Show HN: I spent 4 years bootstrapping a financial planning tool to 30k MAUs

projectionlab.com

54 points · scubakid · 3 days ago

Last year, I quit my corporate job and went full-time on ProjectionLab, the long-term financial planning app I've been building for the past 4 years, which some of you may recognize. The decision to go all-in felt like a huge leap. But it was the right call, and it's been a good year.

And without the HN community, it would not have happened. As I mentioned last time [0], the feedback on my original Show HN is THE reason I'm still here working on this. I'm really grateful for that. And I hope the way I’ve grown PL -- staying bootstrapped and focused on users -- resonates with the early supporters who helped to shape it.

For now I'm still the only engineer, burning the candle at both ends, but luckily I'm not feeling burnt out myself!

It's been a fun and memorable year:

- 6,139 commits, 221,484 insertions, 116,255 deletions

- Shared my story on the ChooseFI podcast [1] (one of the original sources of inspiration for this project)

- Started building a team (2 team members for customer success, 1 leading growth & marketing)

- Doubled our customer base

- Took no external funding, keeping our interests as aligned with users as possible

Okay, but what did I actually do since last time? [2]

Here's a quick cross-section:

- Compare mode upgrades to explore what-if scenarios overlaid on the same chart with visual deltas/diffs

- Launched ProjectionLab for Employers [3]: offer PL as a benefit, or get your employer to pick up the tab

- Major tech stack migrations: Vue 2 -> Vue 3, Vue CLI -> Vite, Vuetify 2 -> Vuetify 3, Vuex -> Pinia, Jest -> Vitest, Firebase Namespaced API -> Modular API, Vike + SSG for marketing site

- Advanced visualization features (1-click-plot any metric, interactive event icons in charts, etc)

- Improved tax estimation & tax analytics

- Simultaneous editing on multiple devices

- MFA support

- Rebuilt the help center, added more educational content and YouTube tutorial videos

- Made it possible to book a 1-on-1 session for educational/training purposes

- Converted ~65% of the codebase from JavaScript to TypeScript

- And more! [2]

I never saw myself as an entrepreneur/founder type. But apparently I've now spent 4 years turning a side project into a real business.

I couldn't have done it without the initial support from this community, and I'd love to hear what you think of the updates and where you'd like to see things go from here.

--Kyle

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36849502

[1] https://choosefi.com/podcast-episode/projectionlab-kyle-nola...

[2] https://projectionlab.com/changelog

[3] https://projectionlab.com/employers