Kyle Nolan Profile Banner
Kyle Nolan Profile
Kyle Nolan

@_knolan

4,390
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🧑‍💻 Bootstrapping 📈 Currently $40.1k+ MRR

Plan your financial future →
Joined March 2010
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
9 months
Huge update!!! I just quit my job and I am going all-in on ! 🥳🔥 2.5 years ago, I never would have dreamed this was possible. From my first internet dollar to $200k+ ARR, there has been no hockey stick growth chart, no AI hype involved, and no singular
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
🎉 My side project just reached $100k ARR!! 🥹 Two years ago, I never would have thought this was possible. In fact, there was a time when I was one day away from halting work on it. I had built an event-based finance simulator to replace one of my convoluted spreadsheets. I
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 month
$40k per month?!! 🤯 When I started as a side project three years ago, I didn't think I'd make $40k PERIOD! I was a normal engineer with a day job, who didn't know the first thing about entrepreneurship. I loved making things since I was a kid. But I
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
My side project just hit $200k ARR! 🥹 Does that mean it should not be a side project anymore? Even though I'm shocked and elated it could ever get this far, there is an insecure voice in my head that still reminds me it could all go to zero overnight 😬 It took over 2 years
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Big Update!! I just dropped to part-time at my day job after hitting $200k ARR with my side project 🔥 has now graduated to the main project! 😎 The whole first year, I put in 4+ hours every night after work, and all day & night on most weekends and
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
My side project hit $10K MRR!! 🥳 It took 2+ years of bootstrapping solo on nights and weekends, and frankly I did not believe I would get this far. I remember an old tweet from @yongfook about the idea of a community for $10k+ MRR founders. At the time, I felt like that would
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
6 months
Half a million in total revenue?! 🤯 As a bootstrapped indie business, I NEVER imaged my little app could get this far! In 3 years, has gone from an idea in my head, to a tool that helps thousands of people make better decisions and plan for how to live
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
7 months
Wow, 2023 was a wild ride!! 🔥 💍 Got engaged 🛑 Quit my corporate job! 📈 Bootstrapped to 3,200+ customers One year ago, I was a risk-averse engineer destined for another decade of corporate life... But in a surprising twist of fate, today I'm running
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
8 months
A month ago, I left my corporate job to go all-in on my side project! 🎉 And today, @projection_lab is doing $24k+ / mo. But something I struggle with is giving myself permission to ever relax or take a break. Solopreneurship feels a little bit like the movie It Follows. 👻
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
4 months
ProjectionLab just reached 4,000 customers! It's been a big year. And much of that is thanks to the support and encouragement from all of you 🙏 Looking forward, there's still so much I'm excited to build that I struggle getting to sleep at night!
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
✅ Finally defeated the first Twitter boss
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Okay I guess I see how twitter can be fun. Thanks for the follow @dr ! 🥳
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 months
Whoah, 4k members now in the @projection_lab Discord community?! 🤯 As a kid, I loved creating small games and sites. But I never imagined that someday 4,000+ people would care about a thing I made. 🥹 It's amazing what a series of small daily steps can compound into, if you
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
10 months
ProjectionLab was selected as one of the winners at the FinCon #fintech startup competition in New Orleans! 🎉 @FinCon is one of the largest personal finance conferences, and the first I have attended for @projection_lab . It was fun (and luckily not too scary) making a 7-min
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
3 months
Best kind of day as a startup founder: When you have to scroll this far to see a cancellation 🥹
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
11 months
Does seeing your image on the cover of stuff eventually feel less cringe? Either way, thanks for the @IndieHackers feature! 😀
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
Just reached 1,000 customers bootstrapping @projection_lab as a side project! 🥳 Feeling immensely grateful to all of the early adopters who have kept me energized and full of ideas throughout the journey so far ⚡️🙏
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
3 months
It is time... to upgrade to @vuejs v3! ⚡️ Is this a flashy feature to delight users? ❌ No. Will this directly drive growth? ❌ No. Is it an overhaul of 100k+ lines of code? 😬 You bet. But is it the right thing to do? ✅ Definitely. I'm in this for
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
After 19 months of bootstrapping as a side project, @projection_lab finally reached $5k MRR! 🥳 Here's a thread with a few reflections and tips for other #indiehackers #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 months
Well that's a little aggressive... but thanks reddit 😂
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
11 months
Some days are harder than others, but then an email like this pops in! ❤️
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
When you finally start doing more than just building new features 🥹 #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
New version of @projection_lab is live, with self-hosting now available for Lifetime users! 🎉
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
6 months
3 years ago, I jumped up and down seeing the first blue dots appear on this chart! And now it's just a normal weekday 😊 It's easy to keep shifting the goalposts, but don't forget to pause and reflect sometimes on the progress you've made! btw, @PlausibleHQ you guys should
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Just took my first real vacation since starting @projection_lab two years ago! We got engaged in Banff! 💍 Then our friends got engaged in Alaska! 🥰 And miraculously, nothing with PL burned down while I was gone! 😅 🙏
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Evidently it is time for ep 2: Attack of the Clones 🥲 #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
My current twitter game is probably not good enough to warrant this, but thanks anyway @arvidkahl ! 🎉🙏
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
3 months
Doing something unthinkable today... taking the afternoon off! Sometimes working at a natural pace and knowing when to let yourself rest is the best productivity hack ☺️
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Posted @projection_lab to HN this morning... annnd looks like it just reached the front page! 🥳
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@dr Hey, thanks man! You might not remember, but I messaged you asking for advice back at $500 MRR. It really meant a lot that you took the time to respond, and were one of the first to steer me towards bootstrapping and taking it slow 😇
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
8 months
Building a fun little search widget for the new site ✨ Feels nice having a bit more time lately to focus on details like this. #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
7 months
Not a bad start to the year! 📊
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
8 months
It's time to take @projection_lab 's content game from 0 to 1. I did a lot of things wrong with the existing blog site: ❌ Built as one Vue.js SPA ❌ Zero SEO, pages not even indexed ❌ Hosted on subdomain ❌ No automation, separate Vue components for all posts 💀 ❌ Have not
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Here's what holding pos #5 -8 on HN for a few hrs looks like in 2023 📈 #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
8 months
Kinda neat to finally see a noticeable day/night cycle now that there's enough consistent activity! 🌄 #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
10 months
Well that was unexpected!! @hutchins just gave @projection_lab a shoutout on All the Hacks! 🥳 00:34:30 -- I chatted with Chris for the first time recently, and he graciously imparted some sage tips on entrepreneurship. This episode of All the Hacks was
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@dvassallo As in... you won't care about your career as much in comparison? Or you'll work harder trying to provide for them? 🤔
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Each one is just 🗡️💔
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
Just crossed $6k MRR! ✅ 🎉 → 9 months to $1,000 → 4 months to $2,000 → 7 months to $5,000 → 2 months to $6,000 Growth for @projection_lab not looking much like a hockey stick, but having fun anyway 😀 #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
3 months
Working on a little simulation engine refactor while I'm at it. Before: - 6 huge files 😬 After: - 68 files - More modular structure - No more dependency cycles 😊
@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
3 months
It is time... to upgrade to @vuejs v3! ⚡️ Is this a flashy feature to delight users? ❌ No. Will this directly drive growth? ❌ No. Is it an overhaul of 100k+ lines of code? 😬 You bet. But is it the right thing to do? ✅ Definitely. I'm in this for
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
Took me a couple months, but the long-awaited tax analytics update for @projection_lab is finally in early access: If you check it out, let me know what you think! 🎉
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 months
Whenever I set aside a day for multiple dev tasks 🙈
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@rrhoover What's shifted the vibe for you?
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Rolled out a new version of @projection_lab ! v3.6.1 introduces: ✅ Offset accounts, TCJA expiration, AMT, automatic real asset liquidation, ability to route sale proceeds to a specific account, fixed contributions for more cash-flow priority types, and more.
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
6 months
2 years ago, I told @traveling_olive if @projection_lab ever grew enough to cover my living expenses, we would finally look for a better couch! (Ours is known for its borderline-hazardous level of discomfort) PL reached that point 6 months later... so now it's high-time to
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
3, 2, 1, Launch! 🚀 @Projection_Lab is live on @ProductHunt It's the personal finance planning + forecasting tool you've been waiting for 🎉 👉 Share your feedback in the launch post: 🙏 #buildinpublic #indiehackers #newproduct @bemicrofounder
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
7 months
Just crossed 8k subscribers to @projection_lab 's newsletter. Which is actually bitter-sweet, b/c I totally fumbled this one at first! I wish I could go back and add that newsletter button on day 1... but in reality, I neglected to do it for like a year while I was laser-focused
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
6 months
Finally rebuilt the Help Center for @projection_lab ! 💪 The old one just was not fun to spend time in! This overhaul now lays the groundwork for a series of higher quality educational posts, which should be more helpful and more engaging 😊
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
6 months
Launched @projection_lab 's YouTube channel with a Getting Started video! 🚀 This is the first of a series of educational videos we plan to make, which have been a popular request over the past few months. Let me know what you think, and which topics
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
9 months
Now doing one less thing that doesn't scale 😂 Finally added an account management page to @projection_lab . With options for changing email/pass and switching between auth providers.
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 months
It's alive!! (again) TIL threads.js doesn't play very nicely with Vite like it did with my old Webpack setup 😭 But after rewriting the sim orchestration code with Comlink and rxjs, web workers are now back in business! 💪
@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 months
Gotta love it when everything works perfectly first try! /s But on the bright side, the core app is finally building locally again. With Vue 3, Vuetify 3, Vite, and a billion dependency updates. Modest progress, but it's been a long road to get here: 505 files changed, 77564
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@levelsio thanks for the retweet man! Watching your journey over the years showed me what is possible as a solopreneur and how to set the bar high for yourself 😇
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
8 months
This automation will save me a LOT of time! Funny that a few years ago it would have been magic 🪄 As a solo dev, it is crucial to have low-friction processes that scale. But I used to manually curate, design, or wrangle hero images for @projection_lab 's blog site. That is
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
6 months
Dropped a new version of @projection_lab ! 🧩 Released the Plugin system 🎨 Overhauled the blog, with some help from @jonkuipers 🧑‍💻 Added 1-on-1 educational sessions And a bunch more!
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@battleangelviv first reaction when I see posts like this: hmm... could one argue that WE are also mostly knowledge aggregators? and distill/synthesize from that to accomplish tasks?
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
Just released the new Tax Analytics mode for @projection_lab ! 🚀 You can now see detailed breakdowns of projected income, taxes, rates, and brackets. This was the most upvoted request on the roadmap for quite a while. Hope you enjoy it 😀 #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Expectations were low, and still disappointed 🤪
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
Here's what traffic looks like for a top post on @IndieHackers on a Saturday in 2023: #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@noahkagan hey thanks Noah! now I just need the confidence that this applies here 😅
@noahkagan
Noah Kagan
1 year
The most stable job is the one you create.
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Nothing like a little traffic spike to brighten up your day ☀ #buildinpublic
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 month
@ikoichi thanks Luca! from the beginning, I set out to build the tool that I desperately wanted to use personally, and that's always been a north star. you could argue that at each stage I should have done more marketing, changed approach, etc... but in reality, it's pretty consistently
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@cFIREsim 💯, no takebacks! 😬
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 month
@gouthamjay8 mainly product-led growth so far. still need to work on the marketing side 😅
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@dvassallo Too true. Compared to standard W2, PL is clearly higher risk, but with a potentially higher ceiling... and quite a lot more fun and learning along the way 😎
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 month
@starwardshar year #1 looked like burning the candle at both ends building the platform as a side project to go from $0 to something like $1k MRR
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 months
Migrate from Vuex to Pinia they said. It is going to be easy, they said 🤦‍♂️
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
7 months
You know what sounds like no fun? 🤪 Maintaining "related page" links for a blog / content site. Luckily, we can use the @OpenAI embeddings API to automate this! ✨ Get + cache embeddings for each page, compute distances between embeddings, grab N closest for each page, and
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
@levelsio I worry that we're going to see some very dystopian variants of services like this start popping up... but don't get me wrong @levelsio , this is super cool and your MVP shipping speed is impressive as hell 🤯
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 months
Gotta love it when everything works perfectly first try! /s But on the bright side, the core app is finally building locally again. With Vue 3, Vuetify 3, Vite, and a billion dependency updates. Modest progress, but it's been a long road to get here: 505 files changed, 77564
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 month
@aovthz It took about a year. Lots of staying up late, getting up early, and working tirelessly. The lack of work/life balance took a toll as side projects often do. But I also enjoyed it! It's easy to work hard on something you love.
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
7 months
TIL there's a Git Graph extension for vscode that shows you the graph view locally 😍 (Thanks @traveling_olive 🙏✨)
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@dagorenouf I try to post musings, insights, or progress whenever I can find the bandwidth, but perhaps I don't have the reach or consistency for that to routinely spark a lot of discussion.
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
A few shots from my trip to the Caribbean last week 🏝️ 🐢 Green sea turtle at Brewers Bay, #StThomas #USVI @RoyalCaribbean
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
Adding some fun little micro-interactions to @projection_lab
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
This month's @projection_lab update adds a few improvements to the Monte Carlo interface 🎉
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@blakeaburge Corollary: if you take uncalculated risks, you might also not be able to grow 😅
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
Just saw @projection_lab pop up on tiktok in the wild! Pretty cool that they highlighted the new Monte Carlo runner widget -- I thought I spent wayyy too long styling that thing 😁
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
10 months
Working on obtaining the "change email" SaaS infinity stone
@euboid
Wilson Wilson
11 months
Almost collected all the infinity stones for mature B2B SaaS ✅ Password Reset ✅ Billing Portal + Custom Plans ✅ Knowledge Base ✅ Caching + Data Export ✅ Custom Domains ✅ API + Zapier integration ☑️ Email Reset ☑️ SSO + SAML ☑️ Dark Mode
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@thedankoe Ummm wow, today I realized I'm 25% of the way toward that decade 🤯 When I started, I was absolutely thinking small. I wonder in what ways I still am...
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
6 months
Added some Canadian provincial tax config presets for @projection_lab ✂️ Gonna have to rethink how this pop-up is organized soon 😅
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
@ThePeterMick Hey, I'm Kyle 👋. I'm building @Projection_Lab , a privacy-friendly personal finance simulator, as a side project.
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
27 days
Almost there!
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
3 months
It is time... to upgrade to @vuejs v3! ⚡️ Is this a flashy feature to delight users? ❌ No. Will this directly drive growth? ❌ No. Is it an overhaul of 100k+ lines of code? 😬 You bet. But is it the right thing to do? ✅ Definitely. I'm in this for
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
9 months
@agazdecki thanks Andrew!! the reduced context switching should be a real productivity multiplier. and who knows, maybe now I'll get a free weekend here or there 😊
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
7 months
@ash_lmb type 3: nothing on the desktop 🫣
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
Launch metrics for @Projection_Lab on Product Hunt: 🥇 #1 Product of the Day 👍 375 Upvotes 👤 1202 New Active Users ✅ +33 subscribers (+$200 MRR) I wrote an @IndieHackers post with a full breakdown of stats and insights here:
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
2 years
Looks like my little update got to the front page of @IndieHackers for the first time 😊 Thanks @csallen for founding such a positive and supportive community of makers 💡🙏
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@staticmaker1 hoping it will graduate to main project someday! 🙏
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@dannypostmaa War chest assembled, but feeling like I have other constraints set to hard mode: Ultimately goal would be to hit escape velocity on W2 work before starting a family, i.e. T-Minus 3 years, give or take. Tricky deciding what kind of risk/reward bet to make with those years.
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@drale2k @arvidkahl mostly just word-of-mouth, posts to HN/Reddit, and a few shoutouts from prominent members of the financial independence community
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@_knolan
Kyle Nolan
1 year
@frantzfries @dr Thanks Chris!! Just me for now, but if I keep working all these nights + weekends for too much longer, pretty soon I'll have the blood pressure numbers of a team of 4 as well 😅
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