One Thousand and One Projects
How to ship consistently, have fun and make a buck for a living? Solve problems for others consistently by using your strengths.
As an exploration experiment, I will ship as many projects as possible. Think of 1001 as a metaphor, not as an exact number. 1001 experiments or tries, you name it.
A SaaS, an essay, an API project, a blog post, a mobile app, an open-source library, an HTML template, etc.
One thousand and one at least for fun
No guarantee that one make a successful living from even hundreds of projects:
- the world is random;
- the luck is rare;
- and hard work does not guarantee anything.
Doing nothing won’t help definitely. I can only embrace the randomness and unpredictability of our world.
Even if I fail — I want to have fun. And I do not know any other way to have fun rather than create something consistently.
Starting from scratch
It takes time to build a “project shipping system” from scratch:
- reusable design templates;
- scalable marketing strategy;
- reusable frameworks and automation;
- deployment system.
I do not care if, in the beginning, it sucks because I understand that each new solved problem and the shipped project will improve the tools and other projects.
The goal is to start small. I am not going to build large projects. I will try to keep them as tiny as possible until they bring value or fun.
Marketing Strategy
Promoting hundreds of projects is impossible, and I need a scalable strategy.
SEO is one of the strategies to use. It is hard to bootstrap, but it will beat every other marketing strategy when it catches.
I want to solve customer problems by providing the best content in a niche. If the content is not enough, a customer can buy the product. Outsource if possible.
Amortizing economy of thousand projects
If I had a system that consistently produces projects, I could amortize money and time costs a lot.
Shared servers, UI templates, and domains.
The same goes for time. If I have tools and frameworks to bootstrap a project quickly, I can save time.
The more projects I have, the cheaper it should be to support them.
Selling projects
I do not plan to, but if I see that some of the projects demand enormous investment energy and stills it from the other projects, I can sell it.
For some projects, support might be dull. What’s more interesting? To ship new stuff or support the old one? It depends.
Marathon of sprints
It is a long journey. It can take a lifetime to ship even the first ten projects. I do not want to ship fluffy stuff, and I will not perfect the stuff infinitely. I will slowly and thoroughly advance.
I do not want to burn out also. I will optimize for fun and making a buck for a living.
I consider it an exploration experiment, so I can’t commit. Eventually, I can find the one project I want to dedicate all my time and energy to.
Have a nice day
Thank you for your attention 🙏 I am excited to get your feedback on this 🤪 idea.
I think that building multiple small projects only makes sense when you have a crystal clear view and understanding of your targeted space or a problem, and you are well connected, tuned into your potential user base so you will feel their reaction to your work. Only than your fast and furious prototypes can serve as little probes and help you map the sweet spot for which you should build the one, just one, solution.
Hey, thanks for the feedback. Yes, but I do not know from where to start.
I have around ten years of experience in building complex backend systems. I do not know how to do front-end, design, and market. The only niche that comes to mind repeatedly is to build API projects.
But anyway, I need somehow to start and find the product-founder-market-timing-lifestyle fit.
What do you think?
I think that the hardest part in all this indie hacking and entrepreneurship is to select your space and define your niche and users. Lock-in, focus, disregard all the rest. You can do it opportunistically such as VC has been investing heavily in Web 3.0 recently so let's follow the money and trends. Or you can approach it more personally, I am interested in such and such and I believe this is the most exciting or important or meaningful thing out there.
Once you got it, you dig in, do research, learn, talk to people, share, collaborate, make simple prototypes, write, think.
This is called discovery and it can take months or years. Building random projects without discovery is just a technical practice.
I think the only way you're going to make this work is if all your project work within a larger eco-system.
By having all your projects being complementary, they would cross-advertise one-another.
Your clients for one project will probably also be interested in the other stuff you're doing.
Also, scope accrdingly. You'll probably want tiny/micro projects. If you make one project per week, 1001 projects will take you 20 years. Achievable, but unlikely you'll manage that.
As such, I feel like the 1001 is more like saying you're going to do as much as possible. This is a nice goal, but this is going to be really hard work.
Thank you very much for your reply. I am planning and appreciate any thoughtful feedback at the very early stage of my journey.
Yes, that's close to what I think. I consider building an API ecosystem with shared servers, UI templates, code, etc.
I updated my plan according to your and @Rusted feedback and that's what I draw:
Yes, of course. That's why I also consider outsourcing some parts periodically. E.g., outsourcing copywriting.
Yes, exactly, you got it right. 1001 is the game of words. Have you heard about adventure stories like "Sinbad the Sailor", "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp" or "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves"? They probably might have different names in different regions.
It seems an unachievable number, but using it as a target forces me to think about optimizing the journey to get to it.
1001 doesn't need to be game of words. In the current circumstances it's achievable. Easier than ever. I confidently say that I can release 1001 products within a year. It's not even a problem. 3 products a day EZ.
It's hard to come up with 1001 ideas tho, unique ones. Since that's not possible or the target. Let's say 100 of them can be a job board. Job board for remote workers, laravel developers or house cleaners. With no-code tools it shouldn't take longer than an hour to release a job board probably for free also with open source solutions.
Another hundred could be community based products. Community for single dads, for bikers in UK, for whatever you come up with.
Building APIs starts from 10 lines of code. I once challenged myself to do a one liner API. It takes a url, find the table tag in that page, exports the table as an excel or csv through pandas. That's it. With one line of code I could make some bucks if I managed to make it heard or actually release it :).
Problem starts when you need people around. You need to fill those projects with actual users. Hopefully paying ones. Creating 1001 projects is not exciting anymore. No one cares if I build 1 or 1001. But if I build one while streaming on twitch naked sitting on snow, fighting with hypothermia now I may get some attention. It's totally absurd but hope you get the point. We need to make people excited about what we are doing. Either in a stupid or wise way.
About that diagram, I think there is a flaw. As you may already seen around here everyone relies on getting attention in indiehackers yet 80 percent of the posts remains unanswered. Well after 3rd or 4th post without any comment. It becomes harder to keep it up. On the other hand I can give you feedback all day long but as long as it doesn't convert to money. They are worthless. So your feedback loop needs to be around paying customers not internet strangers from indiehackers or twitter. Not possible problems but the actual problems that people are already paying for a solution.
It is a harsh truth that is tough to accept.
Just deleted nearly 1000 words. In short; don't do it.
This is a nice problem to solve. Apparently 12 startups in 12 months never gonna lose its hype. In this case thousand products.
Build 10 products just to make your framework perfect than sell it. Sell the way how to produce projects faster and cheaper.
Oh, man, why did you delete them? I would be pleased to read honest and deep feedback.
Yes, I thought about open-sourcing or selling the framework and tools as a separate project, but it is early enough.
It's gone out of topic so nothing to worry about.
In core; time won't allow. Going on one project after another without any marketing means those projects will be left for their faith and the only way for them to gain traction, you as the founder/developer somehow get some attention.
It's hard for one person to juggle through development, marketing, support, networking, deciding etc. Keeping customers happy if any, reducing churn... You want to do this with multiple projects. Well, may the force be with you.
I think I see what's your aim but even if you find a perfect solution for a problem it's bound to fail without reaching to the right audience and it takes time and that time my friend unfortunately doesn't scale with your ambitions. :)
As long as you don't have monetary limitations and do enjoy the building part. Do the experiment by all means. It worked on a few cases. I believe what make them work is they were heavier on the marketing side rather than obsessing over finding a great problem to solve.
In other cases people usually give up after the fifth project/month. Would you be happily continue working after 5 months even if there are no customers. I wouldn't thus my advice is not to do it. If that's something you can deal with. So let's goo 🚀
That's why I love sharing. Huge thank you — you gave me additional inputs to think about what I am doing.
Not sure that even getting some attention can help.
I would love to hear about the aim more. I do not have one specific goal besides building and finding the project that gains traction and sticks. I feel that you see far more than I. How do you see it?
I think — no, I will not be happy without any traction.
How would you do it?
You leave me a little bit frustrated 🤪 I need to think deeper about what I am going to do.
Wow, since I'm a failed entrepreneur, I wouldn't take my words too seriously.
First off, I don't underestimate the personal branding. That's why there are blogs titled "I left a 6 figure job at FAANG" to gain credibility or "I am 15 and did this.". They somehow gain priority while offering similar stuff as others. Now whatever they produce, they have a fanbase who follows them. It worked for the pioneers somehow but failing to work for copycats. Anyways.
About your aim, it was a bold claim but basically most developers wants to build stuff and avoid the selling part at all costs. Even if it means building 1001 projects. I sense such a vibe from this post.
What I did was; I thought I'd feel miserable if I had a great product with no customers due to my poor marketing skills. So I started with something easy. Built an info-product and practiced marketing. I thought I could get better at marketing. I've completely designed the landing page 3 or 4 times. Tried to send cold-emails for the first time in my life. Felt bad. Wrote a few times here and there. Learned about conversation rate, customer acquisition costs, bla bla. What could be done when there are no visitors and finally when would I throw the towel. After that I thought there is no way I'm getting better at it. End of my story.
After a proper thought; I failed to create a product that I wouldn't stop talking about, proud to share it. Like sharing it should feel like doing a favor. If someone asked about my info-product my instinctive answer was "I made it to make some money by saving you a little bit of research time." But that's not what they wanna hear.
Now instead of problems to solve I'm looking for this. I don't think that's the way it is. It more like a spoiled way of entrepreneurship. But I can afford to do it this way so it works for me. Not suggesting to anyone, yet. :)
I do not underestimate your feedback and appreciate it, especially when you address it to my future scope of work.
Failures usually seem to be the same — they look like each other. But success is always almost is unique.
I thought I could promote the projects by building them and posting valuable content.
Yes, you caught me. I wouldn't say I like selling and marketing, and SEO is the only strategy I see. SEO is a marketing channel for introverts.
At least it is an honest answer.
Do you want to find a product/problem that you can sell naturally?
What I want is automating stuff that brings me a living wage or more and retire already.
I believe this is a personal trait. If I want to be able to sell a regular pen as it's such a unique pen. I'd work on how to do it. So I could sell everything. I could make a living by selling shitty products with great marketing. It's not only marketing, there are more to it like networking. I could make great headphones but someone who has connection with Dre can get away with a shittier version just by him endorsing it.
Well that's not me, that's not what I want. So I'm trying to do good products that possibly solves problems. So I don't need to rely on marketing much (as I don't have a budget for it) but that's not the reality unfortunately.
Like if your plan is to grab indiehackers attention you shouldn't spend your time discussing with me, you should be looking for ways to get into indiehackers podcast discussing it with csallen. So anyone can hear you and your plan, your future products.
I do not believe that people consciously try to sell fluffy stuff. It is just really hard to make great stuff.
It is a great attitude, and it deserves at least to be tried.
I do not see the indie hackers community as my target customers. It might change with time, but I do not plan to make it happen.