He Built 70 FAILED Apps Before Making $300K/Month ｜Levelsio's Story
Hello, I'm David Kim.
I'm creating a series of videos discussing renowned indie hackers, their stories, and growth trajectories. Welcome to and subscribe my YouTube channel and Podcast "AI Watcher by DK".
We'll deconstruct their cases and learn from both their successes and failures.
I'm on my indie hacker journey under an anonymous identity, aiming to share my progress from 0 to $100k MRR. Feel free to follow me on Twitter.
Today, I'll be talking about Levelsio, an indie hacker with over 500,000 Twitter followers, making him one of the most prominent figures in the indie dev community. Over the course of his career, Levelsio has created multiple products, achieving a monthly revenue exceeding $300,000.
Let's delve into how Levelsio cleverly connects his products to capture the attention of other indie hackers and examine his innovative strategies.
The Ultimate Indie Developer
Prolific Product Creation
Levelsio has built an impressive portfolio of over 70 products, gaining invaluable experience through both successes and failures.
While 95% of these projects didn't take off, the remaining 5% have performed exceptionally well, with several becoming profitable ventures.
His website, levels.io projects, documents this journey of product development.
Financial Success
From his publicly shared income sources, Levelsio's monthly revenue reaches an astounding $300,000.
This figure is remarkable by any standard in the indie dev world.
Digital Nomad
Lifestyle Embodying the digital nomad dream, Levelsio has traveled to over 40 countries and 150 cities.
His Twitter profile picture captures this essence perfectly - a casual shot of him coding on a laptop while lounging on a couch.
Transparency and Influence
Levelsio's high profile isn't solely due to his financial success. His openness in sharing both triumphs and setbacks has built his reputation for genuine transparency.
Even Elon Musk has taken notice, with a single interaction on Twitter flooding Levelsio with new users and significantly boosting his income.
Background and Early Success
From Music to Code
Levelsio's first taste of entrepreneurial success actually came from music. It all started when he attended his hometown's annual music festival. There, he spotted someone creating glitch music and got curious. He walked around the stage, peeking at the software on the musician's laptop.
Back home, he downloaded the exact same software and dove into making music. Soon, he became a DJ in Netherlands, producing his own tracks.
At around age 20, while in college, he started uploading his electronic mixes to YouTube and began earning from these uploads. Some months, he'd make a few thousand dollars, and at his peak, he earned as much as $8,000 in a month. Not bad at all.
The Digital Nomad Struggle
At 27, Levelsio spent most of his money on a laptop and a backpack, leaving him with only $1,000 in his pocket. He flew to Asia, eager to kickstart his life as a digital nomad. However, things didn't go as smoothly as he'd hoped.
He was scraping by, earning just $500 a month. Eventually, he had to head back to his parents' place in the Netherlands. This setback hit him hard, leaving him feeling depressed and questioning his future.
Looking at his peers, he couldn't shake off the feeling of being a 'loser'.
The Turning Point: 12 Products in 12 Months
In 2014, battling depression and dwindling income, Levelsio made a bold and life-changing decision: to develop 12 products in just one year.
The idea of developing 12 products in a year was inspired by someone named Jennifer, who'd created 180 websites in 180 days, which was even more impressive!
Nomad List: A Game-Changing Success
While Levelsio's challenge indeed led to some big wins, one of his most successful products from this project was Nomad List. It's a real-time index of cities ideal for digital nomads to live and work in.
The website rates each city based on factors like living costs, weather, and internet speed. It's like a travel guide, but specifically for people who want to work while wandering the world.
Nomad List's MVP version cost just $100 to build. Upon launch, it quickly shot to the top of both Hacker News and Product Hunt, catapulting Levelsio's annual income to $200,000.
But here's the really impressive part. Levelsio launched Nomad List back in 2015, and nine years later, it's still generating around $60,000 per month.
This shows that even small products can be highly profitable and, if you find the right niche, can have a surprisingly long lifespan.
Building in Public and Marketing Mastery
Livestream Coding
Levelsio has truly mastered the secret of building in public. In 2017, he hosted a four-day livestream where viewers watched him build a complete web app from scratch, starting with just one line of code.
In just two and a half hours, he had the first version up and running. The livestream was a massive hit, shooting him to the front page of Reddit. The product he built during the stream, called Hoodmaps, quickly racked up over 300,000 users.
E-book Launch
After gaining enough attention, Levelsio took his marketing efforts to the next level. While others might settle for writing a few blog posts or creating a small tool, he opted to publish an e-book.
In March 2018, Levelsio dropped his e-book, MAKE. The book focuses on how to build a side project and turn it into a profitable startup.
This is where Levelsio's marketing genius truly shines. Take a look at the book's slogan: 'Learn to build profitable startups the indie way.' Each word in the slogan is crafted with surgical precision.
In just a few words, Levelsio manages to convey the book's value, its practical approach, and its target audience.
Shotgun Strategy and Product Development
Rapid Development Philosophy
For product development, Levelsio consistently follows the shotgun strategy. The idea is to rapidly develop multiple products or features instead of putting all your eggs in one basket, especially by creating various products for different user groups.
This way, you're not relying on your own subjective judgment about what makes a good product; instead, you're letting the market decide.
Remote OK: Capitalizing on Success
Leveraging Nomad List's success, Levelsio created complementary products like Remote OK, a job board for remote work opportunities. By 2021, Remote OK's monthly income had skyrocketed to $140,000.
Originally, Remote OK was called Nomad Jobs. By November 2021, the site had become so profitable that Levelsio decided to invest $100,000 to buy the 'Remote OK' domain name.
From my perspective, investing in a great domain name for a profitable project is worth every penny. It strengthens your brand, makes your product easier to find and remember, and gives a real boost to your SEO.
Venturing into AI
In October 2022, Levelsio ventured into the AI field with Avatar AI. Within just 10 days, it generated $100,000 in sales. This success was largely due to perfect market timing. AI image generation was just taking off, making it an ideal moment for this kind of product.
However, it wasn't just luck. Levelsio's success here came down to two key factors: identifying the right opportunity and moving fast to capitalize on it.
Within 24 hours of launch, it had 1,000 users uploading photos. However, at the time, Levelsio hadn't implemented any automation. He manually input prompts for each photo to generate corresponding images.
Only later did he gradually automate the platform. The idea is to get the product out there with minimal upfront costs, then iterate and improve based on real user feedback.
Moving into 2023, Levelsio built on the success of Avatar AI by launching Photo AI. This new product was more focused on generating realistic human portraits.
And Levelsio shared a secret in a podcast: among the first users to sign up and upload photos to Photo AI was a super famous tech billionaire. While Levelsio didn't name names, I've got a strong hunch it might have been Elon Musk. After all, Levelsio and Musk had some interactions around that time.
By August 2024, Elon Musk once again boosted Levelsio's profile by retweeting his appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast.
Conclusion
Levelsio's journey from struggling digital nomad to successful indie developer showcases the power of persistence, transparency, and diversification.
His ability to create multiple products, learn from failures, and openly share his experiences has earned him a large fan base and financial success.
If you enjoyed this article, please clap and comment. For more indie hackers insights, follow along. Until our next deep dive!
