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september: $38,200 MRR. six months of numbers on one page, and the stuff i stopped doing

annual plans offered at the right moment, a rules import that carried the shopify app, and a beagle that is not biscuit

Jo Brennan@jo_ships

October 2, 2026 · 2 min read

#1 in Bootstrapped and Broke

Contents(4)

september numbers, plus a look back, because i've been posting here for six months now and you deserve one page with all of it.

by product

  • invoice PDF API: $21,480 (+$1,840). churn 2.1%
  • shopify order tagging: $13,950 (+$1,170). churn 3.3%
  • uptime monitor: $2,770 (+$210)

total $38,200. august was $34,980.

six months on one page

  • april: $29,410
  • may: $31,060
  • june: $31,940
  • july: $29,760 📉
  • august: $34,980
  • september: $38,200 📈

+30% in six months, with one month in the middle that made me want to quit. if you only read my july post: it got better. if you only read this one: july happened.

things i stopped doing

  1. deploying after 6pm
  2. using AI on billing code
  3. building new products (status pages, rest in peace)
  4. paying for ads i can't measure. podcast, google, all of it
  5. answering support at 11pm. autoresponder after 7pm. nobody died
  6. checking stripe on my phone in bed

what drove september

  • annual plans, done properly. offered inside the app right after a customer's 1,000th PDF, not only on the pricing page (rachel's idea from my poll). 31 accounts switched. the poll also told me nobody cares much about the discount, so it's 10%, not 2 months free
  • the shopify rules import camilo built. merchants coming from other tagging apps bring their rules in one click. 40% of new installs used it

and here is a beagle, because i was told posts with dogs do better.

A happy beagle with its tongue out. Not Biscuit.

not biscuit. biscuit refuses to be photographed for marketing purposes. october goal: $40k. we'll see 🐶

#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

15

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Dana Kowalski@dana_ml#7 in Bootstrapped and Broke
Six months of honest numbers, one bad month included, and a public retraction along the way. This is how it should be done. Congratulations on $38k.
4 net votes
Jo Brennan@jo_ships#1 in Bootstrapped and Broke
dana i'm going to miss arguing with you about 10x. we need a new topic
5 net votes
Dana Kowalski@dana_ml#7 in Bootstrapped and Broke
There is always a next claim. I will be here.
4 net votes
Kenji Tanabe@kenjitanabe#9 in Bootstrapped and Broke
Six months ago I had just been laid off. Today I have five customers and a pricing page Jo rewrote half of. Thank you for posting all of this, including July.
8 net votes
Jo Brennan@jo_ships#1 in Bootstrapped and Broke
FIVE. kenji!!! so proud of you. and you rewrote it, i just yelled at it
8 net votes
Camilo Restrepo@camilo_parce3 rep in Bootstrapped and Broke
40% using the import, bacano! thanks for the shout out Jo, pues
8 net votes
Wyatt Kessler@wagmi_wyatt2 rep in Bootstrapped and Broke
38k MRR and still no token? ngmi
5 net votes
Jo Brennan@jo_ships#1 in Bootstrapped and Broke
the token is biscuit. biscuit is not for sale
4 net votes
Ryan Goh@ai_maxi_ryan#10 in Bootstrapped and Broke
imagine if you used AI agents properly, this could be 380k 🚀
7 net votes
Dana Kowalski@dana_ml#7 in Bootstrapped and Broke
Show the log, Ryan.
5 net votes
Sam Whitaker@segfault_sam5 rep in Bootstrapped and Broke
posts with dogs do better. posts with a beagle that is not your dog do even better. this is the content strategy now
7 net votes
Achieng Owino@achieng_devrel#2 in Bootstrapped and Broke
From "one customer is 6% of revenue" to annual plans offered at the right moment. You took your own lessons seriously. That is rarer than a good month.
9 net votes
Rachel Kim@rachelkim#7 in Bootstrapped and Broke
Offering annual at the 1,000th PDF and getting 31 switches is a great result. Thank you for actually testing it, I'm going to cite you now.
7 net votes
Dhruv Thakkar@dhruv_ships#4 in Bootstrapped and Broke
Jo, inspiration for my next update. "Things I stopped doing" is a better list than "things I started"
4 net votes
Chloe Barnes@chloebuilds#3 in Bootstrapped and Broke
+30% in six months with a july in the middle is the most realistic chart on the internet
3 net votes