That day, when the notification chimed, I had three screens open. Terminal logs, a code editor, and an issue list I'd been staring at endlessly. "Why is this process timing out?" I kept thinking in circles, opening and closing seemingly unrelated files one after another, then back to the logs. That kind of thing—that feeling. When an answer seems close but never quite comes, that cage-like state of concentration. My smartphone screen lit up right at that moment. A sales notification. The first time a stranger had paid money for my product. My reaction was, "Oh, I see." That was all. I immediately turned the screen face-down and went back to the bug.
To be precise, there was a brief pause after "Oh, I see," and then came the practical worry: "What should I do, did I set up the thank-you email properly?" Practical concerns came before any sense of wonder—that's when I thought that's what being an indie developer is. Or maybe it's just me.
I checked the notification, verified that the email system was working, and went back to the bug. It was 11 PM. I ended up identifying the cause of that timeout the next morning, and the sense of accomplishment when it was fixed might have been stronger than when I received the sales notification.
That was my first day of revenue. No celebration, no toast, no particular sentiment—just a night when a bug and a sales notification existed almost simultaneously. Looking back now, I feel like that single night was a microcosm of indie development.
Making something alone
When you're doing indie development, milestones have a strange way of becoming blurry.
If you work at a company, there's applause when you launch a product, your boss acknowledges you when you hit sales targets, and there might be a celebratory lunch. Through being celebrated, you realize, "Ah, I accomplished something today." Milestones are taught to you by others.
When you're doing it alone, there are no external signals like that. Even at the moment of launch, you just move to the next action: "Deploy succeeded, now let me check if it works." With the first sale: "Did I set up the configuration properly?" When the hundredth user registered, I didn't even notice. I only found out later when I checked the logs.
"The next task" is always waiting
The indie development screen always has the next task stacked on it.
Fix a bug, then improve the UI. Improve the UI, then work on content. Then marketing, then analytics, then another bug. There's always something to do, and within that, there's no reason to stop and think "this is how far I've come today." In days optimized purely for moving forward, your own trajectory becomes invisible.
When you look back and the only things you remember are bug fixes and moving on to the next issue, with all the milestones completely missing—that's a bit sad. But for a long time, that's how I spent my days.
A few months after my first revenue, I was quite burned out.
The product's metrics were growing little by little. User numbers, revenue—this month was better than last month. From the outside it looked fine, and I thought "well, it's not bad." But somehow I had no motivation. Opening my computer in the morning felt heavy. Even when I started writing code, it wasn't as fun as before.
When I was thinking about why, something suddenly occurred to me. When was the last time I actually felt happy about something?
I couldn't remember. Really. When revenue doubled, when I got my first review, when I finally implemented a feature I'd been wanting to—I just moved on to "next." I wasn't properly receiving my own accomplishments.
There was no sense of accumulation
I like the word "fuel." I think motivation is like fuel. You need to refuel to keep running, and a big part of that refueling comes from the feeling of "I accomplished something, that's great."
But I kept running without refueling. I could see the metrics growing as numbers, but I kept skipping the act of receiving them as my own experience. I was so focused on completing tasks that I left behind the sense of being someone who accomplishes things.
The beginning of small celebrations
A little while after I started feeling burned out, one night I consciously tried to "stop."
That day's revenue had quietly exceeded the monthly target I'd originally thought "I'd be happy if I could achieve this." I noticed by chance. I was casually looking at the dashboard when the numbers were just there.
Usually I would close it with "next," but that night I didn't. I made a cup of coffee, opened that screen again, and looked at it carefully. I didn't do anything special. I just looked slowly. "I achieved this," I thought without saying it out loud, while drinking my coffee.
That was all. But the next morning, somehow my mood felt a little lighter.
Putting "solo celebration" into words
After that, I became conscious of small "solo celebrations."
I'm not doing anything grandiose. When I notice a milestone—a number or an event—I take time to receive it, that's all. I don't close the notification right away. I take a screenshot and save it to a dedicated folder. At night, alone, I have a drink while thinking "I've come this far today."
Not to show anyone, but to record my own experience for myself. The feeling of marking milestones with my own hands.
Any achievement can be a milestone
What I think is important here is setting the bar for milestones incredibly low.
It doesn't have to be a hundred users. Ten is fine, even one. The first yen is fine. I think the accumulation of carefully receiving such small achievements—achievements you might think "is that really worth celebrating?"—becomes the foundation for continuing long-term.
Indie development is the act of creating something in a place where no one is watching. It often takes time before you receive external evaluation. In such an environment, maybe you need to be your own first audience and biggest supporter.
"Recording" creates milestones
One thing I've been doing recently is writing down small events from each month in bullet points.
Like the day I first got access from overseas, or the day a fix that unexpectedly took a long time finally finished, or the day a user sent me a direct message. I list them as "events," not as metric numbers.
When I read back later, I sometimes think "Oh, that happened." Moments I would have forgotten while being swept up in daily tasks are there. Recording them makes milestones actually exist as milestones.
I still think about that night when I fixed the bug sometimes.
If I had stopped just a little longer that night, if I had properly received what that sales notification meant, maybe I would have had a different expression the next morning. It's not a big deal, and I don't think that night was wrong. I just didn't know the cost of continuing to put myself second would slowly catch up with me.
Even now, "the next issue" is always there. There's always something to do. That probably won't change. But now, when a notification chimes, I delay turning the screen face-down just a little. The bug can wait five more minutes.
What I want to tell anyone doing indie development is that you don't need to do anything grandiose. A cup of coffee's worth of time is enough. A single screenshot is enough. Mark where you've gotten to in a place only you know. That small ritual becomes quiet fuel to keep sitting in front of the screen next week, next month.
Did you accomplish something today? Then, a toast.
Lily (@bokuwalily) — Indie developer. Making iOS apps and web services in tandem with AI.
