I'm a product/project manager with some basic coding knowledge (HTML/CSS/JS, a bit of PHP, some Python, and modern frameworks here and there). I have been working closely with devs for years, so I often had to investigate issues myself, plus I did a bunch of courses and pet projects over time.

I still keep it as a hobby, in my free time I like to build small things, also using AI tools like Claude for automation and experiments.

Recently I had a bit of free time and ended up building a small project called SmartScan (just for my personal requiments). It actually started from a very simple need,I wanted to automate parts of my work like researching competitors, extracting useful info (emails, contacts, links, etc.), and turning that into notes/reports I can reuse later.

At first it was just a basic landing page tool for extracting data from URLs, but then it kind of grew into a bigger idea and I launched it as a small SaaS like tool. Everything was built with Claude + a $20/month subscription in one month, just in my spare time.

So now I’m curious is it actually realistic nowadays to build something like this solo and turn it into a monetizable product?

Can a small idea like this evolve into something that brings income, or is it basically impossible without a full team (devs, marketing, etc.)?

Would love to hear your experience, has anyone here built and launched a SaaS completely solo? Did it work out? What problems did your product solve?

Also happy to share more about SmartScan if anyone's interested

Thank you

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47627169

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