
Product
of
the
Day
and
then
you
put
this
on
your
website
and
then
it's
a
backlink
for
Product
Hunt
If
you
can
find
a
smart
way
of
doing
this
or
make
it
valuable
for
your
users
to
share
what
they
did
on
your
platform
then
you
can
create
a
viral
loop
and
I
think
that's
super
important
to
try
and
build
something
like
this
Awesome
But
with
all
these
users
coming
in
how
do
you
manage
customer
support
or
all
these
customer
inquiries
So
for
the
first
year
working
on
it
I
was
entirely
alone
on
the
project
so
I
was
doing
everything
myself
I
was
receiving
messages
all
the
time
at
night
so
sometimes
I
would
forget
to
turn
off
notifications
and
then
it
would
wake
me
up
Later
on
I
hired
someone
to
help
me
with
this
and
that
was
really
a
relief
But
that
being
said
I
really
don't
regret
doing
this
that
way
It
really
helped
me
build
a
better
product
understand
the
user
needs
but
also
identify
issues
within
the
product
So
even
today
we
still
have
the
operator
an
agent
that's
working
with
me
that's
always
on
it
and
we
also
have
an
AI
chatbot
that
we
train
on
all
the
product
docs
and
all
the
past
conversations
and
really
incentivize
people
to
talk
to
us
So
within
the
product
we
have
tons
of
buttons
They
can
click
to
report
a
bug
leave
us
some
feedback
suggest
a
feature
or
just
talk
to
us
really
Since
the
beginning
I've
only
built
what
people
ask
me
to
build
Nice
So
actively
talking
to
customers
is
how
you
actually
find
the
features
to
add
Let's
now
talk
about
monetization
How
did
you
start
making
money
from
note
forms
How
did
you
make
your
first
dollar
Yeah
It
started
taking
off
slowly
I
think
at
some
point
I
reached
1
000
users
I
had
tons
of
feature
requests
All
of
these
features
that
I
was
adding
I
was
adding
a
little
pro
tag
and
when
you
launch
the
beta
but
whenever
it
will
launch
it
will
become
a
paid
feature
And
then
one
day
I
built
all
the
subscription
system
and
I
just
flipped
the
switch
and
I
told
all
the
users
hey
now
this
part
of
the
product
is
paid
Since
you
were
there
since
the
beginning
here's
a
40
discount
code
that
you
can
use
for
life
And
it
was
a
long
day
I
remember
I
was
just
refreshing
the
Stripe
page
to
try
and
get
a
new
subscription
but
nothing
came
And
then
later
during
the
night
one
guy
took
a
yearly
subscription
even
and
I
was
so
happy
I
made
90
And
then
the
day
after
maybe
I
got
two
and
then
three
and
then
I
didn't
get
any
subscription
for
three
days
I
started
to
panic
and
then
I
got
another
one
and
just
went
on
from
there
Okay
Now
let's
talk
about
pricing
How
did
you
decide
on
the
pricing
for
your
product
Yeah
Pricing
is
super
hard
You
don't
want
to
be
too
expensive
but
of
course
you
want
to
make
as
much
money
as
you
can
So
I
didn't
know
what
to
do
so
I
just
looked
at
all
the
other
form
builders
out
there
and
I
thought
hey
this
is
a
new
product
I
have
one
tenth
of
all
the
features
they
offer
so
I
need
to
be
cheaper
than
all
of
them
And
then
over
time
I
just
experimented
a
bit
I
tried
increasing
the
price
slightly
I
saw
that
it
didn't
really
have
any
impact
on
the
conversion
so
I
did
it
again
And
then
later
on
I
also
added
some
more
expensive
plans
that
also
helped
increasing
a
bit
the
revenue
And
further
let's
talk
about
business
model
How
did
you
choose
between
a
one
time
payment
and
a
subscription
model
it
makes
sense
for
a
product
to
have
a
subscription
then
it's
definitely
a
good
idea
because
getting
recurring
revenue
is
amazing
because
you
can
acquire
a
customer
and
then
for
the
next
X
months
you
will
get
money
for
it
And
I
found
that
selling
something
for
50
per
month
is
much
easier
than
selling
one
thing
for
500
one
time
Okay
let's
talk
about
AI
Are
you
currently
using
it
in
your
business
Overall
I'm
super
excited
about
it
There
was
very
recently
a
hype
about
a
new
developer
tool
called
Cursor
which
is
kind
of
an
AI
powered
IDE
And
I
recently
started
using
it
and
honestly
I'm
amazed
and
it's
literally
like
speeding
up
by
maybe
two
my
work
Nowadays
with
all
the
content
you
can
find
online
with
tools
like
AI
I
think
it's
easier
than
ever
to
build
a
product
on
your
own
and
to
start
working
on
something
So
that's
amazing
and
I'm
so
glad
I'm
living
in
this
period
of
time
because
there
are
just
so
many
possibilities
and
I'm
super
excited
about
all
of
this
Okay
that's
awesome
On
the
topic
of
technology
what
are
some
other
software
tools
you're
using
to
profitably
run
your
business
For
the
tech
stack
so
the
backend
framework
is
a
PHP
framework
named
Laravel
The
frontend
is
built
with
a
Vue
framework
named
Nuxt
It's
all
the
pages
and
make
sure
that
everything
loads
fast
The
database
is
PostgreSQL
We
host
everything
on
AWS
So
of
course
since
I
work
there
for
a
bit
it's
just
easier
for
me
that
way
now
We
use
Stripe
for
subscription
billing
We
use
Amplitude
to
track
product
analytics
like
the
user
behavior
on
the
platform
what
they
use
that
kind
of
things
We
use
Crisp
for
the
support
chats
We
use
Sentry
to
track
the
errors
that
happens
on
the
app
so
that
we
can
learn
about
them
and
fix
them
We
use
a
product
called
FeatureBase
for
a
roadmap
like
a
public
roadmap
where
people
can
see
what's
going
to
be
built
next
and
of
course
feature
requests
and
bug
reports
With
three
people
full
time
and
one
person
that's
part
time
so
the
total
salary
for
them
is
5K
so
that
excludes
me
Then
there
is
1K
that
we
pay
for
servers
and
all
the
SaaS
tools
that
I
mentioned
earlier
We
spend
around
3K
per
month
on
ads
So
we
only
do
Google
ads
mostly
because
I
don't
know
how
to
do
anything
else
And
then
usually
we
spend
probably
around
2K
per
month
with
random
freelancers
So
it
could
be
UI
designers
copywriters
sometimes
some
external
developers
that
kind
of
things
Okay
Now
last
question
that
we
ask
all
founders
we
interview
If
you
could
sit
on
younger
Julian's
shoulder
and
give
him
some
advice
when
he
was
just
starting
out
what
would
you
say
Amazon
has
a
set
of
leadership
principles
One
of
them
is
buyers
for
action
and
I
think
that's
a
really
good
one
The
most
important
thing
you
can
do
is
start
If
you
spend
too
much
time
thinking
about
it
and
not
doing
anything
then
at
some
point
you'll
just
get
demotivated
and
nothing's
going
to
happen
the
project's
going
to
die
But
as
soon
as
you
start
working
on
it
and
you
get
to
see
the
first
results
get
the
first
users
it
really
fuels
your
motivation
And
of
course
it
helps
you
shape
the
product
better
because
you
get
feedback
and
so
on
So
the
first
thing
would
definitely
be
launch
as
soon
as
you
can
Don't
overthink
it
Don't
build
too
many
features
Just
build
a
simple
MVP
and
then
put
it
in
front
of
the
eyes
of
your
customers
The
other
thing
is
not
to
be
shy
So
that
took
me
a
bit
of
time
as
well
but
try
to
talk
about
it
to
as
many
people
as
you
can
You
can
only
know
if
it's
a
good
idea
or
if
it's
valuable
or
if
it's
actually
useful
by
getting
the
opinion
of
other
people
No
one
is
going
to
stop
everything
they
did
in
their
life
just
to
build
what
you
describe
them
right
If
that
happens
that
means
that
one
guy
was
more
motivated
than
you
by
your
own
idea
and
that's
on
you
right
You
should
have
done
it
In
the
end
you're
not
risking
that
much
I
think
If
you
know
you
can
find
a
job
especially
if
you're
a
software
engineer
six
months
off
working
on
a
project
is
nothing
The
risk
seems
huge
but
I
think
it's
not
that
big
All
right
Julien
thank
you
Thanks
for
coming
on
and
sharing
your
story
I
love
the
business
that
you
built
and
wishing
you
luck
in
the
future
Keep
sharing
your
story
Awesome
Cool
Thanks
man
Yo
guys
I
really
hope
you
all
enjoyed
the
video
and
wrote
down
some
good
takeaways
that
Julien
shared
but
I
do
want
to
say
something
real
quick
At
the
end
of
the
day
the
point
of
these
videos
is
to
inspire
you
and
show
you
how
other
people
just
like
you
found
ideas
and
built
them
Hopefully
this
inspires
you
to
go
out
and
do
this
thing
on
your
own
While
learning
is
important
taking
action
is
the
thing
that's
actually
going
to
get
you
that
dream
outcome
If
you
still
feel
like
you're
struggling
to
take
action
no
matter
what
then
I
highly
recommend
you
check
out
the
Starter
Story
Academy
It's
a
five
week
program
where
you'll
come
up
with
an
idea
you'll
build
it
you'll
launch
it
you'll
validate
it
and
you'll
get
it
in
front
of
customers
What's
even
more
amazing
is
you'll
do
this
alongside
hundreds
of
other
people
doing
the
same
thing
building
something
that
will
change
their
life
and
we
will
hold
you
accountable
every
single
day
to
showing
up
and
doing
the
work
The
Academy
is
what
I
wish
I
had
when
I
was
getting
started
and
I
still
had
a
full
time
job
and
it's
designed
for
you
to
actually
build
something
that
changes
your
life
Just
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
and
I'll
give
you
a
bunch
of
more
info
about
it
I
hope
to
see
you
in
there
Otherwise
I'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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