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If you're gonna do the 12x12 in 2023, do it right — here's how

I'm always floored by indie hackers embarking on the 12x12. For those of you who don't know, that's when you launch a product every month for 12 months. At its core, it is a shotgun approach to validating several ideas quickly. Most credit the idea to @levelsio.

A lot of indie hackers have done it, with varying degrees of success. The most famous successes have been from @levelsio and @yongfook, both of whom stopped partway through when one of their products gained traction. Now their companies, Nomadlist and Bannerbear, respectively, are bringing in a lot of revenue.

It's not easy, and the risk of burnout is real. I wanted to understand how people set themselves up for success, so I spoke with indie hackers who have done it and did some digging of my own. Here's what I've found.

If you're thinking about doing a 12x12 (or even if you aren't), do this. 👇

The key to a successful 12x12

At the end of this post, I'll list the benefits and also quote some indie hackers saying why not to do it, but for now, I'll assume you're into it and get right to business. Here's the step-by-step approach to a successful 12x12:

The 12x12, step by step

Before you start, prepare:

  • Set your ideas: Some indie hackers have started with one idea and thought up new ones as they went, but I'd advise against that. Have your ideas lined up. Here's a post on how to come up with them. That allows you to do the next steps.
  • Do market research: Make sure there is a market, look into competitors, really try to understand if your ideas have legs. Don't go in blind.
  • Put them through some initial validation: Most don't do this, but I think it's a good idea. You won't get true (dollars in hand) validation, but you can speak with potential customers, create a landing page and drive traffic, etc.
  • Think about your feature set: You don't need to set it in stone, but it's a good idea to start mulling over the features of each product. And make decisions about which feature (singular) will make it into the MVP.
  • Think on monetization: Presumably, you'll want this to be monetizable. So make sure it is before you build it. What model will you use?
  • Plan your time: How are you going to make time for this? Most indie hackers set aside 1.5+ years of runway so they can do this full-time. Or you can keep your job (or freelance) and try to squeeze it into mornings, nights and weekends.

When it's time to get started:

  • Make the announcement: Here on IH, on Twitter, on HN, etc. Let the world know that you're doing the 12x12 and what the first project is.
  • Update followers daily: Remember to regularly updated anyone who is interested. This will probably be your primary form of marketing. It's a good motivator too.
  • Set your features: Set your feature set in stone. Remember, this should be the MVP of MVPs. I'm talking one feature (if at all possible).
  • Set your tasks: At this point, you should know what you're building. Break it into a small task on your favorite project management tool.
  • Set deadlines: It's important to set deadlines for each task so that you can hold yourself accountable and track your progress. Make sure to set the final deadline with a few days to spare for marketing.
  • Start building: IMO shortcuts and technical debt are ok here. You can refactor later. Go quickly. Use templates, libraries, no-code, and code from old (or open-source) projects. Here's a post on how to speed up development.
  • Manage yourself: Use tools to manage yourself effectively. And figure out how you naturally work best.
  • Work efficiently: Here's an post on efficiency. And consider outsourcing.
  • Ignore design (mostly): In most cases, design doesn't matter much right now. Keep it bare-bones.
  • QA: Don't' forget to test your builds. There's no time for automated tests, but you can and should give it manual sanity checks.
  • Check in: At the end of each week, check in with yourself. Are you on track? Does anything need to be optimized? And how are you feeling?

Launches often get short shrift in the 12x12. Some folks build until day 29, then announce the launch on Twitter and move on. But I'd recommend saving 3-4 days for launch. That way you're giving the product enough time to actually get some traction. If you don't give it time, then the results of your shotgun experiment will be flawed.

  • Start with your following: First up, announce it to Twitter.
  • Let your communities know: Post on IH, HN, reddit, and wherever your potential customers hang out.
  • Launch communities: Launch on sites like Product Hunt, Launched!, etc.
  • Get creative: I've got a whole list of places to launch along with tips. Check it out for inspiration.

And finally, kick off the next project!

Product Tips

  • Keep all products in the same niche: This is important. It establishes your personal brand and allows the effort that you put into each product to benefit the others. @mferrer said it well:

"This is why I recommend focusing your 12x12 efforts around a common topic/problem/market, because that way if you happen to fail, at least you get another shot putting those learnings to a good use."

  • Don't build from scratch: Use no code, libraries, etc.
  • Consider other types of products: Not all products are software. Here's a post with some of the fastest products to build.
  • Save time for the launch: Like I said above, launching takes time if you want to do it right. Set aside time for that.
  • Finish each product: From what I've seen, it is not uncommon for indie hackers to either not have time to finish, or to move on because of another shiny object. Make sure you're on top of your deadline. And make sure you finish before starting the next one.
  • Follow the momentum: Yes, it's important to finish each product. But you don't have to finish the 12x12. If one of the products starts to take off, ditch the 12x12 and move with the momentum. Here's what @csallen had to say on that:

"...You can quit! If one of your projects starts taking off beyond a reasonable doubt, there's no reason you have to stick with the 12in12 plan and start a new project next month. Or if you finish the entire year with no hits, you can look back at what you've done and choose to follow up on whichever project looked most promising."

Like I said, some of the most successful 12x12s ended early.

Ok, but is a 12x12 actually a good idea?

The 12x12 is not for everyone, so I'll end by breaking that down.

Why it's a good idea

The 12x12 is great because it allows you to do the following:

  • Get quick validation
  • Attract attention while building in public
  • Build your personal brand.
  • Practice shipping
  • Work more efficiently
  • Understand what the market wants
  • Have some fun
  • Add weight to your deadlines so you don't blow them. @csallen said it well:

"Setting yourself up to be motivated is an underrated step for indie hackers. Most startup dreams fail because the founders quit. Or because they put in so little effort that they might as well not be working. This isn't because people are lazy. It's because being self-employed is hard. Self motivation is hard…"

Why it's a terrible idea

Here's what some indie hackers had to say against it:

According to @robertmaidla:

"12/12 philosophy mostly yields hollow projects aimed towards a niche within a niche within a niche market. Sure, you gain experience by launching whatever comes to mind, but you also dilute your voice… What about instead of spending 12 months in a row throwing gibberish at people to see if anything sticks, one would spend 12 months working on 1 thing. A single project that might make a change."

He also points out that the sacrifices of quality, sleep, and time for yourself and loved ones leads to forgetting to live.

According to @PaulReijnierse:

"For me personally I noticed that one month is a bit too short of a timeframe for me to really understand a problem space and come up with a solution for it that could actually help solve the problem. We started out with trying to go from idea to revenue in 10 weeks and that worked quite well."

According to @spencerpauly,:

"Since you're pre-planning to do multiple startups, you're essentially pre-planning for failure. Seems wrong to me… A better mantra: "I will launch in X days". Then, see what happens, ride the wave, if it doesn't grow, rinse and repeat."

And this list wouldn't be complete without a comment from @primer:

"My thoughts on this are always "hard pass"... Anyone who has ever started a company knows that it takes a long time to get traction, to iterate, to find "product market fit"... Doing something for a month and then moving onto the next thing, and then the next thing — nothing is going to get anywhere."

So when is a 12x12 a good idea?

The first thing I'd ask myself is, is a full 12x12 necessary? I've heard of indie hackers doing a 6x6, 3x3, and 6x12. The 12x12 is just the most popular because it's sticky (and hard). There are other options, so figure out which one (if any) works for you.

@xavier did a 6x6 and says he highly recommends it. 2 of the 6 did well (check them out on his post linked above if you want some context).

Of course, you should also consider whether you have the time, skill, resources, and motivation to do it.

And the last thing I'll note is that you need to have the ideas. Unless you have 12 solid ideas, I wouldn't advise moving forward. Approaching this as "I'll just try 12 random ideas that I come up with along the way" is less likely to end in success than "I've got 12 solid ideas that have been burning a hole in my pocket for a year, and I need to try them."

Wait until your ideas (and knowledge) have had a chance to mature. Then get to work.

Anything I missed?


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  1. 1

    Embarking on a 12x12 challenge in 2023 can be a transformative journey, offering a structured approach to personal or professional development. To ensure success, it's essential to approach the challenge with the right mindset and strategies.

  2. 2

    If you can build something in a month using noskill tools then so can a lot of other people. Probably someone can write it from scratch in 4-6 months. So you better stop the game once you have a hit and start iterating. Otherwise your just doing other peoples validation for free.

  3. 2

    I don’t know if it’s just me but 12 X 12 reads to me as 12 multiplied by 12 = 144. Not 12 projects IN 12 months.

  4. 2

    Hey James,

    Thanks for the mention!

    I did a 6x6 and it was REALLY a good idea, I still have some revenues from 2-3 products that I launched during this period and I definitely learned a TON.

    I started it because I wanted to learn to launch and build faster but also to focus a lot on marketing.

    I had a rule of spending at least 50% of the month doing marketing, and it worked! It also allowed me to experiment a lot of stuff.

    When you build a product super fast, and know there will be others, you're way more encline to test new things, experiment and even stop it if needed.

    Definitely higly recommend a 6x6 or 12x12 if you're just getting started.

    1. 1

      Nice, thanks for weighing in, Xavier!

  5. 1

    So at the end of the day we just need to choose which one work best for ourself

  6. 1

    Where do you track your progress?

  7. 1

    I am currently in my third month of my 4x4. I started this mostly for the learning part.
    Something I noticed is that I missed the validation part of ideas. Something I plan for the 4th month is user research and getting first customers. This is a topic where I struggle, so I want to focus on it.

    My plan for next year is to get a better paid job and reduce hours. So I can ship further projects by side.

  8. 1

    I'm working on mine atm. Just passed #4. Nothing sticking yet. But we'll see how it goes. One thing I'd say is that you may not need all 12 ideas from the start as I started getting more ideas once I started both just as new problems come up and people start mentioning problems to me.

  9. 1

    If anyone is looking for a tool to track their progress, and get some momentum going for a challenge like this, take a look at Chirty
    (Full disclosure I built this ^)

  10. 1

    Wonderful post. I think at start a 6x6 is more affective for premiumivtherapy.com . As we don't really know how things gonna work. And later on we can shift to the 12x12 based on the previous results.

    1. 1

      Yeah, honestly, I think a 6x6 makes a lot more sense than a 12x12. And some of the most successful "12x12s" have actually ended up lasting only 6 months. Good luck!

  11. 1

    How much budget you had set for each product / launch? Great post though:)

    1. 1

      It's not so much about the product budget (unless you plan to use ads, paid sponsorship, etc.). You just need enough runway. I actually posted about how to figure out how much runway you need a few weeks back - here's the link.

  12. 1

    i am also planning to do the same with my new project https://fmwaapps.com in 2023. i hope it will be successful that year

  13. 1

    Yesss, can't wait to try a 12x12. Just saving up runway. Nearly at 1.5 years... but really want to get to 2 years before I start.

    1. 0

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

      1. 3

        It's not like I'm spending 2 years on the 12x12. The plan is to spend 1 year on the 12x12, then a year focusing on the best-performing product. This is just how I'm going to figure out the best idea (and learn a bunch, and hopefully have multiple revenue streams). Is that really spunking my money against a wall?

  14. 1

    I did a 6x6 once and that was more than enough! More would just be masochistic.

    Just decide on your best 6 and move forward with those. If you have 12 ideas, I guarantee 6 of them are garbage. Cut back and focus on 6. That way you can double down on the best one in 6 months instead of waiting a whole year. Heck I might even suggest a 3x3, but I've never tried. it.

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