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august: $34,980 MRR (+$5,220). best month ever, one month after the worst one. i don't understand this business either

the july post brought customers, a billing preview table caught its first mistake, and a podcast ad did nothing i can measure

Jo Brennan@jo_ships

September 2, 2026 · 2 min read

#1 in Bootstrapped and Broke

Contents(5)

last month i posted my worst month in 2 years. this month is my best month ever. if you're new here: this is normal, and nobody understands it, me included.

by product

  • invoice PDF API: $19,640 (+$2,730). churn 2.2%
  • shopify order tagging: $12,780 (+$2,170). churn 3.4%
  • uptime monitor: $2,560 (+$320)

total $34,980. july was $29,760.

why up

  1. the july post. 11 of you emailed me about the PDF API afterwards, mostly agencies saying "if you handle a billing screwup like that, we trust you with our invoices". 3 became customers, one at $900/month. i did not plan this. please don't take it as advice to double charge people
  2. the shopify app showed up in one of the app store's recommendation lists for about 10 days. no idea why. installs tripled while it lasted
  3. back to school season for stores, apparently. more orders, more tagging rules

what i changed after july

  • the billing preview table arjun suggested. every overage run writes to staging first, diffs against last month, and needs my click if the delta is over 30%. it caught a $40 rounding difference on its very first run. small. but it caught it
  • no deploys after 6pm. i broke it once, for a typo fix. it still counts. i'm telling you so it counts
  • no AI on billing code. the time log showed me where AI helps and where it doesn't, and money code is "doesn't" for me

what flopped

a podcast ad. $600 for a mid-roll on a dev podcast. 0 signups i can trace. maybe brand awareness. maybe nothing. i'll never know, which is the whole problem with podcast ads.

money out

  • stripe fees: $1,190
  • infra: $1,520 (the shopify spike cost me a bigger postgres plan)
  • contractor: $2,600 (camilo did the shopify review replies and a rules import feature)
  • refunds: $90

next month: annual plans again, properly this time. i'm going to ask you all about discounts because my own data is useless.

#indie-hacking#saas#startups

Written by

Jo Brennan

solo founder. no VC, no cofounder, no employees. 3 tiny SaaS products, $38.2k MRR last month (I post the numbers every month, good and bad). ex agency PM. denver. dog: Biscuit 🐶

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Comments

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Dana Kowalski@dana_ml#7 in Bootstrapped and Broke
"No AI on billing code" is the most reasonable policy I have read this year. Also congratulations, sincerely.
3 net votes
Jo Brennan@jo_ships#1 in Bootstrapped and Broke
a policy based on data! from me! who knew
2 net votes
Kenji Tanabe@kenjitanabe#9 in Bootstrapped and Broke
An update for this thread: Jo looked at my pricing page last month and told me to double my price and add a setup fee. I did. Lost one lead, closed two. Three customers now. The 🙃 is upgraded to 🙂.
1 net votes
Jo Brennan@jo_ships#1 in Bootstrapped and Broke
KENJI. this is the best comment i have ever received. three customers!!! 🐶
1 net votes
Camilo Restrepo@camilo_parce3 rep in Bootstrapped and Broke
the review replies were fun to write pues. "we messed up, here is exactly what we changed" works better than any template. bacano month Jo
3 net votes
Rachel Kim@rachelkim#7 in Bootstrapped and Broke
Swings like this are normal at your size, which is why I'd look at a 3 month rolling average instead of month over month. I'd bet your rolling number kept climbing straight through July. That's the real story.
3 net votes
Jo Brennan@jo_ships#1 in Bootstrapped and Broke
ok this made me feel better. 3 month rolling for june, july, august: $30.8k, $30.9k, $32.2k. steady and boring. i love boring
2 net votes
Oluwatobi Adeyemi@tobi_freelance6 rep in Bootstrapped and Broke
"please don't take it as advice to double charge people" 😂 but the lesson is real: how you handle a mistake is marketing
1 net votes
Achieng Owino@achieng_devrel#2 in Bootstrapped and Broke
What Tobi said. The July post was your best ad of the year. It cost you $6,412 and a lot of sleep, but it was the best ad.
6 net votes
Chloe Barnes@chloebuilds#3 in Bootstrapped and Broke
podcast ads are horoscopes for marketers. you'll never know and you'll always wonder
3 net votes
Sam Whitaker@segfault_sam5 rep in Bootstrapped and Broke
breaking the no deploys after 6pm rule for a typo and confessing it publicly is the most honest thing on this site
4 net votes