Lessons from 2 failed projects and reaching ramen

Having failed projects is a necessary step if you want to build a successful business. Read about Goutham's lessons and how he reached ramen profitability.

Goutham recently quit his job to focus on bootstrapping startups to profitability. He also shares everything he learns along the way. He started building products, 2 years ago when he was 22. He managed to make around $300 in revenue with a recruitment platform for developers. While working on the developers' platform, he interacted with a lot of founders & indie hackers, talking about what didn't work, and realized that they were people he resonated with the most. Even after enduring all the pain, he learned what worked and didn't work in his case.

Goutham got his first independent money on the internet as a solo founder after a year of toil & months of stress.

I see you already have 2 failures in your journey. What lessons did you get out of each one?

The biggest lesson was trying to hone patience. I have OCD about doing things quickly but these failures taught me to take some time, test the assumptions, then execute & patiently wait for results as it may take years to build successful businesses

I guess that many people in their early stages think that building a business will take a few weeks or something. At least, this is what I thought! Do you apply these lessons to your current project?

Yeah for all of my projects.

How did you come up with the idea of Famewall?

So back in January, I was researching problems in the user onboarding space & I had a shot at a few testimonial tools but wasn't satisfied with the customizability option they offered. So I tried to give it my own spin.

I think that trying to solve your own problem is always the best way to find new ideas!

And how did you get your first users?

My first user was from Twitter.

What is your current MRR?

So currently Famewall's at $63 MRR. I paused marketing for it at the moment as I wanted to launch Mailboat soon.

What made you decide to hop on a new project and not develop Famewall even more?

Actually I'm not planning to stop on Famewall yet.

I'd be growing both the products in the upcoming months.

How do you manage to stay focused on the projects you are working on and not jump into new ones abandoning the previous ones?

Actually being full-time into indie hacking has given me more time between the projects. That has helped me switch between the projects.

I read in the articles you wrote that you quit your job to be a full-time indie hacker! What made you make this decision? Any challenges you faced later on?

So it was mostly that I thought I was getting too comfortable with my day job.

Was it easy to make this transition?

In the beginning, trying to adjust to the new routine was tough. But now I seem to get the hang of it.

Do you have any resources to recommend to fellow indie hackers that are starting now? Books, blogs, courses, whatever!

Sure. I'd definitely recommend Zero to Sold, Embedded Entrepreneur & Mom's test.

You can read more about how Goutham turned 24 having failed at multiple businesses or how he made $63 MRR & got to ramen profitability.

You can also find Goutham on Twitter.