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This is I've Made Three Million Dollars With

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My Thirty-Six Startups, by Marc Lou. Read by

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a voice clone of Marc Lou. Monday,

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September 7th, 2026

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Today is a special day for me. I've

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made 3 million dollars with my 36 startups.

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Solo. 85 percent margin.

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Bootstrapped. It took 10 years, and I loved

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every second of it. Here's my story.

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Here's the chart: just over 3 million dollars

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earned across the startups.

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Chapter 1. Mark Zuckerberg Aura.

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I graduated in Computer Science in 2016.

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My friends applied for a job in Paris,

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but it didn't feel right to me. My

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exchange semester in Hong Kong in 2015 transformed

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me. I didn't know what I wanted—I just

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didn't want that. On a regular hangover

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Sunday morning, around two in the afternoon. I

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watched The Social Network movie and had an

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epiphany: I will be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

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My secret unicorn idea? Tinder for

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sports lovers. I spent an entire year:

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Learning to code because I was partying instead

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of studying at the university. Asking people to

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sign an NDA to listen to my idea.

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Designing a logo and business cards. I

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was making 10 dollars an hour and believed

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I was Mark Zuckerberg. To pay the bills,

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I was a waiter in a restaurant in

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Paris. During my shift, a customer mentioned a

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new school to learn entrepreneurship. I

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was lonely, so I registered. The teacher

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asked how my startup would make money. I

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froze. How come I didn't think about it

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after a year of work? My app was

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a disaster. Users couldn't even

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sign up. And I was the only user.

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My relationship with my girlfriend wasn't working either.

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On March 10th, 2017, I quit everything.

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The next week, my parents drove me to

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the airport. I cried in the car. My

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friend, Sacha, was waiting for me in Seoul,

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South Korea. We raised 100,000 dollars from

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angel investors and built an AI startup with

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2 employees. Here's a photo of

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Sacha and me at Campus Seoul, a Google

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space. We were trying to reverse-engineer flight ticket

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pricing to predict future prices.

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9 months later, we had a bad product,

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no income, and I was wearing a shirt

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every day. So I quit, again.

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In December 2017, I was broke, in a

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foreign country, and had zero self-confidence.

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I started to smoke again I smoked for

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7 years in university and stopped when I

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arrived in Korea After reflection, a pattern started

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to emerge: Big goals, big failures.

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I saw an ad on Facebook selling gloves

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for couples 1 big mitten to hold hands

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together I decided to copy and sell them

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on Facebook for Koreans. As a product-obsessed

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engineer, I didn't think about dropshipping. I had

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to build the product. A lovely Korean grandma

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knitted 50 Glovers: Gloves for Lovers

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I was quite proud of the name It

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took a month and a half to knit

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50 Glovers. My new Korean girlfriend

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helped with the translation. I burned all of

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my savings on Facebook Ads a few hundred

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dollars with this video. I made

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0 sales. In January 2018,

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my 8-square-meter bedroom was filled with Glovers, but

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my bank account was empty. At 20 dollars

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per piece, I had to sell them to

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pay the rent. My girlfriend and I went

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down the street every night to sell them.

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To brave the minus 15 degrees Korean winter,

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we had to drink 1 liter of beer

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before standing in the street for 2 hours.

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We would sell 2 gloves per day. I

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would wake up sick and coughing. What the

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fuck I am doing with my life?

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Chapter 2. She said "Yes".

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In April 2018, I was more broke than

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ever, out of shape, and unhealthy. I needed

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a big change. Marc in April

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2018, before changing his exercise habits.

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I applied for a second acting role to

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pay the bills. I would get a call

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once or twice a week and get paid

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200 dollars per gig. Then I started to

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work out every 2 days for clarity of

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mind—20 minutes of intense jumping rope.

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I got shredded in 1 month.

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Finally, I set a simple goal: Make 1

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dollar online with code. To avoid

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another failure, I focused on problems, not products.

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Every business wants to grow. So I decided

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to build a gamified marketing tool for escape

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rooms. At a startup event, I met

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Andrey, a talented marketer who became my friend.

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He said: Why don't you sell it before

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you make it? I'm an engineer.

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I love building. Marketing? Not

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at all. But I failed for 2 years,

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so I decided to listen. He taught me

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the foundation of marketing. After a few cold

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emails, Daniela from Time's Up Escape Rooms in

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Australia wanted to learn more about the product

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over a quick call. Marc taking

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a selfie in his small bedroom in Korea.

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On Friday 13th, 2018, I was in Osaka,

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Japan for a 3-day visa run. I just

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had a bad night of sleep in the

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cheapest guest house I could afford. Nine

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in the morning. I was in the common

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area, it was hot, and the wifi was

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bad. The call started.

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There are no words to describe how cringe

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I was. So here's the intro of the

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sales pitch. After 42 minutes, she said

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yes. By the end of the day, she

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subscribed to the 99 dollars monthly plan.

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Yes! I went back to Korea and built

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the product. That call started a SaaS business

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called VirallyBot. It made about

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100,000 dollars Here's a photo of thirty

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thousand dollars in an old PayPal account.

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1 call paid the bills for 5 years.

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Chapter 3. Growing a SaaS.

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After making my first 1 dollar online in

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2018, my Korean girlfriend and I had no

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reason to stay in Seoul anymore. We'd rather

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be somewhere hot and cheap. So we moved

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to Bali in September. I was working

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on VirallyBot: a gamified marketing tool for escape

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room businesses, priced at 199 dollars a

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month. A typical day would be:

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Marketing in the morning: Collecting leads and sending

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cold emails. I tried cold calls, but it

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was not working for me. Product in the

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afternoon: Adding games and features while learning

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how to code. We lived in Canggu with

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2 roommates. Life was good.

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I was not living in a bug-infested room

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anymore. I learned how to surf, and the

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SaaS was making 1,500 dollars a month.

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But churn was high. To earn

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money with my software, escape rooms had to

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use it. Most didn't. I

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felt like on a treadmill: New customer, new

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churn. So I offered a yearly plan for

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1,999 dollars and got some sales.

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My revenue hit 3,000 dollars in early

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2020. But I was just running faster on

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the treadmill. So I built a new product

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called GameWidget: An embedded mini-game on websites

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to entertain visitors and offer discount coupons.

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Winners of the game get a discount coupon

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for the escape rooms. Same market escape

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rooms and same strategy

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gamification marketing but different

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fulfillment. Instead of using the software,

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my customers just had to add a script

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to their sites and let the magic happen.

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I beta-tested the product for 2 months and

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the results were impressive: +0.6 percent conversion rate

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3 percent is considered great in the industry

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I was excited. Chapter

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4. Failing life. When

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COVID hit in March 2020, all escape rooms

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closed. My revenue went to 0 dollars

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in a week. I was fortunate to be

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in Bali because I met Hugues, who became

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my best friend. We spent 6 months surfing

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empty waves and talking about life. We surfed

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6-9-foot waves in tandem. Just like

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my girlfriend, he never judged me—I could show

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him every weird side of my personality.

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Thanks to them, I stopped caring about what

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others think of me. In the summer of

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2020, my girlfriend and I decided to get

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married. We flew back to France. My Korean

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parents did too. The wedding was wonderful.

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Unfortunately, we couldn't go back to Bali due

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to COVID restrictions. We lived in Paris with

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my parents and sisters for 1 year. I

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worked on my previous SaaS and got it

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back to 1,000 dollars MRR, but something was

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off. I didn't like it anymore, so I

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quit. After a few months of nothingness,

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I had to start something new. Anything.

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So I launched The Golden Plumber in January

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2021. Males often dribble

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after going to the toilet, due to the

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nature of our engine—as my sister explained she's

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a doctor Entrepreneurship at its peak.

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I created an info-product 2-page

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PDF and ran ads on adult

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websites. I made 4 dollars in 2

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months. I quit, again.

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My parents gave me 100,000 dollars as an

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early legacy. I invested everything in Tesla

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in March 2021, when the stock hit an

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all-time high. I refused to use the money

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for at least 20 years. I still believe

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it's not mine. 2 weeks later, my

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portfolio went down by minus 36,000

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dollars. I was 27 years old, broke,

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and living with my parents. A recurring thought

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started to echo: I am a failure…

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Here's a photo of the four holes I

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dug in the wall. On Wednesday, 9th,

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June 2021, while drinking a morning coffee in

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my bedroom, I started to cry.

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Sadness turned to anger, and I dug 4

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holes in the wall.

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Chapter 5. Overcoming depression.

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It's not common to see a 27-year-old boy

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crying in his mum's arms on the sofa.

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But life isn't like movies. I needed

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a change, a big one: Quit entrepreneurship

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and get a job. Within 2

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weeks of applying as a software engineer, I

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got an interview. At the end, HR asked:

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Do you want to say anything to Tai

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Lopez? It wasn't written on the application, but

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it was a 9,000 dollars a month job

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offer to work for Tai Lopez. I

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accepted. I started reading. I

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thought I hated books because it was boring

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in high school. It turned out to be

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my favorite activity. My first book was

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"Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. It changed

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my life. I realized I was tired

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without knowing it. Fixing my sleep

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unlocked more motivation, happiness, and less anxiety.

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While I worked for Tai, I also learned

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Korean. 1 hour a day, 6 days a

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week. 3 months later, I could have a

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conversation with my wife. My mood

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improved every day. I was growing,

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and I finally had a sense of purpose.

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In October 2021, we went back home to

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Bali A laptop beside the window at home

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in Bali. In November, I got fired.

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But it didn't matter. I was so inspired

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by Pieter Levels building startups in public that

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I went back to entrepreneurship. I had a

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new dream. Chapter

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6. Just for fun. When

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there isn't much happening in your life, it's

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hard to find a startup idea. I was

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so frustrated with my previous years of go-big-or-go-home

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mindset that I needed a simple project everyone

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could understand. In December 2021,

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Mood2Movie was born. A movie recommendation

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app based on your mood. It sounds fancy,

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but it's just a simple if mood

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then movie genre. This app

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got 20K+ visitors by going viral on Hacker

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News. This project kickstarted my

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build-in-public journey. The app is free, so I

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could launch it everywhere on Reddit. One post

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went viral and got 10K visitors. So

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I had somewhat valuable content to share on

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Twitter. In 6 months, I launched 7 projects

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without thinking about business, just for fun.

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I learned much about coding, SEO, writing, launching,

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and marketing. My Twitter account reached

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1,000 followers in July 2022.

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Meantime, I ate healthy food, prioritized sleep, and

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worked out every day surfing or skating

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I also raised a chick. Here's a photo

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of me as a software engineer in 2020,

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on the left, and as a solopreneur in

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2021, on the right. Even though I was

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making just a few hundred dollars a month,

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it was too much fun to give up.

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Chapter 7. I fell in love.

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In August 2022, my gamified habit tracker, Habits

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Garden, was making about 200 dollars a month,

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so I went all-in. But

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I'm a product-obsessed developer. I don't

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like marketing. Side-project marketing saved

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me: Ship free tools to promote a paid

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one. For instance, I launched

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VisualizeHabit—a free tool to visualize the compound effect

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of tiny habits. I plugged Habits Garden, and

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it brought 30,000 visitors in 2 months.

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If you read 5 minutes/day for 1 year,

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you'll finish 6 books! For a side project

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to work, I had to be good at

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launching. I started to make fun launch videos.

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People enjoyed and shared them, creating a viral

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loop. Each side project grew my Twitter following

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and brought decent traffic. Here's

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a photo from my skit for the launch

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of ByeDispute. Thanks to side-project marketing

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and launch videos, Habits Garden reached 10,000 users

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in January 2023. Users

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00:15:15.383 --> 00:15:18.750
requested a mobile app. I had no idea

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how to code it, but I tried. After

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14 days with the help of my friend

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Martin, Habits Garden was live on the App

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Store and the Play Store. It was making

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700 dollars a month. Not bad,

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but not worth 6 months of my life.

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I fell in love with the wrong product.

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Chapter 8. Back on the grind.

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Early 2023, I sold a micro-startup I built

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in 2021. It was making 80 dollars

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a month and was acquired for

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4,300 dollars. I

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had stories to tell. My Twitter account grew

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by about 50 followers a day. But I

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was still not making enough to cover my

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cheap lifestyle. So I did the 2021

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strategy again: Ship startups like a

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madman. But this time, I applied some rules:

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No free plan. Only painkiller

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product. Move on if no product-market

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fit. I built 8 startups in 8 months.

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6 made money. 2 paid the

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00:16:26.682 --> 00:16:29.415
bills. Ship fast, launch viral,

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00:16:29.755 --> 00:16:33.074
repeat. In July 2023, I was making

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about 3,000 dollars a month. 60

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percent of my revenue came from MakeLanding, an

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AI landing page generator. I tried to grow

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it but failed. I didn't use the product,

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and I didn't care about the market. I

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just built the startup out of AI FOMO.

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In August 2023, my whole family flew to

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South Korea, where my wife and I remarried.

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It was wonderful. Here's a photo of my

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wife and me in traditional Korean wedding clothes.

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Chapter 9. Product-market fit, finally.

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Holidays are magic. When I left for Korea

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in August 2023, my head was full of

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questions. When I came back, it was obvious:

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I must build a business for customers I

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care about. So I quit all my faceless

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AI projects and focused on products I'd use.

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I sold my AI landing page generator for

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35,000 dollars and my habit tracker for

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10,000 dollars. It gave me time and

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clarity. I wrote about the process and

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the outcome. On September 1st, I

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launched ShipFast, a NextJS boilerplate to ship

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startups fast. I packed 2 years of shipping

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knowledge in a GitHub repo. ShipFast diagram

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showing the technologies and features in the boilerplate.

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I told my wife we'd be lucky if

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we made 100 dollars with it. By the

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end of the month, ShipFast made 40,000 dollars.

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I was blown away. It's hard to describe

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product-market fit, but when it hits, it's clear.

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I kept adding features while tweeting about it.

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I received tons of testimonials from customers who

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made their first 1 dollar online thanks to

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the boilerplate. I was happy.

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00:18:24.600 --> 00:18:27.320
I also launched ByeDispute: A no-code tool to

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prevent Stripe chargebacks. In November,

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00:18:30.658 --> 00:18:33.878
my revenue hit 65,400 dollars a

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month at a 91 percent margin and 0

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employees. By the end of 2023,

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ShipFast alone made almost 200,000 dollars in total

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revenue. It felt so good to be financially

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rewarded for my last 7 years of work.

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Here's an old Stripe screenshot, taken on December

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17th, 2023.

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Chapter 10. Rat race.

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I started a YouTube channel in 2024.

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Thumbnails from Marc's YouTube channel. The

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videos made ShipFast hit 133,000

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dollars in monthly revenue in April 2024.

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The YouTube channel quickly grew to 100K followers

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because I had a story and numbers to

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back it up. This made me overconfident.

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I started to believe I was Alex Hormozi

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for developers, so I doubled down on content

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and info-products. People kept asking

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how I learned to code under my videos,

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so I built CodeFast. It took 9 months

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00:19:36.631 --> 00:19:39.657
working 6 hours a day. It made

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100,000 dollars in 2 days.

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CodeFast's launch video was my favorite part of

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00:19:45.384 --> 00:19:48.664
building this product. My mood was negatively

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00:19:48.664 --> 00:19:51.244
affected by the ups and downs in revenue.

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One month I could make 120 thousand dollars,

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00:19:55.297 --> 00:19:58.313
the next 40 thousand dollars. I told myself

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it's stupid to stress because I'm still making

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very good money, but it's hard to ignore

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00:20:03.173 --> 00:20:06.226
degrowth. I wish I could tell you I

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00:20:06.226 --> 00:20:08.706
was happy making 1.2 million dollars by the

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end of 2024, but realistically, it felt like

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a rat race where I had to work

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harder and harder to keep the numbers up.

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Chapter 11. First love. I

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00:20:20.446 --> 00:20:22.586
launched DataFast in October 2024.

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I connected Stripe with web analytics to find

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00:20:26.517 --> 00:20:29.703
out my best marketing channels. It reached

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00:20:29.703 --> 00:20:32.323
300 dollars MRR in 2 weeks.

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00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:36.359
The revenue was ridiculous compared to CodeFast, but

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00:20:36.359 --> 00:20:39.512
it saved me. After spending 9 months making

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00:20:39.512 --> 00:20:42.852
videos, I felt happiness finally building features people

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00:20:42.852 --> 00:20:45.621
could use and touch. I know it sounds

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00:20:45.621 --> 00:20:49.012
weird, but that's my happy place. I

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realized I had to go back to my

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first love: building apps out of curiosity, not

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revenue opportunity.

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Chapter 12. Builder mindset.

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When I started building in public, I had

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00:21:02.813 --> 00:21:05.333
one goal in mind: 1 startup per month.

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00:21:06.442 --> 00:21:08.862
I drifted in 2024, but I was back

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00:21:08.862 --> 00:21:11.754
in 2025. I built

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BioAge, SuperShrimp, and many other little projects that

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00:21:14.874 --> 00:21:17.614
never really made money, and my overall revenue

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00:21:17.614 --> 00:21:20.831
went down, but it didn't matter. I was

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00:21:20.831 --> 00:21:24.038
having fun again. The SuperShrimp website with the

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00:21:24.038 --> 00:21:27.235
headline Fix Your Posture. I also

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00:21:27.235 --> 00:21:29.995
prioritized other aspects of life and worked less.

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My wife and I travelled the world: New

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00:21:32.884 --> 00:21:36.184
Zealand, South Korea, Bali, South Africa, Greece.

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00:21:37.236 --> 00:21:39.176
And I started running and lifting weights.

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Chapter 13. 10 percent rule.

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I launched TrustMRR on October 30th,

429
00:21:48.816 --> 00:21:52.106
2025. 24 hours later, it

430
00:21:52.106 --> 00:21:54.706
was making 20,000 dollars a month in ad

431
00:21:54.706 --> 00:21:57.909
placements. I vibe-coded the platform in 6

432
00:21:57.909 --> 00:22:00.817
hours. The TrustMRR startup

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00:22:00.817 --> 00:22:04.078
leaderboard and advertising placements. The

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00:22:04.078 --> 00:22:05.998
hype died the next month, so I started

435
00:22:05.998 --> 00:22:08.438
building verticals to keep the project afloat.

436
00:22:09.254 --> 00:22:12.114
After 10 failures, the startup marketplace took off

437
00:22:12.114 --> 00:22:15.484
in January 2026. Someone made an offer

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00:22:15.484 --> 00:22:18.544
to acquire TrustMRR for 1 million

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00:22:18.544 --> 00:22:21.054
dollars. I rejected the offer.

440
00:22:22.219 --> 00:22:25.406
7 months later: 164

441
00:22:25.406 --> 00:22:28.426
founders got acquired. 200K people

442
00:22:28.426 --> 00:22:31.366
visit the site every month. and I've made

443
00:22:31.366 --> 00:22:34.697
almost 400,000 dollars. I've

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00:22:34.697 --> 00:22:36.817
documented TrustMRR's journey here.

445
00:22:37.824 --> 00:22:40.864
Meanwhile, I added features to DataFast, and it

446
00:22:40.864 --> 00:22:43.916
kept growing. As I'm writing this in September

447
00:22:43.916 --> 00:22:45.896
2026, it's now at

448
00:22:45.896 --> 00:22:49.136
30,831 dollars MRR

449
00:22:49.136 --> 00:22:51.456
and about 7 percent churn.

450
00:22:52.884 --> 00:22:55.244
Here's a photo of the DataFast chart, at

451
00:22:55.244 --> 00:22:58.044
about thirty thousand eight hundred thirty-one dollars

452
00:22:58.044 --> 00:23:01.159
MRR. I launched Stalkr in

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00:23:01.159 --> 00:23:03.819
August 2026 and got my first customers.

454
00:23:05.124 --> 00:23:08.464
It's doing 223 dollars MRR, which is

455
00:23:08.464 --> 00:23:10.824
very tiny compared to my other products, but

456
00:23:10.824 --> 00:23:14.029
it doesn't matter! I build tools for myself,

457
00:23:14.249 --> 00:23:17.500
and I'm having fun. Stalkr is

458
00:23:17.500 --> 00:23:20.380
how I find testimonials, feature ideas, and bug

459
00:23:20.380 --> 00:23:23.116
reports for my products. I see a recurring

460
00:23:23.116 --> 00:23:25.416
pattern: I have no idea what's going to

461
00:23:25.416 --> 00:23:28.693
work. ShipFast and TrustMRR blew

462
00:23:28.693 --> 00:23:31.964
up overnight. DataFast was slow and

463
00:23:31.964 --> 00:23:35.171
steady. My other 30 startups never really

464
00:23:35.171 --> 00:23:38.511
made money. 90 percent of my 36

465
00:23:38.511 --> 00:23:41.482
startups failed. And that's ohhh

466
00:23:41.482 --> 00:23:44.649
kay. My goal is to

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00:23:44.649 --> 00:23:47.369
build stuff that makes me happy, even if

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it doesn't make money.

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00:23:50.506 --> 00:23:52.506
Chapter 14. Starting over.

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00:23:53.914 --> 00:23:56.834
Back in 2016, when I started, I believed

471
00:23:56.834 --> 00:23:59.646
I would make it. If I had known

472
00:23:59.646 --> 00:24:02.186
it would take 7 years of failure, I

473
00:24:02.186 --> 00:24:05.560
probably would never have started. That's why

474
00:24:05.560 --> 00:24:08.814
I'm stupidly optimistic. I don't think

475
00:24:08.814 --> 00:24:11.787
in years. I don't dream big.

476
00:24:12.831 --> 00:24:16.157
I think in weeks. I build tiny projects

477
00:24:16.157 --> 00:24:19.431
fast. And I quit even faster.

478
00:24:20.781 --> 00:24:22.601
That's how I wake up happy, enjoy the

479
00:24:22.601 --> 00:24:25.161
journey, and eventually build life-changing projects.

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00:24:26.191 --> 00:24:28.131
If you've been following the journey, thank you.

481
00:24:29.086 --> 00:24:30.846
You've given my posts a sense of purpose,

482
00:24:30.986 --> 00:24:32.766
which has kept me going, and I'm very

483
00:24:32.766 --> 00:24:35.862
grateful for this. I root for you and

484
00:24:35.862 --> 00:24:38.041
your projects. ❤️

485
00:24:38.761 --> 00:24:42.084
PS. Here's my little portfolio of everything

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00:24:42.084 --> 00:24:42.584
I built