I built 6 startups in 6 months, sold 4!
Heyyy IndieHackers,
Many hustlers may not know me, and many gurus haven't heard about me "yet". I am Muhammad Taimoor Hassan, 21 years old entrepreneur, Microsoft Imagine Cup 2021 National Winner & World Finalist, working on many startups & side-projects since the age of 12. The Ups & downs of the industry have gradually made me grow & polish myself.
I have a longer-run plan to achieve $100k in 1.5 year In the last 6 months, I have created 6 side projects & sold 4, adding approx $20K to my name, side by side documenting my journey on Twitter. Working on many projects side by side.
What I built?
Low-Tier Category:
Untapped - Untapped websites database with details/resources (in-profit)(acquired)
LetsPost - SEO database, SEO untapped secret websites, backlinking resources, with links of 10k websites that accept direct guest posts (in-profit)(acquired)
Confidential - Huge database of marketing resources, with methods & results (in-profit)(acquired)
Mid-Tier Category:
EarlyAcquire - Marketplace for buying & selling early-stage sideprojects. (was in-profit)(listed for selling/ accepting offers)
PresetBucket - Collection of 1200+ high-selling Adobe lightroom presets at a price of one. (in-profit)(listed for selling/ accepting offers)
BeeNotion - Marketplace for Notion templates, widgets, apps, tools & resources (beta testing/ not launched), got a huge response with 11+ submissions & not even launched yet.
High-Tier Category:
Vocally - Text To Speech & Podcast solutions (in-profit)(acquired)
(all projects of 8 months)
My Tier System
Low-tier: very niched problems, specific audience & huge market gap.
Mid-tier: Specific niche, huge problem that is easily cashable for the next 5 years.
High-tier: Vast niche, huge problem, easily cashable for next 5 years & have at least 5-8 different usecases for different audiences.
Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments below that you can't find answers to already. I'll answer them and consider adding them to the post later.
After 19,314 lines of code, i'm shutting down my project
Need feedback for my product.
We are live on Product Hunt
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Congrats Muhammad! 👏🎉 And thanks for the share 🙌
How/where did you sold these assets? Thanks
I created a very strategized roadmap that was made to make netwroks, public connections, making & documenting projects in public, etc
So, MicroAcquire was part of plan & I cashed opportunity
Thanks Muhammad. What did you to get the ideas for building your projects?
As you grow, your research/mind grows gradually. The main game is to narrow down your research as much as possible.
From one website to other but only after specifying keywords you want to research on & further narrow down to use-cases.
Keep yourself 24/7 updated to whats going on in market.
1: get involved in communities on twitter/linkedin/slack/discord.
2: go & find bad reviews of products on internet/app stores, etc.
3: search on startup directories that whats launching in world.
4: go to ad libraries & see whats selling/what ads are put out in market.
& a lot more accordingly
Good work man!
Congratulations! That’s an awesome cadence of success. For PresetBucket, did you make all those presets yourself, approach different creators and pay a fee to include their presets in your bundle, or something else?
For now, I have paid creators to custom-create presets & i paid them the proper fee for acquiring their presets. But i do have 2-3 different ways to acquire presets & add more quality in project
Congrats @mtaimoorhas! Did you build in public for any of these? How long was the due diligence?
Yup, check my twitter, I have been building these all things in public.
Congratulations Muhammed! Sound like you are well on your way to achieving your goal.
Just trying my best
Such an inspirational journey
🙌
Congratulations!! You are such an inspiration.
😊
wow congrats
😊
What are your suggestions on validating ideas?
There are two types of startups/ideas/projects
1: Unique
2: No So Unique
If you think your idea/project is unique, maybe it will be but there will be some feature that's already in the market (maybe 1 feature or maybe more), So if those companies/startups/ideas have gotten customers & are growing that means your base model is successful because "there are 7 billion people, you just have to find people who match with vibe of your product".
Else, if your idea/project is not so unique & is already in the market that means your idea/project is pre-validated because your competition has shown customers & growth.
so see your competition & note down a few new launches & a few big fishes of market, go through their features & user flow, etc & see what quality you can provide to customers.
Thank you for your reply! I'm currently struggling with finding traction for a SaaS that i'm working on, tho I can see similar products on the market. I currently only have a landing page, so if there is competition in the market, would it be safe to assume that I can go beyond landing page into the actual building? Or should I wait to see if someone would like to waitlist or become an early access member?
I think if there are the same businesses running in the market then there is an easy opportunity for you to grow if you are providing some competitive quality than your competitors.
I do things phase-wise (depending upon tiers),
Step 1: Launch in the community
Step 2: Launch in the world
Step 3: Bootstrap
Your community is the first beta testers & paid users, they will help you refine your product to a proper business level & when you become bugs free, validated & operate like a proper small business you will launch in the world (e.g PH, IH, HN, etc) to get organic users & at this spot you will have $200-2000 MRR, then you will be ready to bootstrap using proper marketing playbook/workflow.
🧢
👦
Do you start building businesses with the goal of selling them?
My roadmap was strategized in three tiers,
Low-tier: solo purpose was to create, validate & sell so that i can fuel my high-tier startups & bootstrap them simultaneously.
Mid-tier: Some projects will be listed for selling & some will be taken to specific MRR & then according to situation those assets will be used.
High-Tier: Not for selling, bootstrapping & making huge MRR
This is extremely impressive...Moving so fast, what's your general path to grow these projects? I'm thinking that since you've built so many, you've nailed the process to initial growth. BTW just followed you on twitter :)
I do things phase wise (depending upon tiers),
Step 1: Launch in the community
Step 2: Launch in the world
Step 3: Bootstrap
Your community is the first beta testers & paid users, they will help you refine your product to a proper business level & when you become bugs free, validated & operate like a proper small business you will launch in the world (e.g PH, IH, HN, etc) to get organic users & at this spot you will have $200-2000 MRR, then you will be ready to bootstrap using proper marketing playbook/workflow.
Thank you very much.
You are such an inspiration.
Just trying my best.
Could you share some details of how you acquired customers for each venture?
I belive your customers are your investors hence think like customers.
There are 3 types of investments;
Soooo, first determine in which category your product fits & then go step by step like this;
Step 1: Launch in the community
Step 2: Launch in the world
Step 3: Bootstrap
You community is the first beta testers & paid users, they will help you refine your product to a proper business level & when you become bugs free, validated & operate like a proper small business you will launch in the world (e.g PH, IH, HN, etc) to get organic users & at this spot you will have $200-2000 MRR, then you will be ready to bootstrap using proper marketing playbook/workflow.
As far as my launches are concerned, My plan was to just get proof of validation & some paid users to know the potential of the project. Hence, I get my projects to 50-200MRR & then got them acquired. But high-tiers will go till bootstrap phase & i will keep them building/growing.
That is pretty awesome? Mind sharing your idea development process and how you found a need in the market you decided to operate in?
That's awesome. How did you manage your time for each projects?
I have been building things since I was 12, so it's a very casual thing for me now. But obviously you have to manage, "the lesser the load the more quality things you will make", e.g I am sololy developing low-tier projects from scratch, for some mid-tier projects i hire freelancers & for high-tier projects i have software houses working for me on contract. So, i give work to them & projects of all tiers are being created simultaneously.
That's a smart approach I guess!
How did you find the software companies initially? Only good experiences?
As i am into market since i was 12, i have spend a lot of money to test & get good quality vetted & trusted software houses to work for me, its been 3-5 years 3 different houses are attached with me on project to project bases.
Totally make sense. Thanks for sharing!
Is that true? That's really astounding to know that building a startup in a month and selling them. If that could be possible your project sounds great. This could even be considered as the business model too. Just think of initiating a startup and building it ina span of months and selling it to a higher price. Great isn't it.
I think it's true 😅, My whole journey is documented on Twitter & Yes, i have planned this as a proper business model as you see in my tier system