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Indie Dev Runway Planner
A web app that helps aspiring indie game developers decide whether they can safely go full time, stay part time, or remain employed while building games. It combines savings, expenses, taxes, insurance, withdrawal assumptions, and project timelines into realistic runway scenarios.
Why this matters
You want to know whether leaving your job to build games is a brave move or a reckless one, but every answer depends on variables that are hard to model confidently. Your savings, rent, taxes, insurance, family situation, and expected development timeline all interact, and a simple spreadsheet rarely gives enough confidence to act. The emotional cost is high because the choice is not just about money; it is about whether you can create without putting your long-term security at risk. You need a tool that tells you how long your runway really lasts, what assumptions matter most, and whether part-time or staged transitions give you a better path than an all-or-nothing leap.
- · Built for Solo and small-team game developers with savings, severance, or a windfall who are evaluating a transition from salaried work to full-time independent development..
- · Most likely monetization: SaaS subscription.
The Pain · Narrative
You want to know whether leaving your job to build games is a brave move or a reckless one, but every answer depends on variables that are hard to model confidently. Your savings, rent, taxes, insurance, family situation, and expected development timeline all interact, and a simple spreadsheet rarely gives enough confidence to act. The emotional cost is high because the choice is not just about money; it is about whether you can create without putting your long-term security at risk. You need a tool that tells you how long your runway really lasts, what assumptions matter most, and whether part-time or staged transitions give you a better path than an all-or-nothing leap.
Score Breakdown
Market Signal
Go-to-Market
Developers with at least one shipped prototype and at least six months of savings who are actively considering reducing work hours within the next year.
25,000-75,000 globally in the initial niche
Indie game developer communities and newsletters focused on solo development
$19/month
Get 100 users to complete a full scenario plan and 20 to start a paid subscription within 30 days
MVP Scope · 1–2 weeks
- Build onboarding flow for savings, monthly expenses, location, and household inputs
- Create core runway calculator with conservative, base, and optimistic assumptions
- Add comparison view for full-time, part-time, and stay-employed scenarios
- Design simple dashboard showing months of runway and capital preservation outcomes
- Set up payment wall and waitlist capture for early adopters
- Add milestone planner linking project duration to burn rate
- Implement editable assumptions for taxes, insurance, and annual return rates
- Add downloadable summary report for personal decision-making
- Run usability tests with prospective indie developers and refine confusing outputs
- Launch landing page with example scenarios and subscription checkout
Differentiation
Why This Might Fail
Self-rebuttal — the most important trust signal
- 1Users may trust spreadsheets or advisors more than a new niche tool handling major life decisions
- 2The product may answer the core question in one session, leading to low recurring retention
- 3The initial audience may be too narrow unless the product expands to other creator careers
Evidence Summary
How AI synthesized this insight — no verbatim quotes
This opportunity is strongly supported by the discussion. The two most frequent themes were uncertainty about whether solo development can replace a stable income and the lack of a reliable way to model runway, withdrawals, taxes, benefits, and living costs. Users repeatedly performed manual calculations and compared multiple life paths rather than asking for game-making tools, indicating clear demand for decision-support software.
Action Plan
Validate this opportunity before writing code
Recommended Next Step
Build
Strong demand signals detected. Real pain, real willingness to pay — start building an MVP.
Landing Page Copy Kit
Ready-to-paste copy based on real Reddit community language — no editing required
Headline
Indie Dev Runway Planner
Sub-headline
A web app that helps aspiring indie game developers decide whether they can safely go full time, stay part time, or remain employed while building games. It combines savings, expenses, taxes, insurance, withdrawal assumptions, and project timelines into realistic runway scenarios.
Who It's For
For Solo and small-team game developers with savings, severance, or a windfall who are evaluating a transition from salaried work to full-time independent development.
Feature List
✓ Savings-to-runway calculator ✓ Scenario comparison for full-time vs part-time vs employed paths ✓ Expense modeling with taxes, insurance, and household size ✓ Milestone-linked burn tracking ✓ Conservative and optimistic forecast views
Where to Validate
Share your landing page in r/r/gamedev — that's exactly where these pain points were discovered.
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