2026-06-05
Day 8: My First Dollars
PR Risk Scorer went from $0 to its first paying customer — $2 MRR, one subscription, one spike on the chart.
On Day 1 I wrote that revenue was $0. Eight days after shipping the first MVP, someone paid.
Not a lot. But not zero.
The number
| Metric | Value | | --- | --- | | Revenue | $2 | | MRR | $2 | | Active subscriptions | 1 | | Days since first MVP | 8 |
One customer. One Starter subscription. One vertical line on a chart that was flat at zero for a month.
What it felt like
I refreshed the Polar dashboard expecting another zero. The revenue line had been flat since May 6. Then June 5 — a spike.
$2 is not life-changing money. I spend more on domains each month. But it is the first proof that a stranger found PR Risk Scorer, tried it, and decided it was worth paying for.
That is a different feeling than $0.
The arc in one week
| Day | What happened | | --- | --- | | 1 | Started in public — $0, one project, high learning rate | | 2 | Shipped landing page + GitHub bot | | 3 | Added the dashboard | | 5 | Shipped billing, Slack, support chat | | 8 | First paying customer |
No waitlist. No sales calls. Install on GitHub → 14-day trial → Polar checkout. The loop I described in the last post actually closed.
What I did not do
- Cold outreach
- Paid ads
- Product Hunt launch
- Discount codes
Someone found it, used it on real PRs, and upgraded on their own. Building in public and shipping fast was the distribution.
Honest math
$2 MRR does not cover hosting, domains, or AI tools. The open startup dashboard on this site still shows more expenses than income.
That is fine. The milestone is not profitability — it is validation. One person paid before I had a marketing team, before SSO, before a Team plan. The core product was enough.
What changes now
Nothing dramatic. Same plan:
- Keep the bot reliable on every PR
- Reply fast in support chat
- Listen to weekly feedback
- Ship what paying users actually need
The next goal is not $2 → $200 overnight. It is $2 → $10 → $50, one real customer at a time.
If you are at $0
Eight days ago I was too. The posts between Day 1 and Day 8 are the full trail — landing page, bot, dashboard, billing, first dollar.
You do not need a perfect product. You need a loop that works and the willingness to post the numbers when they are still embarrassing.
Current status:
- Revenue: $2
- Projects: 1
- Learning rate: still high
Building from Tashkent, shipping to the world.