Hey Product Hunters – thanks for checking out v2.0 of my website MakeHub that I launched here around 2 years ago.
🤔 The Problem
I love when people are working on their own micro-startups to express their creativity and pay their bills. And I think it’s super important to make some money so that you’d have more time to work on projects that are interesting to you and eventually quit that job if that's what you want.
Product Hunt is great for discovering all kinds of new products in tech.
Indie Hackers is a nice community for solo founders.
But I haven’t found a place on the web where I could just find some new profitable indie startups with their revenue.
🛠 My Solution
So MakeHub let’s you find profitable micro-startups built by solo founders without funding. You’ll find new startups on the front page every day, but you can also browse the entire startup database using almost 20 filters. You can also subscribe to my weekly newsletter that sends you last week’s products.
📹 The video
This time I also made a quick launch video where 🍄 Terence McKenna talkes in the background how it’s important to produce and send stuff up the wire instead of just consuming the ideas coming down through the toxic distribution system. It’s very simple, I just used iMovie to put together some free videos from Pexels.
Watch it here and let me know what you think 👉
https://youtu.be/oAIfJ-c0qYc
@zwacky Thanks, Simon! And I really do think it's important to create more and consume less. Maybe SaaS products are not really about this, but newsletters and blogs are, and people are also making money their writings (like Substack).
So instead of reading mass media articles, you read what other people write.
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Gotta say this is cool. Surprised how many I know of already. Good work.
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PS. Do you plan to cleanse it over time? Some seem bigger than solo.
I was particularly intrigued by one or two there at the top end revenue-wise. I figured they were at most a three-person co-founder team, but according to one the founders, they are a seven-person team.
Appreciate the definition of "solo" is hard when the lines are blurred on what an employee is. And I still like the list, but it seems more bootstrapped focused than "solo" + bootstrapped.
@lynnastyie I see what you mean, Keith! I think my long-term focus should be probably on solo projects (a couple of co-founders are okay too), because that was the original idea and I want people to see it's possible to build something profitable alone. You make a website, a small SaaS or newsletter and you pay your bills with it.
For example Canny is listed now and while they did start out as two co-founders, they're now grown to 9 people (https://canny.io/about).
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@raunometsa Got it. Ya Canny was the one I was thinking about.
Great job! My wish for version 3.0 is to have some form of mentorship program where profitable bootstrapped founders could provide guidance to those who are still working their way to revenue and profitability.
@raunometsa Just shooting from the hip - users sign up and add more info to their profile such as industry, product market, and whether or not they are open to mentoring others. Pre-revenue founders can find founders who are open for mentorship based on product/service, market similarities. Something like that?
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nice work dude!!! 💯 congrats on the launch.
I recently create a group microstartups on IH just started.
hoping to learn from others too
@gerryhays1 I've seen few who sold. Some continue to work on their projects, some stepped out completely.
But in general I think no – they're not looking to move beyond being a small startup with outside capital. For a lot of creators, it's about independance (you work on something you like and when you're inspired, spending rest of your time living life).
@gerryhays1 But the first couple of years are hard without capital. You need to continue your day job to pay your rent and eat food. And a the same time find the time and motivation to work on your own projects.
This is why it's super important to really like your own product, so you'd continue to work on it even if it doesn't make money yet and you don't really see how it will start making money in the next two years, maybe.
I think when you're building something that has a value, it will start making you money eventually. Could take some years though.
@leobassam thanks! And I'm happy to see your Plutio.com makes a good revenue ($13k/mo). It's a very very competitive field you're in.
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Nice product and very cool video. What is MakeHub's revenue / month : ) joke, you don't have to answer that, but I am interested in the revenue model. As an angel investor the chance to invest in some of these companies is very appealing, could be something there...
@ronanawall Thank you! Haha, well it's $0/mo :) don't know yet how to monetize MakeHub, but 3.0 will have something that people can buy I think :)
But you're right – it is very appealing to invest in these companies. I haven't asked them, but I have a feeling they're not really interested in outside capital (I should ask them, maybe I'm wrong) – see my comment to @gerryhays1
@haitham_m I know Indie Hackers also lists startups, but I feel community side is more dominant there and I wanted to do just a simple list of bootstrapped startups.
Thanks for letting me know about this 500 error, I think it may have to do with MRR input (must be a number). Made a fix so it will be converted to integer now!
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Looks very cool! @raunometsa how are you defining "solo founder"? I took a look at Canny (the highest earning project on the list) - and they have 2 founders and 9 employees.
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