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.
Oldest comments (33)
Keep up the fantastic work, Muhammad 🙌🤝👍
Thanks Taque 🤝
Nice
That's awesome!! Thanks for sharing
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!
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
Wow, its awesome, you are doing great!
Good job! Very Inspiring
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
Congrats Muhammad. hope the best.
Very impressive. Your article was inspirational and highly motivating for developers like me. Thank you!