$10k MRR Is Not a Lottery Ticket

The jackpot mentality that killed my projects

When I first started indie hacking, I treated $10k MRR like a jackpot.

One "big" launch, one viral tweet, one lucky break—and boom, financial freedom.

Reality? I launched dozens of projects. None got attention, most didn't even get 10 signups. Nothing stuck. The graveyard kept getting bigger.

What I was missing wasn't luck. It was discipline.

The gym, not the lottery

Think about fitness for a second.

Everyone knows push-ups are free on YouTube. Meal plans are everywhere. But people still pay $50/month for gyms, $200/hour for personal trainers, and $10/month for habit trackers.

Why? Because discipline is scarce. Knowledge is free.

Growth is exactly the same. You've read enough indie hacker success stories. You don't need another "secret strategy." You need a system that keeps you coming back and compounding.

That's why most side projects fail—not from bad ideas, but from bad systems.

Loops, not hacks

Inside Indie10k, I built everything around the idea of loops:

• List → brainstorm small growth actions
• Pick → choose one
• Ship → put it into the world
• Ask → get feedback
• Measure → track what moved
• Share → close the loop by telling the story

Run that once, you get a data point.

Run that weekly, you get momentum.

Run that for months... you start to see MRR stack up.

This isn't revolutionary. It's just systematic. Like The $100 Experiment but with built-in accountability and evidence tracking.

Why the lottery mindset is poison

The lottery mindset makes you optimize for the wrong things:

• Chasing viral moments instead of consistent value
• Building features instead of validating problems
• Hoping for external validation instead of internal momentum

I spent two years refreshing Analytics hoping for a traffic spike. Know what moved the needle? Weekly loops. Boring, consistent, compounding work.

My current experiment

Right now, I'm at 98 signups in Indie10k. No revenue milestone yet—but the loops are compounding, the discipline feels real, and I can see the path in front of me.

That's the difference. I don't see $10k as a lucky break anymore.

I see it as a fitness milestone. The result of hundreds of reps, not one perfect shot.

Each week I:

• Ship one small improvement
• Build in public with the evidence
• Ask users what's actually useful
• Measure what moves (signups, retention, feedback quality)
• Plan next week's loop

Not sexy. But it compounds.

The discipline deficit

Here's what nobody talks about: most indie hackers have a discipline problem, not a knowledge problem.

We know we should:

• Talk to users weekly
• Ship small improvements consistently
• Turn free users into paying customers
• Track the right metrics

But we don't. Because there's no system forcing consistency.

That's what I'm really building with Indie10k. Not another course or community. A growth gym that makes discipline the default.

The compound effect nobody talks about

When you run growth loops consistently, weird things happen:

• Your product gets better because you're shipping weekly
• Your positioning sharpens because you're getting real feedback
• Your confidence builds because you see evidence of progress
• Your network grows because you're building in public

None of that happens from one viral tweet. All of it happens from systematic loops.

The takeaway

If you're chasing $10k MRR, stop looking for the golden lottery ticket.

Start building your growth gym.

Track loops. Stack evidence. Stay consistent.

Because momentum is the only unfair advantage you can actually control.

The path to $10k MRR isn't a lottery. It's just a lot of reps.

Your next loop

👉 Check out Indie10k if you want to try this systematic approach yourself. Your growth gym is waiting.

But honestly? You could start today with a simple weekly loop:

1. Pick one growth action
2. Ship it
3. Measure what happened
4. Plan next week

Do that for 12 weeks and tell me it doesn't feel different than hoping for viral lightning.

The only question is: are you ready to trade lottery tickets for gym membership?