So, it’s been a year since I quit my job at Microsoft. I wanted to reflect on it, you know kinda like what we do in scrum retrospectives so that the next sprint can be better.

First, the TLDR version

Learnt a lot, especially on the business front like digital marketing, brand positioning, managing finances, ad spends/budgeting, ASO, SEO, etc. Went for some family trips which I had planned for long time but couldn’t attend to, (Singapore/Malaysia) and some South Indian temples. Caught up on my video game backlog and finished some really good video games which I wanted to complete since some time. Tried and learnt a whole set of AI tools from coding to creative writing to video and image generation and learnt a lot of best practices on how to build with AI. But despite my best efforts, I couldn’t really move the needle in terms of revenue.

Now the longer version

The first 4 months (Sept ‘25 - Dec ‘25) after I quit my job at Microsoft were mostly about me nursing my back injury and getting back into shape. Spent this time catching up on some video games from my backlog (a quick shout out to Elden Ring - 10/10 game), celeberating festivals, eating lot of good food, spending time with family etc. We also visited a few nearby temples in South India which we wanted to visit since a long time. I also used this time to make a list of ideas I wanted to build, building quick prototypes. I also bought this domain (where the blog is hosted) and started this blog.

It was the first time I had so much of free time after spending 21 years in corporate jobs, and I loved every minute of it.

New year 2026 arrived and by then I had zeroed in on what I wanted to build. Productivity has been one of my favorite topics since ages. Instead of a simple app that only tracked goals or habits or tasks, I wanted to build something of a workflow where I could set a goal, divide it into achievable milestones, develop good habits (systems) to stay on the path, focus on key pillars of life (exercise, diet , sleep) and ultimately track all of these to make sure I was going on the right path.

Lo and behold, the idea of Aura Tracker: Habits & Goals was born. Over time, I also added task management, focus (pomodoro) timers and journaling to complete the loop. I also added powerful insights that actually provided quantified progress, so you know what’s working and what’s not. It was supposed to be the one stop, all-in-one productivity app.

Jan - Mar, I spent most of my time designing & building AuraTracker. To start with, I decided to just stick to iOS. I designed it using Google Stitch + Figma (for refinement), and implemented it using Google Antigravity, in react. I added a whole lot of features, spent a lot of time on the workflow itself, and spent a whole lot of time testing it with various archetypes, trying to make it the best productivity app and a total bang for the buck. I read books on ASO and SEO tweaking the keywords/screenshots such that it would rank at the top when people searched for habits, goals, productivity etc. To top it all off, I even created a dedicated website, explaining the features, FAQs, etc.

Once I was satisfied, I released it to the App Store, and it got approved overnight. I was over the moon. I announced it on Twitter/LinkedIn, making banners and drafting text, tweaking it for hours. I did some minimal marketing (whatever I could with the audience I had) and, confident that the ASO + SEO along with word of mouth would be suficient. It was and still is a great app. I still use it regularly, but I was naively assuming it would go viral simply because it was good.

In April, we decided to travel to Singapore/Malaysia with family. Great places (albeit expensive), but it gave me a good break and some really well deserved sleep.

Once I came back, I saw that the app had not made any progress in terms of sales. But instead of innovating on the marketing front, I continued to use the traditional organic channels like Twitter/LinkedIn, etc. to market it. I kept bringing it up on various channels, mentioning about it to anyone who was willing to listen, and sneaking in a link whenever someone discussed solo or indie building, or even productivity for that matter.

Spent the next 2 months (April - May) doubling down on ASO, redoing the screenshots, changing the app title and keywords, trying to see if the ranking would improve. Around this time, I got an offer on Twitter from a guy who wanted to buy the product for a modest amount (it was quite generous considering the app made negligible revenue), but I refused to accept defeat and turned him down. I kept trying various things, marketing it organically in more places like Reddit and FB Marketplaces. Some sent me a polite “you can’t market it here” and removed my post, others commented that it was a great app and wished me luck, but there were no sales.

Around June, I tried discounting, offering the app at 50% off for a limited time. I made a really cool banner, announcing it on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit, as if it was the best thing to happen since sliced bread. But the sales needle stayed where it was. Just a lot of “good lucks” and “great app,” but nobody was willing to pay.

In between all this, to take my mind off this, I continued building, actually doubling down on it. I built around 4-5 more iOS apps, all the way from design -> core functionality, along with a few more SaaS apps.

But now I had a bigger question to answer before I launched anything to the App Store: Will this sell?

And with every app, while it looked great on paper and in Figma mocks, after 2 weeks of building and testing, I realized that, it’s great to use, but I wouldn’t pay for it. So, back to the drawing board working on a new idea. In retrospect, I understood that these were not well researched ideas, they were mostly apps that I wanted for personal use and I had no idea how to monetize them. So while I learnt a whole lot of stuff (how to go from design to implementation really fast), it was again a brick wall in terms of revenues.

By end of July, I felt I needed a break. I decided to step away from it all. I spent the whole of August doing some creative writing, learning some video editing and AI video gen but took a clean break from building. It also gave me a different perspective on how I was working. The more I looked at this from an outside-in perspective, the more I realized that being a founder is more about selling than it is about building. I had been trying to approach this whole situation as an engineer and not as a founder, and no wonder it didn’t work.

That’s probably been the biggest realization of this entire year. Some other learnings from this past of solo indie building journey:

First was that habit trackers, or even productivity tools for that matter, is a heavily saturated market, and it was already full of options long before AI came in. And with AI, the number of clones has increased manifold, with many of them doing the same thing with bigger ad budgets and deep discounts. Without paid marketing, despite my best ASO/SEO optimizations, I had almost zero chances of landing a paying customer.

Second, I was putting all my bet on one product. Most indie builders don’t work this way, they build fast, pivot and move onto something else really fast. Perhaps, I got too emotionally attached with my product (I still am !).

Third, it didn’t have any cloud sync or AI features. I used it as a badge of honor - no ads, no subscriptions, data doesn’t leave your device etc., expecting the consumer would love it exactly for its privacy aspects. But a whole lot of them like to sync their stuff across devices and most popular productivity tools have this as a default feature.

Now that August is over and September is here, I’m back in the saddle. But now, I understand the importance of paid marketing and selling. Like the saying goes, to make money, you gotta spend money. Maybe my conservative approach of organic/word-of-mouth marketing is too naive in this modern AI era, where attention spans are short and options are a dime a dozen wherever you look.

Going forward, my goals for year two:

  1. Get really good at marketing and move the needle in terms of revenue generation.
  2. Update this blog more regularly.
  3. Release at least 5 apps by Dec 2027.
  4. Work more on PMF, realize what’s not working, and pivot fast.

So yeah, that’s how my year looked like. And to answer the uber question: Was it really worth quitting my job?

Well, it depends. If you ask me purely in terms of income generation, perhaps not. But the amount of learning I had over the past year was so much more than what I would’ve gained in 2-3 years at my job. So, I’m still conflicted on this. I’m hoping year two would be better, and I would look back at this decision with a smile on my face.

Let’s see how it goes :)