# How Mole Went From an Open-Source CLI to 10,000+ Customers With Dodo Payments > After years building an open-source tool, Tw93 turned it into a Mac app. The challenge wasn't finding customers, it was finding a way to sell to them globally from China. - **Company**: Mole - **Industry**: Developer Tools - **Payment provider**: Dodo Payments (Merchant of Record) - **Published**: 2026-07-07 - **URL**: https://dodopayments.com/case-studies/mole ## Key Metrics - **10,000+** -- Customers reached in under two months - **16 countries** -- Served with zero marketing spend - **70%** -- Of customers based outside China --- ## The Company **Mole: an open-source project turned professional Mac app** Tw93 is an indie developer based in Hangzhou, China, who has spent more than a decade building open-source software in his spare time. Across projects like Pake, MiaoYan, Kaku, and Waza, his work has earned over **135,000 GitHub stars**. Mole began as a simple shell script that helped clean and optimise his own Mac. Over the years, Tw93 continued refining the script in his spare time until it became one of the most popular open-source Mac utilities on GitHub. Thousands of developers contributed ideas, bug fixes, and improvements, helping Mole grow into a tool trusted by users around the world. As requests for a desktop application increased, Tw93 built a native Mac app over a few weekends. The launch exceeded every expectation. Purchase notifications began arriving every few seconds from customers across Europe, North America, and Asia. What started as a personal utility had become a global commercial product almost overnight. ## The Challenge ### A global audience, but no practical way to sell from China The demand for Mole was already international. Roughly **70% of the community lived outside China**, with active users across Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, and beyond. The problem wasn't building the product. It was finding a payment platform that would allow a solo developer in China to sell software globally. Most major payment providers either didn't support Chinese developers or required setting up overseas business entities before selling internationally. For a solo founder launching a product built over weekends, that wasn't a realistic path. On top of that came international tax compliance. Selling software across multiple countries meant navigating VAT, GST, sales tax, invoicing requirements, and ongoing compliance, something impossible to manage alone while continuing to build the product. > "Without Dodo, I would have either limited sales to China only--losing 70% of my customers--or spent months setting up a Singapore company with accounting support. Neither option is realistic for a solo developer launching their first paid product." > > -- Tw93, Founder, Mole ## The Solution ### A payment platform built for global software businesses After searching for payment providers that supported Chinese developers, Tw93 discovered Dodo Payments. What stood out wasn't just global payments, it was everything built around them. As a Merchant of Record, Dodo handles: - Global payment acceptance - Tax collection and remittance - International compliance - One-time software purchases - Built-in license key management - Multiple payment methods for customers worldwide For Mole, the built-in licensing infrastructure was particularly valuable. Instead of building and maintaining a separate licensing system, Tw93 could generate, manage, and validate licenses directly through Dodo, allowing him to stay focused on improving the product. > "Dodo's combination of Merchant of Record, support for Chinese developers, and straightforward license key infrastructure made it the clear choice. I wanted to focus on building the product, not tax compliance, payment infrastructure, and international billing." > > -- Tw93, Founder, Mole ## The Implementation ### Integrated in time for launch The initial integration came together quickly. Checkout, licensing, and payment flows were completed within days, with additional work focused on refining device management and handling edge cases for a native Mac application. Throughout the process, the Dodo team remained responsive, helping resolve issues around license delivery, activation flows, and platform improvements. When launch day arrived, the infrastructure held up exactly as expected. Customers from around the world completed purchases using familiar payment methods, licenses were generated automatically, invoices were issued, and payments processed without manual intervention. Instead of spending launch week troubleshooting payments, Tw93 was able to focus on supporting customers and improving the product. > "I went from having no viable way to sell software globally to processing transactions across 16 countries within weeks. The entire tax, compliance, and invoicing burden simply disappeared from my plate." > > -- Tw93, Founder, Mole ## The Results ### From an open-source project to customers around the world Dodo Payments didn't create Mole's demand--it enabled Tw93 to monetize a community that had already been built over years of open-source development. ### 10,000+ customers in under two months Within two months of launching the Mac app, Mole reached more than **10,000 paying customers**. The growth came entirely through community trust, GitHub, and word of mouth--with **zero marketing spend**. ### Customers across 16 countries Today, Mole serves customers across **16 countries**, with nearly 70% of users coming from outside China. Without a payment platform that supported global commerce, much of that demand would never have become revenue. ### Global payments from day one Customers were able to pay using familiar methods including Apple Pay, Google Pay, cards, and WeChat Pay without requiring additional engineering work. That allowed Mole to launch internationally from day one rather than expanding country by country. ### Compliance handled automatically Selling software internationally normally brings tax registrations, invoicing requirements, and ongoing compliance obligations. With Dodo operating as Merchant of Record, those responsibilities are handled automatically, allowing Tw93 to focus entirely on building Mole instead of managing international finance. > "Mole started as a personal shell script, became an open-source CLI, and grew into a paid Mac app over the course of years. What made that last step possible was having a payment platform that just worked. I didn't have to pause product development to figure out international billing. Dodo handled the complexity so I could focus on making something I'm proud of." > > -- Tw93, Founder, Mole Dodo Payments removed one of the biggest barriers to selling software globally, giving a solo developer in China the infrastructure to turn years of open-source work, built in his spare time, into a sustainable business. --- ## About Dodo Payments Dodo Payments is the billing and payments platform for AI-first companies. As a Merchant of Record, Dodo handles tax collection, compliance, billing, and payouts across 220+ countries so founders can focus on building. Features include credit-based billing, usage metering, subscriptions, one-time payments, adaptive currency pricing, 40+ local payment methods, and built-in analytics. - [Learn more about Dodo Payments](https://dodopayments.com) - [All case studies](https://dodopayments.com/case-studies) - [Pricing](https://dodopayments.com/pricing) - [Sign up](https://app.dodopayments.com/login)