How Rik Schennink Grew Pintura to $50K/month by Focusing on His "Why"

Table of Contents

• 🏃‍♂️ From Agency Work to Indie Hacking

• 📸 What is Pintura?

• 🔑 Standing Out in a Saturated Market

• 🧠 AI: A Double-Edged Sword

• 📈 Growing Pintura: Awareness and SEO

• 🛠️ Keep Building, Keep Finishing

• 💬 Final Thoughts

It’s not often you hear about a web-based tool competing directly with native apps. But that’s exactly what Rik Schennink did with Pintura—a web-based image editor that now pulls in $50,000 a month. Rik’s journey shows that focusing on your mission, rather than the competition, can lead to huge success.

Here’s how he transitioned from a full-time job to running a profitable business in a crowded market.

🏃‍♂️ From Agency Work to Indie Hacking

Before launching Pintura, Rik was a full-time front-end developer. The corporate world wasn’t moving fast enough for him, and he wanted to try things his way. He made his first attempt at indie hacking by developing an iOS game, which took two years and was a bit too risky.

His turning point came when he discovered the Envato Market, where he started selling web components in his free time. Eventually, he honed in on image editing and uploading tools—and in 2018, he left Envato and launched Pintura on his own platform.

Rik’s gradual shift from full-time to indie hacking is a lesson in patience. He slowly reduced his work hours from 40 to 32 hours a week, freelancing to pay the bills until Pintura hit $5K/month. It took three years to reach that point, but once he did, Rik was able to quit client work and go all in.

📸 What is Pintura?

Pintura is a web-based image editor that Rik launched in November 2018. Unlike traditional software licenses, Pintura offers subscription-based pricing for a more stable income stream. The subscription allows customers to lock in their pricing while keeping access to all releases up until their subscription expires.

Today, Pintura brings in $40K to $50K per month. Rik has also built spin-off products like CropGuide, and other fun side projects like BananaBin—a MacOS app that adds flies to your bin if it’s been full for too long. These products are all independent of his main company, PQINA, which houses all his other tools.

🔑 Standing Out in a Saturated Market

Image editing is a crowded market, but Rik didn’t let that faze him. Instead, he focused on his core mission—to prove that the web can rival native apps in terms of user experience. Inspired by Simon Sinek’s "Start With Why", Rik’s driving purpose is to show that web technology can be just as powerful as native solutions.

Rather than focusing on the competition, which only made him anxious, Rik stayed laser-focused on building an incredibly smooth user experience. This is how Pintura stands out in a market full of competitors.

🧠 AI: A Double-Edged Sword

While AI is making its way into every aspect of development, Rik warns against using it to write all of your code. In his experience, writing code yourself gives you a deeper understanding of the work.

Rik uses AI to get ideas for directions, but he doesn’t rely on it to generate his code. “If you didn’t write it yourself, you’re going to struggle,” he says. For him, this keeps the development process meaningful and grounded.

📈 Growing Pintura: Awareness and SEO

Launching a product like Pintura isn’t just about making sales—it’s about creating awareness. Rik first launched Pintura on Product Hunt, where it was named the #2 Product of the Week. His launch tweet generated 300K impressions and 30K people watched his promotional video. But despite all the attention, it led to just two subscriptions.

To keep the momentum going, Rik leaned on another product he’d already built: FilePond, a free tool for uploading files. He set up demos and linked Pintura GIFs on the FilePond GitHub repository, making it easy for developers to discover and integrate Pintura.

This strategy worked. Now, about one in three customers comes from FilePond. Rik also launched free tools like edit.photo and redact.photo, which generate additional traffic for Pintura and help him carve out his own niche on the internet.

🛠️ Keep Building, Keep Finishing

Rik’s final piece of advice: Finish something. Too many indie hackers build products but never get around to launching them. Rik points to BananaBin, a fun project that just adds flies to a full trash bin on MacOS. Despite its simplicity, it’s actually generating income.

Pintura is never truly finished, and Rik plans to keep working on it as long as he enjoys it. His kids are in school, so why not?

Follow Rik’s journey on X and keep up with his latest projects on the PQINA blog. And of course, be sure to check out Pintura.

💬 Final Thoughts

Rik’s story is a perfect example of how focusing on your mission can differentiate you from the competition, even in a crowded market. By honing in on his "Why" and making user experience his top priority, Rik built a product that not only stands out but also thrives in a space full of alternatives.

His journey also shows the importance of incremental progress. It took years for Pintura to hit $5K/month, but Rik’s steady, measured approach paid off. Whether you’re using AI in your code or building awareness through complementary tools, the key is to keep going—and finish what you start.

What do you think about Rik’s approach? Have you faced any similar challenges in your own projects? Let me know!

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Cheers,

Matt