How I built a SaaS thanks to my wife
I’m Michał, and I’d like to share with you the journey I went through with my wife and how, thanks to her, we built our first SaaS, PDFBolt (https://pdfbolt.com). I’ve been a developer for over 10 years. In 2020, I decided to build a side project to learn all aspects of app development—deployment, authentication, payments, frontend, landing pages, etc. While looking for project ideas, I came across the Indie Hackers community, where I found a simple HTML to PDF API project. The creator mentioned a lot of interest in it and that it was generating revenue. I thought I’d build…
In plain words
PDFBolt is an HTML to PDF API service for developers who need to convert web content into PDF documents programmatically. Built by a developer with over 10 years of experience alongside his wife, it provides core development functionality including deployment, authentication, and payment integration. The service addresses a documented market need for reliable PDF conversion capabilities with practical applications across various software projects.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
I’m Michał, and I’d like to share with you the journey I went through with my wife and how, thanks to her, we built our first SaaS, PDFBolt (https://pdfbolt.com). I’ve been a developer for over 10 years. In 2020, I decided to build a side project to learn all aspects of app development—deployment, authentication, payments, frontend, landing pages, etc. While looking for project ideas, I came across the Indie Hackers community, where I found a simple HTML to PDF API project. The creator mentioned a lot of interest in it and that it was generating revenue. I thought I’d build something similar myself and learn a lot in the process. But it wasn’t easy at all. After working from 9 to 5, it’s hard to spend another few hours in front of the computer in the evening. What about other responsibilities? Groceries, cooking, cleaning, hobbies, spending time with my wife? Still, I tried, very slowly. I had breaks lasting several months, and at one point, due to mental health issues, I practically stopped working on the project altogether. My wife worked as a physiotherapist but, due to difficulties in her job, decided to switch to IT with my help, starting as a manual tester. She did it very quickly (maybe six months) and immediately found a job. In mid-2024, she started asking about my old project and insisted that we finish it. Thanks to her enthusiasm, we managed to do it very quickly. I focused on the backend, and she, in addition to testing, handled the entire frontend and landing page. Around the same time, we also adopted a dog from a shelter, which added a lot of positive energy to our lives and helped us stay motivated. In early January 2025, we officially launched the project. It’s been a long journey, and we don’t have any customers yet—we don’t even know if we will, as we have no idea about marketing :) But we’ve learned a lot and are already happy with the journey itself. As for the technical aspects, the app uses: Backend: Kotlin, Spring Boot, Postgres, Redis Frontend: React, Next.js, Docusaurus Auth: Firebase Hosting: Render (the app is Dockerized) Cloudflare R2 for file storage PDFs are generated using Chromium via Playwright. If you have any questions about the tech stack or anything else, feel free to ask! I’ll be happy to answer. Any feedback or criticism will be greatly appreciated. Thank you! :)
Does the same job
all alternatives →- SPSide project passed $2.5k/mo revenue after 2 years (Phoenix and Vue)2021 · ▲381
Several years ago, I had a client whose salespeople were using Excel to generate sales proposals. This was inefficient and the resulting documents looked awful, so I developed a new process for them using a no-code platform. It featured a web form that was tied to a workflow engine, and a fancy PDF got emailed to the customer to sign. When the client loved the solution, I knew I was on to something. However, the no-code platform wasn't very customizable, so I decided to rebuild the process as a SaaS product. The client's CTO wanted in and we became cofounders. Today, we passed the…
- MNMy new SaaS side-project, after years of open source2018 · ▲229
Hi guys, I've created an open source web builder framework (https://grapesjs.com) years ago, which I'm still maintaining, and now I'm excited to publish a side project based on it, Grapedrop (https://grapedrop.com). It's a simple web page builder which allows you to design and publish your web pages very quickly. The project is still in beta with a lot of stuff to improve but I'd really like to share it and hear what people think about it and maybe also get some constructive feedback.
- TAThePDFApi, a Chrome Based PDF Generation API Hosted on AWS2018 · ▲41
Hello HN! It kept surprising me how much of a hassle it is to generate a PDF with decent HTML5 rendering from my SaaS apps. I tried several free libs and APIs but ended up with botched rendering a lot of times. So I set out to simplify this chore by creating an AWS hosted HTML to PDF conversion API that's based on Chrome. This API will allow a dev to just send the HTML to our API and get a PDF in response without having to worry about running and managing Chrome somewhere in their infra. I just finished the first version of my landing page and hosted pdf generation API…
- IOI open-sourced my Go and Next B2B SaaS Starter (deploy anywhere, MIT)Dec 2025 · github.com · ▲83
Hi HN, I'm Mohammed, a technical founder who loves shipping and giving back to the community. I'm open-sourcing the full-stack engine that powers my B2B product, apflow.co. What it is: A production B2B starter with a Go backend and Next.js frontend. Both are fully Dockerized with separate containers. No Vercel. No Supabase. Deploy the whole thing on a $6 VPS, or split frontend and backend across different providers. You own the infrastructure. The problem I was solving: Every SaaS starter I evaluated had the same issue: they locked me into someone else's platform. Vercel for hosting.…
- IWI was bored of coding PDFs, I created a SaaS to solve this problem2024 · transactional.dev · ▲5
hey hn, I have wasted too much time in my career creating PDF generation systems for invoices, quotes, activity summary, etc... I created this product so that I never waste my time on that again I hope I can help folks with this product, what do you think?
- IBI built a SaaS that lets you create digital manuals with drag and drop2025 · chyrid.com · ▲6
My best friend and I developed a SaaS last month while working full-time: Chyrid (chyrid.com). It’s a tool for creating digital manuals without design or coding skills. Users build structured, polished documents with a drag-and-drop editor, and Chyrid handles the formatting—without using AI. We built it because most documentation tools are either too complex or too unstructured. A company is already using it for onboarding and process docs, but we’re still figuring out how to position it and who finds it most useful. Would love any thoughts on potential use cases or feedback on the concept.…
More dev tools this month
the category →
The first open-source price index for GPU compute
Dev tools · 10d ago · getcomputable.com
OpenTrailPaper is open-source bike computer firmware for the LilyGO T5S3 4.7" E-Paper PRO. It supports offline maps, GPX routes, FIT recording and Bluetooth sensors.
Dev tools · 2d ago · opentrailpaper.com
Open-source GTM skills for technical founders
Dev tools · 29d ago · gtmcofounder.com
Launched alongside, January 2025
the whole month →- IM
Hello! I'm Byran. I spent the past ~6 months engineering a laptop from scratch. It's fully open-source on GH at: https://github.com/Hello9999901/laptop
Dev tools · 2025 · byran.ee
- TITetris in a PDF▲1,289
I realized that the PDF engines of modern desktop browsers (PDFium and PDF.js) support JavaScript with enough I/O primitives to make a basic game like Tetris. It was a bit tricky to find a union of features that work in both engines, but in the end it turns out that showing/hiding annotation "fields" works well to make monochrome pixels, and keyboard input can be achieved by typing in a text input box. All in all it's quite janky but a nice reminder of how general purpose PDF scripting can be. The linked PDF is all ASCII so you can just open it in a text editor, or have a look at…
Life & fun · 2025 · th0mas.nl
Create lifelike, personalized AI avatars from text prompts
AI · 2025 · jogg.ai
