On this week’s episode of the Niche Pursuits podcast, Dennis Yurchak and I discuss how he turned Skype’s demise into Yadaphone, a fast-growing software business with over 20,000 users and $17,500 in monthly revenue in a little over a year. We also talk about their new travel eSIM venture eSIMpal, which is already earning nearly $2,000 per month.
What makes this interview stand out is the speed of execution. Dennis saw a gap, built fast, stayed close to user feedback, and found traction through smart marketing, simple pricing, and a single-founder approach.
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How Dennis created a foundation for indie products
Before Yadphone, Dennis spent years trying to create products that would last. He worked as a software engineer for 6 years. His degree was in international relations, not computer science, and he entered programming after realizing that there were few job options available in his native field.
That background matters because it determines how he approaches the software. He was less interested in being a small part of a larger company and more interested in building something himself from the ground up.
- He taught himself programming during summer vacation.
- Before Yadaphone made money, it had created about 10 products that didn’t go far financially.
- Those earlier projects still taught her how to ship, post publicly, and handle feedback.
That part of the interview matters because Yadaphone came out of nowhere. This came after years of failed attempts, short lessons, and repetition.
How Dennis turned Skype’s shutdown into a product idea
The spark for Yadaphone came when Microsoft announced that Skype was being discontinued. Dennis saw people complaining online, including Peter Levels on X, and realized that there was still a large group of people who depended on Skype for one simple reason. When living or traveling abroad they were required to call banks, government offices, accountants and other traditional numbers.
It’s easy to miss that point if you think of Skype as just an old chat tool. For many people, it was still a low-friction way to make international calls from a laptop without having to deal with subscriptions or telecom headaches.
- Dennis himself used Skype during the trip.
- He already had some experience with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.
- He created the first version of YadaPhone in a single weekend.
- His first post on X got almost no traction because he had no audience there yet.
The first highlight 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 who were paying for something he’d just built.
How did initial validation change the direction of the business?
One of the best parts of the interview was when Dennis explained 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 in a way they wanted to help improve.
That kind of feedback changed the energy of the business. Instead of polishing it privately, Dennis had proof that people would trust a one-man company if the product solved a painful problem.
- Dennis reached out directly to buyers for feedback.
- In the first six months, he tried to contact everyone who had purchased credit.
- Peter Levels later reposted the post to Yadaphone, gaining almost 200,000 impressions overnight.
That repost created a spike that Dennis could see in real time. They saw traffic grow from dozens to hundreds at once, and this inspired them to fix bugs, improve the offer, and post it everywhere.
How Yadaphone’s price reduced friction
Yadaphone’s price is one of the clearest examples in a line of a founder paying attention to what people already love about an old product they’re losing. Instead of forcing customers to subscribe, Dennis kept the credit-based model that many former Skype users preferred.
That decision was particularly smart because it lowered the barriers to trust. A customer doesn’t need to commit to a monthly plan to test out a new company. They can simply buy a small amount of credits 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 a central balance.
- The company does not charge team members per seat.
He charges a subscription fee for an additional feature: a phone number add-on. This 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 entire business into recurring pricing.
How Dennis Used Listicles to Get High-Intent Traffic
The smartest growth strategy in the interview was Dennis’ approach to the old Skype list. Even once Skype was shut down, there were still countless blog posts ranking in Google for terms related to cheap international calling, online calling tools, and Skype alternatives.
Dennis saw this as a start. Those articles needed updating, and if he could convince site owners to replace Skype with Yadaphone, he could get highly targeted traffic from already ranked pages.
- He searched for articles that still mentioned Skype.
- He found the author or content owner through email, LinkedIn or X.
- He sent a brief note informing him that Skype had shut down.
- He explained why the Yadaphone was a good replacement in a clear pitch.
It worked because it was supportive, not pushy. The site owner had an outdated article, Dennis had a relevant replacement, and updating the page benefited both parties. The results were fast. Dennis said that a strong article placement leads to about 50 signups per day, which is a huge deal for a single founder.
- They saw direct traffic gains from the updated listings.
- They also got an SEO lift from those mentions and backlinks.
- He said the hard part wasn’t the traffic; It was cold outreach and follow-up.
- The rejection rate was high, but the value of a yes could be very high.
They also shared a smart second step in that funnel. After people see Yadaphone listed, many will look for reviews, so they made sure Trustpilot looked trustworthy. According to Dennis, 10 to 15 strong reviews can go a long way in helping people decide whether they should trust a small software company or not.
How enterprise customers changed the revenue mix
Yadaphone may have started as a product for travelers and single users, but enterprise customers became a major part of the business. Dennis said the company now has 30 enterprise customers, and those accounts generate about 30% to 40% of monthly revenue.
This is a meaningful segmentation because it shows how even a simple self-service tool can evolve into a commercial product without losing its original appeal. A small company can use the same system as an individual, only with team access and shared credits.
- Some venture buyers came from Reddit.
- An early enterprise customer arrived within the first week of launch.
- Dennis said yes to the feature before it even existed.
- They then coded the organization logic overnight and demonstrated it the next morning.
That story says a lot about how Dennis works. He is willing to sell according to demand first, then quickly build the feature if the request makes sense and customer value is present. Enterprise buyers demand more help from up front. Dennis said they want demos, live calls, and straight answers, even though the FAQ already covers the basics.
Yet, once those companies get on board, they tend to stay. Over the course of a year, only one in 30 Yadaphone enterprise customers churned, and Dennis said that 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 coming to 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 ignoring it, Dennis treated it like a demand. They first looked at partnering with existing eSIM providers, but the process was slow and expensive, so they opted to create their own product instead.
- eSIMPAL serves travelers who require mobile data abroad.
- Dennis launched it into a market he already knew how to reach.
- They used similar audience overlap from Yadaphone to seed traction.
- They added a button on Yadaphone to promote the new service.
- Visitors to Yadaphone get a 10% discount.
That cross-sell meant a lot. The person who needs a way to call internationally while traveling is often the same type of customer who needs a travel eSIM.
The result is that the second company is already making about $2,000 per month. It’s still smaller than Yadaphone, but it shows how a product can reveal imminent demand when you pay close attention to user questions.
How Dennis Runs Two Companies as a Single Founder
Dennis shares some of his best operating habits. His main point was simple: Protect your time and mental space with real discipline.
He has chosen to keep things limited because he doesn’t want to be a manager of people. This means its products need to be self-service, its support needs to be under control, and repetitive tasks need to be automated.
- He creates products that help users solve simple problems on their own.
- He uses banners, support materials, and product prompts to reduce the support load.
- They have an internal dashboard where AI supports replies for draft review.
- He said the help usually takes less than 30 minutes a day, or about an hour on bad days.
- Their rule of thumb is that automating a task once is worth doing it manually three times.
Dennis said that coders often default to building more features because that part feels comfortable, while delivery is the hard work. His own daily routine reflects that lesson. Marketing comes first, then support, then coding if needed.
final thoughts
This episode works so well because Dennis didn’t just share one success story. He went into detail about why Yadaphone works, from the weekend MVP to the credit-based pricing model, from turning Skype into listicles to building enterprise features on short notice.
The numbers make the story compelling. In a little more than a year, he grew Yadaphone to over 20,000 users and $17,500 in monthly revenue, while eSIMPAL brought in about $2,000 per month.
A few themes stayed with me after the interview:
- Look for markets where a big company leaves behind frustrated users.
- Keep the purchasing process simple while trust is still being built.
- Contact directly when an old article or ranking page opens.
- Treat user confusion and feature requests as signals, not noise.
- Keep the distribution for polishing before polishing.
Dennis moves fast and goes deep, but there is substance behind every part of the story. For anyone building software, this episode delivers solid lessons on sensing demand, launching quickly, pricing simply, turning list outreach into growth, and using automation to keep a one-person business efficient.
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