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This is a project that I developed in parallel with my main job, and I left to become a full-fledged solo entrepreneur. Meet Charlie. A few years ago, he was working full-time as a software engineer, but at the same time he was building this very simple app. And today, this app earns over $30,000 per month. At that moment, I just felt like I had to do it. I really want to do this to give myself a chance. But here's what I think is cool. He was not the first person to develop this idea. In fact, he created it in a space where there was a competitor with literally millions of users. And yet he succeeded.
I decided to give myself 2 weeks to create a Linktree alternative. So I asked Charlie to come on the channel and explain everything in more detail. And in this episode, we'll dive into the insanely simple app he built that's now making over $30,000 a month, how he developed it in his evenings and weekends, working part-time, and finally, the story of how this app replaced his full-time job. Believe me, it will be great. Let's get started. I'm Gus and this is Starter Story. Okay, Charlie, welcome to Starter Story. I am very happy to welcome you to the channel. Can you just share with me who you are, what you've created, and what your story is?
So, my name is Charlie Clark, I'm a software engineer and the founder of Links, a simple website and bio link tool that generates about $31,500 in revenue every month. This is a project that I initially developed in parallel with my full-time job, and in August 2024 I quit to become a full-fledged solo entrepreneur. This is great. But yeah, what are Links? Can you just explain it to an audience that might not know what it is? Just, you know what it is, what it does, who some of your users are. So, let's start with this. So, Links is, first and foremost, a " links in biography" tool. It's a way to take all the different parts of your online presence and put them together, for example, on a very simple mobile web page that links to different
parts of your online identity. So, let's bring it a little closer to a full-fledged website builder with some additional features that a Link in Bio tool may not offer, like multiple pages, more powerful blocks, and more customization options. So, here we are on the Links landing page. You get the URL links.co/yourusername, which gives you a page that looks something like this. So, you can see that there is quite a lot of variety in what you can create with our tool. These are really quite diverse types of customers, but they are mostly either people or brands trying to make money online. Okay, very quickly. What I love about Charlie's story is that he started it as a side project.
He developed it in parallel with his main job until he reached the point where he could actually quit the business and fully invest himself. We often see this with some of the founders we talk about on the channel. They have created something, they slowly develop it further until they can finally fully commit. So naturally, you might be wondering, how can I find an idea for a side project to pursue? That's why we've put together a free list of side project ideas that you can start alongside your 9-to-5 job. Each idea is backed by real-world case studies with revenue figures, pricing models, and how they took it further. So, if
you have a full-time job and some free time, I think this list will give you a good starting point. Just follow the link in the description and get it 100% free. Okay, back to Charlie. Yes, Charlie, that's really cool. I think I was a photographer in a past life. I enjoyed a few weddings. I followed a lot of people in this field, and they all had something similar. So, I definitely see the advantage. Let's talk a little about income. For example, can you just open your revenue dashboards? Just show the audience that it's legit, and maybe just go over some of the numbers that you probably look at every day.
Yes, here is my Stripe dashboard. It is currently around 31,500 MRR. There's a big jump here because I actually increased my prices at the end of June. And I went from $4 a month to $5 a month, which doesn't seem like a big increase, but, you know, because this is a business where a lot of customers pay a small amount, that increase of, like, $1 actually turned into almost 5,000 additional MRR. And it's actually been trending upwards since then. So they are fascinating. Great, Charlie. Yes, thank you for figuring this out and being so transparent. Let's delve a little deeper into your story. How did you get to this point? Have you always been involved in such projects? Do you have a technical education? Yes, tell us how you
got here. Yes, when I was in college, I initially studied graphic design. And when I graduated from college, you know, I learned a little bit of programming. And the first job I got after graduating was at a web development agency. And then I got my first tech job at Squarespace after a few years in advertising. It was there that I learned the basics of software engineering and also got acquainted with a tool for creating websites. And, you know, I've always been into little side projects. I became very interested, for example, in print on demand. And when I started looking into print on demand, I thought, "Oh, that's cool, but these print on demand websites aren't particularly interesting or well- designed." So that's when the idea for Visual came to me,
which was my first big side project. I had the idea to create this print-on-demand marketplace for artists where they could upload their work and sell it, and get the work printed and completed. And I quit my job for the first time in 2019 to develop this idea. While creating Visual and interacting with many artists online, I noticed that many of them were using tools with links in their bios, and Linktree was one of the biggest at the time. And since I was struggling a bit with Visual and trying to find something marketable, I decided to give myself 2 weeks to create a Linktree alternative. And so Links began.
I was curious that you said you gave yourself 2 weeks to create Links. So tell us about how this idea came about, a little more about its backstory. As I mentioned, I saw people using Linktree, so I started digging into it. And I thought, "Oh, you know, it's cool that this exists, but the pages don't look very good." So, that's kind of how I started thinking about it. Well, let's try to create a tool that can improve the appearance of your page. To test it, I would go to people and say, "Hey, I built this thing." And I wanted to send it to them. I replied, "I created this for you. Do you want to use this? I have friends who still use Links because they set it up themselves. I switched to the free plan.
I don't make them pay. But that's how I started getting early feedback, which was very helpful. One thing I really think about is manual customer acquisition, at least that initial thing you mentioned, is that you would create it for someone or reach out to make a personal connection and, you know, do it for them. I think this is a very practical first way to start attracting clients and getting validation. So hopefully someone watching can learn something from this. And the second quick conclusion: it would be easy for you to say something like, "Oh, Linktree already exists. I'm out of the market." But somehow you found a simpler, maybe smaller way to create an alternative, and I think that's what attracted people in the beginning. So, yeah, let's talk
about Links growth. Tell us the story of how you went from zero to where you are today I created this thing, just warm or cold, to try to convince people to try it. Not scalable, but as a good way to simply gauge interest. This was the first stage. And then I took some feedback into account, made some changes, and I launched Product Hunt, and I got quite a bit of traffic from it. And that's when I started thinking about monetization. And I just became curious. I thought, "Will people be willing to pay for this?" So I launched the premium version at that time. And I think it was about $3 a month, something like that. In a couple of months, I managed to collect about 100 MRR. And then I started looking for ways to
scale it. And my first success was, actually, with advertising on Instagram. I got quite a bit of growth in the beginning. And then at some point they changed their algorithms. I don't remember if it was 2021 or 2022, but eventually this channel became unviable for me After Instagram ads started to underperform, I looked for other channels to scale growth and found that Google search ads, for example, were the easiest because it was high-intent traffic, right? People who are actually looking for a Linkin.bio tool or a web page builder. And it was pretty easy to just, you know, put money in and take it out. And that's what I've relied on the most for growth, I would say, over the last 4 years.
I'm just curious, separately, you know, you said your starting price was about $3 a month. And, you know, over the last 4-5 years, it's now $5 a month. So you didn't increase it that much. So maybe just tell us why the price is like that. She seems very small. Maybe it's because you think it's a small tool or something else you see on the market. Just tell us about that part, because I think it's pretty interesting and I like what it means for business. A big part of this is to establish it relative to other players in the industry. And Linktree is the biggest competitor in this industry. So I always looked at their pricing and tried, at least for my paid version, to find a cheaper version. And I think for me it's much better to have many customers paying a small
amount than fewer customers paying more. The only thing I have is that there is also a Pro plan that starts at $12 per month. And most importantly, it gives you the ability to use your own domain name and manage multiple pages. So, for $12, you start with five pages, and then you can add more and more pages. I actually have a few clients who pay over 100 a month because they manage a bunch of pages. So there is still a segment of customers with higher fees. And this is such a division. Steeply. Yes, that makes sense. Yes, thank you for clarifying. When we talked before this interview, you told me a little bit about how creating this helped you get out of your job and do it full-time, but then you may have gone back to work and then
back to Links. Tell us a story about how working on Links helped you either get laid off or return to full- time work. So, yeah, when I first left in 2019, that's when I started building Visual. I worked on it for almost a year, and towards the end of that year, which was roughly what I had given myself, I created Links. None of these products made much money. And if you remember, that's when COVID started and I was self-employed, not making much money. And I just felt like I would be much more comfortable not being self-employed at that point. So I went back to Squarespace, reminded them that I was working on these things. I didn't want to feel like I was doing something under the table. And yes
, Links continued to grow during this time, even though I didn't spend as much time on it. In the summer of 2024, I decided: okay, I feel like I'm making enough money with Links now. I was essentially earning an income, more or less. I really wanted more flexibility to take care of my child, you know, when he gets sick and so on. I just felt it was the right time. And now 2 years have passed, and I'm so glad I did it. As you were telling me, I was thinking about how, for example, when you first took the time to work on your projects, you did so with what I would interpret as not a very grand plan. And then, when you said the second time, you developed it so much that it replaced your entire salary.
You know, sometimes the narrative online about quitting to go full- time is this: burn all the boats, you know, and just go all in, move to Bali, and then, you know, live the cheap life, and then develop your product. This is exactly the kind of narrative I often see, at least on Indie Hacker Twitter. Could you share your thinking on these two different approaches, such as quitting to fully dedicate yourself to your project? This is a really interesting question. So, I think when I first got freelancing, I had an idea of what I wanted to create, but it wasn't, you know, very well thought out. And my partner had a full-time job. She was making, you know, good money. So there
was also this support, which was very helpful. And, you know, at that moment we were still very far from thinking about children. The second time, everything was completely different, because one of the main problems was COVID. COVID has really made life scary and, you know, unpredictable. And it seemed to constantly push me back. I always said I wanted to focus on this full- time, but things kept happening that pushed it back. And then we decided we were going to have a baby, and that pushed us back even more. And so, by that time everything was ready, and I also had a kind of arbitrary goal, like bringing my salary in line with the minimum
required regression payment. I guess I could have gone either way, but it was just a nice secondary goal. I like it because sometimes the main goal is to go all in, but I really like that you take it slow, and you know, life happens. I personally understand this. For example, you have a baby, you get married, you buy a house, and the responsibilities start to pile up a bit. Not in a bad way, but yeah, you know, life happens. And so I really like this different way of thinking a second time, which hopefully someone watching can understand a little bit. Let's talk about the technology stack behind Links.
What tools do you use every day to run your business? Regarding the technology stack, I host on a VPS on Digital Ocean and use AWS only for resource hosting. So every time people upload an image, that's where they go. And a few more tools I use: Resend for email notifications, as well as for sending marketing emails. And then I use Tinybird, which is a wrapper over ClickHouse. This is for analytics. I have some AI integrations throughout the product. For this I use OpenAI. Their API. And then my biggest expense is Google Ads. I spend about $100 a day on Google Ads. Then, about a year ago, I was also spending $100 to $200 a month on a coding agent. That's basically all.
Good. So, I want to see how Links works. So, could you just do a little 1-minute demo of how Links works? Let's take a look at the Starter Story. So, when you first create your account, you are given a choice: start with your Instagram, with a link, or start from scratch. Instagram is the best because it's a little more structured. Hmm, let's just look at this. We essentially collect your Instagram profile, extract your profile picture and any information that is publicly available. It gets a profile picture and name, and creates a small banner here. And then, here you can quickly create what your profile template might look like. And then you can choose a topic. These are just starting points, basically. Hmm, you know, you can
adjust everything once you're done. And then, your little celebration. Light. I mean, obviously it would take someone time to design this and set it up and so on. Say what you want to say, but it's relatively easy to get started. This is cool. Yes. So now you have the link, links.co/starterstory. And from there you can move on to full editing. We have, you know, a bunch of other features like creating forms that can be shared as separate forms, QR codes, short links. I recently added something like an interesting layout builder, which I created as a separate project, but moved it to Links so you can create something like a shared resource with your profile.
Very cool. Yes. Steeply. Yes, thank you for sharing. This is great. The last question we ask everyone who comes to Starter Story is, if you were standing on your shoulders 6 years ago, or for the many people who are watching and are just starting out, what advice would you give yourself or give them? One thing that's so easy now is to just give up as soon as your thing stops working right away because it's become so cheap to make. And in a way, it's much easier to move on to the next idea than to spend time on the complicated things like customer outreach, marketing, etc., which I think are still valuable. So, my adapted advice for the AI era: choose a proven field, experiment until you feel like something is there, and then
commit to it if you feel like it's something you want to work on. Okay, Charles, that's great advice. And thank you so much for joining Starship Stories. Steeply. Thanks, guys.
