His Universal File Converter Makes $4,000 Monthly
How this PhD student turned a simple idea into a thriving business
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Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?
Hey, I’m Jake and I'm a PhD student turned indie developer. I'm 29 years old and live in Perth, Western Australia.
I've built other websites/apps in the past but none have ever had traction. That was until I made How To Convert.
What changed is I decided to start building simple ideas that solve a real problem I face. Then, I checked whether it was something other people are searching for online.
I also decided to start building and testing these ideas fast, so I know people actually want it before I invest months or years into it.
How did you start this business? Take us through the process.
Almost three months ago, I launched an app via a simple post to Reddit.
What happened next was beyond my wildest expectations. I was sitting at my student desk when I saw a notification from Stripe: my first payment of $7.50.
I've never had such a flood of good hormones go through my body.
To whoever clicked that purchase button - thank you. And thank you to everyone who continues to purchase the app, bringing it to $1,000 in just two weeks and now $10,000 in ~8 weeks.
This is my third attempt at a startup in three years, and it's the first time I've ever received an internet dollar. I spent two years on my last project (chainspy) - building tests for this, tweaking styling for that, optimising page load times.
What did that get me? $0. What changed? I decided to make something useful, not revolutionary. Something that:
1. Solves a simple problem I encounter regularly
2. People search for regularly (checked using tools like ahrefs)
3. Could be built and tested in a month
My new philosophy became: don't focus on features no one will use until you've tested whether there's interest in the essential features that solve the problem. If no one showed interest, I would move on to the next idea.
I settled on a universal file converter that does conversions locally on your device. There are plenty of file conversion sites, but when you use them, you're sending your private files to their servers. I didn't like that and I wanted to create a simple drag-and-drop app that non-programmers could use, while keeping their files private and secure.
What happened next? I made sure to make user feedback highly encouraged and a core part of the app.
The app's moto written everywhere is: "Use the secure, locally running file conversion app that strives to handle almost any file type. If you find a format that isn't supported, get it added. I'm building in public.".
Users can then click the "get it added" button to make a request for a new feature of file type. Since launch, I have been forming all my updates to add a feature that my users need, not something that I assume they need. I realised this user feedback to feature workflow could be really useful, after my post to reddit was full of people saying how great it was to talk directly to the developer and how they appreciated me taking in their suggestions.
After my last failure, I honestly thought that maybe I wasn't cut out for making my own apps. However, this new mindset is working - build it fast and see whether people buy before you spend years on it.
If you're feeling discouraged after a failure, learn from it, then build and launch your next idea quickly. The feeling of having someone actually want your product is the best feeling I've had in years.
What are your marketing strategies?
I have done 100% organic marketing to get my customers.
My initial customers were from a single post to the subreddit r/SideProject found here:
Then things really blew up when I posted to r/macapps here:
This post actually reached top of the month and is now in the top 10 of all time on that subreddit. It brought in almost all of my initial customers and made me almost $1000 in a day.
Since then, I've been trying to grow on Threads, X and Bluesky. Posting updates about my progress improving the app as I do it.
By far, the best marketing channel out of these has been threads. This post in particular:
I am unfortunately still in the low view count jail of X and Bluesky, and hope to break out of it soon. I also tried Product hunt, Betalist and TinyLaunch. Only BetaList gave me any visibility/visitors.
How does your business make money?
It's a one time payment of $15 for lifetime access to the app.
I've had a lot of comments about how people really like the lack of a subscription. I felt this was a fair pricing and is something I would be willing to pay.
The business is currently making $4,000 in monthly recurring revenue, with around $11,000 in total revenue since launch.
I spent about 4-7 hours on the business, responding to users with a few emails each day and then I try and make a big update every 1-2 weeks.
When that happens I'll spend probably most of the weekend working on getting the update out the door.
Where can we go to learn more about you and your business?
You can find me here: