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My solopreneur story: $0 to $65,000/month in 2 years
My solopreneur story: $0 to $65,000/month in 2 years
After being fired by Tai Lopez in November 2021, I launched startups like a madman to buy freedom.
Author
Marc Lou
December 23, 2023
After being fired by Tai Lopez in November 2021, I discovered the build-in-public community on Twitter.
It changed my life. In 2 years:
I launched 17 products
I grew this newsletter to 7,000 readers
I grew a Twitter account to 55K followers
I reached $65,000/month at 91% margin and 0 employee
And made new inspiring friends
This is my solopreneur story.
Estimated reading time: 7 min 02 sec
Building in public update
I launched LogoFast on Wednesday and got #1 Product of the Day 🎉
Fingers crossed for the #1 Product of the Week!
4 years of failure
My entrepreneurship journey started in 2016 when I believed I was Mark Zuckerberg.
It took 2 years to make my first $1 online. Later, I grew a SaaS to $3,000 MRR, but I started to see my journey as a failure after 4 years of grind. I got depressed in 2021 and quit entrepreneurship.
I worked for Tai Lopez as a product manager to overcome my depression. It worked because I finally had a sense of purpose.
When I got fired in November 2021, it didn’t matter. I had a dream. I discovered my role models on Twitter: Pieter Levels, Danny Postma, and other cool kids working solo on their projects from anywhere in the world, making much more money than needed to live comfortably.
I wanted freedom. I was living in Bali with my Korean wife, $20,000 in the bank, no audience, and bad coding skills.
I couldn't find a non-topless picture of us in Bali… this was in France
Just for fun
When there isn’t much happening in your life, it’s hard to find a startup idea. I was so frustrated about my previous years of go-big-or-go-home mindset, that I needed a simple project everyone could understand.
In December 2021, Mood2Movie was born: A movie recommendation app based on your mood. It sounds fancy but it’s just a simple if [mood] then [movie_genre].
This project kickstarted my build-in-public journey. The app is free so I could launch it everywhere on Reddit. One post went viral and got 10K visitors. So I had somewhat valuable content to share on Twitter.
In 6 months, I launched 7 projects without thinking about business, just for fun. I learned much about coding, SEO, writing, launching, and marketing. My Twitter account reached 1,000 followers in July 2022.
Meantime, I ate healthy food, prioritized sleep, and worked out every day (surfing or skating). I also raised a chick.
My wife named him 귤 (Kyul)
Even though I was making just a few hundred $ a month, it was too much fun to give up.
I fell in love
In August 2022, my gamified habit tracker, Habits Garden, was making ~$200/month so I went all-in. But I’m a product-obsessed developer. I don’t like marketing.
Side-project marketing saved me: Ship free tools to promote a paid one.
For instance, I launched VisualizeHabit—a free tool to visualize the compound effect of tiny habits. I plugged Habits Garden and it brought 30,000 visitors in 2 months.
If you read 5 minutes/day for 1 year, you’ll finish 6 books
For a side project to work, I had to be good at launching. I started to make fun launch videos. People enjoyed and shared them, creating a viral loop. Each side-project grew my Twitter following and brought decent traffic.
Skit for the launch of ByeDispute
Thanks to side-project marketing and launch videos, Habits Garden reached 10,000 users in January 2023.
Users requested a mobile app. I had no idea how to code them, but I tried. After 14 days with the help of my friend Martin, Habits Garden was live on the App Store and the Play Store.
It was making $700/month. Not bad, but not worth 6 months of my life. I fell in love with the wrong product.
Back on the grind
Early 2023, I sold a micro-startup I built in 2021. It was making $80/month and was acquired for $4,300. I had stories to tell. My Twitter account grew by ~50 followers a day.
But I was still not making enough to cover my cheap lifestyle.
So I did the 2021 strategy again: Ship startups like a madman. But this time, I applied some rules:
No free plan
Only painkiller product
Move on if no product market fit
I built 8 startups in 8 months. 6 made money. 2 paid the bills. Ship fast, launch viral, repeat. In July 2023 I was making ~$3,000/month.
60% of my revenue was generated by MakeLanding, an AI landing page generator. I tried to grow it but failed. I didn’t use the product and I didn’t care about the market. I just built the startup out of AI FOMO.
In August 2023, my whole family flew to South Korea where my wife and I re-married. It was wonderful.
Product market fit
Holidays are magic. When I left for Korea, my head was full of questions. When I came back, it was obvious: I must build a business for customers I care about. So I quit all my faceless AI projects and focused on products I’d use.
I sold my AI landing page generator for $35,000 and my habit tracker for $10,000. It gave me time and clarity. I wrote about the process and the outcome.
On September 1st, I launched ShipFast, a NextJS boilerplate to ship startups fast. I packed 2 years of shipping knowledge in a GitHub repo.
I told my wife we’d be lucky if we made $100 with it. By the end of the month, ShipFast made $40,000. I was blown away. It’s hard to describe product market fit, but when it hits, it’s clear.
I kept adding features while tweeting about it. I received tons of testimonials from customers who made their first $1 online thanks to the boilerplate. I was happy.
I also launched ByeDispute: A no-code tool to prevent Stripe chargebacks.
In November, my revenue hit $65,400/month at a 91% margin and 0 employees. As of today, December 17th, ShipFast alone made $168,100 in total revenue.
What money buys
I don’t stress about paying the bills anymore.
I can also speak to a bigger audience because everyone understands money. It’s hard to explain to a doctor what a NextJS boilerplate is. But a $60,000/month salary buys you attention.
Besides that, my life hasn’t changed.
I surf, write, and code every day.
I also read for 30 minutes after waking up
Living for 6 years with $1,000/month taught me a lesson: My happiness comes from creating, not consuming.
What I’d tell myself if I started again:
Find your models: To grind in the void for months, you need a dream.
Don’t fall in love with your code: Most startups fail. Keep shipping until one startup hits product market fit. Your customers will tell you which features to build.
Focus on painkillers, not vitamins
Add a buy button to all your startups, and ditch free plans
Start, then think: Even if it’s a stupid idea, build it. You will get more and better ideas, sharpen your skills, and stay motivated.
Thanks for reading my story. But mostly, thanks for following my journey. I wouldn’t be here without the attention you gave me across the last 2 years.
Whenever you're ready, there are 5 ways I can help you:
ShipFast: Ship startups in days, not weeks with the NextJS boilerplate loved by 1,500+ developers.
LaunchViral: Grow your startup with viral launch videos.
IndiePage: Join 3,000+ solopreneurs and showcase your startups.
PoopUp: Turn your visitors into customers with wake-up call popups.
ZenVoice: Stripe invoices without the fee
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Naif 300 • 1 week ago
Nice journey👏.
The user involved in the comment
Samarth Gugnani • 1 month ago
it was awesome marc thanks for sharing the journey love it man
The user involved in the comment
Emilien Perico • 1 month ago
Well done Marc, and very impressive in such a short period!
Thanks for sharing your journey, this is super inspiring and keeps me (and I'm sure all the other solopreneurs) motivated.
Looking forward to reading the next stories.
The user involved in the comment
Simon Vrachliotis • 2 months ago
Man, this is so inspirational. I also got fired (Tailwind Labs), burnt out. This got me stuck in procrastination.
Your journey is super inspiring. And I love the surf & write code daily lifestyle 🤙
Looking forward to reading more inspiring posts from you. Salutations Suisses (francophone) depuis l'Australie 🤙
The user involved in the comment
Manny Glover • 5 months ago
Inspirational! My focus is on algorithms, and I am intimidated by the fact that my task is not just, "Think of something useful or niche that no one else has done", but it's... "Be better at math than Google and MIT". Even still, I think this post will help me toward my goal of being a successful solopreneur. Thanks! Found it via daily.dev btw
The user involved in the comment
Bharath Kumar • 6 months ago
in your early days where did you host your websites? if it is aws isn't costly?
The user involved in the comment
Kosisochukwu Azubogu • 6 months ago
Hi there Marc. This is a really great story. Do you mind recommending some of the marketing and launching books you read during your journey. Cheers
The user involved in the comment
Marc Lou • 6 months ago
Influence & Marketing Made Simple are pretty good!
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Just Ship It
Your Saturday issue to find startup ideas, launch fast, and get profitable. Join 20,000+ solopreneurs
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