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AMA: I make $100K+ ARR from my microstartups
Hello everyone, I’m Hari, and I’m a serial Microstartup Maker. In the last 4 years, I made:
• https://visalist.io https://visalist.io, an all-in-one visa requirements website for travelers with 300K Monthly Active users
• https://anexplorer.co https://anexplorer.co, an all-one File manager for phones, watches, TV's and tablets on android with crossed 1M downloads recently
• https://acrypto.io https://acrypto.io, a cryptocurrency app to track and get real-time alerts with 200K downloads
• https://simpleops.io https://simpleops.io, performance, web vitals and API monitoring tool for websites with 2000 users
I started my indie maker journey to become financially independent and travel the world. I had a simple and small goal, build things I wanna use and make $100/day. It started slow, I had started building and improving while traveling, it took a while but I crossed $100, then I crossed $200/day. Then pandemic hit and I went back to $100/day, but after 6 months and building a new microstartup, it slowly picked pace and again crossed $200/day then I crossed $300/day, now I'm close to $400/day and my next goal is $500/day.
If the momentum keeps up, I will hit $150K this year.
AMA!
And if you wanna know the learning that I share, follow my journey on https://twitter.com/1HaKr https://twitter.com/1HaKr.
- Rastonbury 5y agoWhat's your playbook for marketing? This seems to be something you have nailed And how to you make decision on how you split your time between the four?
- 1hakr 5y agoI usually tweet WIP screenshots and tease whats coming, then I do a public launch on PH, LinkedIn, Facebook groups and Indie Hackers. But always before bulding a microstartup, I have the organic growth channel figured out. For example with https://visalist.io https://visalist.io it was SEO, with https://anexplorer.co https://anexplorer.co it's ASO I put all my focus on one when i'm getting started, but after its feature complete then i move on to the next. I spend around 20% of my time improving/fixing existing ones.
- jdc 5y agoHere's a question for you from somebody that does _not_ know SEO at all. How good / close to the state of the art is Moz these days?
- Arech 5y agoHari, do you use/rely on any kinds of paid traffic, such as AdWords&etc ? What's your experience with that?
- 1hakr 5y agoi dont do any paid marketing
- cauliflower99 5y agoWhen you say you put all your focus on one, does that mean you focus completely on an MVP, or are you confident enough at building stage that you have a good product and so build as many features as you can?
- itisit 5y agoCongrats on being your own boss! How much time do you spend on these sites, in any aspect, per week?
- dchi 5y agoIf you designed a semester-long microstartup course targeted to fresh CS grads, what does the syllabus look like?
- 1hakr 5y agoThats an interesting one which i have never thought about. So it would divide into 4 chapters and go in details for each - Problems to solve - Poduct/Solution - Growth/Marketing - Pricing/Business Model - Audience/Users Then at the end have assingment to build a microstartups based on whats learnt!
- bitcoinmoney 5y agoWhat’s your stack? Do you see yourself making a master class out of this or at least a YouTube channel?
- 1hakr 5y agoI use Vue JS, Node JS and Go Lang. If i get enough interest, i would love to share my learnings and thoughts on youtube.
- onelastjob 5y agoI'm thinking about learning Vue and Go. When and why do you use Node.js instead of Go for the backend?
- InvOfSmallC 5y agoWhen you start, services like Heroku, Firebase etc.. gives you a lot of power. Imho it's never a good idea. For example I have server rendered websites in go sdk (with the template engine) and other website in full node js stack (in my case react but the concept stays). I don't really see a use case for mixed use since having two different languages slow you down.
- 5y ago
- megraf 5y agoHow do you manage taxes? Have you dealt with a lawsuit?
- 1hakr 5y agoI have a company setup, so everything related taxes is setup through it. No lawsuit so far .
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- batmaniam 5y agoCool, congrats on the success! With that amount of traffic and payments, do you encounter credit card fraud? How do you deal with it?
- 1hakr 5y agoYes, i have unfortunately, i have to pay from my pockets sometimes but stripe has been very good.
- cweill 5y agoCongratulations! What kind of corporate structure do you use for your microbusinesses? Delaware LLC? Also are you based in the USA?
- 1hakr 5y agoYes, i have unfortunately, i have to pay from my pockets sometimes but stripe has been very good.
- leohonexus 5y agoWhat's your playbook for identifying worthwhile ideas to start developing? Any ideas you thought had great potential but turned out mediocre / failed? And vice-versa?
- 1hakr 5y agoI see a potential problem, see if I can solve it. See if it's already being solved, if not I pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build
- arthurcolle 5y agoDo you write everything yourself? Do you write the backend in python/ruby/whatever and then use Java/Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS or do you use a framework like Flutter to generate apps for both ecosystems? I know how to write backends and APIs across a few languages but I really hate the walled gardens and can't even enjoy writing code for a single ecosystem vs. just writing more logic in a Rails controller or something (to further a project) Just curious - good job getting things deployed and actually catering to niches!
- 1hakr 5y agoInstead of looking from tech perspective, i try to look from the solution perspective. I see what can be done in short period and i choose that. If i need to learn a new thing then i will learn or else i will use what i already know.
- arthurcolle 5y agoSo you contract it out?
- 1hakr 5y agonope, i build them myself.
- arthurcolle 5y agoso server side you use Go, and then implement native apps for each ecosystem? Sounds like a lot of work! How do you decide what to prioritize? How long did it take you to launch the web analytics app for example?
- 1hakr 5y agoSimple ops took a month for building and one month for beta testing
- MattGaiser 5y agoHow do you find things worth building?
- 1hakr 5y agoI pick the problems i personally face and then see if it can be solved and has potential to make a revenue out of it. Then i pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build.
- notabanker 5y agoAppreciate your being candid about your revenues. Since you are quite transparent and forthcoming about your revenues, I urge you to take it a step further. It would be very helpful if you could share a screenshot from your payment processor to substantiate your revenue claim. Could you do that please?
- koopuluri 5y agoWhy not take it at face value?
- notabanker 5y agoWe're all strangers on this forum. Half take the numbers at face value, the other half doesn't. The allure of this thread is the author's claims on revenue. I'm asking on behalf of the latter half of hn, that would like to believe but would like to see verification first.
- john_yaya 5y ago$100K ARR is not really that out of the ordinary for something like this, I’m inclined to believe them without verification. One thing that bugs me, though, is that his solutions are in already very crowded spaces. It seems like it would be difficult to siphon off users without a significant marketing spend.
- secondaryacct 5y agoThis, right here, is the marketing spend. I work in a bank in Hong Kong and look at me hearing about his mini craps ahah
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- math-dev 5y agoYeah this looks like spam otherwise, he/she just linked stuff all his sites otherwise Even if he does provide a screenshot, I am not sure if an AMA is the best type of post for Hacker News - there is no unique or insightful content in the original post apart from a set of links
- logyclog 5y agoHow did you market them
- logyclog 5y agoHow did you market them initially?
- 1hakr 5y agoI usually tweet WIP screenshots and tease whats coming, then I do a public launch on PH, LinkedIn, Facebook groups and Indie Hackers. But always before bulding a microstartup, I have the organic growth channel figured out.
- kopos 5y agoThanks 4 the AMA. How many projects did you launch before you arrived at these top 4? How do you arrive at an idea worth pursuing? Where do you start? How long do you spend before you chuck off a project not worth pursuing more?
- 1hakr 5y agoI have launch around 7 or 8 I see a potential problem, see if I can solve it. See if it's already being solved, if not I pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build I dont take more than a month to validate any idea
- logyclog 5y agodo you have youtube/blog where we could learn from you?
- coolandsmartrr 5y agoYour projects look cool! How much time do you spend on a project before you start to monetize or move on?
- 1hakr 5y agoThanks, i try to not take more than a month to validate a micrstartup.
- stickfigure 5y agoIn this same time period (4 years), how many microstartups failed validation and were abandoned?
- 1hakr 5y agoAround 12 failed validation
- theindianappguy 5y agoplease share their link if live and a blog on what you think went wrong
- inson 5y agodo you make hybrid mobile apps? What frameworks do you use for mobile apps?
- 1hakr 5y agoNo i havent made any hybrid apps. I have built only native apps so far.
- ApolIllo 5y agoHow do you identify which problems are worth solving?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 1hakr 5y agoI pick the problems i personally face and then see if it can be solved and has potential to make a revenue out of it. Then i pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build.
- zaptheimpaler 5y agoWow nice job. How did you transition into being a full-time maker? Did you have a job and build one of these on the side?
- 1hakr 5y agoI quit my job and worked on these full time.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- samrohn777 5y agoDo you have any recommendations on resources or courses to get started with frontend and backend development to build saas products?
- 1hakr 5y agofor frontend the easiest one is NuxtJS https://nuxtjs.org/video-courses/ https://nuxtjs.org/video-courses/
- xwdv 5y agoHave you actually made $100k+ yet or is this projected?
- xmprt 5y agoBased on the given timeline, it seems like it's projected unless he went from $100/day at the start of the pandemic to $300+/day by September 2020 (ie, in about 4-5 months).
- iammisc 5y agoDo you do it all yourself, or do you outsource anything? I'm impressed by the landing pages. Any tips?
- 1hakr 5y agoI build everything myself. There are so many no code tools, out there. Start with them, so you to go live will be much shorter and you will be able to validate your idea in a short time.
- esjeon 5y agoHow much time do you spend on your new/old projects? How much maintenance?
- 1hakr 5y agonew - 80% old - 20%
- fighterpilot 5y agoHow long did it take you to get competent enough with your stack in order to be able to actually execute and build these yourself? Did you learn these skills through prior employment, college or self-taught?
- 1hakr 5y agoHalf i learnt then during my employment, Half i learnt when i need to build a specific thing.
- xcambar 5y agoOP is testing their next microstartup on HN with this thread :D
- itsmefaz 5y agoOne of the difficulties I am having is figuring out the idea - i) What is your idea generation process? ii) Building a startup of any kind is not as rosy as you put it? iii) Can you define what a micro startup is? Do you have a fallback in case any of this fails, and where you working before you built your first startup? Also, just from this brief interaction, I can see that you are more of a problem -> solution-oriented guy and don't care much about the tech stack. How can one eliminate this mindset? As engineers seem to be more invested in such things?
- 1hakr 5y agoThis is how I try to figure out ideas - I see a potential problem, see if I can solve it. See if it's already being solved, if not - I pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build - I set a goal on day 1 on what the microstartup should achieve once its launched. I try to take no more than 4 weeks to build it. - I do a public launch in IH, PH, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Reddit. In few weeks if I reach the goal that I set at the beginning, then I continue working on it to improve. If not then I will drop it and move on the next.
- ehnto 5y agoedit: I see you have already answered this, "12 failed validation" you wrote earlier. How many ideas have you dropped so far? This is similar to my process, except I have a habit of keeping applications on life support since it's pretty low effort to do.
- 1hakr 5y agoMe too, I don't drop my microstartups, I automate 95% of my microstartups.
- anaxag0ras 5y ago> I pitch the idea to few people. If atleast 50% got excited. I pick this idea to build. Are those people within your friend/family circle or is it to potential users? If it's potential users, how do you find them and get to talk with them?
- daveguy 5y ago"took a while" to cross $100/day. How long before you crossed that line? And how much longer to $200/day. It sounds like the project after the pandemic crunch spurred you to 200, 300, 400 fairly quickly. Which one was that? Which was the first to 100/200?
- 1hakr 5y agoIt took around 8 months to cross $100/day. The main thing that had a good growth is Visa List combined with AnExplorer revenue which got me close to $400/day as borders started opening again.
- tsujp 5y agoWhat is the monetisation avenue for each of these? For example, I don't see pricing for visalist so I assume it's from ads, whereas simpleops is a paid-for service.
- 1hakr 5y ago- Visa List: Ads, Affilate revenue, subscriptions - AnExplorer: Paid purchase, In App purchases, Ad - ACrypto: Subscriptions - Simple Ops: Subscriptions
- modzu 5y ago@dang, a lot of the comments here look fake/automated...
- scamspotter 5y agoOP is a grifter, He has been flooding the reddit with similar bot spam. He has been called out on HN earlier for shady practices with advertisements on his products as well. After gaming the algorithm, He posts the HN front page screenshot of his twitter and sends the organic traffic.
- ajg4 5y agoMaybe his next startup? Automated bulk answering of similar comments?
- itsmefaz 5y agoHis answers might be, not the questions themselves.
- BenoitP 5y agoI don't think they are, that's just the AMA format looking unusual.
- vSanjo 5y agoHow do you deal with things like negative thoughts? I find I am an 'ideas' guy, but will instantly shoot myself in the foot by researching similar services that do better than a one-man-team could do. I also have severe trouble dedicating myself to a complete-project - even if I push past the first issue mentioned above - and will really battle my inner demons who think supplying an MVP is 'good enough'. I suppose my question is how you fight your mental battles.
- vSanjo 5y agoFurther to that, do you have a write-up on your transition from (I assume) full-time work to this system? Did you survive on savings? What's your lifestyle like now compared to then?
- lmarcos 5y agoFirst, congrats! - How do you handle taxes? - Do you take your laptop everywhere? As in: if it's Sunday morning and you want to go out for a run/hiking/cycling (laptop-free) for 6 hours, can you just do it? What if any of your products go down in that timeframe?
- 1hakr 5y agoNope, i usually do my own taxes. No i never take my laptop unless i'm going to another country.
- abyesilyurt 5y agoMost people are interested in growth, but for me it is the start. How did you achieve 10$/day or 1$/day?
- 1hakr 5y agoIt all starts with solving a problem that people face. People will pay if you can save their time or save their money. People will pay more if you save time and money at the same time. So solve a problem that lot of people face. Forget about making money on day 0. But once you solve the problem for decent number of people then you can easily monetise from those people.
- evll_wicked 5y agoThat's all good, but even if I create something that solves a problem and publish the site - nobody knows about it. I get 10 visitors per day. From SEO perspective, there is very little chance to rank high as a new site for quite some time (unless there is something I don't know, and you could share). So I guess the question is not how to get the first 1$, but how to get first 1000 of (even free) users
- 1hakr 5y agoThat's correct, you need to figure out where your target users hangout usually like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit etc and engage with them there. Find their problems and if they are facing the ones that you are solving, tell them about your solution.
- umen 5y agocan you share you'r tech stack , which hosting do you use and what setup you use there . i guess with your expiriance . you replicate your web infrastructure for you microsaas's also i will like to know how much % hosting and thired party API's takes from your MMR Thanks
- 1hakr 5y agoI use Vue JS, Node JS and golang. I use GCP for hosting. All of this doesn't cost much, around $250/month
- newusertoday 5y agoThanks for sharing, it is very inspiring and gives other indiehackers hope that they may be able to replicate the success. Are you US based? how did you managed transition to bootstrapping at the initial stage? through savings? and how long did it took you to become profitable?
- 1hakr 5y agoNo I'm based in Sydney. I initially had some savings, and i was profitable in two months.
- BenoitP 5y agoThanks a lot for sharing your journey! How do you chose which project to tackle on, do you take account of their potential distribution? Have you abandoned a lot of other projects? Do you have a daily routine? Do you have a todo list, a personal ticket system? How do you prioritize through tasks?
- 1hakr 5y agoI try to get a sense of market size and how much crowded the space is, sometimes it's too small or sometimes it's too crowded, so then I don't go ahead with that idea. I have not abandoned a lot but dismissed a few of potential ideas. No not really, I do work when I feel like or take a vacation when I want to.
- cauliflower99 5y agoI love these stories. Can you ad some details how you started out? Did you have a day job and work in the evenings or how did you get started?
- 1hakr 5y agoI was working a product manager before, then I quit my job and started full time on my microstartups.
- duke_core 5y agoWhat tools/stacks did you use to make all of those web/apps
- cauliflower99 5y agoWhat does your testing process look like for each new feature or improvement you add? I presume it needs to be pretty robust to prevent any bug creep since you have 4 projects all with paying customers. This is something I am nervous about for a small product I'm building - what if I merge a big bug?!
- 1hakr 5y agowhen you begin, if you start testing every small thing, it becomes quite easy when you finish. If you get a big bug, you can always revert.
- goingindi 5y agoThanks for the post. You mention nocode tools? Such as what? Is that only for landing pages? Seeing Java and swift are used for mobile app dev? Are you using accelerators or templates to speed it up and if so from where? What tech do you use for identity, user store and authn/ authz? Related to that is what tech handles your subscriptions?
- ir193 5y agocongrats! I'm curious how do you do you do the maintenance. For visalist, how do you keep the info up-to-date? For anexplorer, how do you test compatibility on different phones?
- 1hakr 5y agoi have created script which monitor government websites. for apps i bought all types of devices to test.
- Mandatum 5y agoWhat does your by-country breakdown for visalist look like? 300K monthly users seems pretty nuts.
- 1hakr 5y agoIt's pretty spread out across 50+ countries but on the top three is US and UK