The number

There are two numbers. The first one is £10k a month.

Recurring. Zero employees. Whatever margin sits after the SaaS, the hosting, the gear, and the tax is mine. At 25% net that funds the life I want, the half marathon habit, the family runway, and the year of pure shipping that comes after. That's income sovereignty, the first pillar. Enough to drop the safety net.

The second number is £40k a month, around $50k, by the time I'm 30. The first one buys freedom. The second one compounds it into something I can never be talked out of. This post is about the first number, because you don't get to the second one without it.

Today I'm at £2.25k. The gap to the first number is £7.75k. That's the one I'm chasing now.

The levers I'll pull, ranked by what closes the most gap per hour:

1. Sign two more digital retainers. The pattern is proven on the Flosumo case studies. Two more closes roughly a third of the gap on its own. Outreach is one or two cold conversations a week to specific trades and operators.

2. Ship Overseer in Q3. If the waitlist converts at 20% at the average tier price (£85 blended), 200 buyers is £17k in launch revenue. Even at 10% that's two months of the £7.75k gap covered.

3. Lock in one or two more coaching clients. Two new in-person slots inside the published rate card. Inbound from content rather than cold outreach. The existing client outcomes do the selling without naming the clients.

4. £250 audits, two per month. Low-friction door opener. Half of audits convert to bigger builds. Adds a small baseline plus pipeline.

5. Time:Stamps growth. Small contributor at £8 to £16 per subscriber. Won't move much on its own. Small bonus, low priority.

Add the levers up and the gap closes by October if every one lands. They won't all land. That's fine. The point is the maths sit somewhere I see every week.

Why put it on the internet. Two reasons.

First, a public number is harder to bullshit yourself out of than a private one. I've set this goal in journals four times in two years. Every time it drifted. Writing it on a URL with a real deadline means past Sam can read present Sam in six months and ask exactly what happened.

Second, this is the deal I'm offering anyone who reads the log. You watch me try to hit a specific number, with specific levers, in seven months. You see what worked. You see what failed. You see the maths weekly. If you're trying to reach your own number, that data beats a generic indie hacker case study from someone whose business looks nothing like yours.

If I hit the number, that's a proof point worth a thousand "follow your passion" posts.

If I miss, that's also a proof point. Just a different one. Subscribe to Becoming Sovereign if you want the weekly numbers.