5 ms·

I built and launched 9 startups in 1 year

30 points by theo_champion 3y ago

uLogMicheal 3y ago
This is definitely a entrepreneurial model that will work in the coming years. Establish a bunch of base businesses / MVPs, document them well, schedule recurring conversations with your AI to sync about the topic aka "conversational journaling/logging", then let all the agents get to work based on the new context provided.
- theo_champion 3y ago
  You lost me at "schedule recurring conversations with your AI". What do you mean by that?
  - version_five 3y ago
    > about: Founder / CEO - uLog.ai - A conversational journal to help you create detailed timelines for any subject It means he's got some product idea he's trying to slip in to the discussion.
  - uLogMicheal 3y ago
    I imagine each project having an AI agent assigned to them in the future with their own respective personalities that pop up to discuss things at regular intervals. AI can start conversations based on my preferences rather than the on-demand only style of most chat interfaces. Push AI, not pull-only AI.
- paul_grisham 3y ago
  Anything that's that easy to setup is going to have a profit trending to 0
thdespou 3y ago
Are those products or just individual features wrapped within a domain name?
- theo_champion 3y ago
  Each one is a different product
nemothekid 3y ago
This is an idea I've been toying around with; this hard part is just coming up with and/or validating ideas. On top of just cranking things out to keep you sharp, I particularly enjoy just being in contact of people in different industries.
- nonstopdev 3y ago
  Debating something similar. Always loved the problem solving MVP and had a few small ones in the past but have been looking at launching a wave of micro-SaaS projects even if they are already out there to solve a single problem and stay sharp with new ideas and industries.
hcks 3y ago
These are not startups, most aren’t even products.
- pedalpete 3y ago
  That was my first reaction, but then on further consideration, some are start-ups, some are features. How many people would have said Docusign, Okta, or even GitHub weren't start-ups, but just wrappers around existing technology.
  - intelVISA 3y ago
    > just wrappers around existing technology. so 99% of SaaS?
- keyle 3y ago
  I came to write the same thing. If anything, there is far too much working code to be startups /s.
- firecall 3y ago
  It’s like most of the garbage on Product Hunt these days! People selling Monday Workflows and AI ebooks :-/
teetertater 3y ago
And how'd it go? :)
matteoraso 3y ago
I'm struggling to think of a way that GitHunt service can be used in a way that isn't malicious. I say that because a common grey market is to sell email addresses to spammers, and that's the only target audience I can see using it. Not trying to be a dick, just worried that this service can be harmful for a lot of people.
- coif 3y ago
  Agreed, I searched for "elixir" and the first person returned on the list was a self-identified minor from Europe and the e-mail that was listed (partially redacted) was not the e-mail publicly listed on the persons GitHub page in the "Contact Me" section. The list appears to be non-deterministic as it changed slightly on re-running the search query, but selling the e-mail addresses of people in GDPR protected regions seems like a not-great idea. Seems like a cool idea with a risky implementation.
stolenmerch 3y ago
I hate to nitpick, but when the https://chunk.run/ https://chunk.run/ start button is typoed "Strat Now", I have to wonder how many corners were cut to launch 9 startups in a year.
- sshine 3y ago
  “Strat Now” sounds like a button you would find on a guitar learning site. Maybe he reused the landing pages. ;-) When I encounter typos like these, I assume people are just dyslexic, it’s not a question of “too many websites”. If I made 9 start-up POCs, I‘d never Strat Now. But I might Strat Eventually.
- theo_champion 3y ago
  Nice catch! And as you can see, many corners haha
janalsncm 3y ago
I’m more interested in the tech behind these products. I have a dozen or so “apps” which amount to a python script or localhost site, but deploying them online has been a complete pain in the ass. I will spend ~8 hours perfecting a python script only to spend the next weekend figuring out how to deploy it behind a url. It’s extremely frustrating. Maybe it’s because I’m not an AWS expert anymore but frankly I don’t want to be. I don’t care. I want to spend my time figuring out the business logic of the app, not tuning obscure IAM configurations so that one part of my app can talk to another. What I want: take my flask app or node app and my frontend files and run it from a temp url. Include some hosted db. If everything looks good, sell me a domain name. Bonus points if this can be done from terminal like surge.sh can for frontends. And let me cap my monthly spend. I noticed that one of the apps uses Netlify, are there better options or is that generally considered the best?
- chrislh 3y ago
  I've been impressed by render so far (using them at work, no other affiliation) https://render.com/ https://render.com/ Pretty straightforward infra-as-code -- this spec is basically all the documentation you need https://render.com/docs/blueprint-spec https://render.com/docs/blueprint-spec
- tjhill 3y ago
  I also felt this way about hosting simple projects on AWS. I tried https://fly.io https://fly.io and I think the experience there is exactly what you’re looking for. Super simple to deploy anything that is dockerized and setting up domains/ssl is the easiest I have experienced from any hosting provider.
- firecall 3y ago
  CapRover app deployment on Digital Ocean is very cost effective. It’s easy to deploy on a droplet using the DO scripts, and the droplets can be as cheap as you want them to be with the ability to easily scale up. If you outgrown the biggest droplet size… congratulations! You made it!
  - sshine 3y ago
poomer 3y ago
You could make a nice living covertly selling the AI "startups" to wealthy folk who just want bragging rights about being founders.
- slimebot80 3y ago
  Well their AI product hasn't sold for offers over 10k after >85 days, even when apparently earning 1k a month rev? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35229988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35229988 Might be a danger for devs to pile into that space
cointime 3y ago
How can you attract users when most of these products are not available for trial?
- cvhashim04 3y ago
  No free trial or sample testing
slimebot80 3y ago
@theo_champion nice list, but would love to see a write-up on your journey!
subhashp 3y ago
Amazing achievement!
i_like_pie1 3y ago
congrats on building/taking shows 1/ what were/are your goals with the projects? 2/ what are some of the biggest lessons? would love to hear your take on 1/2 if open to sharing
congking 3y ago
You can use dynamite to edit the "strat now" from chunk
- theo_champion 3y ago
  Wouldn't trust it if i'm being honest haha

30 points by theo_champion 3y ago

This is definitely a entrepreneurial model that will work in the coming years. Establish a bunch of base businesses / MVPs, document them well, schedule recurring conversations with your AI to sync about the topic aka "conversational journaling/logging", then let all the agents get to work based on the new context provided.

theo_champion 3y ago
You lost me at "schedule recurring conversations with your AI". What do you mean by that?
- version_five 3y ago
  > about: Founder / CEO - uLog.ai - A conversational journal to help you create detailed timelines for any subject It means he's got some product idea he's trying to slip in to the discussion.
- uLogMicheal 3y ago
  I imagine each project having an AI agent assigned to them in the future with their own respective personalities that pop up to discuss things at regular intervals. AI can start conversations based on my preferences rather than the on-demand only style of most chat interfaces. Push AI, not pull-only AI.
paul_grisham 3y ago
Anything that's that easy to setup is going to have a profit trending to 0

thdespou 3y ago

Are those products or just individual features wrapped within a domain name?

theo_champion 3y ago
Each one is a different product

nemothekid 3y ago

This is an idea I've been toying around with; this hard part is just coming up with and/or validating ideas. On top of just cranking things out to keep you sharp, I particularly enjoy just being in contact of people in different industries.

nonstopdev 3y ago
Debating something similar. Always loved the problem solving MVP and had a few small ones in the past but have been looking at launching a wave of micro-SaaS projects even if they are already out there to solve a single problem and stay sharp with new ideas and industries.

hcks 3y ago

These are not startups, most aren’t even products.

pedalpete 3y ago
That was my first reaction, but then on further consideration, some are start-ups, some are features. How many people would have said Docusign, Okta, or even GitHub weren't start-ups, but just wrappers around existing technology.
- intelVISA 3y ago
  > just wrappers around existing technology. so 99% of SaaS?
keyle 3y ago
I came to write the same thing. If anything, there is far too much working code to be startups /s.
firecall 3y ago
It’s like most of the garbage on Product Hunt these days! People selling Monday Workflows and AI ebooks :-/

teetertater 3y ago

And how'd it go? :)

matteoraso 3y ago

I'm struggling to think of a way that GitHunt service can be used in a way that isn't malicious. I say that because a common grey market is to sell email addresses to spammers, and that's the only target audience I can see using it. Not trying to be a dick, just worried that this service can be harmful for a lot of people.

coif 3y ago
Agreed, I searched for "elixir" and the first person returned on the list was a self-identified minor from Europe and the e-mail that was listed (partially redacted) was not the e-mail publicly listed on the persons GitHub page in the "Contact Me" section. The list appears to be non-deterministic as it changed slightly on re-running the search query, but selling the e-mail addresses of people in GDPR protected regions seems like a not-great idea. Seems like a cool idea with a risky implementation.

stolenmerch 3y ago

I hate to nitpick, but when the https://chunk.run/ https://chunk.run/ start button is typoed "Strat Now", I have to wonder how many corners were cut to launch 9 startups in a year.

sshine 3y ago
“Strat Now” sounds like a button you would find on a guitar learning site. Maybe he reused the landing pages. ;-) When I encounter typos like these, I assume people are just dyslexic, it’s not a question of “too many websites”. If I made 9 start-up POCs, I‘d never Strat Now. But I might Strat Eventually.
theo_champion 3y ago
Nice catch! And as you can see, many corners haha

janalsncm 3y ago

I’m more interested in the tech behind these products. I have a dozen or so “apps” which amount to a python script or localhost site, but deploying them online has been a complete pain in the ass. I will spend ~8 hours perfecting a python script only to spend the next weekend figuring out how to deploy it behind a url. It’s extremely frustrating. Maybe it’s because I’m not an AWS expert anymore but frankly I don’t want to be. I don’t care. I want to spend my time figuring out the business logic of the app, not tuning obscure IAM configurations so that one part of my app can talk to another. What I want: take my flask app or node app and my frontend files and run it from a temp url. Include some hosted db. If everything looks good, sell me a domain name. Bonus points if this can be done from terminal like surge.sh can for frontends. And let me cap my monthly spend. I noticed that one of the apps uses Netlify, are there better options or is that generally considered the best?

chrislh 3y ago
I've been impressed by render so far (using them at work, no other affiliation) https://render.com/ https://render.com/ Pretty straightforward infra-as-code -- this spec is basically all the documentation you need https://render.com/docs/blueprint-spec https://render.com/docs/blueprint-spec
tjhill 3y ago
I also felt this way about hosting simple projects on AWS. I tried https://fly.io https://fly.io and I think the experience there is exactly what you’re looking for. Super simple to deploy anything that is dockerized and setting up domains/ssl is the easiest I have experienced from any hosting provider.
firecall 3y ago
CapRover app deployment on Digital Ocean is very cost effective. It’s easy to deploy on a droplet using the DO scripts, and the droplets can be as cheap as you want them to be with the ability to easily scale up. If you outgrown the biggest droplet size… congratulations! You made it!
- sshine 3y ago

poomer 3y ago

You could make a nice living covertly selling the AI "startups" to wealthy folk who just want bragging rights about being founders.

slimebot80 3y ago
Well their AI product hasn't sold for offers over 10k after >85 days, even when apparently earning 1k a month rev? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35229988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35229988 Might be a danger for devs to pile into that space

cointime 3y ago

How can you attract users when most of these products are not available for trial?

cvhashim04 3y ago
No free trial or sample testing

slimebot80 3y ago

@theo_champion nice list, but would love to see a write-up on your journey!

subhashp 3y ago

Amazing achievement!

i_like_pie1 3y ago

congrats on building/taking shows 1/ what were/are your goals with the projects? 2/ what are some of the biggest lessons? would love to hear your take on 1/2 if open to sharing

congking 3y ago

You can use dynamite to edit the "strat now" from chunk

theo_champion 3y ago
Wouldn't trust it if i'm being honest haha