I sold my last startup for $800k. Sounds like I’m rich? Safe? Life winner? No! I’m at a bigger risk of failing than you 😃 I earned $400k in cash. It will end in ~5 years. So I still have to build a new thing to have money for living in the future. Life goes fast. 5 years is nothing. I already wasted 2 years dreaming 🫠 I need to build ASAP. Statistically, you have a 90% risk of failure. My risk of failing is even bigger because I already had success: now I’m overconfident and biased. Instead of discovering new, my mindset tells me to repeat what I did in 2018. Chances it will work again in 2024? 😇

You're wasting your time If you're working on anything that's not: - api (screenshotone) - can be consumed via mcp (highsfield) - niched ai agent (seobot) - has a network effect (X) - multi-sided marketplace (tinyadz) - shared economy (airbnb) - a game - hardware (robots, automations, etc) - deep ai ( Jev ) - attention-driven (outbid, adcar) - brand-driven (marc lou selling his body) - data (directories, content, newsletters) for llms - owned distribution (podcasts, communities) - local monopoly or hyper-niched product for slow audiences

every single maker thinks they are the only person with access to codex/claude code in the world. they claim spending "a lot of time" (usually 3-10 days) building a tool and believe it is worth trying out and even spending money on. . .. you are nothing but dopamine monkeys

I've created 5 startup communities on 5 different platforms since 2016: 1. Slack ~500 members. Died because Slack went too corporate-ish. It was TOO painful to use it. 2. Stadalone (Discourse) ~700 members: Standalone means constant problems with spammers, backups, server disk space, downtimes. It also feels 2010. Died because I was too tired to maintain the code. Total profit: -$904 (digital ocean) since 2016. Link: broadwise.org 3. Reddit ~8,800 members. Pros: grows by itself. Cons: Reddit is too geeky. 1001 mod buttons to manage everything. I have full control but zero patience to learn all those settings. Reddit is also too paranoid: it restricted my subreddit because I haven't done any moderation within 2 months ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ tf man... (update: they restored it) Link: reddit.com/r/BootstrappedSaa… 4. Discord ~200 members. Died because I was too lazy to wait for 4 mins as it gets updated every damn time I launch the app. 5. Telegram ~1,900 members Telegram is fast & easy to use. Those are the key components of a community for me. It takes seconds to check activity so I can do it x10 times per day. As do my lovable team of mods. Total profit: $1,200 (ads) since 2018. Link: isora.me/solo-founders-chat/ Cons: Telegram has a shady reputation: Meta has been smearing its reputation in the media because it fears competition. . . . .... Main takeaway: a platform choice is the first and the most important step in making a community. Think twice!

I've just sold a github repo $200 🫡 I created StartupToolbox 7 years ago. It is a directory of startup tools. Good luck to the new owner! (Ravi). I have more side-projects for sale isora.me/i-quit/ 😺 Check it out if you need a quick traffic boost for your product.

Now I generate images for my acc @micro_startups_ via OpenAI's latest model. Got more details: UI mockups, stack, MRR estimations, how it works. Looks sweet!! I enjoy making them.

look, indie making is not dying. it is transforming. before AI: only programmers can create apps. ~300k people can play the game. today: only geeks/enthusiasts can create apps. ~10M people can play the game. tomorrow: everybody can create apps. ~500M people in the game. this is why Lovable is valuated at $7B - they will be selling shovels to that huge new market.

I've just killed my second (and last) SaaS. I expected it to be a glorious success, but that was an delusion. I've made it with my 1st SaaS (@unicornplatform) not because I'm good at creating SaaS, but because I'm good at noticing gaps in markets. There was an obvious gap with landing pages, but there was no gap in video creation. My way is to patiently wait until I notice a gaping hole, luring to be filled in, that no one else see. Then I will have an opportunity to make another SaaS. However, AI will be able to instantly replicate any of my findings. So my skill to have a clear vision is obsolete. ... . The SaaS game is over. Indie making is over. . ... You may throw rocks into me. But I'm just a messenger.

i have registered "broadwise(.org)" in 2017. i made an online community which did not take off. 2 days ago a new 🇨🇳 company emerged called "BROADWISE INC". they own broadwise(.org).cn and broadwise(.cn). today i started getting these emails from the US Filing Services. what do i do?

I'm the luckiest indie maker in the world. I've sold @unicornplatform to @johnrush in 2022. DAYS before the beginning of the AI era that is soon to turn SaaS into a commodity. If I were you I'd stop building and start asking oneself serious questions.

Claude Code is a slot machine for a creative person such as an indie maker. Please take care of your dopamine system. Don't let it control you.

I'm killing @paracast_io soon. AI creates any motion design videos via Remotion. No need for a SaaS. ... Creating a new SaaS in 2026 in a bad idea. The market is doomed. The only way to get $$$ is having a strong expertise in a field and create a SaaS for solving a particular problem in a particular way. "Just ship it" does not work anymore.

Popular advice: start building now ship fast and you'll get rich. Real advice: work a regular job in a boring b2b industry to get experience, gain unique domain knowledge and save money. Then start building a b2b app in the same industry as a side project.

I made a tier list of all growth channels that I used to go to $16k MRR. If I were starting today, I’d focus on 3 things: • making top product - so people love and share it genuinely (70%). • side projects factory (20%). • writing good stories - 𝕏, Reddit etc (10%).

Ben has been protecting my "Solo Founders" group from spammers for over a year. Kudos! 🙏

I've sold an ad slot in my maker's group which I've been running since 2018. +$200 🫡 It felt weird and uncommon. Overall, I disliked the experience of selling my audience's attention. I'm too emotionally attached to my people. This is why I'm a bad businessman.

listed my best projects for sale: isora.me/i-quit/ only sites with traction 🫡 .. . .. want to enter the game of indie making? don't start from nothing -> buy my thing(-s). the prices are ridiculous (starts from $500). got both SaaS and no-code sites.

Ok people let me tell a thing that you will hate: Indie making is not yours. You are a loser. The only way to get successful at indie making is loving it with all heart. If you don’t love it will all heart (I said “ALL”), don’t waste your time. 99.9% of you are losers and will always remain losers in the space. Not because you are not talented. But because it is just not yours. Stop believing in the “just come up every day” cult. No, just showing up every day doesn’t promise $$$$. Otherwise, @d4m1n, would already become successful because he works x5 harder than all of you. It is not straightforward. There is no script, no boilerplate, no “10 steps” to follow. If you are destined to become a successful indie maker, you would just calmly go your way and become a successful indie maker. If no, there are no answers, trips, hacks, signs from the outside that can help you. You still want money and fame? But why? Money won’t make you happy because happiness comes from other sources rather than printed paper. Your dad won’t say “im proud of you son” if you reach $10k MRR because he is a jackass and doesn’t love you anyway. That awesome girl won’t start noticing you when you reach 100k followers because truly awesome girls don’t look at numbers. So why are you still here? Tell me the truth now. . … Influencers like @johnrush don’t tell the truth because it will make you sad. You will either leave or unfollow them. But they need your attention to sell you stuff. Your life is a part of their game, they work on keeping you here, not in a place you really belong to. .. … Now the boring part! 😎 - I’m quitting indie making and selling out @paracast_io and ALL my side-projects for peanuts. Feel free to check them in my bio and DM to get a site before I begin public sales here. - mrr.guide is finished. You can buy and read it now. Final release will be soon. - saas.page won’t get any more new domain names soon. But I’m satisfied with the current collection. Buy a premium domain name there.

I've figured out why I'm often scared to launch!! 🤩 Not launching is comfortable. I live in a future world where my product succeeds, users love it, $$$ flows. It's perfect because it's not real. I like being there. The moment I launch, that fantasy dies. I get actual data. 99% of it won't match my vision. I attach my identity to a project. The app's success = my worth. If it fails, I fail. But I'm not my app. I'm not my MRR, my user count, or my Product Hunt ranking. If the app dies, I remain. ... .. The solution is an obvious: "just ship it". It always worked for me. But I must confess I prefer living in "illusions" rather than actually launching MUCH, MUCH more. It is my favorite part of being a maker. Why launch and suffer when I can NOT launch and enjoy it? 😎

I’m divorcing 😵‍💫 (I hate writing this post, but I want to share my lessons). The story: The first 7 days after she has left, I was fighting severe anxiety. By “severe anxiety” I mean a terrifying feeling that I will be alone. That I’m not needed. I’m nothing, an insignificant stain on the surface of the world. It was paralyzing. I was afraid to think, to go to sleep, to wake up. I was scared of existing. Those of you who are deep into psychology has already figured the out the reason. But it was unclear to me back then. We had 0 calls and barely texted. On the 8th day, my inflamed brain got too tired of the tension. The fuse blew. I started to live in a new world, where my wife is far and is never back. Like dead. Somehow, I assured myself, she wants to break up with me. I accepted and entered a new state - loneliness. Then an interesting thing happened. .. ... For the first time in my life, I started being curious in my own feelings and desires. Real ones, not the ones driven by my anxiety. I asked myself many questions. One of them was: “what kind of marriage do I want?” Wait wait. What a stupid idea to think about this after 3 years of being married??? Well, when I was proposing, it wasn’t me who did it. It was my anxiety which wanted to attach her nearby even more. Being married ⇒ being together forever ⇒ being not alone ⇒ being free from anxiety. This was the real reason why my brain made me to propose. Not because I wanted to marry her. The type of marriage I want: a traditional family, kids. I kill mammoths and build a house. She takes care of home and kids. I help her with the kids. The type of marriage I had: she had her own life goals and wishes (this is my story, not hers, so let me omit the details). I push her in my direction, fail, get frustrated. So I decided to stop it (despite we love each other af). Crazy, but it was the first time I made a fully conscious decision on my relationships. I started packing my belongings. .... ... On the day 10th, she has returned. Turned out, she never wanted to break up, just some space to be alone. A thing that many couples normally do. When she saw my bags packed, she was, to put it mildly, shocked. Oops. It was a hard time for her. And for me too, because she is the person I love the most in the world. I didn’t want to cause so much pain. But this time, I put my own desires above. It felt great to gain the power to rule my life. Perhaps children feel when same when they do their first step. . .... What is the reason of my anxiety? My parents 🙂 My dad was an alcoholic. He terrorized his family, bringing chaos and uncertainty. My mom often had mental break-downs, which obviously affected me. A childhood spent in a chaos and neglection leaves a mark. Such adults grow up with problems of listening to their feelings and desires, having a crave to control everything to reduce the uncertainty of the future, being prone to escapism and addictions (in my case, it’s food, nicotine, and porn), having problems with accepting compliments, being feared of getting abandoned. I don’t blame them. They were raised in similar conditions. They had no other option but to continue cursed life paths. I don’t blame myself for being who I am. A man with a buggy firmware. This just happened. No need to judge. I just need to fix it. .. ... What is going on now? I was lucky to marry a smart and wise girl. She doesn’t blame me because she understands the true nature of my anxiety and why I proposed to her. She is helping me to figure out myself. Right now, we are enjoying our last days together and help each other to enter our new phases. I go to the Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) and Dysfunctional Families groups. Those have already found the answers to my questions. The groups and their books help me to understand my problem and find a solution. I took a pause from work to fully concentrate on myself. I want to discover my real needs, wishes. Learn to listen to myself and respect my desires. But the most important, I need to learn how to remove the anxiety from my life. I also started celibacy (no dating) for a year. Ever since I started meeting girls, I have constantly been in relationships. A few weeks later after a break-up, I find myself living with the first random girl I met. Every time. I just can’t handle being NOT in relationship because I don’t feel myself needed and alive. I need someone to live for, to serve their needs. Otherwise, I feel useless because I don’t know how to live for myself. I do not want to get into another relationship until I’m healed. That would be falling into the same trap. . …. Thanks for reading my story! Please let me know if that resonates. I have more to share (this post is only ~10% of what I’ve discovered the last month).