AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#1

Post by 1hakr » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

Hello everyone, I’m Hari, and I’m a serial Microstartup Maker. In the last 4 years, I made:

• https://visalist.io, an all-in-one visa requirements website for travelers with 300K Monthly Active users

• https://anexplorer.co, an all-one File manager for phones, watches, TV's and tablets on android with crossed 1M downloads recently

• https://acrypto.io, a cryptocurrency app to track and get real-time alerts with 200K downloads

• https://simpleops.io, performance, web vitals and API monitoring tool for websites with 2000 users

I started my indie maker journey to become financially independent and travel the world. I had a simple and small goal, build things I wanna use and make $100/day. It started slow, I had started building and improving while traveling, it took a while but I crossed $100, then I crossed $200/day. Then pandemic hit and I went back to $100/day, but after 6 months and building a new microstartup, it slowly picked pace and again crossed $200/day then I crossed $300/day, now I'm close to $400/day and my next goal is $500/day.

If the momentum keeps up, I will hit $150K this year.

AMA!

And if you wanna know the learning that I share, follow my journey on https://twitter.com/1HaKr.

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#2

Post by Rastonbury » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

What's your playbook for marketing? This seems to be something you have nailed

And how to you make decision on how you split your time between the four?

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#3

Post by 1hakr » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:27 AM UTC

Rastonbury wrote: post #2

What's your playbook for marketing? This seems to be something you have nailed And how to you make decision on how you split your time between the four?

I usually tweet WIP screenshots and tease whats coming, then I do a public launch on PH, LinkedIn, Facebook groups and Indie Hackers. But always before bulding a microstartup, I have the organic growth channel figured out. For example with https://visalist.io it was SEO, with https://anexplorer.co it's ASO

I put all my focus on one when i'm getting started, but after its feature complete then i move on to the next. I spend around 20% of my time improving/fixing existing ones.

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#4

Post by itisit » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

Congrats on being your own boss! How much time do you spend on these sites, in any aspect, per week?

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#5

Post by dchi » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

If you designed a semester-long microstartup course targeted to fresh CS grads, what does the syllabus look like?

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#6

Post by megraf » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

How do you manage taxes? Have you dealt with a lawsuit?

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#7

Post by 1hakr » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:36 AM UTC

megraf wrote: post #6

How do you manage taxes? Have you dealt with a lawsuit?

I have a company setup, so everything related taxes is setup through it. No lawsuit so far .

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#8

Post by 1hakr » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:36 AM UTC

itisit wrote: post #4

Congrats on being your own boss! How much time do you spend on these sites, in any aspect, per week?

Thanks mate! I usually spend around 5-10 hours per week

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#9

Post by batmaniam » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

Cool, congrats on the success! With that amount of traffic and payments, do you encounter credit card fraud? How do you deal with it?

Re: AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups

#10

Post by cweill » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 4:38 AM UTC

Congratulations! What kind of corporate structure do you use for your microbusinesses? Delaware LLC? Also are you based in the USA?