Yesterday was a big milestone for Cushion. Roughly six months after officially launching, Cushion has reached 300 paying customers. I think it’s important to celebrate these milestones, however small, because like freelancing, running an app can be an emotional roller coaster. You might see a dozen new subscribers one week and a dozen cancellations the following week. When something good happens, it helps to bolster that feeling and keep the positive momentum going.

The main goal for Cushion has always been to reach a point where I no longer need client work support myself—the bootstrapper’s dream. I’ll still take freelance gigs because I believe it’s important to be a real user of your own app. You should feel the same pains as your users if an irritating bug or cumbersome workflow exists. Once you no longer use your own app, you need to rely on others to point out its hiccups, and most users aren’t that vocal—some might leave before writing an email. I digress.

With full-time as my primary target, the 300-customer milestone represents my halfway point. This alone is exciting because it means I might actually be able to pull this off. I originally built Cushion because I simply needed it. Enough of my friends shared the same need, so I decided to build it for others, too. Now that it has a chance to become my career, I’m even more determined to get there. Getting to 300 did take much longer than expected, but these past six months have taught me a lot. I know what I need to do to get to 600.