Last October, I started a new challenge: Build and ship 6 products in 6 months. I spent the previous 5 years in the startup ecosystem, spending all my time focusing on one product only, and I needed a change!
As I said, when you start a startup, you go all in. You are spending all your time on one product, focusing on one market. You're spending (too much) time building, and you get super-specific. I wanted to learn faster than that; I wanted to accelerate the process!
I'm a tech guy. I can spend all my time building products. That's something I noticed in all the startups I met: they all spend way too much time building, not enough time on marketing.
I wanted a tight timeframe where I'm forced to ship something in less than 2 weeks.
Most of the founders are super "shy" about shipping. They feel like they're not ready yet, that they need a new feature, a new design, etc.…
I wanted to ship more, learn what works, what doesn't work, and remove that feeling of shyness.
Last but not least: learn how to fail. Learn when to abandon a product.
Again, I met plenty of founders who fell in love with their idea/product and can't move away from it even if their startup doesn't get traction or revenues.
Learn when to stop, to be ok with failure is a superpower. I wanted it!
I shipped 3 products in 3 months! The first good news is: it's achievable!
I built 3 MVP with no-code:
SpeadTheWorld (the first product) gets good traction from day 1 and still generates significant revenues. I also spend some extra time on it, adding new resources (I just add an option to get the emails of 1400+ tech journalists).
IdeaHunt (the second one) get some interesting feedback and many visitors after the launch. I decided to stop it for now as I need some significant time to implement some essential features and still don't have any business plan for it.
RemoteFR (my last product so far) is doing well! I choose to launch in a tiny niche, and the strategy seems to works!
Biggest fail: I haven't launched any of these products on ProductHunt. I'm still shy, feeling like I'm not ready :). That's clearly an objective of the next 3 months!
Also, the major drawbacks of this kind of challenge are:
I want to continue this challenge. It's super fun! I met many great people, I learn new tools every day, and I feel more productive than before!
However, at the end of the 6 months, I think I'll slow down a bit, like trying to ship every 3 months. It will allow me to create more complex products and to scale them more efficiently.
Also, something I learned the hard way: it's super hard to do everything on your own. I want to create some partnerships with other makers!
If you want to follow the build of the next products, follow me on Twitter! I build anything in public and share as much as I can my learnings!
→ https://twitter.com/angezanetti
(original blog post is here)
Thanks for sharing, you can always post them at later moment on Producthunt.
Your first product should be on Producthunt. I spend a lot of time there, and I am sure you have great chance to become product of the day.
Yep, I would like to do it in February!
Sounds like such a fun challenge! very inspiring and a very clever idea to put some constrains to go from "should ship" to "must ship" and hold yourself accountable.
That's the good part of building in public, it makes you accountable