I Burned $70K Before I Learned This Profit Trick (Don’t Be Me)

The story of how I make almost $10k from my SaaS

600 days. Over 9 failed projects.

Most were built in the era before Cursor (30 days of development for MVP), some after (1-3 days).

My story is messy.

Went through dozens of burnouts, endless times when I felt like there’s no way I can make it, self doubt, imposter syndrome and what not.

I wrote about it a lot in this newsletter.

And if you've been following me for some time, you know that I started as a fan of the “Ship Fast” cult.

Now I understand how flawed and misleading this can be.

Today I saw a killer tweet by Marc Lou, who’s considered the “founder” of the Ship Fast community and I decided to write about my story and how important this tweet is.

“Hot take: Make online $1,000 once, and you’ll never need a job again.

In the journey, you’ll learn about marketing, building, psychology, copywriting, sales, pricing…

It might take a year or five. It’s a cheap price for freedom”

- Marc Lou

Now that I make close to $10,000 ARR (And growing), I want to share my take on this, through my story.

Where it all began

The first time I was exposed to this methodology was in the early days of my journey.

I was convinced that if a product you build shows no traction, it’s worthless.

If you build it, share it on every social platform, ProductHunt and HackerNews, and it’s valuable, it will kick ass.

So that’s what I did.

Built over 9 products. Shared my progress in public for some of them and eventually published on every platform available.

And if I am being honest, some of the ideas are pretty awesome!

Results? $0, close to no users and no motivation to continue. A failure, that you feel you don’t get anything out of, kills your spirit.

But in my mind, this is the way it should feel. That’s what everybody feels (?).

Well, it might be true, but through the building→sharing→publishing→killing cycle, I learned close to nothing but how to code better.

Almost quit

600 days in, I spent close to $70,000 and earned $0.

This is was so demoralizing, that I sank into another burnout phase and thought about giving up and just finding a job.

Then I saw a tweet from Tibo (Maker of Taplio/TweetHunter)

“Looking for a Co-Founder 👉 Fullstack Maker ✨
…
So, I am looking for someone to take over and build the next hot X tool with me
…
My goal: get further than what I did with Tweet Hunter & Taplio -> $0 to $8m ARR in 3 years.”

- Tibo, Founder of Taplio

That’s when I thought: “Damn! This is my chance to finally break through and learn from the best”

And I sent him a message, followed up by many more.

Tibo was convinced that I might be a good co-founder, and so we had a Zoom call that turned into a week trial. During this week I had to implement a few features into the product I was supposed to co-found.

I had to learn new technologies and figure out a messed up code with 3 different repositories.

The week ended, I sent him what I did and waited.

I anxiously opened the WhatsApp to see if he sent me any message. I even put him in the archives just so I don’t get stressed from every notification.

2 days later, a message from Tibo. He chose Rob.

Man, that was disappointing. I was 100% sure this opportunity is in my pocket and that I am going to work alongside Tibo.

The new idea

Although I didn’t get to work with Tibo, what I learned opened a new door for me to build a new type of products.

I learned about data vectorization, RAG, prompt engineering and more.

A few days after I got the no, a new idea popped into my head: “A TweetHunter for Substack”.

At the same time I decided that I am going to give it at least 6 months before declaring it dead.

That’s how WriteStack came to life (Started as ArticleGenerate)

I thought to myself that I can build a tool that will help me generate newsletter ideas and outlines, based on my past writing.

This is genius!

And this time, I am going to do it differently.

The big pivot

This time, I took a week to build an MVP and instead of just publishing it, I sent DMs to people to try it.

This way I can get feedback and understand how to improve it.

My thinking was: “I will build and improve this. If nobody wants it, it solves my problem. win-win”

And this was the tipping point for me.

Through dozens if not hundreds of DMs, I figured out exactly what works, what doesn’t and what solution people are looking for.

The feature that I thought was going to be the killer one, article outline generator, became just another navigation item that nobody uses.

Crazy, huh?

Final thought

600 days of building in silence taught me how to code better.

But 6 weeks of talking to users taught me how to build a profitable business (And how to do it again).

Going back to the Tweet, it seems so obvious to me now.

After you start making money selling things online, It’s like something clicks and you finally figure out the blueprint.

You just need that first accomplishment, and you’re there.

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P.S. If you're reading this, it's a private note for you.

I have just opened a new group for creators who want to skip the 600 days of learning and start making money ASAP.

I share everything I know and guide you, step by step, to reach $10K.

The catch?

The group is open for 5 people only.

This is no scarcity trick. My capacity allows me to help only 5 people at the moment.

Reply “I’m In” to this email (or send me a DM) and I’ll onboard you.

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