I am launching 12 startups in 12 years...
I see a lot of people trying to emulate Pieter Levels challenge 12 startups in 12 months. I believe that is a good strategy to test lots of ideas quickly and learn a lot in the process.
However, I think if you want to build a great product it's going to take you some time to understand your customers, test assumptions, iterate, and improve. If you launch 12 products in 12 months, you can fall into the trap of not really finishing any of them. So that it's why I am planning to launch 12 startups in 12 years until I find one that can sustain a solo founder lifestyle.
The first project that I just launched is http://frontbots.com It is a tool to collect data on your website using chatbots. I just finished the MVP and I am now looking to find my first 10 happy customers. That is what I am going to focus on the next 3 months.
I explained more details on a medium post.
https://medium.com/@IgnasiTuduri/i-am-launching-12-startups-in-12-years-f9bdf247fb91
What do you think of this strategy?
I think the main point of 12 startups in 12 months is to ship a very rough MVP in one month, just to see if people will actually use whatever you made.
After 12 month you have put out 12 products. Let's assume 6 of them never got any kind of traction - throw them away. Now you can concentrate on 6 products and will quickly see which of them have the most potential.
Not a lot of people finish 12 in 12, but the ones that do usually have 2-3 very sustainable businesses at their hand. It's fun, you don't waste a lot of time, you don't feel bad to throw things away.
If the product you spent a whole year on doesn't take off, will you be able to throw it away as well?
I understand your point. However, I think 1-2 months it's not enough to validate if a product gets traction or not. If it's is a very simple product yes, but if it's something more complex in the B2B space it may be hard to get enough feedback in 1 month. My idea is to build it in 1 month and then spending 11 months trying to sell/market it or pivot according to feedback. I feel otherwise I spend a ton of time building MVPs an not enough on marketing or selling them.
You don't throw away these products after one month though. You take 1 month to build the MVP, then launch. People will start talking about it and you can sell and promote your product while you build the next one.
If you spend another month on sales and don't get any traction at all, you'll know that there's something wrong with the product. You can pivot by doing a related product from what you found out. Spending 11 months on sales to validate a product is mad. (let's keep in mind, the challenge is to validate the products and grow them into things like Nomadlist over years.
"People will start talking about it"
I don't believe this is true based on my experience. You have to get out and tell people about it, and that takes time.
At N = 1 products, this is fine (marketing #1 while building #2). Month 3, you're marketing #1 and #2 and building #3). This is not sustainable.
Maybe if there's a balance to how long you market a product and hope others start building buzz around it, you can walk away and spend time marketing other things.
I think you can measure traction after one month of selling easily. I won't say that you can grow any type of sustainability out of 1 month of marketing, but with 12 products at your hands after a single year (not 12 years), you'll quickly see which ones you can throw away and which ones you can keep working on.
I agree you do not throw the product away after 1 month. So if the goal is to validate a new unique idea, yes 1 month can be enough to see if there is interest. However, I already know my first product has a market. It's not very unique, big companies like intercom are already in this space. However, I am trying to target the low end of the market. For me, the validation is, can I sell 10 subscriptions of this thing in 10 months.
I don't agree with -> People will start talking about it. I think it's very hard to get your product (in saas) in front of people. I think it needs constant attention and promotion. You need to test different acquisition channels, outbound, inbound, etc
I also have to add that I am not full time on it, I have a normal job :)
Yep, that's another story. Then launching 1 per mont would be hard.
Well, in B2B doesn't work that way. You can't build a MVP in one month. Pieter built B2C simple products, but if you want to try something more complicated with maybe a higher chances of success, you can't build in 1 month, especially if you have competition. I know this from my own experience. B2B also gets traction much slower and you'll be inclined to shut it down before it starts to work.
There are plenty of B2B products who have grown out of challenges like that as well. Let's ask @matthenderson for example.
Truth is, a 12 in 12 style challenge is a great way to force yourself to validate an idea quickly. I have built B2B products before that took 2 weeks to build and 1 week to market before it generated multiple $100 of revenue. That's an exception, but if you build 12 B2B products, you'll quickly see which ones get traction and which ones don't.
That’s great, however making a few bucks short term does not equal a successful and sustainable business. Keep one of those projects profitable and growing for more then 18 months and I might start believing the approach has, even a marginal, upside.
So far, we have not seen any such examples. It’s all been short/quick splashes, either throug PH (or simular) platforms or through existenting audiences.
On some B2B markets you can't validate the idea quickly. Some markets have a longer sales cycle, some may need more confidence in the product....especially if it's an important part of their business and don't trust you enough.
What I'm saying is that you think a product is not validated, but it might take it a bit longer to actually see sales coming in. My approach now is to "work" on validation the same amount of time you put in the product, at least.
It happened to me, fortunately I tried again one year later. Still good, but not amazing. Now my niche is full of competitors and one year wasted is a lot.
Another thing, I'm talking about 5 figures MRR or more, not in hundreds.
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Whether or not this approach actually increases changes of success is highly debatable and with very little true and tested successtories there’s nothing but some loose theories backing up the idea that apporoach works. Even throwing something up on PH and making a little splash can hardly be called “success”.
What I don't understand: Why do people always choose such extremes?
Either I find challenges titled "I will launch a startup in 2 days" or "I will launch 12 startups in 12 years".
Why do you need 12 years to reach your defined goal? You are a bootstrapper, right?
I have started a case study by myself on the 1st October which you can find here:
https://medium.com/lyghthaus/from-zero-to-profitable-business/home in my initial case study post
The difference is, I focus on the next 3 months. And my goal is pretty similar to yours. That's plenty of time to ideate, build a good concept, build a business model, validate the hypotheses, design and build the first version without lacking quality like the "2-day startup challenges".
Otherwise, good luck with your project! I will definitely follow you!
Thanks for your feedback, I'll follow your jorney too on medium :)
Really cool idea, but your own website does not use the any bot, have you thought about it? It would be a great show case for your product.
Hey Lucas! Thanks for the feedback. It does actually use a bot in embed mode when you scroll down a bit. But it's nice you pointed out that you didn't see it, I am going to have to make it much more visible.
Ohh, my bad! I didn't see that I could interact with that part.
Again, congrats for the product and good luck.
Same here. Didn't see the demo on your site.
Make it as noticeable as the Intercom chat, I'd say. @nasy
Yes, thanks for the feedback! I'll think about something more noticeable.
Your product similar with collect.chat ,you can check their demo placement. Cool product btw,good luck👍
I will use your product in future
Yes, there are similar products out there. Intercom has one as well (quite pricey). I have in mind a product roadmap to differentiate frontBots from this other products to the point of beeing able to cohexist witht them. Thanks for the feedback!
I think 12 startups in 12 months are possible only if you think of a startup concept and create the plan of developing it. Then you can either sell it to interested people or hire employees to go on with your idea. But I guess that is actually a very difficult proccess to launch. I wish you good luck with your yearly projects. Keep letting us know how it goes.
Thanks Linda, I'll write a post on my medium page once in a while to keep people updated on the project status. :)
Cool idea, I like the concept of putting a lot more effort into iteration and creating a great product for your customers.
I was wondering how you decided on the $500 MRR goal as the benchmark for continuing to put effort into a product?
If not many sales are coming through will you leave that product early to pursue another?
Hi Micheil, I said $500 because that would be around 10 paying customers (at my current price). I believe if I can get 10 happy paying customers now I can get 100 and 1000 in the next years. It's just an estimation. If I do not manage to get those sales I am going to try to find why and iterate on different approaches. But I think in 1 year I can try many things. If after that time sales do not pick up I'll probably consider selling the business or shutting it down.
Ah yep that makes sense. Best of luck it looks great!
I commend you on coming up with 12 ideas :). I still find that the most challenging part. Every time an idea pops into my head I check it out to see its not viable. And my English side is going to say - the bot should be saying 'How may I help you.' I know minor point, but still.
I believe coming up with ideas are the easiest. I personally have a list of 40+ ideas on my notebook (I must say a lot of them are crazy or bad). Thanks for the grammar correction, I'll fix it ;)
Loving that your first product here is about bots. I'm seeing an uptick in "experience bots". Always good to see more makers get into the bot scene.
Thanks Matt! I see lots of big companies moving into the Bot space so I believe that will create more awareness and demand for bots in the future. I there always will be space for indie makers creating more specific/vertical Bots :)
Can't get to the site - needs to be SSL.
Hey Ryan, that's strange I am using normal ssl with letsencrypt. What browser are you using?
12 startups in 12 years seems reasonable, however i believe you going to find some issues....
If all startups are successful you will not be able to run and scale all of them at the same time... And if they are not successful, you are just losing your time...
I have several projects and I'm having serious difficulties in managing my time so... good luck!?
Yes, I would love to have that problem ;) haha Notice that I said -> "until I find one that can sustain a solo founder lifestyle". If one of them takes off I am going to focus on it 100%. Maybe 2-3 ideas at the same time (if they are in the same space) could also work, the rest either sold for pennies or shutdown.
https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/i-m-going-to-launch-12-startups-in-12-months-360395f788?commentId=-LOsfFo87fwMRtZ9IeeU
Yes, lots of people doing this challenge. In my case I changed the timeframe from months to years so I can focus more on a single product.
That was a link to my comment about how silly this fad is.
haha, good point. I 100% agree with you in this case, involve much more than just launching. But... I also think if in 1-year the product does not get traction, let's get the learnings and move on to the next thing :)
Properly marketing your products is how you get traction. Only building products is not going to work.
Yes, that exactly my point, I am giving myself 1 year to learn and try and test different ways of marketing and selling the product. If by then I haven't figured out, either I can confirm I am a s*it marketer or I am not building the right product.