So This is the story of how my side project which is basically a Next.Js SaaS Boilerplate Indiespace, got from $0 to $200+ in 4 days without any social media presence.
The Idea:
I have been working on this project for the last 1 and a half months, The initial plan was to create something I could use because I love to start new projects but often get overwhelmed with the feeling of setting up everything from scratch. So I started building this boilerplate which includes 2 landing pages, 2 waitlist pages, and a SAAS kit with a landing page and all the cool features like dark & light themes, subscriptions, one-time payments, transactional emails, authentication, SEO, etc.
The Expectation:
I had zero expectations of if anyone gonna buy it or not or how I was gonna market this as there are like every other developer launching a boilerplate with heavy stuff included and I don't have an audience. So I built it at my own pace and kept adding features.
The Launch:
My launch plan was to post about this on 3 platforms:
- Product Hunt
- SideProject
So on Friday 17th November, I scheduled the launch on Product Hunt for Saturday 18th November, posted on Sideprojects, and went to sleep. I woke up on Saturday around 2 pm and saw Product Hunt notifications on my phone, So I opened my laptop and went into my Gmail and then I saw an email from Stripe, I opened it and:
So now I'm so confused about what the hell I'm looking at, and questioning myself is this from someone who purchased my boilerplate? I opened the product hunt and It has been 1 hour since the launch I'm in 6th position with 30+ votes without any marketing or asking people to upvote and already made a sale. I was freaking smiling like a child whaaaaaaaaaat?
Then I posted on Twitter, and asked some friends to upvote, and after the launch got the 7th position, 150+ upvotes, 1.7k page views, and around 10+ followers on Twitter.
The Lesson:
I know it's not a lot of money and I know it's nothing compared to what I earn from my full-time job but to be very honest, creating your own digital product, marketing it, and earning even a single penny from it will give you so much happiness. If you are a developer like me or someone who wants to build something and is confused about how everything is gonna work out, don't worry put your project out there in public let the people decide, do your effort, and keep moving forward.
At this point, I know my Indiespace is not perfect and there is just so much to do right now I have to add the freaking documentation as well and I already hate setting up the content layer docs ugghhhh, But yeah I will keep adding features which gonna improve my productivity as a developer.
Last but not the least:
I would recommend you guys give Indiespace.storea try if you are someone who wants to build a SaaS app, In case you are someone just starting out and cannot afford it drop me a message on Twitter I'll be more than happy to help you.
Top comments (34)
Congrats Muhammad.
There is an inconsistency in what you said about social media. At the beginning you say "got from $0 to $200+ in 4 days without any social media presence." and in the launch section you say "My launch plan was to post about this on 3 platforms: - Twitter - Product Hunt ..". Might be good to clarify this point. You did use social media to promote your product, just not clear if it was in the beginning or not!
But like I don't have any audience on these platforms, so I got no transaction from Reddit and Twitter
Good job and inspiration, however I found the title a bit misleading, 0 to 200 in 4 days but later you say that worked on the project for 1.5 months. For me it's a bit less relevant at current stage as I'm trying to find ways to validate ideas faster. But anyway, I see where those figures are coming from, just a bit misleading for me. Cheers.
4 days into the launch, 1.5 months just to design and develop all that
I get that, was expecting 4 days to develop and launch from the title, which is more like a cycle I'm looking for now
Great work! Also a nice and useful product, I can see that some people will gladly pay for this if it's well maintained.
I suggest you let users have a sample of what a boilerplate looks like, design-wise and code-wise. Maybe offer a free, single-page boilerplate for a specific feature (or page).
Good luck!
By the way, what is this SideProject platform you were posting on? never heard of it.
Thank you! Appreciate the feedback and the suggestion about the boilerplate sample, that's definitely something we can consider to showcase the ease of use and functionality.
As for SideProject, it's a subreddit community where developers and entrepreneurs share and discuss side projects they're working on. Great for feedback and connecting with like-minded individuals!
How much percentage is Stripe charging?
Ridiculous amounts once you have any sort of actual success and make any decent money. I was unaware the first 1k was free that must be something newer they just started. Also, if you ever get a chargeback there is NO winning with Stripe - they will always side with the customer even if they have physical product and you have tracking and documentation. .... PayPal essentially operated the same but at least they provide SOME type of seller protection and will fight for you if the customer is an actual thief (aka buy something, get the item, everything's good, then decide they want both the money and the product so their literally call their CC company and dispute - it should be illegal) - the ONLY value stripe has, and I don't know if I would call it 'value' but they vet the transactions really well. I've found this actually results in REAL customers (not scammers) getting declined or being unable to pay.... but the disputes essentially should be more minimal because of the AI in place and super smart security restrictions they have in place. Stripe literally notices things like whether or not your mouse leaves the browser to copy CC #s and the time it takes a human to put in a CC number vs how fast you are and many other variables... either way.... their fees are ridiculous (like PayPal's, and Shopify, and Ebay, and Reverb.com, and every other merchant on earth) and if you DO get a dispute... say bye to the funds and hopefully it's at least a digital product where you are not at a literal 'loss.'
sorry for the rant lol - clearly, I'm a bit opinionated about Stripe.
on the flip side - Kudos to you Muhammad your story is super inspiring and makes me want to finish the 55 side projects I've either never finished or simply chose to never leak on account 'no one will want this anyways' or 'it's just like blah blah' or out of sheer critism. You are right, worst thing that happens is it DOESNT sell, second worst is it DOES sell and you end up with a business on your hands and the stress that comes with. Wait, is that a worst? lol
K i'm done, its late. Sorry.
For the first 1k no transactional fee, it's not something Stripe provides to new sellers out of the box because I'm a University student and have the GitHub student developer pack and there is that one offer that waives off the transactional fee on your first 1k.
Also Totally agree with you Bradley, Stripe is really not good when it comes to supporting sellers but there is no choice for a person who is not living in Europe and then I'm a developer and their docs are just heavenly good and easy to set up.
Anyhow I will see if I encounter this problem in the future Thanks for appreciating. The only thing I learned from this
launch is you never know what's gonna be your next thing. I had zero expectations and now after 5 days, and 4k page views, the blog post went viral, got some traffic on X, and now making some good money out of it every day.
I would love to connect with you and let's have a chat sometime 🤝
Thanks Bradley. Any opinion on which payment gateway is atleast better than stripe or paypal?
I don't know yet as there gonna be no fee for my first 1k
Congrats on you first sale!
By the way i was checkin your indiespace store and saw the second version of waitlist pages. it seems like there's a little bit of UI bug
the "join the waitlist" text is too high and the audience almost can't see the text. when i tried to inspect element, it looks like the text already disapearing while in the tablet mode. (i opened your web using laptop with 14 inch screen)
anyway... keep hustling!
Thanks for highlighting the UI issue Khairunnisa, Really appreciate it
happy for you mate, we're currently at the same stage with mjapi. I totally forgot about ProductHunt, thanks a lot! Btw, tuesdays and wednesdays are the best for launching!
Drop your x account let's connect 🤝
sure twitter.com/xucian_
That's awesome!! Thanks for sharing
Keep up the fantastic work, Muhammad 🙌🤝👍
Thanks Taque 🤝
congrats 🎉🎉
Wow, looks really polished, how did you make the design? did you do it yourself?
Thanks!
Thanks Dusan, I made those designs from scratch yes!
Very impressive. Your article was inspirational and highly motivating for developers like me. Thank you!
Congrats Muhammad. hope the best.
Good job! Very Inspiring
Nice
That's incredible. You must be lucky; if I had posted something like that it would just get ignored. Congrats on your product!
Yeah I guess I got lucky