$133k/m selling Nextjs boiler plates

Nationality — French
Age — 32
Top Product(s) — ShipFa.st
Current MRR — ~$141K

Today, I want to share with you the inspiring story of Marc Lou, a 32-year-old French entrepreneur who is one of the highest grossing Indie Hackers with a super smart product.

Marc’s journey began when he graduated from Université de Technologie de Troyes. He began his career as a full-stack developer and started a couple of ventures. After facing a series of failures and setbacks, including being fired by Tai Lopez in November 2021, Marc discovered the build-in-public community on Twitter, which changed his life.

In just under three years, Marc launched an impressive 21 products, grew his newsletter to 20,000+ readers, amassed a Twitter following of 95,000, and reached an astounding $141,000 per month in revenue with a 91% margin.

Marc’s entrepreneurial journey was not without its challenges. It took him two years to make his first dollar online, and he even grew a SaaS to $3,000 MRR before feeling like a failure after four years of hard work. Depression set in, causing him to quit entrepreneurship temporarily.

However, after being fired by Tai Lopez, Marc found inspiration in his role models on Twitter, such as Pieter Levels and Danny Postma. These solopreneurs were working on their projects from anywhere in the world, enjoying the freedom and financial success that Marc craved.

Living in Bali with his Korean wife and $20,000 in the bank, Marc set out to build his own path to freedom. He started with a simple project called Mood2Movie, a movie recommendation app based on the user’s mood. This project kickstarted his build-in-public journey, and he continued to launch projects for fun, learning valuable skills along the way.

In August 2022, Marc went all-in on his gamified habit tracker, Habits Garden, which was making ~$200/month. He utilized side-project marketing, launching free tools to promote his paid product, and created engaging launch videos that went viral. By January 2023, Habits Garden had reached 10,000 users.

Marc continued to ship startups like a madman, applying new rules: no free plans, only painkiller products, and moving on quickly if there was no product-market fit. In July 2023, he was making ~$3,000/month.

A turning point came when Marc realized he needed to build a business for customers he truly cared about. He sold his AI landing page generator for $35,000 and his habit tracker for $10,000, giving him the time and clarity to focus on products he would use himself.

On September 1st 2023, Marc launched ShipFast, a NextJS boilerplate to help others ship startups quickly. To his surprise, ShipFast made $40,000 by the end of the month, and as of April 2024, it is at an impressive run rate of $133K.

Marc’s success has bought him peace of mind and the ability to speak to a broader audience. However, his life hasn’t changed dramatically. He still surfs, writes, and codes every day, finding happiness in creating rather than consuming..

I hope Marc’s journey inspires you as much as it has inspired me. Remember, your path to success may be unique, but consistency and perseverance are the key!

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