I Make $15K/Month With 2 AI Apps

0:00I personally used to think that I could never ship a profitable product because I was not amazing at coding reaching this point where I'm earning 15K all my products it's it feels unreal how did this guy build two SAS products to $115,000 Mr as an average coder well it's because of his approach on how to find winning ideas nich down as much as possible I only need 0.1% of the market and I'm good Fernando started his journey as an agency owner working with clients for over a decade but then his entrepreneurial dreams came to a halt when he had to go back to his 9 to-5 job

0:37while working my 9 to5 I was always there dreaming about what to do deep down I I knew I wanted to find a way to go back to this sense of autonomy that I had at one point after unexpectedly getting fired he decided he had enough and went all in on his dream now the stakes were real I always relying on my 9 to5 but not anymore I needed to to show up and build something a year after he took the leap Fernando became a solopreneur making a good living while working only 4 hours a day so I gave him a call to ask him how he did it and how

1:09you guys watching could do something similar and he shares everything including his process for finding profitable ideas his strategy for building and validating those ideas quickly and the distribution channel that gets him most of his paying customers when it comes to distribution for both Reser online ands with the the main Channel all right let's dive in I'm Pat walls and this is starter story welcome man thanks for coming on starter story tell us about who you are and what business you built so well I am Fernando Pro designer originally from Argentina now living in Sweden and I'm working in to SI projects full-time resume maker. online and a carels when

1:54it comes to resume maker. online I like to Define it as the easiest way to build your resume and then the is aa.com which I launched last year and it's the first AAR generator and it allows users create standun in social media carousels even if you don't know anything about design both products run on a freemum model so you can start right away for free but subscriptions unlock all the AI and pro features together they bring in about 15K Mr which allow me to finally step away from the 9 to5 and let's hope stays that way okay since you've built not one but two successful projects can you tell

2:29us a little bit more about your process for how to find winning ideas I always find it easier to scratch my my own AG when I see something that I know that it can be time consuming I thought could be could be a great idea why not creating something that simplifies this something that solves this problem specifically instead of having multiple features like Kaa on Battle most users are no Pro users they just want the simplest way to achieve something that's the advantage of being a solo entrepreneur Kat cannot afford to go for very very specific specific solution because they need to Target a wider audience so I think

3:03that's where Soul entrepreneurs can drive Niche down as much as possible find the portion of a huge Market that they can serve better than these big companies with a results it's only me I don't have e funder I don't have employees I only need 0.1% of the market and I'm good I think there's very fertile ground for Indie hackers or entrepreneurs to create solutions that are lesser focus and solve one specific issue all right so you're approach is to take these big markets and Niche it down and build one simple solution for users but how do you look at validating these ideas and how do you know that it's

3:39something worth building I go after markets that are already validated but I trade to be just a little bit different take a new approach with the resume maker. online all these resume builders were really bloated you needed to sign up for before even seeing how the resume is going to look like I took a completely different approach you just press one button Buton you're right there you can see how good it's looking already and I think people really resonated with that that's my philosophy I think that's going to be my philosophy going forward let's take validated Market Niche down and find a way to save people time I I always say that I don't

4:16I don't sell design I sell time that's that's the value that I provide I help you to get you to good enough point and that's more than enough sometimes validating your idea is one of the most important steps when it comes to starting something new and Fernando is proof of that profitable side projects are built on the right idea the right market and the right launch strategies but that process to go from 0 to one can be long and it might make you feel lost if you aren't following a solid blueprint that's why I created the academy it's a 5-we program where you'll find an idea build it launch it validate

4:50it all while only working 2 hours a day it's the same framework I use to build a million-dollar business and it's what I've seen thousands of other successful Founders use it's what actually works because it's all about taking action and actually building stuff and putting it out into the world which is what I really want to see you take a shot at so if you're curious about building a side project like Fernando and you want to surround yourself with other builders then head to the first link in the description to see if the academy might be a good fit for you now let's get back to Fernando's story and the amazing

5:21business he built okay now let's talk about actually building the product I know you did a 10-day challenge to go from 0 to one with AI car can you tell us a little bit more about that approach while working at my 925 I was always dreaming about what to do after a year and a half working there it's just a few weeks after very positive perform review they tell me that I'm fire that was just one day before my planed vacations and honestly I was quite born out from the 9 to5 that left such a sour taste in my mouth so I was not very optimistic and I didn't

5:56really want to find another job I think maybe this was the push that I needed now the stakes were real I always rely on my 925 but not anymore I needed to to show up and build something so I thought okay let's go for a building public challenge the first days I just try to get the main features running also as a designer and given that this is a design product it had to look somewhat nice but it was really really simple the most basic Tech Carousel that you could create it's a good thing also to to launch these barebone products because then when you start getting feedback the

6:28feedback kind kind of tells you where to go the biggest value that I get from this challenge is that if he would have failed I could have moved on into the next thing without any issues but if you work for during 6 months one year in the product it's easy to get a tach it can be hard to to to hear like the product sucks right if I launch in the future I would like to to try to replicate the sense of urgency wow that's an awesome story thank you for sharing that so after you built the MVP I see that you then launched on product time can you

7:00tell me more about that launch yeah that despite my concerns the launch went really well for a cars and five users sign up and people can say that they like your product and you might have intuition that there's a demand for it but the ultimate validation is is when you get pay for it right and the product was super buggy for me that was like the ultimate proofy if they pay for this buggy product there's really an opportunity here I need to double down so after you get those first five customers how did you continue to get more of them what kind of distribution methods did you use when it comes to

7:34distribution for both res maker. online andells Pro hunt help a lot to spread the word about it especially with resume maker. online winning first pro of the week it Go spread so quickly and I got so many Bings but then SEO is the main Channel and I'm definitely better at building that that marketing so I started building a lot of free tools for both products I think it's about 30 it just have to be something complimentary to your main product like a natural extension it's a good way to bring in traffic especially if if you know you're not a SEO expert and the building public also helps to spread the war on Twitter

8:08or on LinkedIn I think people like especially when you try to make it personal can be a bit cringe sometimes but hey that's LinkedIn also launch an affiliate program for both products which is working okay it's in progress yeah so after you started to get more paying customers was there a specific pricing strategy you Ed to monetize the product to its potential it was a bit tricky at the beginning I mean I knew it was in beta so I launched it at $9.99 now I after adding so many features and the prod has mature so much it's $4.95 and I want to be seen as an

8:43affordable tool not a cheap one right uh and when it comes to resume maker that online I started with a onetime purchase model which made total sense for the type of product but after I relaunch it as a s early this year um even though the the turn is is is high the revenue is much more more predictable it's really nice because yeah with one time purchases you go back to zero that's a bit scary each time yeah got it okay I want to double click into the topic of churn do you have a strategy you use to reduce churn for AI carousels yeah that my strategy was to start with carousels

9:16but expand and offer other tools so people might come for the carousels and they stay for a whole package it's way easy to communicate the proposition value when you can focus on only one the core message which in this case is carousel it's easier for me to stand out among all the competitors by presenting myself as the best AI Carousel generator but when people come they find out that there there's a lot of other tools that they can use to maximize their online presence that's really helping to make the product better so people don't cancel B to bring expired users back I want to go into the topic of customer

9:51support I know it can be tricky as a solopreneur so how do you go about it yeah when it comes to customer support I think it's it's key I mean I think that's another like product feature it's part of the experience and and I try to just reply as fast as possible because it's not only about helping users for me especially when I launch getting this initial feedback was was a bit like a cheat code not only help to shape the direction of the pro but also turn all this frustrated customers into loyal fans because you write about a bag or a feature request and maybe in like I

10:21don't know like an hour the bag is fix and the feature is up and I always try to embrace being small even I have inol person maker and the I have an about page that I'm saying hey it's only me here you know it's you want to talking directly with the founder and on the emails is always I it's never we it's Fernando the so founder and I really try to embrace that instead of trying pretending to be like like a big company and I feel like that's really working people don't want to deal with a faceless big company I think as Soul entrepreneurs we should leverage on that

10:54okay now let's get technical which tools and software do you use to make $1,000 a month as a solopreneur yeah when it comes to tools I keep things very lean I just use notion to organize both products I use outa it's a no code tool that is perfect for S Founders for me no no code is ideal for speeding up all the basic things like Billings CRM subscriptions all the repetitive stuff that you don't need to reinvent it let me say just focus on improving the actual product yeah that's basically it wow that is lean and how much does it actually cost to run your businesses

11:30the costs are around like 1,000 per month so the profit margins are above 90 90% uh and I don't have any employees or co-founders it's only me although this year I I did bring a freelancer to help me with some more time consuming content tasks so yeah I just bring him in when whenever I need to do some typ type of stuff like that gez 90% margin is impressive Wow Let's talk about competition I'm sure since you're building and validated Market markets that you face a lot of it how do you deal with competitors I'm glad competition exists I mean it's it's a good sign you don't you don't want to be

12:06the only one and also it can be easy I think to get cut up on trying to one up each other all the computers with the new cool feature when often users care about something entirely different so that's why I keep my focus on on the user feedback all right now let's get a little bit more personal what is your actual day-to-day look like right now after so many hectic years of managing my op job with my personal projects uh I moved to different countries I suet jobs I launched products early this year I decided to take things a bit slower just to enjoy the summer so I decided to work

12:40only four hours a day and it was quite difficult at first I keep thinking about the opportunity cost right watching the movie thinking but I could be working I could be shipping features but it turned out to be just the best decision for the business things start going even better by working less time so I decided to to stick with this 4 hours of deep work each morning having this constraint kind of forces you to to be intentional about your to list you focus on what's important one thing I do is though is I make sure to work even on weekends I feel that really keeps the momentum

13:13going it feels great just to skip the daily stand-ups on my past night9 to5 I woke up without any alarm my calendar is is empty I only had your call when I get invit from friends I'm always available I'm in a better mood I'm I'm happier overall I'm more patience with with my girlfriend and this gives me also the the mental Clarity to to focus on what's important on the business right I think that's why the business business is doing better because I am feeling better for me that's that's that's more important to to optimize for for life no not for Revenue okay Fernando the last

13:49question that we always ask all the founders that we interview if you could give a piece of advice to all solopreneurs just starting out right now what would you say yeah sure I personally used to think I could never ship a profitable product because I was not amazing at coding I have all these self-limiting beliefs and I was wrong most of the times especially in b2c products users don't need like a super complex solution they just want a simpler one so if you can provide a way to make something faster simpler that is value and most likely people are going to pay for it there's absolutely nothing

14:22bad of on focusing on building a tiny little tool that saves people time you get paid and need free up time for you to do whatever you care in life I mean I'll be honest I personally couldn't care less about social media carousels like I like helping people with all the the same challenges but what I care is creating something that allows me to free out my time happier life spend time with my family with my girlfriend uh spend a bit less time on the on front of the screen being able to do that having that freedom that's so cool man that's for me it's it's something that's not in

14:54the chart but this is this is what I'm doing this allows me to improve my my my lifestyle and that's um that's what I'm here for yeah all right man thank you for coming on I love the business that you built thank you for sharing everything with our audience have a good one hey guys thanks for watching and if you made it this far I want to share something with you as you seen with a ton of these interviews we've done on YouTube anybody can change their life with an idea the ability to code in a couple of hours of work per day in these videos we talk about tons of cool

15:26strategies and tactics but the thing that really going to get you your dream outcome is taking action and if you feel like you're struggling at all with that no matter what you do then I highly recommend checking out the academy it's the community and accountability that I wish that I had when I first started and it's got a ton of resources to help you find an idea help you ship that product and help you get those first users just head to the first link in the description if you want to check it out much love and I'll see you guys in the next one peace