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I took my side project from $0 to $200+ in 4 days

Muhammad Salman on November 21, 2023

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 so...
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Rob OLeary

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!

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Muhammad Salman

But like I don't have any audience on these platforms, so I got no transaction from Reddit and Twitter

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Maxim Mazurok

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.

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Muhammad Salman

4 days into the launch, 1.5 months just to design and develop all that

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Maxim Mazurok

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

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Lev Nahar

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.

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Muhammad Salman

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!

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Nik L.

How much percentage is Stripe charging?

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Bradley Oliver

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.

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Muhammad Salman

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 🤝

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Nik L.

Thanks Bradley. Any opinion on which payment gateway is atleast better than stripe or paypal?

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Muhammad Salman

I don't know yet as there gonna be no fee for my first 1k

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Khairunnisaas

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

Image description

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!

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Muhammad Salman

Thanks for highlighting the UI issue Khairunnisa, Really appreciate it

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xucian

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!

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Muhammad Salman

Drop your x account let's connect 🤝

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xucian
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Shweta Kale

That's awesome!! Thanks for sharing

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TAQUI ⭐

Keep up the fantastic work, Muhammad 🙌🤝👍

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Muhammad Salman

Thanks Taque 🤝

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Hasan Elsherbiny

congrats 🎉🎉

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Dusan Petkovic

Wow, looks really polished, how did you make the design? did you do it yourself?

Thanks!

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Muhammad Salman

Thanks Dusan, I made those designs from scratch yes!

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Nguyen Xuan hoa

Very impressive. Your article was inspirational and highly motivating for developers like me. Thank you!

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Michalis Papamichael

Congrats Muhammad. hope the best.

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Ivan Zakutnii

Good job! Very Inspiring

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BBM

Nice

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Pxlmastr

That's incredible. You must be lucky; if I had posted something like that it would just get ignored. Congrats on your product!

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Muhammad Salman

Yeah I guess I got lucky

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Hassan Suhaib • Edited

How'd you get a Stripe account in Pakistan?

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Muhammad Salman

By registering your company in the UK or US

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Nacho Colomina Torregrosa

Congrats!!

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Samir

Superb work. Appreciate all your efforts. 🫡

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Luke

Wow, its awesome, you are doing great!