profile

Aivars Meijers

What I learned making $60K from side projects

Published 5 months ago • 1 min read

What I learned making $60K from side projects

The Part-time Solopreneur

Happy New Year 🎉

Just published my 2025 review. Want to share the honest numbers with you.

What went well:

Moved family from Latvia to Thailand.

YouTube grew to 45K subscribers.

Built a community that's making around $18K a year.

Apps made about $40K. Total side project income is approximately $ 60,000 while still freelancing full-time.

Not bad, right?

Here's the thing.

Revenue from apps dropped. Community income is new. So total is slightly higher than last year.

But I was working way more hours to get there.

I basically traded semi-passive app income for very active community income. More money, more work. Not sure that's a win.

What didn't work:

Running two communities. Too much time, too much energy.

Launched apps without marketing. One made $8 total. Shipping is not launching.

YouTube Shorts got 900K views. Made $62 from that. Subscribers from shorts? Almost none.

Streamed 160 hours. Total revenue $350. That's like $2 an hour.

What I'm changing:

Already merged communities into one freemium model. Free tier gets you in. Premium is for weekly calls and courses. Done.

Shorts will promote my apps now. No more content just for views.

The real lesson:

You can always make more money. You can't make more time.

It's fine to grind. It's fine to set goals. But don't get stuck running from one goal to the next without enjoying what you already built.

Full breakdown here:

video preview​

Work hard, but have fun too.

Aivars

Find me on:

600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​

Aivars Meijers

Part-time Indie Solopreneur

I'm building a portfolio with mobile apps and helping others to earn the first $1'000 on AppStore. Join The Part-time Solopreneur for tips and resources to build, launch, grow, and monetise your indie App business.

Read more from Aivars Meijers

I'll add social once I have users" is a trap The Part-time Solopreneur Hey! If you’ve ever told yourself, “I’ll add [feature] once I have more users”, read this. I just spent months in that trap. The feature I gated: social in MotoLog (my Strava-for-motorcycles app). Friends, leaderboard, profile cards. I kept saying I’d build it once I had more users. Today I shipped it. And realized I had it completely backwards. The trap: “Social only matters once you have users.” The reality: Strava...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

My app gets 59 downloads/month. I'm fixing that Hi, Quick update — I just launched a 28-day app marketing challenge inside the Indie App Accelerator community. The problem is simple: I have 9 apps on the App Store. Most of them get barely any downloads. My best app (Apnea) does well organically, but my newest one — Focus Lock — gets 59 downloads a month. That's not a product problem. It's a marketing problem. So for the next 28 days, I'm posting content every single day to see if consistent...

4 months ago • 1 min read

Built in 33 Hours While Working Full-Time: My 30-Day Indie App Challenge The Part-time Solopreneur Hey friends 👋 Last month, I took on a challenge to build and launch a real iOS app — all while freelancing full-time hours and running a 30-day challenge for other indie developers inside the Indie App Accelerator community. The result?I built and launched a minimal app to help reset and refocus ADHD minds with one-minute breathing sessions.Box Breathing – Calm ADHD Mind App was built in just 33...

7 months ago • 1 min read