Why Don’t Most Programmers Become Indie Developers When a Niche App Can Earn Tens of Thousands a Month?

In 2022, I left my previous company to become an indie developer.

On the day I handed over my work, our team went out for a meal together. One colleague said, “You’ve definitely been brainwashed by all those online stories about people making RMB 100,000 a month.”

I shook my head at the time. But honestly, I had no idea whether I could actually make it work.

After leaving, I joined a community of more than 200 indie developers. I lurked there for over six months, rarely posting anything—just observing.

Many members had left senior P7 or P8 positions at major tech companies. Some had built compilers; others had worked on rendering engines. In terms of technical ability, I would have struggled to rank in the top 50.

Yet fewer than ten of them were consistently earning more than RMB 10,000 a month from their own apps. Surprisingly, those who were successful were not necessarily the strongest engineers in the group.

I reached out privately to several of them.

One had built a subtitle tool and was earning more than RMB 300,000 a year. Another had created a quit-smoking app that averaged over RMB 8,000 a month. Someone else had built a booking system for pet stores, generating more than RMB 20,000 in monthly revenue.

I asked them to share their secrets. Their advice always came down to the same few words:

Look at the data, choose the right niche, and don’t build things blindly.

Meanwhile, programmers from major tech companies never stop talking about technology stacks, architecture, and concurrency optimization.

The two groups are operating on completely different wavelengths.

1. Programmers at Big Tech Are Trained to Be Executors

I was a textbook example.

Shortly after leaving my job, I spent three months building a feature. Technically, it was excellent: I used the latest framework, maintained high test coverage, and wrote high-quality code.

But after I launched it, nobody used it.

I went to a friend who had been an indie developer for four years. He took one look and asked:

“Before building this, did you ask anyone whether they needed it?”

Obviously, I hadn’t.

At a large company, product managers define the requirements, project managers set the schedule, and the operations team handles promotion. All I had to do was open my IDE and turn requirements into code.

But in indie development, writing code accounts for less than 30% of the work.

Everything else is about questions like:

• Does anyone genuinely need this?
• What are the competitors doing?
• How should I price it?
• How should I write the marketing copy?
• How should I respond to user complaints?

I spent six years at major tech companies, and nobody ever taught me any of these things.

Later, I developed a new habit: before building a feature, I talk to people first.

I ask around in online communities. I search Xiaohongshu and Bilibili for complaints. I collect 20 or 30 pieces of feedback before writing any code.

2. Big-Tech Programmers Have a Distorted View of the Market

My first idea was to build a weather app.

I didn’t choose it because I had researched the market. I chose it simply because weather apps were within my frame of reference—I knew what they looked like.

A friend suggested that I check Appark. It is similar to Sensor Tower and lets you view download rankings and revenue data.

When I looked up the weather category, I found hundreds of decent apps in the Chinese market alone. The leading products, such as Moji Weather and China Weather, were all backed by companies. The top-ten rankings had barely changed in three years.

Trying to break into that market would have been suicide.

But the same tool also revealed niches that large companies would never touch:

• A Chinese subtitle-making tool earning its solo developer more than RMB 300,000 a year
• A minimalist quit-smoking app averaging over RMB 8,000 a month through paid downloads
• A booking SaaS product for pet stores generating RMB 20,000 in monthly revenue, with only a handful of competitors

Their daily active user counts are too small to interest a major company. But for one person, those markets are just the right size.

Big Tech trains you to believe that something is not a real product unless it has millions of daily active users.

Indie development is the opposite. You are looking for a small market that is just large enough to support you.

3. The Psychological Pressure Can Be Overwhelming

There was a former Alibaba P7 engineer in the community who was genuinely brilliant.

During the first month, he posted progress updates every day. In the second month, he started complaining about Apple’s App Store review process. By the fourth month, he had returned to full-time employment.

It wasn’t because his product was bad. He simply couldn’t cope with the uncertainty.

During the first week after I launched my app, it received seven downloads.

Three were from me, two were from my wife, and one was from a friend. That meant I had exactly one real user.

In the first three months, I earned less than RMB 2,000.

Programmers at large companies are accustomed to a straightforward process: finish the code, submit it for testing, launch it, and examine the data.

Indie development doesn’t work that way.

You might spend three months building a feature, launch it, and then watch the metrics remain completely unchanged. Nobody tells you why.

Someone in the community once said:

“At a large company, if you screw up, the worst that happens is you get a C rating and try again next quarter. When you’re working for yourself, if you screw up, you’re left with nothing.”

What large companies really give you isn’t a salary. It is the illusion of certainty.

You start to believe that receiving a paycheck every month is simply how life works. Only after leaving do you discover that you have no idea how to live without that certainty.

So, back to the original question:

If niche apps can make tens of thousands of RMB a month, why don’t most programmers build them?

The answer is simple.

Programmers are trained by large companies to avoid uncertainty, wait for instructions, and fear a lack of feedback.

Indie development requires you to go against all three instincts.

But if you genuinely want to follow this path, there are three things you must take seriously.

First: Study the Data Before Choosing a Direction

Before deciding what to build, use third-party tools to examine the data:

• Download trends among the category leaders
• Revenue trends
• The number of competitors
• How competing products make money

Last year, I considered building a personal finance app. When I checked the data, I discovered that the top 50 apps had barely changed in three years. Entering that market would have made me cannon fodder.

But approach it from another angle—such as a shared budgeting app for couples—and the picture changes. If the leading apps are growing and there are relatively few competitors, that could be an opportunity.

Second: Reach RMB 5,000 a Month Before Quitting Your Job

This isn’t about the money.

It is about experiencing the entire journey from zero to one.

Find out whether you can take an idea all the way to paying customers without a product manager, designer, or operations team supporting you.

Third: Accept That You May Start by Earning Only a Few Thousand RMB a Month

Every project I have seen reach RMB 20,000 a month started by slowly climbing from RMB 2,000 or RMB 3,000.

The stories about people earning tens of thousands a month are not necessarily lies. What nobody talks about is the year or two they spent earning only a few thousand a month along the way.

I have been doing this for three years now, and one particular moment remains vivid in my memory.

That day, I was fixing a bug. I had spent two hours on it and still couldn’t find the cause. I was incredibly frustrated.

Then a notification suddenly appeared in the dashboard: a podcast creator from the United States had paid $9.99.

Do you understand the joy of that moment?

At a major company, I could launch a feature that affected millions in revenue. But that revenue came from the company’s traffic and the combined efforts of hundreds of people. On a personal level, it barely meant anything to me.

But that $9.99 came from code I had written line by line, entirely by myself.

That sense of accomplishment felt far more real than any year-end bonus.