In the eyes of many, entrepreneurship is synonymous with a "big product," a "disruptive idea," and a high-stakes gamble where you go all in. But Sorin Alupoaie took a completely different path.

Instead of betting on a single "unicorn" or trying to reinvent the wheel, he focused on a specific ecosystem and built a portfolio of small, precise SaaS tools. Today, this collection—known as Swifteq—generates a steady monthly recurring revenue of approximately €44,000. This is not a story of luck, but a methodology that any independent developer can deconstruct and replicate.

Sorin is a classic engineer-turned-founder. Before launching Swifteq, he spent years in Web and SaaS development, experiencing his fair share of failed projects. Those failures taught him three vital lessons: deliver faster, talk to users more, and never fall in love with a wrong idea.

In 2020, he officially launched Swifteq as a solo founder with a clear mission: to build efficiency tools for customer support teams within the Zendesk ecosystem. For Sorin, this path was about more than just money. He sought independence, a way to keep learning in a live market, and the satisfaction of seeing his work directly improve someone else's workday.

Choosing to bootstrap meant sacrificing aggressive growth speed, but it gained him something more valuable: total control over his decisions and a significantly higher quality of life.

The first product in the Swifteq portfolio wasn't born from a sudden spark of genius. Instead, Sorin spent his time where his potential users lived. He immersed himself in the Zendesk official community and third-party groups like Support Driven. He wasn't looking for vague complaints; he was looking for patterns.

He soon discovered a recurring frustration: customers often created multiple duplicate tickets, forcing support agents to spend hours manually merging them. While other tools existed, they were either clunky or overpriced. Sorin’s answer was a simple, rule-based tool to automate the process.

This became "Merge Duplicate Tickets," Swifteq’s first paid product. His strategy was lean: keep the features minimal, launch as fast as possible, and iterate based on real-world feedback. This "Listen, Build, Test, Repeat" cycle became the DNA of every product that followed.

As the first tool gained traction, Sorin resisted the urge to build a "one-size-fits-all" platform. Instead, he continued to solve specific problems within the same ecosystem. Swifteq grew into a matrix of Zendesk apps, including translation tools for help centers, an agent copilot, and various automation utilities.

Today, these tools contribute to a stable monthly revenue of €44,000. The growth hasn't always been linear, but the trend is consistently upward. By building a portfolio, Sorin created a more resilient model; if one product faced a downturn, the others provided a safety net.

However, relying on a major platform like Zendesk comes with inherent risks. Whenever the platform introduces native features that overlap with third-party apps, those apps can be marginalized overnight. Sorin once lost about €2,000 in monthly revenue when this happened.

To manage this "platform risk," he avoids over-dependence on any single tool and stays hyper-aware of new trends and gaps in the market. He has also begun exploring independent SaaS ideas that sit outside of any specific ecosystem to ensure long-term certainty.

From a technical standpoint, his requirements are simple: high delivery speed and low maintenance. He uses a familiar stack—React for the frontend, Node.js and MongoDB for the API, and Python with Flask for backend processing. There is no technical vanity here; everything is designed for sustainability.

Swifteq’s growth has been slow but steady, driven by deep community involvement rather than aggressive ad spend. By showing up as a helpful expert rather than a pushy salesman, Sorin built trust. He also uses free plugins in the marketplace as a natural funnel to his paid products.

Reflecting on his journey, Sorin offers a few pieces of advice for solo developers. First, distribution is more important than code. Second, hire earlier than you think you need to; you need time to think about growth, not just write lines of code. Third, don't be afraid of high pricing, as low prices often attract low-commitment users.

Finally, protect your energy. For a solo founder, the only true failure is burning out and giving up.

The Swifteq story proves that in the world of global entrepreneurship, a focus on precision, restraint, and long-term accumulation can produce beautiful results. If you are considering a micro-SaaS or a product matrix model, this is a highly realistic—and often underrated—path to success.

How much of your current project is focused on the code versus the distribution? Would you be willing to trade 100% of a single product for a diverse portfolio of smaller wins?