I built MYI because a friend needed it.
I built it because I watched a friend spend two years making a genuinely good game and have no idea how to launch it.
His game is called Iris Dissolution. It's a retro survival horror, the kind of project that takes everything you have. Juani built it alone, learning as he went, putting real craft into every system and every scene.
When it came time to think about launching, the same thing happened that happens to every indie dev: the game was ready, but the business side wasn't. No system for tracking wishlists, no framework for press outreach, no understanding of what Steam Next Fest actually required, no way to know if the revenue projections made any sense.
So I started building tools to help him. A tracker here, a spreadsheet there. Then I realized the problem wasn't specific to Juani. It was structural. The indie dev ecosystem has world-class tools for making games and almost nothing for launching them as businesses.
Every studio has a marketing team, every publisher has a financial model, every legal department has templates for contracts and EULAs. The solodev has none of that. They have a game, a Steam page, and a lot of hope.
MarketYourIndie exists to close that gap. Not as a consulting service or a course or a newsletter, but as a system. Something you can open on Monday morning, load your Steamworks data into, and walk away knowing exactly where you stand and what to do next.
Iris Dissolution is still in development. This platform exists so that when it launches (and it will) Juani has the same clarity that a funded studio would have, and so does every other dev building something worth playing.
The timing worries me more than the product: indie devs are broke for the two years they need this and flush for about a month after launch, which is the worst possible shape for a subscription. I would price against the launch event itself, or sell to devs who already have wishlist momentum, since a wishlist count is the closest thing to proof they will actually ship and spend. Also, Iris Dissolution launching well is worth more than any feature you could build this quarter, because "I took this game from zero to X wishlists" is the only credential this audience trusts.
You're describing the exact tension I keep running into. The cash-flow shape of an indie dev is inverted from what a subscription wants: broke while building, flush for a month post-launch, then back to broke.
Two things I'm doing about it. First, the qualifying signal is wishlists, same as you say. Someone with real wishlist momentum has already proven they'll ship and that they have a launch worth managing. Someone at 40 wishlists 18 months out doesn't need a dashboard, they need to make a better game. So the top of funnel is deliberately aimed at devs who are 3 to 9 months from launch, not day-one hobbyists.
You're right about Iris Dissolution being worth more than any feature. I know it and it's uncomfortable, because I control the roadmap and I don't control the launch. Best I can do is make sure the tool is actually driving the decisions there, so whatever the number ends up being, it's a real case study and not a logo.
good games
The bit about building it from helping one friend launch Iris Dissolution instead of starting with a business idea made this feel a lot more grounded. You can tell the tools came from actual problems not guesses.
It also feels like this could be getting a lot more organic traffic than it probably is right now. Since you're still shaping it around real indie dev workflows that would be a pretty valuable place to be.
Have you had that same thought yourself?
Yes, and it's the one thing I've actively bet on.
The reasoning was: this audience asks very specific questions ("what should I price my game at", "how many wishlists do I need", "do I need an LLC to publish on Steam") and the existing answers are a decade of scattered forum posts and blog articles with no data behind them. That's a gap you can fill with actual numbers instead of opinions, which is also the only kind of content I can write honestly, because I have the data pipeline anyway.
So I built a guides section that runs off the same comparables data the product uses, with sources cited inline. It doubles as proof the tool knows what it's talking about.
What would you recommend specifically to improve organic traffic?
I like the direction you're taking. From what you've shared, I can already see a few opportunities around search intent, topical coverage, and how some of those data-backed guides could bring in much more qualified traffic over time.
Rather than dumping a long comment here, feel free to reach out at mumar [at] growwithmumar [dot] online and I'd be happy to share a few ideas. No pitch—just some observations after reading your post and reply.
The jump from helping Juani manually to deciding the problem was structural is the interesting part.
What did you see beyond his situation that convinced you indie devs need a system for the business side, rather than better guidance at a few specific launch moments?
What convinced me was that every single thing I did for Juani manually was a thing he could have done himself if he'd known it existed, and none of it was hard. It wasn't a skill gap, it was a "nobody told me this was part of the job" gap.
Concretely: he had no idea what price to set, so he was going to guess based on two games he liked.
Those aren't launch-moment problems. They're the same problems every indie dev hits, in the same order, with the same wrong defaults, and the guidance for them is scattered across forum posts, Steamworks docs, and lawyer blogs. That repetition is what made it feel structural rather than personal. Better guidance at a few key moments helps someone who already knows the questions to ask. The devs I'm building for don't know the questions exist, so the tool has to surface them.
Whether that justifies a system versus a very good checklist is a fair challenge, and honestly the checklist version is what I'd have shipped if the data side hadn't turned out to be the hard part.
Appreciate you taking the time to unpack that.
I'd like to continue this conversation outside the thread. What's the best email to reach you on?
Hi Aryan, you can reach me in X: @jprusso0
Thanks Juan. I appreciate it.
I don’t use X for these conversations, but I’d be happy to continue over email. What’s the best email to reach you on?
Hi! You can email me to juanpirusso1@gmail.com
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.