my shipkaro journey to $10k MRR - #5

i always say in my talks etc that “hard work is over-rated, and consistency is under-rated”. that applies to me as well and i know i am lacking behind in it.

it’s been a while since i sent the last #4 edition of this newsletter, and then i missed my streak. i couldn’t remain consistent. that fault is mine. but hey, it’s new year.

new year means new resolutions, new goals, new happiness, new motivation, and new “fill your blank here”.

normally, i don’t need new year for setting my goals, and i set my goals very often. diverge from them. get distracted from them. reset my goals, and it repeats. but when i try to rewind my year at the end in December, i somehow get a list of things i feel proud of.

so here’s my year in review of 2025 and it was great honestly.

💊 biggest highlight of my year: started a pharmacy in Karachi without knowing anything about pharmacy business.
🔗 finally updated my personal website (after like 4 years)
👨🏽‍💻 started my indie hacking journey and documenting it in build in public in this newsletter
🔥 launched 2 apps, MyDiary AI and GenZ Dictionary and 3 more apps coming soon
✍🏽 fried to publish a 200+ page book on Remote Jobs this year but couldn't.
🎤 gave 14 talks in different tech events on Mobile, AI, Shipping and more
📚 read ~10 books on technology, startups, and personal development
🌍 conducted 2 Masterclasses and 100+ 1-on-1 calls about remote jobs
🎧 met 100s of new people and heard so many interesting stories
🚀 helped many devs with their goals. some of them got remote jobs
💻 finished 6 years of being a Google Developer Experts (GDE) community

i merely started my build in public and this shipkaro journey in October 2025. that’s like only 3 months so far. it’s been a good quarter and learned a ton of stuff about this new micro-saas world. the MyDiary AI app is doing okay (i wouldn’t say great yet) and it’s growing slowly. it has crossed 1400+ downloads on Google Play, is making around $70 revenue each month from both lifetime and monthly recurring revenue. but january is going strong and i have already crossed $100 in these days.

i know, it’s not a lot, but considering i am only paying $5 a month for the maintenance of the app, which i have removed it in the new update (and i will talk about this in next newsletter), this app is basically all profit now. so it’s a passive income and it’s increasing a bit by bit too, so i am very hopeful of this app to grow.

i am going to focus solely on this build in public journey the whole year of 2026. i have set some goals and i am going to share those on my website on the goals page.

in short, here are those

💰 reach Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) of $1500 or more
💵 achieve the total revenue of $20,000 or more
🚀 launch 12 brand new products this year (ideally one each month)
📝 write 2 books (including the one in progress) and publish
🎥 make 24 full length YouTube videos (trying to get back on YouTube)
📈 gain 10,000 YouTube subscribers
🗞️ gain 10,000 newsletter subscribers (for this)
📙 read 10 books (usually I do these every year)

and some more at runtime if I get any. so wish me luck for this year as these goals might look easier, but considering i am the solo builder, these are a lot from time management perspective.

what you mean what’s next? 🤣 obviously see you in the next week’s newsletter where i will share more updates about shipkaro and RemoteKaro stuff. meanwhile do follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Threads wherever you are

and if you are thinking about any SaaS or app idea, hit that ship button so hard that it explodes

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