Here's how these founders are building multiple products at once

I'm always blown away by folks who can juggle multiple products.

Succeeding with one product is hard enough. But they're succeeding with a portfolio and making it look easy.

I spoke with some of them to understand how they do it. Here's what they had to say.👇

Why indie hackers are working on multiple projects

Tony Dinh of DevUtils, Xnapper, and Typing Mind:

I want to use my own products so that I can make them perfectly fit my workflow. I have a lot of ideas that I would build for myself, but I only build ones that have the potential to also get paying customers.

It’s the sweet spot between “what I want” and “what people want” that allows me to build for myself and sell to other people.

Another thing that inspired me to work on multiple products: diverse income streams. If one product fails, by the market or by accident (you never know), I will still have other products that bring in revenue.

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

A lot of the time I'm scratching my own itch.

Another reason I might start a project is to learn something new. It feels amazing diving into the unknown.

I also totally suffer from shiny object syndrome. I'm bad. I'll see a slight gap or a poorly curated popular site, and I'll lose hours on domain searches while daydreaming of what I could cook up.

When I focus on 1 thing, I see better results. But I love dabbling and every day is different and challenging.

Felix Wong of Zlides, Abstract Lab, and Ventureslist:

I treat them as fun things to do. They're opportunities for me to experiment with new things. They're excuses for me to build things that are completely under my control.

I already have experience in founding and selling a startup, so I don't have ambitious goals for them. And I don't ever want my projects to replace my work.

Javier Velazquez of Formwise, White Label ChatGPT3, Brandlyft, and LeadDragon:

My agency had a great network and reputation in the agency and marketing worlds, so building a SaaS allowed me to cross-sell the product to my colleagues and build another revenue channel.

John Doherty of Credo and Editor Ninja:

Quite honestly, I was feeling super unmotivated on Credo and wanted something new to sink my teeth into. It's been fun to get my hands dirty on something that doesn't have technical debt.

Starting a second business has been all about reclaiming my energy and my zest for shipping new things. It's also to see if I'd want to work on this specific business in a more full-time capacity in the future.

The upsides vs the downsides

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

Upside: Continuous motivation and fun.

Downside: Seeing slower results.

John Doherty of Credo and Editor Ninja:

I like that my days are varied. I get to work on both managerial-level things at one business and deep in the weeds on the other.

But that's also the hardest part. My day is varied and there is a lot to do!

I also find the discrepancy between one larger business and one smaller business to be mentally challenging, as I can't expect out of the smaller brand what I expect out of the bigger one around growth, team, maturity of offer, customers, and so on.

Felix Wong of Zlides, Abstract Lab, and Ventureslist:

I like building and running multiple things because it allows me to grow and fail faster in many aspects. And I love the flexibility — jump from one side project to another, anytime. Stay hungry, stay foolish!

But the worst part is that it's itchy. I always wanna touch my projects.

Tony Dinh of DevUtils, Xnapper, and Typing Mind:

The best part is multiple income streams.

The worst part is that the management can become very messy, real quick if you are not careful. Mixed revenue reports, shared accounts, email support, partnerships, multiple payment accounts, etc. — it took me quite a while to find a workflow to consolidate all this and I still have to improve it day by day.

How to find the right ideas (plural)

💡 Tip: Choose (mostly) low-effort ideas

Tony Dinh of DevUtils, Xnapper, and Typing Mind:

Build products that require low maintenance effort.

SaaS products are very needy and require constant attention — customer support, keeping the system up, etc. I don’t think I could handle many SaaS at once.

Downloadable apps are much more relaxed, with no server to take care of. There's only customer support. For me, most customers’ emails are feature requests and require no action. So it’s quite good.

Info products are even better, with almost nothing to maintain. I don’t have any info products at the moment, but I’m looking to add this to my income stream in the future.

💡 Tip: Choose ideas that solve your own problems

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

Work on things that solve your problems, you're curious about, or that level up your skills. This means your motivation is unlimited, meaning you can find these hours in your day. Client work is often a struggle. Passion projects are not.

💡 Tip: Choose ideas that focus on the same customer

John Doherty of Credo and Editor Ninja:

It is easier to run multiple companies when they both serve the same customer. We serve digital agencies at both companies. People like Pieter Levels serve remote workers.

Pick one customer and build multiple things for them.

💡 Tip: Follow your enthusiasm

Matthew Gordon of Burndown:

The thing that kills more products in their infancy than anything else is the death of enthusiasm. Genuine enthusiasm is a limited resource. When it dies, the rest of the dominoes often fall like a house of cards (so to speak). Estimate your interest. Estimate the work. Estimate the work timeline. Do your estimates add up? Source

💡 Tip: Get soft validation

Tony Dinh of DevUtils, Xnapper, and Typing Mind:

These days, I have a decent-sized audience on Twitter, so I can use that advantage to validate ideas. I usually tweet about the idea or build a small prototype/MVP to see if people are interested. It was definitely harder in the early days when I didn't have an audience.

How to stay effective on multiple projects

💡 Tip: Break everything into small tasks

Felix Wong of Zlides, Abstract Lab, and Ventureslist:

I break down my roadmap and goals so that they're as small as possible. This makes it so I can see my progress and bring things together gradually. For example, if I need to publish four articles a month, I break it down into one paragraph per day, and I convert it into a routine. You don't have to force yourself to write a whole article in a day.

💡 Tip: Prioritize

Felix Wong of Zlides, Abstract Lab, and Ventureslist:

I decide what to work on according to the ICE scoring system:

• I = Impact
• C = Confidence
• E = Ease

I take a task and give it a score for each of these attributes from 1-5, then I multiply them together. The highest number is the one that I complete first.

💡 Tip: Focus on one task

Tony Dinh of DevUtils, Xnapper, and Typing Mind:

I break 90% of my tasks into small chunks of work that can be done within one working session (about 3-4 hours). This includes building, testing, deploying, and writing docs.

Because of that, I can be fully focused on one task of one product on one specific day.

And on a typical working day, I only do one task. Then, I spend the rest of the day on marketing, customer support, and interacting with the community (mostly on Twitter).

Other days, I do smaller tasks with a lot of context-switching, which I find quite fun and relaxing.

💡 Tip: Automate (and the "Rule of two")

Felix Wong of Zlides, Abstract Lab, and Ventureslist:

I have a few automated workflows to help me clear out tedious tasks. It allows me to utilize the little bit of time that I’d otherwise spend on them.

For example, I onboard paying customers through Email Octopus and map all email addresses to a CRM on Airtable for engagement drip and upselling. These workflows are usually done with Zapier.

Tony Dinh of DevUtils, Xnapper, and Typing Mind:

I try to automate everything that can possibly be automated. Especially around customer support.

• Self-refund, no questions asked
• A lot of FAQs
• Add tips and GIFs around the app UI
• "Rule of two": When the 2nd customer asks for something, I'll try to automate it.

💡 Tip: Timeblock your projects

John Doherty of Credo and Editor Ninja:

My Mondays are mostly dedicated to internal Credo stuff. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are for external calls for either Credo or EditorNinja. Thursday is mostly for EditorNinja. And Fridays (if I work them), are varied depending on what the week held for me to that point.

I also block off 4-5pm every Monday through Thursday to just focus on EditorNinja.

💡 Tip: Focus on the project that pays the bills

John Doherty of Credo and Editor Ninja:

Running multiple companies all comes down to time and energy management.

Focus on the one that brings in the most revenue until you have a team mostly running that business, then you can put more time into the smaller one.

💡 Tip: Dogfood your product

Tony Dinh of DevUtils, Xnapper, and Typing Mind:

I use all of my products every day.

It's the #1 source of motivation to continue working on the products, or just to push out a new update.

Also, because of this, I often find bugs before the customers do, so that's even better.

💡 Tip: Hire a virtual assistant

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

I hired someone to help with admin 4 days a week.

💡 Tip: Leverage tools to stay organized

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

After years of using Trello I'm now all-in on Notion. I have one team account for Love Curated shared with one other person. Then I have another team account with my wife to keep track of home loans, finances, upcoming trips, etc. I dig being organized.

Then iA Writer for light lists/writing (sync'd with Dropbox). Clear app (think I bought it 8 years ago for $5) on the iPhone for shopping and temporary lists.

My desktop icons often act as a to-do list too and I'm always trying to clear those out.

💡 Tip: Create a publishing schedule

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

It's super difficult to shift attention so many times a day. Without a schedule, I can blink and I haven't posted on Email Love in 2 weeks.

A huge breakthrough this year, due to hiring, is having a publishing schedule in Notion. We now aim to post 1 bit of content on One Page Love every weekday.

💡 Tip: Use one product to grow the other

John Doherty of Credo and Editor Ninja:

We have a weekly agency email within which we often promote EditorNinja.

So, EditorNinja has benefited from Credo, but not vice versa.

💡 Tip: Create a holding company

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

Because of earnings increasing over the past couple of years, I was forced into VAT land here in South Africa. So I decided to wrap all my side projects into one parent brand called Love Curated, which is now a Pty Ltd. I am CEO and 100% shareholder, which doesn't mean much, to be honest.

Javier Velazquez of Formwise, White Label ChatGPT3, Brandlyft, and LeadDragon:

I have a holding company for ease of doing my taxes since I have multiple businesses that I have equity / interest in. My company is called Hyrule Capital

💡 Tip: Work your buns off

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

You simply need to work damn hard and push. I'm not afraid to put in the hours, feel a side product feature out, then totally bin it. I've learned I can't make decisions properly without dabbling. Talking/thinking about ideas gets me nowhere.

How to survive the hustle

💡 Tip: Take breaks (and naps)

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

I start working around 7am and finish up at 7pm every day. But I take tons of breaks to surf and run. I also nap for 18 mins every day around 3pm.

Why an 18-minute nap? Man, I’ve been trying to perfect this strategy for years. So, 20+ has a longer wake time and at 30+ you are almost grumpy having to wake up. An 18-minute afternoon nap, followed by an espresso, banks me easy 2+ hours of super productive screen time.

💡 Tip: Find what keeps you going

Felix Wong of Zlides, Abstract Lab, and Ventureslist:

Coffee, sports, and family time are where I find my relief.

💡 Tip: Say "no"

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

You need to say "no" a lot more to work on your passion projects. Especially to things that make you money. I'm always playing the long game and mostly playing where my motivation lies. If I was after cash only I would simply conduct Enterprise Landing Page audits every day of the week, yuk.

💡 Tip: Clock out

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

I am learning to accept that side projects can never be finished.

There is unlimited optimization and marketing to do. The only true time it's done is when it's sold or the domain expires.

So most evenings I try to shut off, cook, and watch a series with my wife. I rarely work late anymore and it's awesome. I dig sleeping, ha. At the same time, my wife accepts my chosen path of building online and knows sometimes we need to focus on getting it done. No matter what.

💡 Tip: Ask yourself if building multiple products is right for you

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

If you are learning and motivation is high, I would do it. If it's to try to make a quick buck, I personally wouldn't.

John Doherty of Credo and Editor Ninja:

Think hard about it, and make sure you are not doing it simply because you are bored, or because you're in the middle of something big and it feels hard. You don't want to be distracted and starve both of growth. It's better to push through that hard patch or figure out how to make your current thing less boring.

Only once you've stabilized that first business and have a team running it, including an operator with strong business ops experience, should you look to start another business. Looking back, I would've cemented having a strong operator and strategist at Credo before working on EditorNinja more.

But there's also never a good time to start something like a new business. There are just those of us who don't let that hold us back.

Even with all these tips, is it sustainable?

John Doherty of Credo and Editor Ninja:

It's not easy to do. It requires a lot of focus on each when you're working on them. You'll probably work more evenings than when just running one company.

At this point, I can continue running both indefinitely, but should EditorNinja or Credo really grow faster, then it wouldn't be sustainable long-term.

If it's not sustainable, the two options would really be to sell Credo or hire a strong operator. I'm open to both options.

Rob Hope of One Page Love, Email Love, UX Love, and Landing Page Hot Tips:

I can honestly say every day at 7am I am frothing to start working on my network of sites and side projects. I have had this for 10 years and it hasn't gone away.

That all said, if my motivation died, I would probably go where new motivation led.

Tony Dinh of DevUtils, Xnapper, and Typing Mind:

Honestly, I have no idea if this is sustainable — it’s my first time, haha. As of now, I find working on multiple products fun and pretty easy.

I have seen successful indie hackers who have one single focus, and I've seen successful indie hackers with multiple ones. Some who have multiple eventually drop the less successful products to focus on the one that gets the most traction.

I have no idea if that will be me in the future, but let’s see.

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