In this week’s episode of the Niche Pursuits podcast, Denis Yurchak and I discuss how he turned Skype’s shutdown into Yadaphone, a fast-growing software business with more than 20,000 users and $17,500 in monthly revenue in a little over a year. We also talk about eSIMPal, his newer travel eSIM venture, which is already making about $2,000 per month.
What makes this interview stand out is the speed of execution. Denis spotted a gap, built quickly, stayed close to user feedback, and found traction through smart marketing, simple pricing, and a lean solo-founder approach.
Watch the Full Episode
How Denis Built the Foundation for Indie Products
Before Yadaphone, Denis had already spent years trying to build products that might stick. He had worked as a software engineer for 6 years. His degree was in international relations, not computer science, and he entered programming after realizing that his original field offered few job options.
That background matters because it shaped how he viewed software. He was less interested in being one small part of a large company and more interested in building something himself from scratch.
- He taught himself programming during a summer break.
- Before Yadaphone made money, he had built around 10 products that did not go far financially.
- Those earlier projects still taught him how to ship, post publicly, and handle feedback.
That part of the interview matters because Yadaphone didn’t come out of nowhere. It came after years of failed attempts, small lessons, and repeated reps.
How Denis Turned Skype’s Shutdown Into a Product Idea
The spark for Yadaphone came when Microsoft announced that Skype was being retired. Denis saw people complaining online, including Pieter Levels on X, and realized there was still a large group of people who depended on Skype for a simple reason. They needed to call banks, government offices, accountants, and other traditional numbers while living or traveling abroad.
That point is easy to miss if you only think of Skype as an old chat tool. For many people, it was still a low-friction way to make international calls from a laptop without dealing with subscriptions or telecom headaches.
- Denis had used Skype himself while traveling.
- He already had some experience with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.
- He built the first version of Yadaphone in a single weekend.
- His first posts on X got almost no traction because he didn’t have an audience there yet.
The first traction came from Reddit, not X. People found the product, bought credits, and gave him the kind of validation every founder remembers: live Stripe notifications from strangers paying for something he had just built.
How Early Validation Changed the Direction of the Business
One of the best parts of the interview was Denis describing what those first users did next. They didn’t just buy and disappear. Some of them sent suggestions, pointed out what was missing on the landing page, and treated the product like something they wanted to help improve.
That kind of response changed the energy of the business. Instead of polishing in private, Denis had proof that people would trust a one-person company if the product solved a painful enough problem.
- Denis reached out to buyers directly for feedback.
- In the first six months, he tried to contact everyone who had purchased credits.
- Pieter Levels later reposted Yadaphone, which led to about 200,000 impressions overnight.
That repost created a spike Denis could see in real time. He watched traffic jump from dozens to hundreds at once, and it gave him the push to keep fixing bugs, polishing the offer, and posting everywhere he could.
How Yadaphone’s Pricing Reduced Friction
Yadaphone’s pricing is one of the clearest examples in the episode of a founder paying attention to what people already liked about the old product they were losing. Instead of forcing customers into subscriptions, Denis kept the credit-based model that many former Skype users preferred.
That decision was especially smart because it lowered trust barriers. A customer doesn’t need to commit to a monthly plan to test a new company. They can just buy a small amount of credit and see if it works.
- Individual users can top up credits and use them whenever they want.
- Credits do not expire.
- Yadaphone offers a no-questions-asked refund policy.
- Enterprise accounts start at $100 and let teams share one central balance.
- The company does not charge per-seat fees for team members.
He charges a subscription for one extra feature: a phone number add-on. That gives users a US or Canadian number for incoming calls, SMS, and some OTP use cases. This adds another layer to the product without forcing the whole business into recurring pricing.
How Denis Used Listicles to Get High-Intent Traffic
The smartest growth tactic in the interview was Denis’s approach to old Skype listicles. Once Skype shut down, there were still countless blog posts ranking in Google for terms related to cheap international calling, online calling tools, and Skype alternatives.
Denis saw that as an opening. Those articles needed updating, and if he could convince site owners to replace Skype with Yadaphone, he could inherit highly targeted traffic from pages that already ranked.
- He searched for articles that still mentioned Skype.
- He found the author or content owner through email, LinkedIn, or X.
- He sent a short note pointing out that Skype had shut down.
- He explained why Yadaphone was a good replacement in one clear pitch.
This worked because it was helpful, not pushy. The site owner had a stale article, Denis had a relevant replacement, and both sides stood to gain from updating the page. The results were fast. Denis said that one strong article placement led to roughly 50 signups per day, which is massive for a solo founder.
- He saw direct traffic gains from updated listicles.
- He also got an SEO lift from those mentions and backlinks.
- He said the hard part wasn’t the traffic; it was the cold outreach and follow-up.
- Rejection rates were high, but one yes could be worth a lot.
He also shared a smart second step in that funnel. After people saw Yadaphone in a list, many would search for reviews, so he made sure Trustpilot looked credible. According to Denis, 10 to 15 strong reviews can go a long way toward helping people decide whether to trust a smaller software company.
How Enterprise Customers Changed the Revenue Mix
Yadaphone may have started as a product for travelers and solo users, but enterprise customers became a major part of the business. Denis said the company now has 30 enterprise customers, and those accounts generate around 30% to 40% of monthly revenue.
That is a meaningful split because it shows how a simple self-serve tool can also grow into a business product without losing its original appeal. A small company can use the same system as an individual, just with team access and shared credits.
- Some enterprise buyers came from Reddit.
- One early enterprise customer reached out within the first week of launch.
- Denis told him yes before the feature even existed.
- He then coded the organization logic overnight and demoed it the next morning.
That story says a lot about how Denis works. He is willing to sell into demand first, then build the feature quickly if the request makes sense and the customer value is there. Enterprise buyers do ask for more hand-holding up front. Denis said they want demos, live calls, and direct answers, even when the FAQ already covers the basics.
Still, once those companies are on board, they tend to stay. Over the course of a year, only one of Yadaphone’s 30 enterprise customers churned, and Denis said that one was due to unclear copy on the landing page, not a weak product.
How a Misunderstanding Led to eSIMPAL
The second business, eSIMPAL, came from an unexpected place. People kept landing on Yadaphone and asking for a travel eSIM, partly because the site copy wasn’t clear enough, and visitors thought it was part of the offer.
Instead of brushing that off, Denis treated it like a demand. He first looked into partnerships with existing eSIM providers, but the process was slow and expensive, so he chose to build his own product instead.
- eSIMPAL serves travelers who need mobile data abroad.
- Denis launched it into a market he already knew how to reach.
- He used the same audience overlap from Yadaphone to seed traction.
- He added a button on Yadaphone promoting the new service.
- Visitors coming from Yadaphone get a 10% discount.
That cross-sell made a lot of sense. Someone who needs a way to call internationally while traveling is often the same kind of customer who needs a travel eSIM.
The result is a second company already doing about $2,000 per month. It’s still smaller than Yadaphone, but it shows how one product can reveal adjacent demand when you pay close attention to user questions.
How Denis Runs Two Companies as a Solo Founder
Denis shared some of his best operating habits. His main point was simple: guard your time and mental space with real discipline.
He has chosen to keep things lean because he doesn’t want to become a people manager. That means his products need to be self-serve, his support has to stay under control, and repetitive tasks need to be automated.
- He builds products that help users solve simple issues on their own.
- He uses banners, help content, and product cues to reduce support load.
- He has an internal dashboard where AI drafts support replies for review.
- He said support usually takes less than 30 minutes a day, or about an hour on bad days.
- His rule is to automate a task once he has had to do it manually more than three times.
Denis said coders often default to building more features because that part feels comfortable, while distribution is the harder work. His own daily routine reflects that lesson. Marketing comes first, then support, then coding when needed.
Final Thoughts
This episode works so well because Denis didn’t just share a success story. He walked through the mechanics of why Yadaphone worked, from the weekend MVP to the credit-based pricing model, from replacing Skype in listicles to building enterprise features on short notice.
The numbers make the story compelling. In a little over a year, he grew Yadaphone to more than 20,000 users and $17,500 in monthly revenue, while also getting eSIMPAL to about $2,000 per month.
A few themes stayed with me after the interview:
- Look for markets where a large company leaves frustrated users behind.
- Keep the buying process simple when trust is still being built.
- Reach out directly when a stale article or ranking page creates an opening.
- Treat user confusion and feature requests as signals, not noise.
- Put distribution ahead of polishing for polishing’s sake.
Denis moves fast and goes deep, but there is substance behind every part of the story. For anyone building software, this episode delivers concrete lessons on finding demand, launching quickly, pricing simply, turning listicle outreach into growth, and using automation to keep a one-person business efficient.
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