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The 15+ fastest products to build

When it's time to begin your indie hacking career, two things are really important. Oversimplification of the year, but bear with me. ๐Ÿ˜… You have to:

  1. Minimize risk
  2. Start

And launching something quick and easy can take care of both things. It diversifies your revenue streams and allows you to knock out that easy one so that you can get into the habit of shipping.

I talked to someone with a lot of experience shipping products โ€” in fact, he's currently launching 25 products in 25 weeks. ๐Ÿ‘‡


Yep, that's right. Ayush Chaturvedi (@ayushchat) is launching 25 products in 25 weeks. This guy knows how to make a quick product, and he's turning a profit too. How is he doing it? Well, he certainly isn't building a SaaS every week. No, he's creating other types of digital products. Quick ones.

And yeah, I get itโ€ฆ SaaS is the end-all-be-all, right? We all prefer the idea of building a beautiful piece of software, so here's an unpopular opinion:

Not every product needs to be a SaaS. There are other options, and they exist for a reason.

Let's talk about the products Ayush was able to create in a week. And I'll outline some other options later.

Products that Ayush launched in a week

In the last few months, Ayush has built the following products within 7 days:

  • Indie Masterminds (mastermind group)
  • Blue Bird Essentials (Twitter course)
  • Copy OS (Copywriting course + Notion system)
  • Launch Like a Pro (swipefile)
  • The User Interviews Playbook
  • Maker Toolkit
  • Creator Hot Tips
  • Creator Profit Playbook
  • The Landing Page Playbook

Ayush: Most of these are info/curation-based products because I have to keep the scope very narrow and actually ship the product in a week. A SaaS would take at least a month, even if I built it with NoCode.

So if you're counting, that's a mastermind group, a course, a system, a swipefile, a toolkit, a compilation of tips, and a toolkit. He's also got other courses, guides, ebooks, and a premium newsletter. And before he embarked on the 25x25, he also had a productized service and did some consulting work to keep the lights on.

To date, he's made about $2K on Indie Masterminds and a total of $2K on everything else. Not F-U money by any means, but respectable considering that each of these was built in a week, with little promotion after that week. In case you're wondering how he pays the bills, he saved up two years of runway before quitting his job.

More on how Ayush does it later. For now, here are some other options.

Other products with quick turnaround times

I did a little digging and found more options to add to the list. Of course, there are other options out there โ€” and I'd love to hear your additions in the comments!

  • Ebook/guides: Ayush made them, and you can too. They don't need to be overly long โ€” I've read a few that are only 10 pages or so.
  • Guides: Ayush calls them "Playbooks", but whatever you call them, give people a succinct, actionable guide on how to do something that you've done successfully, or that you know a lot about.
  • Newsletter: I'm personally building one right now and I've really enjoyed it. So far I've built it to 1100+ subs in 7 months without a following, and I'm about to launch the paid tier (though I'd advise doing it earlier). And it has brought me other opportunities as well, like being a weekly guest on a Youtube channel with 200K+ subscribers and a possible co-founding opportunity for an existing product.
  • Blog: If you go the blog route, you can monetize with ads, sponsors, or paywalling. Or you can just use it to build your brand and improve SEO.
  • Podcasts: Podcasts can run the gambit and to start one, all you have to do is talk. Growing it might not be so easy, though. Monetize through ads, sponsors, premium content, promoting your other products, or selling episodes as bundles (if you're established).
  • Services: Ok, this isn't a product, but you can pretty quickly find clients who will keep the lights on for you as you build your product(s)
  • Productized services: Even better (IMO) than providing services, is selling productized services. A productized service is just a service that is packaged and sold like a product, with explicit 'features' and a price tag. Making this work is all about systematization and processes so that you don't have to work as much as you would to provide a normal service. Just look at @brettwill1025 and his productized services business, DesignJoy, which is making a crazy $1.5M per year. By himself. Mind-blowing.
  • Swipe Files: This is essentially a collection of examples that can be used for inspiration. The collection could be marketing techniques, sales emails, good copy, you name it.
  • Toolkits: This is just what it sounds like โ€” a list of tools (and sometimes instructions) to be used in a certain situation. Try to niche down. Ayush did one.
  • Design assets: This may take a little longer, but I've seen indie hackers doing it. Provide design assets like icons, fonts, avatars, etc. as products.
  • Courses: If you've got some expertise (and I'll go out on a limb to say that everyone does), then you could condense your knowledge into a course and put it up on Udemy, Coursera, Gumroad, etc.
  • Webinar: This tends to require a following, but a webinar is a quick way to make a few bucks. You don't even need to be the expert โ€” you can give a cut to guests for sharing their experience. That'll have the added impact of bringing their audience to you. Side note: If you don't have an audience but you do have expertise, you can be the guest.
  • Masterminds: As we saw above, Ayush did quite well on his mastermind, for which he charges $75. The beautiful thing about it is that since this is a group of peers, you'll get just as much out of it as the participants. All you need to do is get a group together, set the agenda, and moderate.
  • Digital templates: This includes web banners, emails, documents, and so forth.
  • Website themes: This is pretty similar to templates, but it's a good one for designers. Just design a beautiful landing page and sell on a website builder or CMS.
  • Tutorials: People sell tutorials. With all the tutorials available on Youtube for free, I have a hard time believing that these are easy to monetize. But the fact remains that they are an option.
  • Ecommerce: Physical products probably aren't what most of us are looking to offer, but it's still a possibility. You can launch a store on Shopify in a day and spread the word on your socials.
  • MVP: And, of course, if you're ready to get right into a piece of software, you can (and probably should) really, really winnow down your features, and launch a very limited version of your product. An MVP is an excellent way to get validation and start getting users. And though it depends on the product, I've heard it said that an MVP should take no longer than 30 days to build.

What to do after building one

Ayush always pre-launches to his Twitter following (~4500) with nothing more than a landing page. This is how he validates and (hopefully) gets presales.

Ayush: When I launch, I give away the first seats for free by asking people to reply to my Tweet with an emoji to get the link to the product. Then I DM them the link. This brings in hundreds of replies which causes the algorithm to push the launch tweet to more and more people.

And don't get scared away by that ~4500 followers.

Ayush: I used to think that I needed a huge Twitter audience or a large email list before I could start selling my products. But waiting too long before promoting your products can train your audience to expect free stuff, and then they'll never actually buy from you in the end. So be open from the start about why you're building a Twitter/email audience. And if your goal is to eventually monetize it in some way then you should start testing products from the beginning.

How to grow your quick-to-market product

Want to turn a profit in a week? Here's how Ayush does it:

Ayush: I launch between Tuesday and Thursday because that's when Twitter has the most traffic. So my week starts on launch day. I plan the product, make a table of contents, decide on the bonuses that people will get, then set the product up on Gumroad with the pricing details and the copy. I schedule the launch tweet to go out later in the day. In it, I ask people to reply with an emoji to get it for free, as I mentioned earlier. And I set up my Twitter scheduler so when anyone replies with that emoji they will get a DM from me with a link to the product.

As the product gets initial sales I increase the price of the product. This helps me to decide on pricing, which I decide on after 2-3 updates.

The next day, I start working on the product. Assuming I have some validation, I start creating it. And by the weekend, I have a fair idea of what the product will look like in its final form.

I use Monday and Tuesday to do the final edits, and add more sections/bonuses that I may have missed.

I also promote the product in my newsletter, and talk about it on Twitter actively through the week โ€” I try to build it in public as much as I can. This gives me more info on what's resonating and how can I improve the product.

Finally, by Tuesday or Wednesday, I send a launch email to everyone who bought the product, thank them for their faith in me, and release the product officially on Gumroad. I also announce that is live via Twitter.

But there are, of course, a million ways to grow a product. Check out Growth Bites for some ideas, but generally speaking, the best thing you can do is go where your target customers are hanging out, and contribute meaningfully.

Thinking up ideas (and validating them)

Trouble coming up with ideas? I wrote about some ways to come up with ideas a while back. And of course, the venerable @csallen did too, with the most popular post in IH history. But here's what Ayush had to say:

Ayush: My ideas have mostly emerged from the conversations I've had with people I've met on Twitter and Indie Hackers. I've been having hundreds of conversations with people around the world thanks to this amazing community.

After every conversation I get a sense of what kind of product can help them, and I add it to my list in my Notion.

I think folks should have a solid plan and a list of ideas they want to test out. But be serious about every launch. Your customers aren't there to validate ideas for you. They want to get their problems solved. Of course, if nobody pays, or just a couple of people pay then you can always apologize to them and refund the money. But don't make a product launch sound like an experiment.

There will be duds, of course. No way around that. So don't be too hard on yourself.

Ayush: Your idea gets brutally murdered by the market. That's hard to swallow, but important for all entrepreneurs to do.

Wrapping up

Long story short, ship something. Do it quickly. Then keep shipping. Having more "buy" buttons on the internet is a great way to diversify and grow your brand.

  1. 3

    Excellent!!! Sometimes moving fast will degrade the quality. How do you find the balance?

  2. 1

    Thanks for sharing valuable insights

  3. 2

    Awesome read! Do you find it that products that are easy to launch sometimes create a "commitment" that can lower your freedom to do projects that matter more? How do you deal with that? Acquisitions?

  4. 4

    It's impressive that you can start generating revenue even with 3k followers but how do you start when you have no reputation or high follower count (less than 100 followers)?

  5. 4

    "Put more buy buttons on the internet."
    I love that.

  6. 4

    Thank you for sharing!
    This is truly an impressive, admirable and inspiring story.

  7. 3

    Just wow!
    What a great post that probably inspired so many people like me.

    Thanks @indiejames & @ayuschat for the content and what you've done so far.

    1. 1

      Cheers.. excited to see what you build ๐Ÿ”ฅ

  8. 3

    Productized services are such a good option. I've been blown away what Brett is doing with DesignJoy. I've seen lots of indie hackers find success with newsletters, ebooks, and swipe files too.

    Seems to me that if you're trying to make a lot of money, though, SaaS is a better option (with the possible exception of productized services). But to build your portfolio, these can work nicely.

    @ayushchat do you ever plan to build a SaaS or do you think you can grow these smaller products enough to support you?

    1. 1

      Hey Lucy, thanks for your question.

      There will eventually be a SaaS, but I don't want to commit to it unless I have a SaaS idea that I deeply care about... Plus till I see some validation for the idea through my content products or services... I'm in no hurry.. right now it's time to explore... There will be a time to exploit as well ๐Ÿ˜…

      1. 2

        I recently came across a book called Grit and it's about passion and perseverance. The author explains this with an example when we're kids and the toy is no longer interesting. Interesse is Latin for "to differ" and therefore interest is something different. The new toy is interesting because it's different than the previous one. I see myself doing the same with my projects and now I feel like I finally found THE one.

        Keep up the good work @ayushchat

        1. 1

          Thanks a ton, appreciate it!

      2. 2

        Makes sense! "Exploration" is a phase a lot of people seem to skip, so it's cool that you're doing that.

  9. 2

    This is my introduction to indiehackers, i'm so glad. Wow! Amazing article!! Loved it!

  10. 2

    Amazing Post @ayushchat a really insightful deep in your Jounrey

    So Do You Plan to Start a SaaS anytime Soon ?

    1. 1

      Thanks a ton.. I already have a SaaS.. I co-founded it with a dev friend Elephas.app

      1. 1

        Hey, Ayush I really loved your concept of building info products. I saw that you own SaaS as well. I'm a Product and Ux guy If you need help building user personas and improving the customer journey. Feel free to reach out.

  11. 2

    Great post that inspired me so much. I am a startup founder but in my mind everyday some new ideas pops up! Maybe, this is the way to make a collection of product in different stages. The key will be importance and time spending. You need to plan your schedule carefully and prioritize!

    1. 1

      Yes.. You need to plan a lot, otherwise it's easy to get burnt out and disappointed..

  12. 2

    I like these small product categories! I think it's enormously important above all to think of your own services as products, otherwise you'll always have the same struggle in terms of pricing.

    I directly added a new column "product categories" to my list of product ideas. The goal is to let the first one fly till the end of the month ๐Ÿ˜‹๐Ÿ’ช

    1. 2

      Love it.. all the best Mortiz!

  13. 2

    ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿค”๐Ÿš€

  14. 2

    I like the idea. What's also good about this list is that most products require little to no maintenance. Creating something new might be challenging, but keeping it relevant is tricky too.

    1. 2

      There's very little maintenance, which is great, but you're right that new versions may be necessary every now and then to keep it relevant.

      1. 1

        But that's a good thing... It gives me a chance to relaunch the product at a higher price and create a buzz around it...

  15. 2

    I love the productized service idea. ๐Ÿ‘

    1. 2

      Yeah, that's a really great option!

  16. 2

    BTW if you don't have any ideas for things to build somehow (I highly doubt this), maybe check out my "buy button on the internet" -- unvalidatedideas.com.

    I send out a product idea you can go build every week, you don't even have to think about it, and you can flex this validation muscle and get faster.

    1. 2

      Haha.. love it Vados ๐Ÿ™Œ

  17. 2

    "Put more buy buttons on the internet" hahaha love it!

    1. 1

      Cheers Brennen ๐Ÿ™Œ

  18. 2

    Put more buy buttons on the internet... I like that. And props to Ayush - 25 products in 25 weeks is crazy!

    1. 1

      Thanks Silvio ๐Ÿ˜…

  19. 1

    Loved reading this

  20. 1

    Ayush is a smart guy. I saw so many people do the same thing as him on Twitter.

  21. 1

    I've also just started my productized service, but I struggle with the promotion part. What to do if you don't have any twitter audience or other reach? This part lacks a bit. Otherwise thanks for the great read!

  22. 1

    Exactly what almost every Indie Hacker needs to learn.
    Small victories build momentum which are always better than big victories.

  23. 1

    Long, but worth reading it!

  24. 1

    Unusual story) thanks!

  25. 1

    Super inspiring. Keep it up!

  26. 1

    This is very inspiring. Thanks for sharing!

  27. 1

    This is amazing !! Thank you for sharing, it really helps.

  28. 1

    Thank you for your post. I stumpled upon Bratt and DesignJoy the last days and it was the inspiration I needed to start my own productized service as an SEO and copy writing expert.

    The thing were I struggle though is marketing on social media. I donโ€˜t have an audience yet. Maybe just have to startโ€ฆ

  29. 1

    Productised service is mind-blowing idea. I never thought that I can make such money on design.

  30. 1

    Great post, very helpful for my upcoming product release

  31. 1

    It is truly very impressive. And so helpful for people like me. I appreciate @IndieJames and @ayushchat

  32. 1

    I love the idea of pre-launch! Thanks for the idea!

  33. 1

    @ayushchat You mentioned that your ideas originated from conversations you had with people you had met in IH. How did they represent clients if they were supposed to be problem solvers like you?

    1. 1

      Hey Hugo, a lot of my products and services are actually meant for builders and problems solvers like myself. Either helping them with marketing, idea validation, revenue generation etc.

  34. 1

    thank you for sharing such a story. This really inspires me!

  35. 1

    I learned so much from this interview! I launched a digital planner blog at the beginning of the year with plans to launch a shop in the next couple of months. I recently started fearing I was giving away too many free downloads.

    It started by wanting to give people an example of my work, but the traffic on freebies kept me making them. I think it's time to focus fully on the shop launch and pull way back on the freebies.

    Unfortunatly, for my newsletter incentive, I promised a free mini-planner every month. I quickly realized that that was an extrememly stupid idea but I feel locked in now that I have a handful of subscribers.

  36. 1

    Really interesting post to read and think about!

  37. 1

    Great post. Curious about โ€œI'd advise doing it earlierโ€ speaking of โ€œnewsletterโ€. Can you please elaborate? I hit ๐Ÿ’ฅ5,000๐Ÿ’ฅ (free) subs last week ! Thanks

    1. 1

      Congrats! It really depends on your newsletter and your model... for me, it would have felt better to have a paid newsletter from the start. I think I'd have more paid subs now. And it would have felt better having it baked into the culture of the newsletter from the get-go instead of making a huge change to a substantial group of people.

      1. 1

        Thank you! it makes sense... a different approach is to introduce it in order to be able to offer even more value to readers... it requires more work, yes, some improvements, a 2.0 version with better content but otherwise, it may take longer to have some critical mass (i.e. number of subs). I will find out soon I guess. Thanks again.

        https://blockchainfromfirstprinciple.substack.com

  38. 1

    Thanks @IndieJames for including me in this great article... It means a lot ๐Ÿ™

    1. 2

      My pleasure, thanks for answering all my questions!

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