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miccho27
miccho27

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How I Built 60+ Digital Products Across 6 Platforms (And What Actually Sells)

#productivity #career #sideprojects #webdev

How I Built 60+ Digital Products Across 6 Platforms (And What Actually Sells)

I've been building and shipping digital products as a solo developer for the past year. Not as a side experiment — as a real attempt to build sustainable passive income.

Here's what I've shipped so far:

  • 30+ APIs on RapidAPI (Cloudflare Workers, $0 hosting)
  • 12 VS Code extensions on the Marketplace
  • 11 Chrome extensions (2 published, rest in review)
  • 40+ digital products on Gumroad
  • 12 Apify Actors
  • 3 micro-SaaS products

Total products: 100+. Let me share what I've learned.

The Stack That Scales

Every API I build runs on Cloudflare Workers. Zero hosting cost. 100K requests/day free. Each worker is a single JS file — deploy in 30 seconds.

Here's a typical worker structure:

export default {
  async fetch(request) {
    const url = new URL(request.url);

    if (url.pathname === '/analyze') {
      const body = await request.json();
      const result = processData(body.input);
      return new Response(JSON.stringify(result), {
        headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' }
      });
    }

    return new Response('Not found', { status: 404 });
  }
};
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That's it. No Express, no framework, no build step. Just functions.

What I've Learned About Each Platform

RapidAPI: Build Utility APIs

The APIs that get subscribers are simple, single-purpose utilities:

  • QR Code generation
  • Email validation
  • URL screenshots
  • Text analysis
  • Currency conversion

Don't build complex APIs. Build tools developers need in one API call.

Chrome/VS Code Extensions: Solve YOUR Problem

Every extension I've built solves a problem I personally had:

  • Tab Manager (I had 100+ tabs)
  • Quick Notes (needed fast note-taking)
  • JSON Formatter (used it daily)

If you use it daily, others probably will too.

Gumroad: Templates and Prompts Sell

The products that get the most interest on Gumroad:

  1. Notion templates — People love ready-made systems
  2. AI prompt packs — Specific, niche prompt collections
  3. Step-by-step guides — Based on real experience, not theory

The Unsexy Truth

Most of these products earn $0 right now. That's the honest reality.

But here's why I keep building:

  1. Each product is a lottery ticket with asymmetric upside
  2. Compounding: 100 products x $10/month = $1,000/month
  3. Skills compound: Each product is faster to build than the last
  4. Portfolio effect: Customers who buy one product discover others

My System for Shipping Fast

I use a simple pipeline:

  1. Idea → Score it (market size × effort × skill match)
  2. MVP → Build the smallest useful version
  3. Ship → Don't polish, just publish
  4. Market → One Dev.to article, one Twitter thread
  5. Move on → Build the next one

The key insight: speed > perfection. A shipped product earning $5/month beats a perfect product sitting in your repo.

Tools I Use

  • Claude Code CLI for AI-assisted development
  • Cloudflare Workers for API hosting
  • Pillow (Python) for thumbnail generation
  • Task Scheduler for automation
  • Notion for project management

Resources I've Created

Based on everything I've learned, I've put together a few resources:

Key Takeaways

  1. Start with what you know — Your daily workflow is full of product ideas
  2. Use free infrastructure — Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, GitHub Pages
  3. Ship weekly, not monthly — Speed is your competitive advantage
  4. Document everything — Your process IS a product (guides, templates)
  5. Don't wait for perfection — V1 is better than V0

What's your experience with digital products? I'd love to hear what's worked (or hasn't) for you.

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