$25K/month Stagetimer app | Starter Story

StageTimer.io is an online countdown timer built for video producers and event organizers. It makes roughly $8,000 a month, was started for essentially zero dollars, and was validated through a Reddit post. The founder, operating as a solo developer, turned a simple tool into a sustainable business by solving a specific, recurring pain point for a niche professional audience.

The Origin: A Problem Worth Solving

The idea for StageTimer came from the founder’s own experience working as a video producer. In live event production, keeping track of time is critical. Presenters need to see how much time they have left, but the audience should not see the timer. The existing solutions were clunky: dedicated hardware, complex software, or someone standing off-stage holding up physical signs. The founder realized there was no simple, elegant, web-based tool that let one person control a full-screen timer from a phone or laptop while a presenter saw it on a separate display. This was a concrete, repeatable problem with no good free or cheap solution. Instead of building in a vacuum, the founder posted the concept on Reddit, specifically in communities for video producers and event technicians. The response was immediate and positive. People said they needed this exact thing. That single Reddit post became the initial validation and the primary source of early users.