A new Indie Hacker podcast talked about a bit of entrepreneur advice that states “it takes 1,000 days to get to a point of success with a start-up”. The goal of this project will be to allow solo makers and founders to track their progress and maintain focus for those first 1,000 days.

Also: A graphical tool showing your current income vs. the daily increase of your start-up revenue, with a focus on the point where you need to get your revenue to to outpace your salary. A nice display of how close you are to becoming financially independent and going full time with your start-up.

I heard Tommy Griffith of ClickMinded talk about this metric with Courtland Allen on the Indie Hackers Podcast. The concept gave me renewed hope to push through the current drudgery of the day-to-day grind and focus on a more specific time-based goal. As Courtland says in the podcast (paraphrasing), “…three years is going to pass anyways, so you might as well keep working on your project. Otherwise, you’ll look back and wish you hadn’t given up.” Well, I’ve allowed 10+ years to pass already, so it couldn’t hurt to renew my focus for the next three.

I really just want to jump ship sometimes and leave my salaried day-job to focus on building a monetizeable start-up, but the reality is that I have a family and financial obligations to maintain. Having a tool to show me how close I am to replacing my current income would help keep me motivated on those days where going full time on a start-up seems so far off.

I’m not certain what an ideal way of monetizing this project would be, but maybe cap the number of days to 21 for a free user, and have a nominal monthly/annual/lifetime membership fee for accessing 1. days beyond 21, and 2. a group chat/forum for member solo makers and indie hackers to discuss their projects, motivation techniques, and results.