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Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

marclou.beehiiv.com

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Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#31

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

Uptrenda wrote: post #22

When you build these type of projects is there an actual consistent method to getting people to look at your work? Because from my experience it seems like any amount of feedback I've had came from freak lottery type events like getting covered in a magazine or something like that. How would someone who is really clueless and horrible at promotion learn those kind of skills?

There's Show HN, ProductHunt, meetups, connections (which you can get through meetups), pitching events/contests, sponsorships, influencers...

Part of it may come from designing the product to help with the marketing. That may also help with viral marketing.

Marketing is a pretty broad topic, and it can vary a lot, too. Maybe it's a good idea to talk to some of your customers face to face to learn more about their industry vertical. If you share some specifics, maybe more people here could suggest ideas.

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#32

Post by zachthewf »

Uptrenda wrote: post #22

When you build these type of projects is there an actual consistent method to getting people to look at your work? Because from my experience it seems like any amount of feedback I've had came from freak lottery type events like getting covered in a magazine or something like that. How would someone who is really clueless and horrible at promotion learn those kind of skills?

Good way to start is to force yourself to post (as yourself, ideally with your work) on the internet every day

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#33

Post by mvdtnz »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #13
marclou wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% with you. It's so hard to find real problems if you spend 90% of your time finding problems. Having a job is a great fix. Building side projects with no purpose works too. For instance, you can sell a boilerplate to make it faster, or get feedback from users and build for them. Although it's much harder to start, and hard to navigate life without $ for months (years in my case)

> It's so hard to find real problems if you spend 90% of your time finding problems. > Having a job is a great fix. My experience differs: it is very easy to find real problems, and it is possible to implement a decent solution for at least some of them. But: many of the problems that various industries have are in my opinion self-inflicted because of their structures. What is hard is convincing potential customers t…

> many of the problems that various industries have are in my opinion self-inflicted because of their structures.

I would bet my entire salary you only believe this because you don't understand the constraints. When I was in my 20's and thought I knew everything I had the same attitude. I have since gained seniorship and worked in regulated industries and it's much clearer to me now. People in the industries you're talking about are generally smart and well meaning, but the constraints imposed by things like regulation and legacy systems (internal and external) make things that seem like they should be easy really hard.

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#34

Post by gnicholas »

Uptrenda wrote: post #22

When you build these type of projects is there an actual consistent method to getting people to look at your work? Because from my experience it seems like any amount of feedback I've had came from freak lottery type events like getting covered in a magazine or something like that. How would someone who is really clueless and horrible at promotion learn those kind of skills?

There is a lot of luck involved in posting on the internet, for sure. I posted a Show HN one time that ended up on the front page for over a day, with half of that time at #1. That led to media coverage all over the world.

Another Show HN I posted went nowhere — even though it was a good enough idea to separately get media coverage because it was timely (including in a front-page article of the NYT). There is a lot of luck involved, but you can also make your own luck, by reaching out to folks who might be interested.

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#35

Post by w10-1 »

Great stuff:

- Brief. Respect people's time, and take a stand.

- Tailored, to solopreneur. It's tempting to be drawn into building beautiful tech, chasing resume skills, or building domain experience in crap work. Putting yourself on the hook of your own decision-making builds character.

- Refined: it's easy to go from bad to good (just smooth out the pain points). It's very hard to go from good (happy but free customers) to better (paying customers), because you're trading lots of pain for benefits.

- Timely: those are the virtues of 2023, of contraction (outside AI-mania), where you control your destiny as a solopreneur. If it starts raining money again, it might not be the right approach.

However, the most common measure of leadership is a success pattern in ... leadership. People can take solopreneur experience as fitting for product management and not much else.

To show leadership, you have to demonstrate decision-making under stress, where you identified the key factors and how to change them. That's a different post, one that shows how you sift through noise, excitement, and gaps to find the difference that makes a difference, and prosecute that.

It's possible solopreneurs can get rich, but more often success means finding partners, get attention or getting bought, or just proving yourself - to yourself and perhaps others.

Or, if you're really lucky, you can make a difference.

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#36

Post by purple-leafy »

I’m in the same boat as the OP, I’ve launched 3 projects in 2023.

I spent 10 months on the first project. It was a very clever project, complicated to explain, hard to build, and ultimately did crap. It scratched my own itch - or so I thought, I don’t even use it myself at all. No emotions, pure logic marketing. 1000+ users only. $0 made.

My second project I built in 1 day, and launched in 1 week. It was basic, but people wanted this functionality. It was an emotion based marketing, people empowerment tool, and I wanted it and I use it myself. It immediately went viral and I managed to sell it for a decent bump to my income. 5 figures.

My third project I built in 3 days, it was the top post of the month on the subreddit for the niche, and gained about 1500 users in 1 day. Again, an emotional marketing spin and this time worker empowerment. I’m planning on selling it this year for 4 figures.

I’m now working on a roughly 2-3 month project from start to launch. It’s something I need. It will be my first non-freemium project.

Lessons learned? Build FAST, and market an mvp as soon as you can. Be clever, but not too clever because you only alienate a potential audience. I really agree with the OP regarding impressions and emotions. I will only pursue ideas I can build and fully launch in a 3 month window.

How can I improve? Get the landing page up earlier, don’t be too clever with ideas, and try paid advertisements

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#37

Post by milesvp »

em-bee wrote: post #29
darod wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the grit but don't align with the definition. One could argue that you made 1 startup with several products and the most successful one would be what you pivot to.

yes, when i look at https://indiepa.ge/ for example, it lists people with 21 startups, 15 startups, 10 startups... it gave me a wierd feeling. it seems so out of place and unrealistic. if instead it would say: 21 products, 15 products, 10 products... the list would look much more sensible.

Back in 2006, I knew a lot of people who used to call any webpage with a potential product a startup. There was one group I was associated with who did a biweekly "8hour startup" day. The idea was you'd come together for the day, form groups of 2-4 people and work on getting a finished website where you could sell something. Think a game jam equivalent for web devs/PMs. Was kind of fun. I did it once, though usually I was working on other things when these events were going on, and could rarely commit to the length of the events.

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#38

Post by chpmrc »

I've been following you (among other indie hackers) for a couple of years. I respect and admire the heck out of what you're doing. But I have a huge problem with the fact that you keep referring to the income brought in by ShipFa.st (again, heck of a product!) as "51K/m" (as of today this is what your X's bio shows), when pricing is obviously not recurring.

What would be a lot more indicative of the financial success of the project (and less misleading) would be something like "trailing 3 months". But I get it: telling the world you're making $X/mo is a blast. And it definitely helps with exposure! But IMO it gives off guru vibes, especially when paired with the fact that you seem to be veering towards paid educational content (nothing bad with that obviously).

I wouldn't even bother writing this if it wasn't for the fact that you literally open with the line "my income jumped from $1,500 in January, to $65,000 in November", of which $50k is definitely not recurring.

(Again, not a hater, quite the opposite so I hope you take this as constructive feedback!)

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#39

Post by agubelu »

Uptrenda wrote: post #23
StreetChief wrote: post #19

I'm curious if the author has ever been in therapy. I would never say food + sleep + exercise is a substitute for professional medical advice.

There's quite a lot of truth to it though. Exercise (the right kind) has comparable effects to anti-depressants. It can help people with very hard to treat depression manage symptoms. It improves cognition and induces neurogenesis. Sleep. It's quite a curious fact but after a person experiences sleep deprivation their dopamine and serotonin levels spike. It's been noted that this helps with depression. Psychiatrists…

What would be the "wrong" kind of exercise?

Re: Lessons from building nine startups in 2023

#40

Post by reaperman »

agubelu wrote: post #39
Uptrenda wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a lot of truth to it though. Exercise (the right kind) has comparable effects to anti-depressants. It can help people with very hard to treat depression manage symptoms. It improves cognition and induces neurogenesis. Sleep. It's quite a curious fact but after a person experiences sleep deprivation their dopamine and serotonin levels spike. It's been noted that this helps with depression. Psychiatrists…

What would be the "wrong" kind of exercise?

Something that injures you. But also any long-term routine that lacks an aerobic component. Aerobic aspects of exercise are particularly important for most of the mental health benefits[0].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_phy...

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