Today we received our first dollar of revenue ever for TableIQ! 🚀 This is a moment I never expected to arrive so early, and it feels surreal to even be writing these words.

At this point, we barely had an idea to work off of. The company was still finding its footing, still figuring out exactly what we were building and who we were building it for. TableIQ provides operational insights for restaurants using their existing security cameras—helping them understand wait times, table turnover, peak hours, and other metrics that can transform how they run their business. But we were still very much in the early stages, iterating on the concept and learning what actually mattered to restaurant owners.

So when we got the payment notification, the first thought that crossed our minds was “this has to be a mistake, we need to refund our pilot customer.” We genuinely thought something had gone wrong with our payment system or that the customer had accidentally signed up for something they didn’t mean to. The idea that someone would actually pay us real money for something we were still figuring out seemed impossible.

Stripe payment notification showing first revenue of $380.00



But it turns out they were actually getting value from what we’d built. Our pilot customer was finding the insights useful enough that they wanted us to have the payment. That validation hit differently than I expected. It wasn’t just about the money, though seeing that first dollar hit our Stripe account was incredibly exciting, it was about the confirmation that we were building something real, something that mattered to someone other than ourselves.

The fact that this came from a pilot customer makes it even more meaningful. They took a chance on us when we had barely anything to show. They trusted us enough to test out our product, and they found enough value in it that they wanted to pay for it. That kind of early validation is worth more than the revenue itself.

There’s something beautifully humbling about getting your first revenue when you’re still figuring things out. We weren’t ready for it in the way we thought we’d be: no polished product, no sales process, no clear pricing model. But maybe that’s the point. Sometimes the market tells you you’re ready before you feel ready yourself.

This is just the beginning, and I know there’s still so much work ahead. But today feels like a milestone worth celebrating. We went from barely having an idea to having someone pay us for it. That’s pretty wild when I stop to think about it.

Here’s to the first dollar, and to all the ones that come after.