Meet Marc, a 30-year-old entrepreneur living in Bali. He has launched twenty startups; most were unsuccessful, but 7 did generate money. His biggest hit? ShipFast, which brings in about $55,000 per month. Let’s find out how he did it.
What is your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I graduated in Computer Science in 2016 and did not apply for a job. Instead, I believe I was Mark Zuckerberg and spent a year building a secret app. I never launched it.
I felt terrible, so I moved to South Korea and founded a venture-backed startup with a friend. We raised $100,000 to predict the price of airline tickets (reverse engineering ticket prices). It was another flop.
Tired of big ideas, I started mini projects to hopefully make a living online in 2018. I created a SaaS that still pays the bills after 5 years (about $600/month).
I moved to Bali and kept working on small projects, but it didn’t grow. In 2020, I made about $1,500.
At the end of 2021 I discovered Indie Hackers and my life changed. I’ve always felt alone building apps in the dark. Discovering the community of makers who build in public was a big turning point.
Over the past 2 years I have been shipping startups like crazy (16 startups). As I did the same thing over and over again, I realized I could sell my startup codebase to ship faster. That’s how I created ShipFast.
Describe the process of starting and growing the business.
Now I have over 50,000 followers on Twitter, product launches get more attention, but the process is always the same
1. Create a unique launch video, such as this.
2. Create a Product Hunt Launch
3. Create a tweet on launch day with the video and link to Product Hunt.
4. Launch everywhere else on launch day (Reddit, Indie Hackers, Hackers News). I have created some guides for these platforms in my newsletter.
Nothing special. Rinse and repeat.
What has worked to attract new customers?
1. Viral launch videos like above
2. Engineering-as-marketing: Free, no-signup tools that promote the main product
3. A damn good landing page headline
What are your plans for the future and what are you currently working on?
I work full time on ShipFast and ByeDispute. I’m also preparing a course to help creators create viral launch videos.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
My $60,000 per month solopreneur business costs $183 per month:
– Hosting → Vercel $20/month
– Database → MongoDB $7/month
– Analysis → Plausibly $30/month
– Newsletter → Beehiiv $99/month
– Assistant → Co-Pilot $10/month
– Marketing → Twitter + Typically $17/month
Do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs who are just starting out or want to start?
1. Avoid SaaS, subscriptions and free plans
2. Build a very small version of your startup and launch it with a buy button, users build the rest of the product
3. Document everything on Twitter, because if your startup flops, you’re still growing an audience. That will help you with future projects.
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