In early 2024 we made a call: no more client projects. We'd build our own products instead. Everyone asked the same question: "But where's the money going to come from?" Fair. Client work is guaranteed income. At some point, though, it hit us that building someone else's vision was quietly making us miserable. You pitch a feature you believe in, the client says no. A bad UX decision gets made over your objection, and you build it anyway. Then the thing underperforms and sits in your portfolio as your work. That loop wore us down. We wanted to make our own mistakes for a change.
Revenue dropped to literally zero. We lived off savings. What showed up instead was harder to measure: freedom. We shipped our first product in six weeks, and it was called Şarj Asistanı. It wasn't perfect. Honestly, it was embarrassing. 200 downloads the first week, no marketing behind it. But the feedback from those first users gave us something no client's "thank you" ever had, because this one was ours. Within six months we'd shipped three: Şarj Asistanı, ShortsByAuto, and Hatıra Notalar, each one born from a different "what if."
So where are we now? Three products live, five more in progress. Are we making money? Yes, though not what we pulled in during the client-work years, not yet. It climbs a little every month. What matters more: we wake up and decide for ourselves what to work on. That freedom isn't free. No guaranteed income, no safety net under us. But building our own "what ifs" instead of executing someone else's has been worth the trade every time.
Our advice: don't quit tomorrow. Build a runway first. Start it as a side project, ship fast, and don't bet everything on one product, because your first idea probably isn't the one that sticks. Every attempt teaches you something you'll need for the next.