Making $10k+/mo as a full-time founder after building 120 side hustles
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Mubashar Iqbal, founder of Mubs

After building 120 side hustles and breaking the record for most Product Hunt launches, 49-year-old Mubashar Iqbal recently became a full-time indie hacker.

He's currently running a product studio ($10k/mo) to keep the lights on while he cranks out his own products, one after another.

I asked him how he's able to be so prolific. Here's what he had to say. 👇

Side hustling full time

I’ve been indie hacking since before it had a name and a community.

My parents brought a computer for my older siblings when I was eight years old. We got bored of the two or three games that came with it. They stopped using it. I started coding with it.

I'd buy computer magazines and copy coding examples into the computer, then modify the program to do what I wanted.  That was how I learned to code. And I fell in love with it.

Even after going to university for computer science and coding for a living for decades, I still love it. I love to build things for myself. That love turned into side hustles — a LOT of side hustles — and indie hacking.

Until the beginning of this year, most of my indie hacking was done on the weekends or in the evenings, while working at a fintech startup where I had been for four years.

I wanted more flexibility and autonomy during my day, and being a full-time founder seemed to be the best way to achieve that. The timing was just never quite right. Until this year. Now I'm doing it full time.

It's been a little more stressful than I anticipated. It really is something else to have to make ALL the decisions about everything every day.

120 side hustles. 85 launches.

I recently hit 120 projects, total. It took me over 20 years. I won't list them all here, but you can find them all here. And I believe I still hold the record for the most launches on Product Hunt — 85 of them.

The most successful was probably Will Robots Take My Job? It got covered by magazines, newspapers, TV, and radio all over the world, and did about 14M page views before we sold it. It made about $4k/mo in ads at its peak.

Most of my projects are built because of a problem that I'm personally experiencing. In some cases, I'm using an existing piece of software that doesn't work exactly how I want it to, so I build the solution for myself.

Sometimes, I find that there isn't a market, outside of myself. But more often than not, I find that there are many other people that are in the same situation as me.

It might sound a little crazy, building products when I'm not sure if there's a market — and in some cases, when I know there isn't.

But I limit my time to work on each project to between two and four weeks.  If I haven't launched it by then, I've spent too much time on it. Likely, I wouldn't finish it after that point anyway. So I kill it.

Since I'm able to build it pretty quickly, it's worth scratching the itch and building the idea, even if it doesn't amount to anything.

Current side-hustle focus

Here's what I'm currently working on currently:

  • GuestLab is an AI research assistant that generates personalized intros, interesting topics, and insightful questions from your guests' LinkedIn profiles. We use a SaaS subscription model and it's hovering around ~$100 MRR.

  • MicroAssets connects buyers with bootstrapped founders that sell high-potential projects under $100k. It's free to use, but premium members get faster listing review, access to additional data, can contact sellers directly, and have more items listed simultaneously. We just crossed the $300 MRR mark.

  • Once.Tools is a database of software you only have to pay for once. It is pre-revenue but the eventual business model will be based on sponsorships.

  • SideprojectMVP is a newsletter with everything you need to know about building your side hustle. It's also pre-revenue and I don't have a solid plan.

I'm building all my projects slowly and methodically, bootstrapped all the way, and spending zero on ads. It might take a little longer to get growth, but I feel like this is the best approach for me right now.

Building multiple side hustles

I'm always working on projects simultaneously. And I've done a lot of them over the years.

I feel like there is a natural cadence to most projects.  You go through periods of high workload, and then lower workloads.

I use these cycles to allow me to work on different projects "simultaneously". There is usually one project that is the main focus for any given week or fortnight. Then, I cycle to make another project the main focus.

I still end up doing work on the other projects during those weeks, but not so much that it distracts from the one I'm focused on. Unless, of course, things come up — you have to be flexible to work this way.

I enjoy it. It helps to break up the repetitive tasks we have to do building projects. Switching projects actually helps me to recharge the batteries.

And I learn a ton from building small projects.

How to build side hustles simultaneously

I've switched around different tools to try and help me manage the work I'm doing, and have landed on a couple of tools to keep things simple.

Early in projects, I define the project vision, and outline the high level features that need to be built. If I'm collaborating with other folks, I use a Google Doc. Otherwise, it usually ends up in my notepad. I still use pen and paper a lot, but I'm thinking about switching to a Daylight Computer.

As I get further into the build I use Linear to manage tasks and fixes. This also works great for sharing information and collecting assets/information I need from other people. I got tired of the email and DM chains — having separate places to track updates is a lifesaver.

Build quick MVPs

And you have to be quick with your MVPs. I'm usually able to execute ideas very quickly and I try to get the MVPs into the hands of potential users as quickly as possible.

The goal is to get feedback so that you can iterate. Mostly, that speed just comes from experience. But there are some things that will help.

Break it down

You have to break down big ideas into small shippable projects. And you have to break the projects down into small features. That's important. And then figure out the right features to build. You have to be very strict about what makes it into the MVP. The rest can wait for later.

When I see people taking a long time to build their MVPs, it's usually because they're adding too many features.

Use the right stack

The stack that you use is important too. I'm very familiar with my stack, as I've built a lot of products with it over the last 4-5 years. I use the TALL stack: Tailwind, AlpineJS, Laravel, and Livewire.

I feel like it provides enough structure for me to build applications quickly, without forcing me to do things a specific way. And it has a lot of functionality out of the box, which means that you can start developing solutions for the actual project within minutes.

I try to keep my local development environment very light as well. I use Herd for that.

I use Forge for getting servers provisioned and set up quickly.

And most of my sites are behind Cloudflare so that I worry less about scaling and being DDOS'd.

Validate an MVP, not an idea

Validating before you build doesn’t work. A lot of indie hackers recommend validating with a landing page or some such before building anything. But I think it’s much easier to validate once you have a working product. Not the finished product, but a working product.

It's just very very difficult to get good/accurate feedback on an idea. Even with a sketch or mockup, potential users rarely truly understand what you are planning to build.

Having a functioning MVP makes it much more likely that potential users will be able to give you useful feedback.  Heck if they like the idea, they can start using it — and paying — right away.

Paying the bills with a service

Thanks to my experience with products, I also have a product studio — it's my main focus at the moment. I work with others to build and launch their products.

It has reached that magical milestone of $10k/mo. We typically do fixed bids for each project, but we've also experimented with revenue share. And in other cases, we have joined as equity partners.

It keeps me afloat, but I hope to work less on other people's products and more work on my own products soon.

Side-hustle growth

Business has grown entirely organically — mostly through word of mouth and my activity on social media.

For my products, here's my marketing process:

  • Build in public (mostly Twitter) 

  • Launches (Product Hunt, Hacker News, subreddits, etc.)  

  • SEO

  • Build mailing list 

  • Traction 

  • Profit 

I do a lot of Product Hunt launches — 85 so far. I was the Product Hunt maker of the year in 2016. I've been a runner up a couple of times too. 

I've been getting more into SEO recently as well, and in particular, programmatic SEO. In fact, Monday Mystery Movie is gaining traction almost entirely from SEO and that email list is approaching 1,500 subscribers now.

But building in public has the highest return on investment.

Audience matters

Audience matters. Almost all my growth has come from building in public with my 17k followers. I wish I’d spent more time focusing on that earlier in my journey.

It has made it easier to get good early feedback for products I'm building. The larger the following, the more likely there is someone who is the target user for the product. Getting feedback from them helps me to improve the product.

As far as my services, people have seen me come up with ideas, plan, build, and launch products. That has helped to answer the inevitable "Can Mubs build this" question. And it has led to people asking me to work for — and sometimes with — them.

How to grow any audience

To grow my audience, I share a lot. That's it. I talk about what I'm doing, what's working, and what isn't. Typically this leads to a lot of engagement and exposure to new people and more followers.

I also maintain different lists: People who I want to make sure I see updates from, people using different technologies I'm interested in, and people running experiments that I'm interested in.

Then, I try to engage with (and share) the things they are doing. I think we can all learn from others.

Service growth

For my services, I leveraged my connections. I was hesitant to do that at first, but reaching out and asking people if they knew others that might be interested in my services has worked very well.

I reached out to people I'd built relationships with, and asked them if they had any projects we could work on together. If they didn't, I asked if they knew anybody who might.

You've gotta do things that don't scale.

What I didn't do was cold emails. I know they work, but I hate cold emails. I don't like getting cold emails, so why would I put others through that? It's just not something I want to do.

I feel like most people can be reached in a warm way on social media. Cold emailing should be a last resort; not a machine-gun approach to reach as many people as you can.

Parting advice

As far as my advice, it's cliche, but I'll say it: Start now.

The first few things you do will suck. Maybe the first 120 things you do will suck. But by doing, we get better.

You can follow me on X and my blog, or check out my product studio, GuestLab, MicroAssets, Once.Tools , and SideprojectMVP.

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About the Author

Photo of James Fleischmann James Fleischmann

James has been writing for Indie Hackers for the better part of a decade. In that time, he has interviewed hundreds of startup founders about their wins, losses, and lessons. He also writes two newsletters, SaaS Watch (micro-SaaS acquisition opportunities) and Ancient Beat (archaeo/anthro news). And he's a non-technical founder who buys/builds and grows micro-SaaS products.

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  1. 2

    I love your honesty when you say “validate an MVP, not an idea”.

    It takes the edge off because you hear “sell the idea” at every step of the way as an indie hacker but it’s barely possible, so you end up thinking you are doing it wrong. Or at least I did.

    Selling before the MVP seems more like a quote someone said and everyone regurgitates rather than reality.

    Great article too, the sheer amount of output you have is all inspiring!

  2. 2

    I like your blog, it seems like you took all the indie hacking basics and piled them in one place. It is a decent reference.

    1. 1

      Awesome, glad you liked it, more to come!

  3. 2

    I hope to learn more about SEO from you, and I wish your products continue to thrive.

    1. 1

      Always lots to learn when it comes to SEO, things change frequently, and thanks!

  4. 2

    A real Inspiration!!!

    1. 1

      🤗 Thanks!

  5. 1

    Can you share an example of a side hustle that seemed promising but ultimately didn’t work out? also What did you learn from that experience?

  6. 1

    120 sidehustles whoa! That is inspiring. btw, TALL stack is indeed good for rapid development!

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