Tallylark
Invoice reminders for consultants — no accounting software
It's been a while, so here's the real state of things rather than a polished highlight reel:
Product: MVP is live and working end-to-end at app.tallylark.com — auth (email + Google SSO), client/invoice management, a 4-stage automated reminder engine, Stripe payment links and subscription billing, all tested and deployed.
Positioning: Did a full firsthand competitor audit, actually signed up for trials of Chaser, Paidnice, FreshBooks and Wave instead of trusting review sites. Found some genuinely surprising things: Chaser's real pricing is $2,148–9,708/year (not the ~$40/mo I'd been assuming), and Wave flat-out refuses to onboard any business outside the US/Canada. That research reshaped the whole pitch, Tallylark is now positioned specifically as "the invoice reminder tool for consultants who bill through Google Docs, PayPal, and bank transfer, not just Xero," since every competitor requires adopting accounting software before they'll send a single reminder.
Real validation: Talked to someone in my personal network (a self-employed gardener, not even my target ICP) who currently pays someone else to handle his invoicing because he hates it. Price point confirmed as fair and he gave genuinely useful feature feedback (line items, saved templates, more payment methods) that's now actually on the near-term roadmap instead of just a maybe.
Distribution: Given some real personal constraints (can't do personal outreach or post on my personal LinkedIn), I leaned into a Company Page instead and I'm regularly posting content on a weekly basis. Xero App Store integration is next up as the highest-leverage distribution bet, since it needs zero personal outreach at all.
Happy to answer anything about the stack, the pivot, or the audit if it's useful to anyone else validating something similar.
Started working on Tallylark this month after getting fed up chasing late invoices.
The problem: freelancers lose around 102 hours/year chasing overdue payments. Every tool I found costs $49/mo+ and is built for finance teams, not solo operators sending 10-15 invoices a month.
What I've done so far:
Landing page live at tallylark.com
Waitlist running with referral system and welcome emails
Posting in freelance communities to validate demand before writing a line of product code
Current waitlist: 2 signups
Go/no-go threshold: 30 signups or 5 people saying "I'd pay for this today"
Not building until that's hit. Following the validation-first approach.
Day 3 update:
Now live on Product Hunt too: producthunt.com/products/tallylark
5 PH followers
Still validating. Carrying on.
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Smart to validate first before building. Once you hit that 30 signup threshold, the product side can move fast what’s your timeline looking like?
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Thanks! Timeline is intentionally loose, I'd rather get the signal right than rush to build. Realistically if I hit the threshold in the next 2-3 weeks, I'd aim to have a working MVP within 4-6 weeks after that.
Curious what your experience has been, did you validate before building or build first?
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As a freelancer myself, anything that helps us reduce the cost of late payments is going to be useful to someone.
If it helps, I've just run your landing page through an app I've made called Ferguson, here's what it said as the main fix:
"The single most important fix is adding a post-submit confirmation — right now, clicking 'Join the waitlist' produces no visible signal of what happens next. A one-line note ('You'll get one email when we launch — nothing else') would immediately reduce the hesitation that comes from not knowing what you've signed up for, and it costs nothing to add."
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Really useful! That's a free fix. Adding "You'll get one email when we launch, nothing else" to the success state today. Appreciate you running it through your app Ferguson, hadn't thought about the post-submit ambiguity. Appreciate it :)
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I like that you've made the validation threshold explicit.
The part I'd be most curious about is what would convince you the problem is real but the current positioning isn't.
Those can look very similar early on, but they lead to completely different next steps.
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That's exactly the right question to be asking and honestly one I'm sitting with too.
My current signal for "problem is real but positioning isn't" would be: people engaging with the pain in threads ("yes I hate chasing invoices") but not clicking through to the landing page, or landing but not signing up. High engagement, low conversion.
Signal for "positioning is working": people signing up and selecting a paid tier on the waitlist form (which captures plan interest), or explicitly saying "I'd pay for this."
Currently too early to distinguish, 2 signups, minimal traffic. But that's exactly why I'm here asking rather than building. What would you look for? Appreciate your feedback! :)
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Happy to share.
What's the best email to reach you on? I think it'll be easier to explain properly there than in a thread.
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hello[a]tallylark.com really appreciate you taking the time, looking forward to it.
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Sent over the fuller thought by email.
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