9 ms·

My solopreneur story: 0 to $65K/mo in 2 years

11 points by marclou 3y ago

not_your_vase 3y ago
> Estimated reading time: 7 min 02 sec Huhh, that's quite specific for an estimation.
- sergers 3y ago
  AI generated? Anyways impressive/fun quick read, good story. And update should be: 65k to xxxk in day after HN I had never heard of the product so went to their landing. "$100 off for the first 1260 customers" only less than 10 left at time of this writing. When I saw that, I laughed back to be part where he mentions he's not a marketing guy.
  - marclou 3y ago
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- marclou 3y ago
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bjornsing 3y ago
One thing I often find a bit depressing about these stories is that they often end up making money off of others who want to join the solopreneur bandwagon. In this case it’s a SaaS boilerplate git repo, which is at least a product, but often it’s just online courses for wannabe solopreneurs and similar. Feels a bit ponzi…
- safety1st 3y ago
  Taking a product from 0 to $60K in 3 months is very impressive but what I don't like about this niche and these types of articles, is they never really tell you the important stuff about the success. They read like a narrative journey to get you excited about the possibilities - because they are marketing fluff pieces intended to drive more sales. What I'd like to see instead: since this guy launched 17 products in 2 years, during which time he was broke, the success was obviously not about investing heavily in the product. It's almost certainly about his distribution and the only hint we have about that is that he had 55K Twitter followers... which may or may not matter. I'd like an article that dives into what his distribution looked like and I want him to write about how to do that well, since he's clearly very good at it. I don't need more solopreneur porn - the Internet has plenty of that already.
  - marclou 3y ago
    I agree, but that would take much more than a 7-minute read. I wrote about everything I know about marketing in other posts in my newsletter. You'll see dozens of articles about writing good copy, launching on social media, growing an audience, etc.
    - safety1st 3y ago
      Well now that you have banked $65K in a month, you should have plenty of time to write it all out in a comprehensive blog post. :) Note: I was really talking about the execution specifics of the distribution for this new hit product, not general tips about e.g. social media. I just got done with Gabriel Weinberg's Traction, that book was a truly great work in large part because he gets highly specific about how his or X other person's company applies the principles he talks about, all the way down to "this is what our spreadsheet for understanding that marketing channel looked like."
      - marclou 3y ago
        [dead]
tompark 3y ago
I have to disagree with other commenters here. This guy's story had a lot more nuance than what you'd expect in a short blog post. His story timeline: * 2016: Grind for 4 years, got burnt out and took a job. * End of 2021: Got fired, started as a solopreneur again. * H1 2022: Launched 7 projects in 6 months. * H2 2022: Fell in love with one of them, went all-in for 6 more months. * Early 2023: Switched back to 2021 approach, 8 projects in 8 months. * Fall 2023: "quit all my faceless AI projects and focused on products I’d use" * Sept to mid-Dec: "ShipFast alone made $168,100 in total revenue" I found it interesting because he oscillated btwn the "ship a lot of stuff fast" and "care about a product that I'd use myself" approach. Sounds like he did two full cycles of that until he hit a winner. (Not that you can't ship fast on smtg you care about, but if you launch a dozen products it's hard to treat each one like your baby.) I think this story is more honest than most. This was not a simple narrative. The reality was chaotic, had ups and downs, and had no coherent narrative. He gives his lessons at the end but what I took away was that anyone trying to do this has to go through the process themselves to learn their own lessons. The fact that his hit product was SaaS boilerplate isn't a negative to me. (At least it's not courseware on "How to be a solopreneur".) He pitches four solopreneur-oriented products at the end of the article. Maybe you don't like that, but I think it's smart, because why did he write this blog post and who is supposed to read it? I mean, we all take away something from everything we experience, and you can interpret it very differently from me.
- marclou 3y ago
  This is exactly the summary of my last 6 years. So happy you could see through. Do you have any social? Would love to connect.
  - tompark 3y ago
    @tompark just followed you on twitter. My gmail address is in my HN profile.

11 points by marclou 3y ago

not_your_vase 3y ago

> Estimated reading time: 7 min 02 sec Huhh, that's quite specific for an estimation.

sergers 3y ago
AI generated? Anyways impressive/fun quick read, good story. And update should be: 65k to xxxk in day after HN I had never heard of the product so went to their landing. "$100 off for the first 1260 customers" only less than 10 left at time of this writing. When I saw that, I laughed back to be part where he mentions he's not a marketing guy.
- marclou 3y ago
  [dead]
marclou 3y ago
[dead]

bjornsing 3y ago

One thing I often find a bit depressing about these stories is that they often end up making money off of others who want to join the solopreneur bandwagon. In this case it’s a SaaS boilerplate git repo, which is at least a product, but often it’s just online courses for wannabe solopreneurs and similar. Feels a bit ponzi…

safety1st 3y ago
Taking a product from 0 to $60K in 3 months is very impressive but what I don't like about this niche and these types of articles, is they never really tell you the important stuff about the success. They read like a narrative journey to get you excited about the possibilities - because they are marketing fluff pieces intended to drive more sales. What I'd like to see instead: since this guy launched 17 products in 2 years, during which time he was broke, the success was obviously not about investing heavily in the product. It's almost certainly about his distribution and the only hint we have about that is that he had 55K Twitter followers... which may or may not matter. I'd like an article that dives into what his distribution looked like and I want him to write about how to do that well, since he's clearly very good at it. I don't need more solopreneur porn - the Internet has plenty of that already.
- marclou 3y ago
  I agree, but that would take much more than a 7-minute read. I wrote about everything I know about marketing in other posts in my newsletter. You'll see dozens of articles about writing good copy, launching on social media, growing an audience, etc.
  - safety1st 3y ago
    Well now that you have banked $65K in a month, you should have plenty of time to write it all out in a comprehensive blog post. :) Note: I was really talking about the execution specifics of the distribution for this new hit product, not general tips about e.g. social media. I just got done with Gabriel Weinberg's Traction, that book was a truly great work in large part because he gets highly specific about how his or X other person's company applies the principles he talks about, all the way down to "this is what our spreadsheet for understanding that marketing channel looked like."
    - marclou 3y ago
      [dead]

tompark 3y ago

I have to disagree with other commenters here. This guy's story had a lot more nuance than what you'd expect in a short blog post. His story timeline: * 2016: Grind for 4 years, got burnt out and took a job. * End of 2021: Got fired, started as a solopreneur again. * H1 2022: Launched 7 projects in 6 months. * H2 2022: Fell in love with one of them, went all-in for 6 more months. * Early 2023: Switched back to 2021 approach, 8 projects in 8 months. * Fall 2023: "quit all my faceless AI projects and focused on products I’d use" * Sept to mid-Dec: "ShipFast alone made $168,100 in total revenue" I found it interesting because he oscillated btwn the "ship a lot of stuff fast" and "care about a product that I'd use myself" approach. Sounds like he did two full cycles of that until he hit a winner. (Not that you can't ship fast on smtg you care about, but if you launch a dozen products it's hard to treat each one like your baby.) I think this story is more honest than most. This was not a simple narrative. The reality was chaotic, had ups and downs, and had no coherent narrative. He gives his lessons at the end but what I took away was that anyone trying to do this has to go through the process themselves to learn their own lessons. The fact that his hit product was SaaS boilerplate isn't a negative to me. (At least it's not courseware on "How to be a solopreneur".) He pitches four solopreneur-oriented products at the end of the article. Maybe you don't like that, but I think it's smart, because why did he write this blog post and who is supposed to read it? I mean, we all take away something from everything we experience, and you can interpret it very differently from me.

marclou 3y ago
This is exactly the summary of my last 6 years. So happy you could see through. Do you have any social? Would love to connect.
- tompark 3y ago
  @tompark just followed you on twitter. My gmail address is in my HN profile.