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Every product has an origin story. Imejis.io didn’t start with “I want to build a design tool” or “Let’s build a SaaS.”

It started with something much smaller… A quirky little idea called Header Builder.

A year ago, I built a tiny tool for fun — a Twitter header scheduler. You could upload a header image, pick a time, and it would automatically update your Twitter profile.

The tool was simple. Too simple.

People wanted more than just uploading and scheduling. They wanted something dynamic.

And so did I.

I kept thinking:

“What if the header could change based on real data?”

Ideas started coming fast:

• Show latest 3 followers on your header in real-time
• Display your book’s live sales count on your header
• Auto-generate a daily inspirational quote banner
• Update a progress bar for goals every hour
• Show newsletter subscriber growth

It wasn’t just a header anymore. It needed to be dynamic images generated from an API.

That tiny idea changed everything.

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While trying to build these dynamic headers, I hit a wall.

There was no lightweight tool that:

• let me visually design the template
• supported dynamic variables
• generated images via API
• was simple, fast, and automation-friendly

Everything out there was too heavy, too slow, or too restrictive.

So I said: “Fine, I’ll build it myself.”

And that’s where Imejis.io began.

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Imejis.io didn’t come from a sprint or a hackathon. It came from necessity.

I needed:

• a simple editor
• a way to add text, images, shapes
• an API to replace variables
• an export engine
• a stable UI
• predictable templates
• something fast enough to run automation on

So I built the first version. Then rebuilt it. Then fixed it. Then rebuilt again. (The indie hacker loop.)

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This wasn’t a full-time project. Far from it.

For 6 months, I was juggling:

• client projects
• other product experiments
• part-time consulting
• inconsistent schedule
• exhausting days
• late-night coding sessions
• debugging on weekends
• context switching nonstop

Progress was slow. Some weeks I shipped nothing. Some weeks I built an entire feature in two nights.

But I kept going — one commit at a time.

That’s the reality of indie hacking: No rush, no deadlines, just steady progress whenever life allows.

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Slowly, the core building blocks appeared:

• The editor started feeling fast
• Templates became predictable
• Shapes, text, and layers behaved correctly
• The API started generating images reliably
• Public pages made sharing easier
• Zapier automations finally worked
• Users tested it and gave feedback
• The tool felt “real” for the first time

That’s when I realized: I wasn’t building a header tool anymore.

I was building a design automation platform.

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It’s funny to think about it now:

I didn’t plan to create a design SaaS. I didn’t plan to enter the “image generation” space. I didn’t even plan to build a full editor.

I just wanted a way to dynamically update a Twitter header.

That tiny idea became a prototype. The prototype became a tool. The tool became a platform. And the platform became Imejis.io.

That’s indie hacking — small ideas becoming big projects without you noticing.

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Imejis.io is still evolving. Still scrappy. Still improving. Still very much an indie hacker product.

But now it’s something people actually use:

• to create images faster
• to power automations
• to run daily workflows
• to share editable templates
• to generate content at scale

And the journey continues.

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If you want, I can continue this story in Part 2 — how I built the editor, how I handled scaling, or how I approached product decisions as a solo founder.

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