6 Micro-SAAS Startups in 12 Months
The (Modified) Levels Challenge
The start of 2021 marks the beginning of my true Indie Hacker journey. My intention is to build 6 micro-SAAS startups within 12 months. From there, I’ll double down on whichever projects are profitable. I’m taking this idea from Pieter Levels and his famous article, “I’m Launching 12 Startups in 12 months”. However, I’m modifying several things, mostly in ways I think will maximize my chances of getting to profitability within a year.
Optimizing the Process
So why 6 startups? Well, rather than building a bunch of products and seeing what sticks, or hyper-focusing on one product and hoping it works, I’m taking a middle-of-the-road approach.
It’s a hedge against making a single, robust app that potentially never picks up traction. Instead, I have multiple smaller projects that give me more maneuverability in finding what works. It’s what Daniel Vassallo refers to as, “a portfolio of small bets”.
I don’t want to commit to building 12 whole projects because it can lead to poorly considered business decisions. The “shotgun approach” of making so many apps can become detrimental because you self-impose deadlines too frequently.
The downside of rigid deadlines is that they sometimes stump creativity. They can lead to hastily building products that offer small value to customers (i.e. building solutions to problems nobody actually has).
Allowing myself two months per project, rather than one, allows for more time to gather market research, as well as building features catering to customer needs. I took this concept from Alex West, who also narrowed his focus to 6 projects a year, and is now working full-time on Cyberleads, which he initially started as a side-project.
Having a bit more leeway in terms of time constraints means I can spend more time understanding real market problems and building solutions to those problems. That’ll help prevent me from diving head-first into a project that ends up not having any earning potential.
Choosing What and How to Build
Another criteria that I’ve set for myself was also adopted from West. The products I build will be based solely on a B2B (business-to-business) model. This means that I will not sell to individual consumers.
Why not?
Because most people are cheap (I’m no exception 😅). It’s f*cking hard to get someone to pull out their wallet and pay $2.99 for an iOS app. Spending an entire year making mobile apps that sell for next to nothing means that, logically, I’m not gonna make any substantial revenue.
I’m gonna stick to making web apps with ecommerce functionalities. These are waaay more profitable to make as an indie hacker than, say, mobile apps. And if you sell to businesses that have a budget specifically for software tools, you can charge at least 20–30x more than you ever could selling on the mobile app store.
This approach is far more suitable for an indie developer that’s trying to pay his bills and bootstrap a startup. That’s why I’ve made it an essential part of my business strategy.
I plan on building one project at a time and launching it within 2 months. If I hit a roadblock, I’ll take a short break to work on traction channels for my ideas. Getting the product in face of a potential customer is just as important as building it. A really good read on this concept is a book titled “Traction“.
“Poor distribution — not product — is the number one cause of failure.”
― Gabriel Weinberg, CEO & Founder of DuckDuckGo, Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers
As is the convention, I will be posting progress reports periodically after I finish each project, as well as any revenue numbers that I might generate. Tools and technologies that I use will also be included, if you’re interested in that sorta thing.
It’s time for me to roll up my sleeves and get down to work. Wish me luck because 2021 is gonna be one hell of a ride.
If you’re interested in following my progress, sign up for my regular email updates here. You can also follow me on Twitter and Indie Hackers.
