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AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups
167 points by 1hakr on Sept 17, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 116 comments
Hello everyone, I’m Hari, and I’m a serial Microstartup Maker. In the last 4 years, I made:

• https://visalist.io, an all-in-one visa requirements website for travelers with 300K Monthly Active users

• https://anexplorer.co, an all-one File manager for phones, watches, TV's and tablets on android with crossed 1M downloads recently

• https://acrypto.io, a cryptocurrency app to track and get real-time alerts with 200K downloads

• https://simpleops.io, performance, web vitals and API monitoring tool for websites with 2000 users

I started my indie maker journey to become financially independent and travel the world. I had a simple and small goal, build things I wanna use and make $100/day. It started slow, I had started building and improving while traveling, it took a while but I crossed $100, then I crossed $200/day. Then pandemic hit and I went back to $100/day, but after 6 months and building a new microstartup, it slowly picked pace and again crossed $200/day then I crossed $300/day, now I'm close to $400/day and my next goal is $500/day.

If the momentum keeps up, I will hit $150K this year.

AMA!

And if you wanna know the learning that I share, follow my journey on https://twitter.com/1HaKr.




If you designed a semester-long microstartup course targeted to fresh CS grads, what does the syllabus look like?


Thats an interesting one which i have never thought about. So it would divide into 4 chapters and go in details for each

- Problems to solve

- Poduct/Solution

- Growth/Marketing

- Pricing/Business Model

- Audience/Users

Then at the end have assingment to build a microstartups based on whats learnt!


What’s your stack? Do you see yourself making a master class out of this or at least a YouTube channel?


I use Vue JS, Node JS and Go Lang. If i get enough interest, i would love to share my learnings and thoughts on youtube.


I'm thinking about learning Vue and Go. When and why do you use Node.js instead of Go for the backend?


When you start, services like Heroku, Firebase etc.. gives you a lot of power. Imho it's never a good idea. For example I have server rendered websites in go sdk (with the template engine) and other website in full node js stack (in my case react but the concept stays). I don't really see a use case for mixed use since having two different languages slow you down.


This would be awesome.


What's your playbook for marketing? This seems to be something you have nailed

And how to you make decision on how you split your time between the four?


I usually tweet WIP screenshots and tease whats coming, then I do a public launch on PH, LinkedIn, Facebook groups and Indie Hackers. But always before bulding a microstartup, I have the organic growth channel figured out. For example with https://visalist.io it was SEO, with https://anexplorer.co it's ASO

I put all my focus on one when i'm getting started, but after its feature complete then i move on to the next. I spend around 20% of my time improving/fixing existing ones.


Here's a question for you from somebody that does _not_ know SEO at all. How good / close to the state of the art is Moz these days?


Hari, do you use/rely on any kinds of paid traffic, such as AdWords&etc ? What's your experience with that?


i dont do any paid marketing


When you say you put all your focus on one, does that mean you focus completely on an MVP, or are you confident enough at building stage that you have a good product and so build as many features as you can?


Do you write everything yourself? Do you write the backend in python/ruby/whatever and then use Java/Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS or do you use a framework like Flutter to generate apps for both ecosystems?

I know how to write backends and APIs across a few languages but I really hate the walled gardens and can't even enjoy writing code for a single ecosystem vs. just writing more logic in a Rails controller or something (to further a project)

Just curious - good job getting things deployed and actually catering to niches!


Instead of looking from tech perspective, i try to look from the solution perspective. I see what can be done in short period and i choose that. If i need to learn a new thing then i will learn or else i will use what i already know.


So you contract it out?


nope, i build them myself.


so server side you use Go, and then implement native apps for each ecosystem? Sounds like a lot of work! How do you decide what to prioritize? How long did it take you to launch the web analytics app for example?


Simple ops took a month for building and one month for beta testing


How do you deal with things like negative thoughts? I find I am an 'ideas' guy, but will instantly shoot myself in the foot by researching similar services that do better than a one-man-team could do. I also have severe trouble dedicating myself to a complete-project - even if I push past the first issue mentioned above - and will really battle my inner demons who think supplying an MVP is 'good enough'.

I suppose my question is how you fight your mental battles.


Further to that, do you have a write-up on your transition from (I assume) full-time work to this system? Did you survive on savings? What's your lifestyle like now compared to then?


Cool, congrats on the success! With that amount of traffic and payments, do you encounter credit card fraud? How do you deal with it?


Yes, i have unfortunately, i have to pay from my pockets sometimes but stripe has been very good.


What does your testing process look like for each new feature or improvement you add? I presume it needs to be pretty robust to prevent any bug creep since you have 4 projects all with paying customers. This is something I am nervous about for a small product I'm building - what if I merge a big bug?!


when you begin, if you start testing every small thing, it becomes quite easy when you finish. If you get a big bug, you can always revert.


"took a while" to cross $100/day. How long before you crossed that line? And how much longer to $200/day. It sounds like the project after the pandemic crunch spurred you to 200, 300, 400 fairly quickly. Which one was that? Which was the first to 100/200?


It took around 8 months to cross $100/day. The main thing that had a good growth is Visa List combined with AnExplorer revenue which got me close to $400/day as borders started opening again.


How long did it take you to get competent enough with your stack in order to be able to actually execute and build these yourself? Did you learn these skills through prior employment, college or self-taught?


Half i learnt then during my employment, Half i learnt when i need to build a specific thing.


Most people are interested in growth, but for me it is the start. How did you achieve 10$/day or 1$/day?


It all starts with solving a problem that people face. People will pay if you can save their time or save their money. People will pay more if you save time and money at the same time. So solve a problem that lot of people face. Forget about making money on day 0. But once you solve the problem for decent number of people then you can easily monetise from those people.


That's all good, but even if I create something that solves a problem and publish the site - nobody knows about it. I get 10 visitors per day.

From SEO perspective, there is very little chance to rank high as a new site for quite some time (unless there is something I don't know, and you could share).

So I guess the question is not how to get the first 1$, but how to get first 1000 of (even free) users


That's correct, you need to figure out where your target users hangout usually like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit etc and engage with them there. Find their problems and if they are facing the ones that you are solving, tell them about your solution.


How do you handle "no advertising" policy that's active in most communities when you are telling to potential users about your solution? (I'm having issues with that policy) Do you have any examples of your approach?


Publicly answering people's questions and DMing them pitching your solution can help if you do it tastefully many places don't mind you saying I am working on this here's my solution


Aha, got it. Thank you!

Also eager to learn more about other tricks if exists.


One of the difficulties I am having is figuring out the idea - i) What is your idea generation process? ii) Building a startup of any kind is not as rosy as you put it? iii) Can you define what a micro startup is?

Do you have a fallback in case any of this fails, and where you working before you built your first startup?

Also, just from this brief interaction, I can see that you are more of a problem -> solution-oriented guy and don't care much about the tech stack. How can one eliminate this mindset? As engineers seem to be more invested in such things?


This is how I try to figure out ideas

- I see a potential problem, see if I can solve it. See if it's already being solved, if not

- I pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build

- I set a goal on day 1 on what the microstartup should achieve once its launched. I try to take no more than 4 weeks to build it.

- I do a public launch in IH, PH, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Reddit. In few weeks if I reach the goal that I set at the beginning, then I continue working on it to improve. If not then I will drop it and move on the next.


> I pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build.

Are those people within your friend/family circle or is it to potential users? If it's potential users, how do you find them and get to talk with them?


It's mostly my friends and family


edit: I see you have already answered this, "12 failed validation" you wrote earlier.

How many ideas have you dropped so far? This is similar to my process, except I have a habit of keeping applications on life support since it's pretty low effort to do.


Me too, I don't drop my microstartups, I automate 95% of my microstartups.


Your projects look cool!

How much time do you spend on a project before you start to monetize or move on?


Thanks, i try to not take more than a month to validate a micrstartup.


In this same time period (4 years), how many microstartups failed validation and were abandoned?


Around 12 failed validation


please share their link if live and a blog on what you think went wrong


How do you manage taxes? Have you dealt with a lawsuit?


I have a company setup, so everything related taxes is setup through it. No lawsuit so far .


Appreciate your being candid about your revenues.

Since you are quite transparent and forthcoming about your revenues, I urge you to take it a step further. It would be very helpful if you could share a screenshot from your payment processor to substantiate your revenue claim. Could you do that please?


Yeah this looks like spam otherwise, he/she just linked stuff all his sites otherwise

Even if he does provide a screenshot, I am not sure if an AMA is the best type of post for Hacker News - there is no unique or insightful content in the original post apart from a set of links


I could do that but its not one single place i get revenue from like

- Google PlayStore - Apple Appstore - Google Adsense - Google Admob - Stripe - Affilate Revenue


Why not take it at face value?


We're all strangers on this forum. Half take the numbers at face value, the other half doesn't.

The allure of this thread is the author's claims on revenue. I'm asking on behalf of the latter half of hn, that would like to believe but would like to see verification first.


$100K ARR is not really that out of the ordinary for something like this, I’m inclined to believe them without verification.

One thing that bugs me, though, is that his solutions are in already very crowded spaces. It seems like it would be difficult to siphon off users without a significant marketing spend.


This, right here, is the marketing spend. I work in a bank in Hong Kong and look at me hearing about his mini craps ahah


Thanks for sharing, it is very inspiring and gives other indiehackers hope that they may be able to replicate the success.

Are you US based? how did you managed transition to bootstrapping at the initial stage? through savings? and how long did it took you to become profitable?


No I'm based in Sydney. I initially had some savings, and i was profitable in two months.


First, congrats!

- How do you handle taxes?

- Do you take your laptop everywhere? As in: if it's Sunday morning and you want to go out for a run/hiking/cycling (laptop-free) for 6 hours, can you just do it? What if any of your products go down in that timeframe?


Nope, i usually do my own taxes. No i never take my laptop unless i'm going to another country.


Thanks a lot for sharing your journey!

How do you chose which project to tackle on, do you take account of their potential distribution?

Have you abandoned a lot of other projects?

Do you have a daily routine?

Do you have a todo list, a personal ticket system? How do you prioritize through tasks?


I try to get a sense of market size and how much crowded the space is, sometimes it's too small or sometimes it's too crowded, so then I don't go ahead with that idea.

I have not abandoned a lot but dismissed a few of potential ideas.

No not really, I do work when I feel like or take a vacation when I want to.


congrats! I'm curious how do you do you do the maintenance. For visalist, how do you keep the info up-to-date? For anexplorer, how do you test compatibility on different phones?


i have created script which monitor government websites. for apps i bought all types of devices to test.


What is the monetisation avenue for each of these? For example, I don't see pricing for visalist so I assume it's from ads, whereas simpleops is a paid-for service.


- Visa List: Ads, Affilate revenue, subscriptions

- AnExplorer: Paid purchase, In App purchases, Ad

- ACrypto: Subscriptions

- Simple Ops: Subscriptions


OP is testing their next microstartup on HN with this thread :D


@dang, a lot of the comments here look fake/automated...


I don't think they are, that's just the AMA format looking unusual.


Maybe his next startup? Automated bulk answering of similar comments?


His answers might be, not the questions themselves.


What's your playbook for identifying worthwhile ideas to start developing?

Any ideas you thought had great potential but turned out mediocre / failed? And vice-versa?


I see a potential problem, see if I can solve it. See if it's already being solved, if not I pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build


Thanks 4 the AMA.

How many projects did you launch before you arrived at these top 4?

How do you arrive at an idea worth pursuing?

Where do you start?

How long do you spend before you chuck off a project not worth pursuing more?


I have launch around 7 or 8

I see a potential problem, see if I can solve it. See if it's already being solved, if not I pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build

I dont take more than a month to validate any idea


Have you actually made $100k+ yet or is this projected?


Based on the given timeline, it seems like it's projected unless he went from $100/day at the start of the pandemic to $300+/day by September 2020 (ie, in about 4-5 months).


Yes i have crossed $400/day, its been 4 years now.


Sorry. I meant to say that while you've probably make 100k net over 4 years and that you have 100k ARR, you haven't yet had a single year with 100k income based on the timeline you've given.


I love these stories. Can you ad some details how you started out? Did you have a day job and work in the evenings or how did you get started?


I was working a product manager before, then I quit my job and started full time on my microstartups.


Do you have any recommendations on resources or courses to get started with frontend and backend development to build saas products?


for frontend the easiest one is NuxtJS https://nuxtjs.org/video-courses/


Wow nice job. How did you transition into being a full-time maker? Did you have a job and build one of these on the side?


I quit my job and worked on these full time.


Thanks for the post.

You mention nocode tools? Such as what? Is that only for landing pages?

Seeing Java and swift are used for mobile app dev? Are you using accelerators or templates to speed it up and if so from where?

What tech do you use for identity, user store and authn/ authz? Related to that is what tech handles your subscriptions?


Do you do it all yourself, or do you outsource anything? I'm impressed by the landing pages. Any tips?


I build everything myself. There are so many no code tools, out there. Start with them, so you to go live will be much shorter and you will be able to validate your idea in a short time.


Congrats on being your own boss! How much time do you spend on these sites, in any aspect, per week?


Thanks mate! I usually spend around 5-10 hours per week


Does that include social / professional networking / advertising / marketing / promoting / etc. Or just technical aspects? (Notice you said about 20% on existing businesses)


Yes that about sums it up


can you share you'r tech stack ,

which hosting do you use and what setup you use there .

i guess with your expiriance . you replicate your web infrastructure for you microsaas's also i will like to know how much % hosting and thired party API's takes from your MMR

Thanks


I use Vue JS, Node JS and golang. I use GCP for hosting.

All of this doesn't cost much, around $250/month


for each app ? can you share what services do you use there ? do you use credits ? why GCP and not other provider ?


I mostly use firebase and GCP because they are easy to use


How much time do you spend on your new/old projects? How much maintenance?


new - 80% old - 20%


What tools/stacks did you use to make all of those web/apps


I use vuejs, nodejs and golang for web apps. Java and swift for mobile apps.


Is nodejs or golang used for your backend. How does the one that isn't used for your backend fit into your tech stack?


do you have youtube/blog where we could learn from you?


i dont have blog, but i share my learning onn twitter as threads, so do follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/1HaKr


thank you!!!!


How do you identify which problems are worth solving?


I pick the problems i personally face and then see if it can be solved and has potential to make a revenue out of it. Then i pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build.


What does your by-country breakdown for visalist look like? 300K monthly users seems pretty nuts.


It's pretty spread out across 50+ countries but on the top three is US and UK


Congratulations! What kind of corporate structure do you use for your microbusinesses? Delaware LLC? Also are you based in the USA?


Yes, i have unfortunately, i have to pay from my pockets sometimes but stripe has been very good.


How do you find things worth building?


I pick the problems i personally face and then see if it can be solved and has potential to make a revenue out of it. Then i pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build.


How did you market them initially?


I usually tweet WIP screenshots and tease whats coming, then I do a public launch on PH, LinkedIn, Facebook groups and Indie Hackers. But always before bulding a microstartup, I have the organic growth channel figured out.


do you make hybrid mobile apps? What frameworks do you use for mobile apps?


No i havent made any hybrid apps. I have built only native apps so far.




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