When Should You Quit Your Job? What Indie Makers Earned When They Went Full-Time

The short answer

Quit when your runway is longer than your time-to-ramen-profitability — not when you hit a magic MRR. In our data, makers went full time at very different points:

• 12 built on the side first and left once the product was already paying something.
• 21 quit first and built afterwards, living off savings, consulting or a partner's income.
• 23 gave no figure for what they earned at the time — a reminder that “I quit at $X MRR” stories are the exception, not the rule.

Medians below are computed only from figures the makers published. Want the full timelines? See how long it takes indie makers to reach $10K MRR.

38 makers who went full time — and what they earned

Every row comes from the maker's journey on IndieMakerList. “Revenue at the time” is filled in only when the maker (or an interview with them) stated it; otherwise it says “Not disclosed”.

What the numbers say

• Median revenue at quitting, all disclosed cases: $0 (n = 15).
• Median among makers who were already earning: $6.2K/mo (n = 6).
• Years from going full time to a $10K MRR month (only where the year is pinned down): median under a year (n = 6) — Ruben Gamez (under a year), Corey Haines (under a year), Tony Dinh (under a year), Thibault Louis-Lucas (Tibo) (1 year), Michael Lynch (2 years), Jon Yongfook (3 years).

Small samples, self-reported figures and survivorship bias apply — see the caveats below before treating any of this as a rule.

How they bridged the gap

What makers relied on instead of (or alongside) product revenue, in their own words — 24 of them described it:

• Laura Roeder (2007): no dependents and very low costs. (source: chargebee.com)
• Lucas Pope (2010): savings from his Naughty Dog salary, for several years. (source: disgustingmen.com)
• Jane Portman (2012): maternity support and her husband's business. (source: uibreakfast.com)
• Takuya Matsuyama (2012): freelance development work. (source: craftz.dog)
• Sindre Sorhus (2014): lived off savings for 4+ years. (source: sindresorhus.com)
• Andrew Shouldice (2015): savings; a publisher signed on two years later. (source: gamesbeat.com)
• Dean McPherson (2017): the AppSumo cash, used as a seed fund. (source: saasclub.io)
• Jay Clouse (2017): ran out of money in ~6 months and took freelance work. (source: medium.com)
• Andrey Azimov (2018): one “hardcore year” in Bali on about $500 a month. (source: andreyazimov.medium.com)
• Fabrizio Rinaldi (2018): savings plus the launch revenue. (source: failory.com)
• Jon Yongfook (2018): about 2 years of savings. (source: bannerbear.com)
• Caleb Porzio (2019): savings plus his wife's income. (source: calebporzio.com)
• Daniel Vassallo (2019): about 5.5 years of living expenses saved. (source: dev.to)
• Jack Butcher (2019): waited for a client job worth ~3 months of runway. (source: businessofbusiness.com)
• Jordi Bruin (2019): ~6 months of salary saved, plus freelance work. (source: indiedevmonday.com)
• Justin Welsh (2019): small-scale consulting. (source: pathlesspath.com)
• Lenny Rachitsky (2019): advising and consulting as plan B. (source: nathanbarry.com)
• Corey Haines (2020): marketing consulting alongside his product. (source: wpmrr.com)
• Gergely Orosz (2020): savings from a multi-six-figure salary. (source: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com)
• Thibault Louis-Lucas (Tibo) (2020): French unemployment benefits. (source: saasclub.io)
• Simon Høiberg (2021): income from consulting he had just stopped. (source: indiehackers.com)
• Tony Dinh (2021): about 2 years of savings. (source: indiehackers.com)
• Billy Basso (2022): savings and a road map to finish. (source: wired.com)
• Daniel Nguyen (2022): savings plus freelance AI gigs. (source: newsletter.danielnguyen.me)

The pattern: makers who quit with nothing had either years of savings (Daniel Vassallo, Sindre Sorhus, Jon Yongfook), very low costs (Andrey Azimov in Bali, Laura Roeder) or a second income — consulting, freelancing or a partner's salary.

A rule of thumb from these makers

1. Know your number. Andrey Azimov set a $1,000 MRR goal because that covered his costs in Bali; Ruben Gamez quit once Bidsketch paid all his living expenses.
2. Runway ≥ time to ramen profitability. The makers here who reached $10K MRR took under a year (median) after going full time. Plan for that, not for launch week.
3. Keep a bridge. Consulting, freelancing or a part-time contract turned several “quit first” stories into soft landings.
4. Ship more, faster. Makers who quit with nothing, such as Jon Yongfook and Thibault Louis-Lucas (Tibo), ran public many-products challenges — using the time to test many ideas rather than polish one.

Compare with the broader numbers in the 2026 indie maker report and the revenue leaderboard, or ask the IndieMakerList AI about a specific maker's path.

Caveats

• Survivorship bias. These are makers successful enough to have a profile. People who quit and went back to a job rarely write about it.
• Self-reported numbers. Figures are what makers published; some are averages (e.g. a product's first three months divided by three) and one (Jordi Bruin) didn't name the currency.
• “Quitting” means different things — leaving a salaried job, stopping consulting, or going full time on one product after selling another.
• Small sample. 15 disclosed figures is enough to show the range, not to set a rule.