How I launched and maintain multiple products in the same time
I am running a small startup company Launch Platform. As the name implies, it's a company for launching products. So far, there are two products launched by this company
- Monoline - a messenger like an app but only for sending self a note
- BeanHub - a text-based accounting book based on git
I've been jumping around these two products simultaneously for a while. Monoline just got its very first paying customer recently. I want to share the experience I've learned from multitasking between different products.
Why multiple products?
The First would be why build multiple products? It's probably not for everybody, but for me, here are the reasons:
- Product marketing, SEO, and adoptions by users all take time to take effect
- As an experienced software engineer myself, I can build things quickly. If I build one thing with 100% speed, it would be too many new features added in a short time without thinking carefully about the big picture and the direction. It's better to take time to learn how the users use the product
- At some point, I can create connections between products and cross-sell them or even create integration between them
- Increase the chance of product-market fit
Commitment
Building multiple products could sound like giving them up quickly, but that's not my approach here. It's the opposite. The products I make are all the products I need to use daily. Note-taking and accounting books are essential. I can envision I keep building them for many, many years to come.
Automate everything
Since if you want to maintain multiple products simultaneously, with just one person or a tiny team, the only way to do it is via automation. There's no room for fire fighting, as it will consume all the energy of developing products. If you are not technical enough to do that, I recommend using third-party platforms like Heroku, a no-code solution, or something unlikely to break. I run all my systems on Kubernetes with descent deployments making them very robust, so I barely care for them. All my software is built and deployed from CI, which helps me jump from deploying a back API server to React Native apps without too many details context switches for the build process. And, of course, I have automatic tests that help me catch bugs here and there.
Time-based context switching doesn't work.
I tried to switch between different products based on very strict time-based rules. Like two weeks for this product, then the next two weeks for the next. But I soon realized that my momentum for building one product was quickly lost when I switched to another product. Later on, I adopt a more goal-driven approach. I will set a goal for a product, like building feature A and feature B for this product. Then focus on the goal. Once it's done, I will move on to the next goal for the same product or another product. I found this way works better for me.
I should have marketed harder
Compared to building one product after another vs. building many products simultaneously, the benefit of making many is that all of them have time for the market effort to take effort. But since my product isn't in its full envisioned shape yet, I felt reluctant to market hard. That's the wrong approach as now I realize that the product won't sell for itself. You need to do it. And if you don't feel ashamed for pushing it out hard, maybe you are not doing it right. So that's what I am trying to do next, try way harder to sell the product.
The end
That's it, my experience of building multiple products. What do you think about it? Is it a good idea? Or do you think it's a bad idea? What's your experience? 😄
+1 for multiple products / companies development in parallel.
My approach is to focus on a new product / service / company in the very beginning as much as possible. Work out vision, strategy, and execution plan. At a certain stage, onboard a team (could be just one person), with a single person in charge of the project.
After sometime your team becomes empowered and autonomous, you act more as "president", with no operational role. This allows you to focus on your next vision quickly.
Products may fail, not reach their full potential etc... However doing it this way creates a strong team, which will help you grow your business.
As an investor/founder, unless you are a founder with several exits, running multiple products is a huge red flag. It is extremely difficult to make one product a big success, let alone try to navigate two mazes at once. It is however a quick way to burnout.
Sure, most investors probably won't fund me, but I have no plan for taking fund, so for that part it's oaky for me.
And I would say yes, it's extremely hard for one to work already, and also surely a very quick way to burnout. But I guess my definition of success is a bit different here. I am looking long term steady income growth over an exit or anything like that. So I have less pressure to "success" in short amount of time.
I got your point of why you've decided to go for multiple products but I would always choose just one and focus 100% energy to make it successful (btw that's exactly what Warren Buffett and Bill Gates recommend: https://youtu.be/ju20hzifwAo).
The reason is that you may create the best product in the world but you need market to accept it. And to accept it you need to simultaneously listen to the audience and implement those learnings. You simply have to constantly run experiments and improve the product. If you split your time and energy between two different products, it's harder to create an extraordinary one. Not to mention money - it's always easier to fund just one product than the two ones. That is exactly my experience working with tech founders helping them grow their startups... Maybe you can just find out which of the two has higher chance of survival and then focus on that one?
Anyway, I am here with marketing background, so my perspective may be totally different and might not work for you, so I definitely wish you good luck with both of the products 🙂
Totally understand what you are saying here. I used to work for tech startup, so I understand when external investment exists, they are always forced to seek hypergrowth. But since I am taking indiehack route, to me, I am looking more for steady growth over time instead of hypergrowth, so it won't be a problem for me to have pressure other than just survive. Then yeah, it's a valid point the money issue. I am currently working contracting job on the side (haha, yep, in the same time of building multiple products, I know, it's crazy 😅), so there's income to cover my cost for growing the products. And as for the cost, the major cost is just the server fee from the product I run. I share the same server infrastructure for them, so the unit cost for each product is lower. Other than that, I am planning hiring contractor to help me to speed up some part a bit. So all in all, as long as I can keep it floats and observe steady growth, I can keep doing it. I see it more like a marathon instead of a sprint. It's a very different route people would take for building products I guess.
Well there is no single route to success, yours may work for you. Wish you best of luck 🙂
I wrote a new extended article based on this subject here:
https://fangpenlin.com/posts/2022/06/27/why-and-how-i-build-and-maintain-multiple-products-simultaneously/