$26K MRR 31%
Month 14 of the journey

One solo founder.
One open-source product.
The road to $1M ARR.

I quit my job to bootstrap EventCatalog to $1M ARR. This is my diary — real experiences, decisions, and lessons learned, captured as bite-sized notes.

Read the Diary See the Journey $26K

A Bootstrapper's Diary

by David Boyne

Latest entries

8 entries and counting. New entry every week.

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Feb 6, 2026 The Journey

Why I Quit My Job to Build EventCatalog and What I Learned About Taking the Leap

Why I Quit My Job to Build EventCatalog and What I Learned About Taking the Leap

What it really looks like to leave your job and go all-in on an open source project.

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Feb 6, 2026 The Journey

My First Sale and What I Learned About Turning Free Users Into Paying Customers

My First Sale and What I Learned About Turning Free Users Into Paying Customers

How I went from free open source project to someone actually paying me for it.

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Feb 6, 2026 Growth

How I Turned Content Into a Growth Engine and Why It Works Better Than Ads

How I Turned Content Into a Growth Engine and Why It Works Better Than Ads

Why developer advocacy and problem-space thinking created a compounding growth flywheel for me

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Feb 8, 2026 The Journey

I Confused Shipping Speed With Product Speed

I Confused Shipping Speed With Product Speed

Shipping fast doesn't mean shipping smart. Here's what I learned about finding the right release cadence when your users have jobs and limited bandwidth.

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Feb 8, 2026 Mindset

I Got to $23K MRR Without Stripe and What That Taught Me About Starting Simple

I Got to $23K MRR Without Stripe and What That Taught Me About Starting Simple

You don't need half the infrastructure you think you need. Here's what actually matters when you're building something from zero.

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Feb 8, 2026 The Journey

How AI Gave Me the Capacity of a Small Team and Why That Changes Everything for Solo Founders

How AI Gave Me the Capacity of a Small Team and Why That Changes Everything for Solo Founders

The bottleneck used to be building. Now it's deciding what to build. Here's how AI shifted what's possible when you're bootstrapping alone.

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Feb 8, 2026 Growth

Why I Spent All My Time Chasing New Customers and What I Learned When Renewals Hit

Why I Spent All My Time Chasing New Customers and What I Learned When Renewals Hit

What happens when you focus all your energy on acquisition and forget the people already paying you.

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Feb 8, 2026 Pricing

Why I Undercharged for EventCatalog and What I Learned About How Developers Get Pricing Wrong

Why I Undercharged for EventCatalog and What I Learned About How Developers Get Pricing Wrong

Why developers are wired to undersell their products and how to start pricing based on the problem you solve, not the code you wrote.

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Building in public isn't about showing off wins. It's about documenting the messy middle so others don't have to figure it out alone.
David Boyne
David Boyne
Solo founder, EventCatalog
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