s02e01 : goat revenue catalyst
Yes, I know this is Season 2 Episode 1. No, I have not lost my mind. I just really wanted to start with the new stuff while it's still fresh. I promise I will go back and fill in the missing stories from Season 1 very soon. Consider this the Tarantino approach to blogging - slightly out of order but worth it.
Let me take you back to February 2025. I had just finished building my first iOS app and decided to finally throw it out into the wild. It had pixel art, playful animals, and yes, even a physics engine. Because of course I thought the one thing my subscription tracker was missing was farm animals bumping into invisible fences. The plan was to build something light and useful. What I ended up with was a weird little farm where your bills walked around on four legs.
The idea? A subscription tracker.
But with charm.
Imagine a tiny pixelated cow waddling across your screen, proudly representing your Netflix bill. Or a pig slowly walking in circles because you forgot to cancel your Spotify trial. That was the entire pitch. You were not just managing expenses, you were managing livestock.
Scope Creep but with Vibes
The original plan was just a list. A simple UI where you could see your active subscriptions. But somewhere between designing ducks and adding sound effects, I lost control. I added physics. I learned just enough pixel art to ruin my sleep schedule. I became emotionally attached to a goat sprite. It was never meant to go this far.
But I launched it anyway. I called it SubFarm. I sent the TestFlight link to some friends. I uploaded it to the App Store. I crossed my fingers.
The Launch and My First Indie Dollars
A few downloads came in. Not many. No spikes. No launch-day high. But then something magical happened. Two of my friends subscribed.
Just like that, I had made twenty dollars from something I built entirely on my own. No company name behind it. No team. Just me, a handful of pixel animals, and one unnecessarily complicated collision engine.
Sure, they were my friends. Sure, it was probably equal parts support and guilt. But it counted.
This was my first real indie revenue.
I would go on to make another app soon after - and that time, random people I had never spoken to started paying me. But I am jumping the gun. More on that in the next blog.
What I Learned from My Tiny Pasture
SubFarm may not be the next billion dollar app. But it gave me something I had not felt in a while — momentum.
It was a small win, but it flipped a switch. That twenty dollar moment made the work feel real. It turned an idea into something tangible. It gave me:
- Proof that someone found value in what I built
- Motivation to keep building and experimenting
- Clarity that this path, while slow, is actually working
That was the spark. In the next post, I will talk about how I followed that spark straight into a niche ADHD reader, and got random people to pay me money.
For now, I am off to check if my digital cow is still walking in a straight line.