... Over the past few days, I ve been following a heated discussion about how Marc Lou is selling parts of his body in some kind of simulation to promote products (ad placements in the form of virtual tattoos) and making a lot of money from it. I swear, the whole thing has gone mainstream. And, of course, some frustrated makers joined the conversation, saying they can work their asses off building tools and will never make that kind of money ...

... years ago, shipping constantly was almost a marketing strategy. Pieter Levels, Jennifer Dewalt, Marc Lou building fast gave people a reason to follow the journey. Every launch created another story and more momentum. But AI changed the equation. Now anyone can ship an app every week, and a lot of them are buggy, generic, and make $0. Shipping itself is no longer impressive. Do you still think launching lots of products is a good strategy, or is focus more valuable ...

... product and spend years making it successful. This makes sense when you are building a venture-backed company and trying to create one huge outcome. But I am not sure it is the best strategy for indie hackers. The alternative is what I call the many-donkeys thesis . Instead of betting your entire career on one product becoming a unicorn, you build a portfolio . You might create ten products. two eventually make $10K+ per month five make between ... ... main businesses. By 2019, the two had reached more than $1 million in combined annual revenue. But they came from years of launching and experimenting with different ideas, not from correctly identifying the perfect company on day one. Marc Lou

... other words... what are your capabilities? What are your multi-project management skills? Because I feel like people like Marc Lou or Levelsio do a lot of them and as solo founders, they are pretty fast and versatile (but they probably delegate some things to other freelancers - that's my guess). How many projects can you handle at once? Either solo or together? For example, I was handling 5 or 6 at one time, but it soon took its toll ... ... answer is 1. One project deserves your full obsession before you add another. The makers who look like they're handling 5 things are usually just very good at finishing one thing fast before moving to the next. Marc Lou

... Tibo and JK Molina were doing with TweetHunter. The way they built in public, iterated fast, and turned a simple idea into a real business was hard to ignore. And sell it really quick. At the same time, Marc Lou and Pieter Levels have been constants on X for a long time. Both proving in very different ways that a solo founder with the right distribution can go incredibly far. So I'm curious: Who was the founder or builder ... ... enjoy distribution more than building. Especially in 2026, I think it s become relatively easy to build a product. But distributing it definitely hasn t become easier. If anything, it s harder now, because there are so many more competitors

... social media to sell a product (or themselves). It always depends on the final customer; I can clearly see that companies usually bet on a few things: their personal brand (often LinkedIn and X, e.g. Levelsio and Marc Lou for B2B, or Instagram in the case of influencers and their products) purely paid ads (across Meta e.g. minimalist phone, where there is almost no organic content) community-driven growth (Discord, Reddit, Facebook groups, Slack communities, etc.) Social media ...

... models evolving in the future? For inspiration, I ve attached the infographic I mentioned. Comment from Nika(@busmark_w_nika): @david_sherer  I also think that they distribute work to freelancers (e.g. I do not expect from Marc Lou to edit videos  he also hired a video editor for his YouTube and he has profits from YT too), but that work will be more task-based than hour-based. Comment from Nathan Prince(@themrngp): Hi Nika, this ... ... meant hiring at least 2-3 devs, a designer, maybe a marketer. Now it's just me and AI tooling, and I'm shipping faster than some teams I've worked with. But I think the framing of "solo vs

... need to reach a break even. - How much revenue you want to get. That could help you shape the target of your commercial services. Comment from M nevver Ertun (@munevver_ertuncc): I like the way you framed it around general vs tailored value, that s a really clean way to think about it. For products, it often feels similar: free should help users understand the value, while paid should unlock outcomes they can t easily get on their own. The tricky ... ... dozens of high-quality one-off videos every year. But if you want a 25-hour course on some deeper subject (how to play piano, speak French, etc) this is a different medium entirely. It is hard to consume vs

... Twitter, it is classic many of us follow YCombinator people, Angel Investors, or big indie makers. The most popular are: Garry Tan Levelsio Marc Andreessen Marc Lou Michael Seibel Naval Do you know any other person worth following because of their good takes on entrepreneurship and practical pieces of advice? It can be smaller accounts, too. [P.S.: I do not know why it shows that US flag, I just copied some Twitter link. But I can frame it like: Happy ...

... projects Reading founder stories or product launch posts Journaling about what went wrong that week (super underrated mental detox) Feels like recovery and progress at the same time. Comment from Alex Cloudstar(@alexcloudstar): @busmark_w_nika  Probably Marc Lou. Dude just keeps building quietly and improving every time. No hype, just progress. Comment from Ruxandra Mazilu(@ruxandra_mazilu): I resonate with your list a lot! I've been practicing yoga daily for a couple of years ...

... busmark_w_nika): @t0ha  The most visible for me were Raycast and Obsidian. Haven't heard much about Wellstory and TablePlus. Gonna check out :) Comment from Nika(@busmark_w_nika): @yingjun_cheng  That reminds me that Marc Lou launched the MRR detector (whether profits from screenshots are real or not) :D https://trustmrr.com/ Comment from Sanskar Yadav(@sanskarix): Oh yes, I just saw @abod_rehman 's comment, two exactly the same tools :D Comment from Sanskar Yadav(@sanskarix ...

... could be incentivized to pump the numbers to artificially increase their credibility. Comment from Aleksandar Blazhev(@byalexai): @sanskarix  That s true. Unfortunately, everyone started posting just random screenshots without any value. Comment from Alex Cloudstar(@alexcloudstar): @byalexai marc lou for example is doing a good job with his newsletter Comment from Aleksandar Blazhev(@byalexai): @alex_cloudstar  yeah i am following him on X Comment from Alex Cloudstar(@alexcloudstar): @byalexai oh nice. What do you think about his content ...

... Body: Tired of missing out on crucial domain insights? Meet DailyDomain your essential tool for staying ahead in the ever ...

... Keep talking under my post Comment from Nika(@busmark_w_nika): @jordansvision  I reckon you are a dev, right? Maybe some sneak peaks, learnings, recaps or small milestones could start more interest in your audience. Yesterday read Marc Lou's newsletter. There was a good thought: "4. Post your wins Got 300 visitors from Reddit? Made $19 this week? That s content. That s how you grow." Comment from Nika(@busmark_w_nika): @adam_martelletti  Which product ...

... Alex Saint I m a solo indie hacker based in Paris, and fun fact I only started coding thanks to AI tools. I got inspired watching Marc Lou s videos on YouTube, picked up some tools, started building and tweeting. A few months later: Grew a 3.7k+ following on X (started mid-January) Built the Fail in Public community, which hit 6,000 members in under 3 months At the core of everything, I ve always wanted to help ...

... goal was to learn the exact parts of each stack so that I can build a SaaS, not every tidbits of it. This is not something I can learn all by myself. Final & successful attempt: CodeFast by Marc Lou ( https://codefa.st/?via=90daystocode Affiliate link) Marc's course worked amazingly well for me. The course is basically a hand-holding session of building a simple product feedback board from start to deploying. I completed it by deploying my first software ... ... built all by myself. I understood the most part of it on the first try, some needed revisiting. Started building another product immediately. This time, I switched my code editor from VS

... tool and want visibility without giving up half your margin, let s talk. Happy to answer any questions here or via DM or louis@yakuraapp.com Comment from Rodrigo Soviero(@rodrigo_soviero): Just sent you an email. Sounds interesting! Comment from Lou Rossi(@yakuraapp): @rodrigo_soviero  I'm grateful for the opportunity to collab and look forward to helping each other ...

... just smarter it s more sustainable. Wishing you all the momentum as you launch. And honestly? No more abandoned GitHub ghosts sounds like a great milestone in itself. Comment from Ambika Vaish(@ambika_vaish): @yakuraapp  You nailed it, Lou. It s wild how often we overbuild before we even have a stable version or a clear offer.Cutting everything down to Does it work? Can people see it? Can I build with others? that s real momentum. Comment from Ambika ... ... screwdriver to a painter needs to be framed and hung. Totally agree on skipping the feature checklist syndrome,it s tempting, but a time sink when you ve only got an hour. Appreciate the clarity here. Comment from Lou

... designer. But I m finally done playing it safe. Ever tried building something with zero coding skills? What worked? What tripped you up? I m all ears. Maybe even an accountability buddy? Comment from Lou Rossi(@yakuraapp): I'm a Data scientist - past. So I had coding experience but ZERO knowledge re; development. I did exactly what you said in this post and got stuck at deployment. Stuck HARD. My working copy was messy, but "worked on my device". Tips ... ... clear target (and letting AI take some of the load) is keeping me moving. Day 30 s coming in fast I might just take you up on that cheerleader offer! Comment from Ambika Vaish(@ambika_vaish): @yakuraapp  Hey Lou

... curious to hear from others, what has worked for you? Any unexpected wins or challenges? I d love to hear real-world experiences - curious to learn from the community. Comment from Maria-Cristina Muntean(@mia_k1): Hey Lou :) We use a combo of strategies for sales for Yahini: We occasionally run LTD campaigns (with FB communities) and that's great for reaching PMF faster, however I highly recommend you think this thoroughly as your business model needs to match ... ... enough to put up a website LP and call it a day anymore. Anyone can do that. You need to put in some effort. Happy to answer more questions if you have any! Comment from Lou

... After my data engineering internship last year, I started building stuff on the internet. Found out about the whole indie hacker world through Marc Lou. Since then I've built a SaaS that let's you chat with PDFs ( pdf-interact.live ), a free tool that let's you add text to images and edit them ( add-text-to-image.editmania.tech ) and a website serving as a hub for calculators ( calcverse.live ) which went viral on Hacker News last week. While I've launched the first ...

... place where most projects are more "corporate" or funded by VCs but there is still some amount of buildinpublic makers, indie hackers or solopreneurs. Do you have your favourite besides those big ones? (I mean besides Levelsio or Marc Lou) For me, it is e.g. @andreihudovich with BlueskyMeter  Analytics for Bluesky social media @lera_kuntsevich1 with ClipWing a tool for video creation @iuliia_sh  with PaperMark a tool for LinkedIn post creation and growing the follower base ... ... with the constant pressure to always share progress. I ve noticed some makers shifting towards a more hybrid approach still sharing, but more selectively. As for favorite makers, Greg Isenberg is definitely on my list, and of course Marc Lou

... hear about your experiences and any tips for successfully navigating Reddit for product launches! Comment from Tania Bell(@taniabell): look for ppl who successfully launched on Reddit and see what they've done and where they post. Marc Lou is one guy who deff launched on Reddit. worth checking his profile Comment from Ghost Kitty(@ghost-kitty-2821142): Comment Deleted Comment from Kay Kwak(@kay_arkain): That s correct. I ve attempted to leverage Reddit for my product launch ... ... comments receive upvotes, and decreases when they are downvoted. Avoid posting external links if you're new Many subreddits have strict rules about sharing links in posts and comments. Always review the rules before posting. Search for your competitors

... features, so we went with a monthly subscription. Whatever makes more sense in terms of cost in your case! Comment from Tasos V(@cryptosymposium): Strange, I was thinking about this today and I read a nice article from Marc Lou about this. I would say for early stages, especially during validation phase (PMF) it would be better to have an one-time payment to your product. That way, you can validate and generate revenue fast. Especially as a solopreneur, giving ...