I made $65K in 3 days (with ZERO audience) | Starter Story

Devin, an indie hacker from India, had failed at multiple startups and was stuck on the same problem most builders face: "I didn't know how to build distribution." Then he launched an app with zero audience and made $65,000 in three days. Now his app generates around $20,000 a month. On this episode of Starter Story, host Pat Walls pressed Devin on the exact strategy that turned his trajectory around—a controversial lifetime deal (LTD) model that most founders dismiss but that Devin argues is a legitimate distribution hack for those starting from nothing.

The distribution problem and the LTD solution

Devin's core insight is that building a great product is useless if nobody sees it. He had spent years failing at startups precisely because he could not crack distribution. The breakthrough came when he realized that platforms like AppSumo, Dealify, and other deal marketplaces already have massive, built-in audiences of buyers actively looking for software deals. Instead of trying to build an audience from scratch, Devin decided to piggyback on these existing marketplaces by offering a lifetime deal—a one-time payment for permanent access to his app.