$25K/month Stagetimer app | Starter Story

StageTimer.io is an online countdown timer built for events, video production, and live presentations. The founder validated the idea on Reddit, grew it to $8,300 per month in revenue and 200,000 monthly visitors, and runs it as a solo operator. The business operates on a usage-based pricing model starting at $180 per year. This summary draws from the founder’s decisions, tradeoffs, and operating principles as shared in the interview.

Validation before building

The founder did not start by writing code. He posted the concept of a remote-controlled countdown timer on Reddit, in communities of event organizers and video producers. The post asked whether such a tool would be useful and what features mattered most. The response was immediate and specific: people said yes, and they described exactly how they would use it—controlling a timer from a phone while a full-screen display ran on a projector.

This shaped the entire product. Instead of guessing what a timer should do, the founder built what the early audience asked for. The first version was minimal: a single timer that could be controlled from another device. No accounts, no billing, no bells. He put it live, shared the link back in the same Reddit threads, and watched people use it. Traffic came within hours. The validation was not a survey or a landing page signup—it was real usage.

Pricing as a strategic lever