My wife gave me 100 days to make it as an indie creator

...before I have to get a real job

This is the big one.

It’s finally happening.

I’m taking Jacob’s Tech Tavern full-time.

Were I slightly younger, I’d bugger off to south-east Asia or something, but word has it that my 2 young kids (and mortgage provider) wouldn’t look too kindly on that.

So here’s my ultimate goal:

Sustainability.

Fast.

→ Grow to £50k in ARR over the next 100 days.

If I succeed, I can make this work full-time, and the network renews Jacob’s Tech Tavern for another season. If I fail, my wife tells me I have to get a real job.

It’s tough. But doable.

People read Jacob’s Tech Tavern for the tech (and, I hope, my wit and charisma). You didn’t sign up for an indie creator journey, so if you want to follow along, follow me on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, BlueSky or Mastodon (and, uh, please comment on all my stuff because it’ll get me more algorithmic reach).

In this economy, attention is currency, so I’m sharing my grand strategy with you. I have 2 big levers to pull to make my blog income liveable:

1. Total # of subscribers → 7,159 as of literally right now.

2. % of paid subs → sitting pretty at 5.2%

To be independent I need to 2-3x these numbers overall.

This is my path to victory.

Growing my free subscriber base

This is the big one. I am still quite a small publication, and growing my email list will give me wider distribution I can leverage for everything I do.

Primarily, I’m going to increase my reach surface area by introducing new regular content:

• War Stories is something I’ve been excited to bring you for a while. I want to interview the most prolific builders in iOS and share their stories.

• Creator Spotlights, where I recommend work from another great writer. Cross-pollination is the name of the game.

As well as this, I’m going to try experimenting with paid acquisition to scale my readership without bankrupting myself.

Finally, have I told you how much free stuff you get if you share my work?

Growing my paid upgrade rate

My conversion rate is already pretty good. But it could be better.

To get it higher, it’s all about my value proposition.

Ultimately, I dream about creating Tavern Tools™, a suite of tools that makes your day as an iOS developer a little easier. My vision is to give full access to all my paid subscribers.

In the following weeks I’m going to start reaching out to my readers and find out what makes you tick. What you want to see more of, and what problems I can solve for you.

Let’s get cracking and build Jacob’s Tech Tavern, together 🍺