AI Tools Stories

How Tony Dinh Built TypingMind: From Weekend Hack to $500K Indie SaaS

TypingMind began as Tony Dinh’s weekend experiment to fix ChatGPT’s missing search and folder features. Built in one day after the API release, it went viral through his build-in-public updates, reaching $10K revenue in 10 days and $500K within a year. Tony applied lessons from past indie projects — shipping fast, clear UI, and direct customer billing — while avoiding platform risk seen in his earlier Twitter tool. The result: a sustainable indie SaaS proving that speed, focus, and transparency can outperform scale.