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13 Comments

12 Startups in 12 Months

  1. 11

    I love this approach for a few reasons:

    First it forces you to move quickly and think in terms of only what's necessary for your MVP. Without a time limit, it's easy to convince yourself that you need to do more, so your simple MVP ends up dragging on for months, usually unnecessarily. I built IH in 3 weeks. Pieter Levels built the Nomad List MVP in a similar time frame. Josh Pigford built Baremetrics in a week. Sahil built Gumroad in a weekend. Etc. If it's taking you months to get something out the door, you're probably starting off too big.

    Second, having other projects lined up makes it easier to stick to your deadline for your current project. If you simply declare, "I'm going to release in a month," well there's nothing stopping you from slipping. But if you say, "Next month I'm starting on project #2," now you absolutely can't slip with project #1, because it starts eating into the time for your next project. You've created an actual real consequence for yourself instead of relying purely on optimism and self discipline.

    Third, you get a ton of experience. I'm a firm believer that playing a bunch of chess games will teach you more than playing one really long chess game. Starting a bunch of companies will teach you more+faster than running just one company. You'll learn about a bunch of different industries, distribution channels, business models, and groups of customers. You'll learn what you like and what you don't like. And you'll get a more intuitive feel for the difference between a massive failure, a massive success, and everything in between.

    Fourth, it prevents you from getting attached to bad ideas. One of the toughest things to do is to scrap an idea you cherish. It's so hard that it blinds a lot of founders to the reality that maybe their idea isn't a good one, and they could find success faster if they quit and started with something new. But the 12 startups in 12 months provides some built-in protection against that, and instead forces you to get comfortable scrapping ideas. And since you get to compare so many projects against each other, it won't be hard to identify a stand-out winner if you launch one, similar to how @levelsio did.

    Fifth, I like the long term view. It puts things in perspective and gives you more resilience to handle short-term setbacks. You accept that the failure of any given business is a likely possibility, but you also still strive to succeed within a year. It's similar to becoming a good poker player, where you strive to win overall, but you understand that will require losing lots of individual hands.

    1. 1

      This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

  2. 3

    Nice to see @yongfook and @levelsio mentioned as inspiration!

  3. 1

    I love this and trying to do this of my own. Often stuck with Analysis Paralysis.

    I will be upgrading this idea with 22 startups in 24 months starting from the first one in September. I might need a break in-between so it's not 24 startups in 24 months.

  4. 1

    Cant wait to see what you do with this. A few people have attempted it but I'm not sure anyones actually succeeded in launching all 12 in 12 months. I imagine it ends up getting harder and harder to fit them into such a small time frame.

    It's something I'd love to do, but I think i'd have to go a bit more conservative and say 6 startups in 12 months.

  5. 1

    I was thinking about this myself. But I will probably do a different variant, maybe 3-4 things a year. Anyway, good luck, and curious about your journey.

  6. 1

    Good luck! It takes guts to commit to a start up a month. I'm coming in just around a month to soft launch my first.

    Not sure I could keep it up without burning out. Keep sharing your progress, rooting for you.

  7. 1

    The ambition is good I guess, but I'd suggest starting with one startup in one month. My guess is that you like the idea that you've made a commitment to yourself with 12 in 12. But what if 12 in 12 isn't possible or 4 in 12 is the ideal to give each project the marketing attention that it needs?

    I guess I'm worried that you need to do 12 projects and spend 12 months to keep your commitment when from your site it seems like you could get over all of your obstacles with one project on a definite timeline.

    Either way, good luck.

  8. 1

    Good stuff @RubenJS I look forward to seeing what you build. Remember to keep us updated. I'm sure you'll do well! Good luck!

  9. 1

    Are you planning to do everything on your own?
    Anyways, great commitment! Wishing you only the best.

  10. 1

    I wish you the best of luck!
    Speaking of Pieter Levels, he never finished his 12 projects as he had a huge hit with, I believe, his fourth project. So, in this context, I hope that you do not finish but have a major success as soon as possible! Keep us updated, cheers!

  11. 1

    Best of luck. It's a hell of a commitment. :)

  12. 1

    That is awesome. I gave it a quick read and your reasons of not shipping are so true. I am myself doing it and I will be sharing my journey as well.

    Best of luck in this journey!

  13. 1

    Hey guys,

    So this is my latest article in my personal website.

    What do you think? When I first read someone doing this I thought it was crazy but the more I thought about it the more sense made to me.

    Cheers,

    Ruben

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