Quit my job the 2nd time, here's how I’m doing it differently this time
Hey guys, Phuc from Queue.so here.
I officially wrapped up my engineering lead job and became a full-time indie hacker for the 2nd time yesterday.
The last time I quit was two years ago. I joined a startup accelerator and tried to build a funded startup. I failed miserably and had to go back to 9-5 until yesterday.
Over the last two years, I learned about Indie Hackers, built a small Twitter audience of ~4k, tried to launch a few products (the biggest one is Queue.so), and learned a ton about preparing to bootstrap my SaaS full-time.
This post will share what I learned and how I'm doing it this time to avoid going back to 9-5 again - my absolute nightmare. I hope this post will be helpful to folks here and a chance for me to listen to advice from more experienced founders and keep myself accountable. 🙏
How did I prepare financially?
The biggest mistake I made the 1st time I quit was leaving before having any reasonable savings (because I was building a funded startup).
How long?
After observing and researching the indie hacker community, three years of saving is the safest bet. Bootstrapping is hard enough that many can't make it in two years, but three years is long enough that if I can't reach reasonable profitability after three years, I should probably try something else. To be abundantly specific, I'm not setting for $1M/year in 3 years; that goal is for outliner; my goal is to make $5k/month in 3 years.
How much?
I'm a fan of Pieter Levels and Yongfook; both traveled and had a comfortable living while starting their business.
I tried living at my parents' house and spending as little as possible, I know I won't be able to do it for three years. Even though I'm happy living with my parents, I'm neither self-motivated nor creative.
This is the topic that I think indie hackers are not talking about enough:
To quit 9-5, you need to prepare for a lifestyle that you're the most motivated and creative, not just to survive, in years.
I'm the most motivated and creative being a nomad in Southeast Asia (and/or similar cities) - which cost about $2k/month. I don't have a family yet, but I support my parents financially, so it adds up to $3k/month. I set it at $4k/month to be more conservative (inflation, etc).
$4,000/month * 36 months = $144,000
I needed to save $144,000 in 2 years. I'm lucky enough to be a remote software engineer who typically earns $120,000/year (cash only and after-tax) while living on only $30k/year ($2-3k/month) in Vietnam - which is perfectly enough to save $144,000 in 2 years. Again, I'm lucky here, and I don't know if it would be possible if I were not a software engineer or lived in a more expensive city. However, I think many of you here are also software engineers; there are abundant remote opportunities nowadays, apply to a remote position, and move to Southeast Asia!
That wrapped up how I prepared for living in the next three years. Now, let's talk about how what and how I'm building.
(Not) 12 startups in 12 months
You've probably heard of 12 startups in 12 months; Pieter Levels and/or Yongfook coined this phrase.
I was lucky enough that I was able to build side projects while preparing financially in the last two years. I know my biggest issue or biggest obstacle to profitability is building too much and launching too slowly. 12 startups in 12 months is the cure for my problem.
I also learned that 12 startups in 12 months is not a solution for not having ideas where you try a lot of ideas and hope one of them will blow up. It's not practical to expect yourself to build a successful business in a month. 12 startups in 12 months is purely a solution to practice the habit of building less and shipping more - Yongfook once said it on an Indie Hackers podcast.
So what is the "(Not)"?
During that two years, I was lucky again that one of my side projects (Queue.so) started becoming a thing, and I enjoyed working on it. What was the most important experience for me with Queue.so is that I found out my own principle of bootstrapping SaaS as a solo founder (or a small team):
I need to dominate and/or become the monopoly of a very niche market, too niche that even no one bothers building .
(Peter Thiel once said similarly in his Zero To One book)
This is what is happening with Queue.so, even though the idea of Notion + Twitter sounds ludicrous at first, now if anyone asks about Notion + Twitter, it will be Queue.so, because there is no one else doing it. I'm not scared that someone will do it because I spent way too much time on it for someone else to build a competable product. The reason is not technical, but because the product is so niche that I doubt anyone would spend an equivalent effort to create an equally good product.
So what I'm saying is that I have two problems to solve:
- Cure my issue of building too much and launching too slow
- Spend enough effort to dominate a very niche market
At least 6 startups in 12 months
A silly name, I know, but at least we have something to reference.
Here is how it works:
- Like 12 startups in 12 months, I'll have to build, launch, market, and (try to) make money from a new product in 1 month.
- But instead of immediately moving on to another project, if the project shows good traction, I'll hold on to it for another month and try to make it as defensible as possible. After two months, I'm not allowed to stay on the project and have to move on to another project. Hence the name at least 6 startups in 12 months.
- To be able to reasonably dominate a market, I'm allowed to work on an existing product and consider it as working on a new product. The requirement is there has to be a new launch, and it expands the product to a new set of target customers. For example, I'm allowed to work on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook support for Queue.so as a new project because there will be a new launch and a new set of target customers to market to and acquire.
The most considerable risk of this plan is 2-month might not be enough to dominate a market, and someone will replace me, but it is a tradeoff to help me build a habit of shipping and launching more. Plus, I'll do it for only the first year - if I fail, it is not the end of my journey.
Fun facts: Yongfook also built 7 startups out of 12; on Pieter Levels blog, he listed only 7 projects (not sure if he didn't build the rest or those projects just died).
I hope this post is helpful to folks who're trying to escape their 9-5 and would love to hear your thoughts about the approach, especially folks who went through a similar period and method 🙏.
I wish there were a similar post two years ago, which was my biggest motivation for writing the post. I have been learning and getting so much inspiration from the Indie Hackers community, and I want to give back something while also keeping myself accountable. I'll share more about what I'm building this month in the next article. Thank you for reading, and until next time 👊
P.S. I'm on Twitter, too, if you'd like to follow more of my progress and see what I'm building daily.
The other day I told @csallen the "12 products in 12 months" approach does more harm than good, because the crazy frequency prevents the time it takes to gain traction and also isn't sustainable.
He countered by saying the stickiness of the name is such a huge marketing benefit that it's worth keeping it as it is, and that most people who do it only stick with the one-product-per-month element for about three months before naturally pivoting to the more sustainable pace of a single product every two months.
Either way, I think 6 startups in 12 months is a great cadence.
If anything, people tend to err on the side of taking too long to work on projects, and never actually releasing them. Or having too big of a scope, and releasing something that's janky and ugly and full of obvious missing features. When they'd be better off with smaller more polished projects that they can actually finish and learn from.
So yeah, I don't mind that the 12in12 approach biases people to move really quickly. Even then, it's still really easy to fail to have the discipline to get each project out and fully market it in under a month.
For what it's worth, I took about 3 weeks to take Indie Hackers 1.0 from idea to launch.
I did this. I spent months and months “working on” an nft analytics product and realized it wasn’t going to be as good as icy tools even if I launched it. And it was far from launch because my “work” involved more effort to make it an ideal generalized eth data organization and processing machine than something usable.
I should have just made something to handle a limited part of what icy does, priced it cheap and gotten it out there.
Thanks for the comments, @channingallen, and @csallen! I was one of the people who tend to err on the side of taking too long on projects and I think it is the best reason to do 12in12.
Really good to know people also pivot to 1 product per 2 months, glad I'm not alone 😁
I thought a lot about the stickiness of "12 startups in 12 months", too. It had a huge marketing benefit back then but I think people are getting bored of it, people seem to know what to expect and are less excited, which also makes the approach have significantly less marketing benefit. Do you think that is true or "12 startups in 12 months" is still catching many people's attention?
Setting yourself up to be motivated is an underrated step for indie hackers. Most startup dreams fail because the founders quit. Or because they put in so little effort that they might as well not be working.
This isn't because people are lazy. It's because being self-employed is hard. Self motivation is hard. It's a boss-level problem that needs boss-level solutions, and if you underestimate it, you'll watch months or even a year blow by without getting much done.
So I love that @phuctm97 explicitly talks about choosing a location and work style that will boost motivation. Having deadlines helps, too. And personally, I also like to throw in some social accountability -- a coach or a mentor or a mailing list that I make commitments to, that I have to follow through on by next week.
+1 to how underrated an environment that helps keep you motivated and creative is, I committed that error first hand!
TL;DR: I am pretty sure that a correct emotional setup is a necessary (although not sufficient) ingredient for success! If you want a counter example keep reading... 👇
Context: originally, my plan was to keep a part time job and keep working on ShopWindow, but due to personal reasons I was forced to go all in as an Indie Hacker!
Emotionally speaking, I was at my lowest moment, but I had been preparing for building my own company (savings, time, location...) for so long, that I felt that the best thing I could do was to continue as planned.
Starting things off takes a lot of work and perseverance, so keeping busy 14 hours a day doing something I love, seemed like a good deal: keep building my company + keeping distracted to recover myself from the personal situation, all in one shot!
I couldn't have been more wrong: my creativity was just asleep and my motivation little compared with the pressure I imposed to myself!
Probably, a set up like yours, where your savings and estimations on them give you a clear runway plus being in a place where you know you will keep at your best are a much better approach to going all in as an Indie Hacker.
Well done man! Power to you! 💪💪💪
Thank you, @FCScher! Good luck to you too 💪
Love this. In the last 2 years, I first-hand saw months blow by without getting much done and I'm disappointed with myself for it. I needed a solution (12 startups in 12 months and work style are ones of them), but didn't know how to describe the situation. Boss-level problems and boss-level solutions perfectly describe it.
And thanks for the advice too, Courtland! I will be looking into a coach or mentor but I'm afraid it would a more expensive than the budget I have. A mailing list is a great alternative.
Was a bit surprised that you didn't suggest IndieHackers as a solution for founder social accountability?
I'm not sure if Indie Hackers is the best for social accountability, at the moment. IH needs to do a better job getting you responses to your posts, and followers on your account or your product pages, and maybe then it can be.
"To quit 9-5, you need to prepare for a lifestyle that you're the most motivated and creative, not just to survive, in years."
I love the thought and preparation that has gone into the decision to quit the 9-5pm. And 100% agree about the motivation part. I think the two main reasons projects fail are money and motivation. If you have the runway, and are motivated enough to stick with it (and pivot several times if need be) then you'll eventually find success.
Thank you, Marie! Spot on with the two main reasons for projects to fail, the preparation was exactly to avoid any of these two reasons to happen 🤞
You are truly a man with a plan. Good luck!
Thanks @favadi
This is a fantastic post, man. I love how you have the whole plan laid out about the direction you want to go to. Really looking forward to seeing how it goes.
All the very best!
Thanks for your support from the very early day, Bhanu!
nice post
Awesome post, thanks for sharing!
Agreed that 12 products in 12 months is unsustainable! I wouldn't want to buy from someone knowing they'd drop development after a few weeks (even if they might pick it up later). Seems like this is a great balance and is doing well for you!
Top tier post, followed and upvoted.
Also, I recently posted this:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/a-different-path-to-ramen-profitability-fcafb15897
With every passing day I'm leaning more and more towards #2.
Although I've never approached it, 12 startups in 12 months always sounded horrific. We want to be fast, but we need to set realistic and sustainable goals. Thumbs up for 6 startups in 12 months.
Addressing the topic of motivation: I'm convinced that many innovations can make it if you know your stuff but also hold on even when times are tough. With this said, I wish you @phuctm97 all the best!
Picking a niche and choosing a reasonable product size is what I deem highly important too when working on your own or with very small team. It allows you to actually come to the point of launching. If the product gets traction, you can expand and build it out later.
Having built an audience before your second leap into indie hacking, would you this is a crucial aspect?
Hey Minh-Phuc, thanks for sharing your experience! Found this post (and the discussion in the comments) to be super relatable. I especially like your self-awareness of the lifestyle and workflow adjustments you needed to make to keep you motivated, building, and shipping. Definitely gives me some food for thought!
Glad it helped, @BrainOfLaraine!
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Hi Phúc :")
Hope you can always keep your motivation like this. Working solo in a project is not that relax in the mind nor the code quality too. I think planning for The 6 Projects Topics should be very carefully (at least you have to really love it even when in bad case, it can be failed :*().
I'm curious about what if a project blowing up, what you gonna do with that? Keep moving forward to another project after 1 month building + 1 month updating it, or just go with the flow? :")
Thanks mate! The plan is to only work on a project for a maximum of 2 months, then move on. If a project shows very very very good traction, then I can launch a new version as a separate product - 1 of the rules. If the project really blows up, it should survive itself in the 1st year and I can consider fully focusing in the 2nd year 😁
Great to see here a developer from the same country :). Love your share and your courage. Good luck :).
Very relatable and insightful post.
I've been building in public in IH for the last 12 weeks and launched the alpha on 31st March 2022. It's a no-code platform for API integrations. We have started with some of the most popular integrations like Github, AirTable, Twitter, Dropbox, MailChimp and would love to get some alpha users willing to try our product out and suggest what integrations would be useful for them.
Congrats!
I've seen your progress on Twitter(I'm a follower) in building your product. It's so magical! It's like a hackable way, yet the users can follow it easily. I hope I can make something magical too!
Thank you @mharrvic! Just build something, every creation is magical ✨
Yeah!🪄
Btw, do you have any recommended resources on building apps on top of the notion, still mind-boggling about the web extension that modifies the UI of the specific site or an app that can modify the UI for the specific app like you did on Queue? I found this https://github.com/refined-github/refined-github sample, maybe this is a good start? Thanks!
Congrats!
Thanks, Tom!
How did you grow your Twitter to 4k followers?
yup, seems impossible for me at 8 followers haha
I can say I'm the worse one at growing Twitter followers, many grew much more in shorter time period, so it is totally possible!
For me, it was to consistently tweet (and shitpost) every day for 2 years! Share what interesting things you're building or doing!
I think the rule for savings is pretty accurate honestly! Good luck!
Thank you @juli1pb
usually, when i quit i just full send it, spend all my money as fast as possible and then cry myself to sleep. kinda envious of the extreme attention of detail you have :D
this time, i'll try to do it better. glad i found IH, the inspiration is strong
I did it similarly the first time too, so I'm not very good either just learned it the hard way 😄
You have a thoughtful and reasonable approach. I’m sure you will succeed, Minh!
I agree on the runway. I wouldn't have felt comfortable going Indie without 2 yrs of savings. I also agree 6 ideas in 12 months is better for mere mortals like us 😅.
One additional point I urge myself to do is to try and presell before building. Feel free to test ideas out and ask for payment. This is the only true validator in the end!
Thanks for the suggestion, Alex!
I agree with your point of view on 12 startups in 12 months. I think 1 startup idea per quarter which includes coding from scratch + sales/marketing etc.
I’m following you on Twitter and feel surprised when hearing this. Good luck!
That is exactly what I’m finding. As a developer, I always focus on my product but do not know how to ship it. Btw, 6in12 sounds good, maybe I will try it 👌
What a cool model. Best of luck!
Thanks @chr15m
I love how you prepped for this to become a reality. I really like the idea of preparing for work and creativity. I haven't thought of this any time.
Thanks for writing this and all the best man!
Thank you, Aravind! Hope the post was helpful!
This is such a cool post, Minh. Thanks for sharing this. But just curious, how would you find ideas to work on at the end of each product during the 6-startup-in-12-months journey?
I have too many ideas now so I'm not afraid of ideas. 😄
I have a framework to collect and build ideas, I'll share more about it, probably in the 4th-5th month, after proving that it actually worked.
Congrats again! You're very well prepared financially and focused on just one thing to grow. 👏
Thanks, Damon! You're a huge inspiration 💙
Awesome. Inspirational.
I am on my new journey, getting into my 4th week. Should be able to launch the first one by end of 8 weeks. Will be starting the next one after that. But that is. My plan is to just focus on 2 in 12 months. And see where I go. More about this at the end of the 8th week. First product is a copy cat with some automation and AI spin. Second one will also be a copycat but improvement and simplicity for users as they don't have to install and check control some popular tools and workflow.
Good luck on your journey mate!
Awesome Minh Phuc!
Atleast 6 in 12 months sounds more reasonable to me too.
Really look forward to following your journey and learning from it 😀
Thanks @hackernewbie 🙌
this is cool, man. I just quit for the second time as well but productizing my knowledge in real estate investing instead of a traditional product like the first time.
I use typefully for tweets and am curious to know more about this as I heavily rely on Notion.
That's an interesting route! All the best mate. Feel free to go over to queue.so and give it a shot, it's free during the new beta. 🙌
This is a big decision and very well prepared! Not many people have the courage to quit such a high-paying comfortable job position to go on the startup journey.
Wish you all the best! And let's have beer frequently! 😁
Thanks, buddy! You're the inspiration! And hell yeah, let's have more beer 😆
Congrats dude 💪
Thank you, Travis. Your support in the early days meant a ton 💙
Welcome to the club mate :)
I left my job in Dec 2021 and currently building a product for affiliate marketers.
Glad to meet you and hope to cross each other soon :)
Thanks mate! Wish us good luck!! Where are you based now?
I am in India. Cost of living is very very low. Hope to nomad someday around Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam & more other SEA Countries :)