Damon Chen

Founder of Testimonial and owner of PDF.ai^{Source [2]}^{Source [7]}

SaaSBootstrappingBuilding in publicSocial proofAI tools

Unclaimed profileLast verified Oct 2, 2026

About

Damon Chen is a software engineer turned bootstrapped founder, best known for Testimonial (testimonial.to), a tool businesses use to collect and display customer testimonials, and for PDF.ai, an AI document tool he bought and rebranded in 2023. He shares his revenue and lessons in public on X, where he posts as @damonchen.^{Source [2]}^{Source [3]}^{Source [1]}

Before founding companies he spent eight years as a software engineer at Cisco, working mainly on Linux kernel and operating system code in C and C++. He joined the Indie Hackers community at the end of 2019 and began building side projects in April 2020 after the pandemic moved his work home, teaching himself React, Node and Stripe along the way.^{Source [4]}^{Source [1]}

In 2020 he shipped five apps, mostly during six months of unpaid leave from Cisco. The first four, IndieLog, Howdy, Influenswer and Backlogs, earned a combined $1.99. The fifth, Testimonial, launched in December 2020 and made $3,025 in its first 10 days. He left Cisco in 2021 after promising his wife he would return to a tech job if he could not reach $100K ARR within a year.^{Source [5]}^{Source [1]}^{Source [6]}

By November 2023 he reported about $1.3M in combined ARR, roughly $800K from Testimonial and $500K from PDF.ai; these figures are self-reported and not verified by a public dashboard. He has also built smaller products including embed.so and channel.so, acquired Supportman from indie hacker Noah Bragg, and lists further projects such as PDFgen, QuickyAI, Docsium, VividShare and StreetInterview.ai on his portfolio site.^{Source [1]}^{Source [3]}^{Source [7]}

Watch

My Story--Damon Chen by Damon Chen on YouTube

Career

2020 to now

2020

2020

2020

2020

2023 to now

Company	Years	Role	Status
PDF.ai Bought the Looseleaf.ai weekend project for $20,000 in May 2023 and rebranded it as PDF.ai, an AI tool to chat with PDFs.^{Source [8]}^{Source [9]} Monetized the product with a $99 lifetime deal that drew 300+ buyers and funded a full-time engineer.^{Source [8]} Reported $35K in revenue within about a month of buying it (self-reported).^{Source [9]} Reported $500K+ ARR by November 2023 (self-reported).^{Source [1]} Suggest a correction to PDF.ai	2023 to now	Owner (acquirer)^{Source [8]}^{Source [9]}	Active
Testimonial Built and launched Testimonial in December 2020, a tool for collecting and displaying customer video and text testimonials, and grew it without outside funding.^{Source [3]}^{Source [6]}^{Source [1]} Launched on Product Hunt with a $199 lifetime deal and made $3,025 in the first 10 days.^{Source [5]}^{Source [1]} Ran the business alone until about $400K ARR before hiring a first employee.^{Source [1]} Paid $35,000 for the testimonial.io domain after customers repeatedly mistyped the brand.^{Source [10]}^{Source [1]} Reported $800K+ ARR in November 2023 (self-reported).^{Source [1]} Suggest a correction to Testimonial	2020 to now	Founder^{Source [3]}^{Source [6]}	Active
Backlogs Built a customer feedback, public roadmap and changelog tool as a 2020 side project; he reported it made $1.99.^{Source [5]}^{Source [11]} Suggest a correction to Backlogs	2020	Founder^{Source [5]}	Status unknown
Influenswer Built a paid question and answer platform for influencers in 2020; he reported it made $0.^{Source [5]}^{Source [12]} Suggest a correction to Influenswer	2020	Founder^{Source [5]}	Status unknown
Howdy Built a map-based profile directory in 2020; he reported it made $0.^{Source [5]}^{Source [13]} Suggest a correction to Howdy	2020	Founder^{Source [5]}	Status unknown
IndieLog Started his indie career with IndieLog, a video community for makers to vlog their journey, later reusing much of its code for Testimonial.^{Source [1]}^{Source [10]} Suggest a correction to IndieLog	2020	Founder^{Source [5]}^{Source [1]}	Status unknown

Milestones

2023-11Reports about $1.3M combined ARR across Testimonial and PDF.ai (self-reported).^{Source [1]}
2023-05Buys Looseleaf.ai for $20,000 and rebrands it as PDF.ai.^{Source [8]}^{Source [9]}
2022-04Testimonial reaches $13K MRR; he has also acquired Supportman from Noah Bragg.^{Source [3]}
2022Buys the testimonial.io domain for $35,000.^{Source [10]}^{Source [1]}
2021-05Testimonial reaches $2,258 MRR with 81 subscribers.^{Source [4]}
2021Leaves Cisco after eight years to run Testimonial full time.^{Source [4]}^{Source [10]}
2020-12Launches Testimonial on Product Hunt; $3,025 in 10 days.^{Source [5]}^{Source [6]}
2020Ships IndieLog, Howdy, Influenswer and Backlogs; together they earn $1.99.^{Source [5]}
2020-04Starts building side projects in public after the pandemic moves his job home.^{Source [4]}

Links

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Sources

Damon Chen: From Engineer to Indie Hacker Making $1,300,000 ARR, Creator Economy (Peter Yang), 2023-11-29. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
X profile @damonchen (via fxtwitter API), X. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Bootstrapping Testimonial to $13k MRR after many failed products (E54), Indie Bites podcast, 2022-04-19. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
One year of indie hacking, I've learned a lot!, Testimonial blog (Damon Chen), 2021-05-02. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
I shipped all these apps in 2020 (post by Damon Chen), X, 2020-12-31. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
How to turn a failed product into a successful SaaS: Testimonial, The Successful Projects, 2024-03-01. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Damon Chen | Build my own portfolio, damon.build (personal site). Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
PDF.ai Founder Interview, SaaS Starter Stack. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Early last month, I bought pdf.ai for $20k (post by Damon Chen), X, 2023-06-05. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
From 4 failures to $1 million+ bootstrapped SaaS startup: The story of how Damon Chen turned failure into fuel for business success, Tech Startups, 2023-11-03. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Backlogs: Make customers part of your journey (archived 2020-09-20), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, 2020-09-20. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Influenswer: Get paid to answer your followers, Influenswer. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.
Howdy: Add Your Profile In One pin (archived 2020-10-29), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, 2020-10-29. Accessed Oct 2, 2026.

History

Oct 2, 2026: Profile created from public sources (Founded editors)

Compiled by Founded editors from the cited public sources. Editorial policy / Request removal