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[JOURNEY] I made a list of 100 money-making fastlanes (with monthly revenue displayed)

Reign777

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The Problem i have is in 2021 building these softwares from scratch costs five-six figure numbers if not more. How can an average Joe like myself build something like this ? i could give you a list of ideas i have that solves many everyday issues. But i need capital to make it happen and unfortunately (not bringing race into this) but it's extremely hard for Black people to raise money. its not the year 2000 anymore any CS kid with a degree has built many of these simple softwares you need something huge to make these kind of monthly revenue today. Apologies for the rant its just MJ had it much easier to build something that was needed back almost 20 years now.
 
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lamine

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The Problem i have is in 2021 building these softwares from scratch costs five-six figure numbers if not more. How can an average Joe like myself build something like this ? i could give you a list of ideas i have that solves many everyday issues. But i need capital to make it happen and unfortunately (not bringing race into this) but it's extremely hard for Black people to raise money. its not the year 2000 anymore any CS kid with a degree has built many of these simple softwares you need something huge to make these kind of monthly revenue today. Apologies for the rant its just MJ had it much easier to build something that was needed back almost 20 years now.
Websites on MakerLead didn't raise money. They were build by 1 person or a very small team.

You don't need to raise money to build this, you need sweat equity.

And no, it's not going to happen in one day. It's going to be difficult, it'll take at least a year or two before being usable, and you'll want to give up many times. You'll have to push past all this, keep learning, get better and ask lots of questions online. And even if you make a lot of efforts, it will be useless if you don't believe in yourself.

Start here: How to Create a Simple Web Page with HTML

Cheers,
Lamine
 

Raja

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Great work mate, following!!!

Btw do you have ads on site(I have 3 ad blocker)
 

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Jim Miotke
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I haven't sent the first newsletter yet, I have A LOT of things in the works, I'm aiming for Aug 23rd for the first edition, and it's going to be a weekly/bi-weekly thing. Going to plan it out to make it as professional as possible, indistinguishable from a newsletter that a big startup would produce
Fantastic! Lamine you have really hit the ball out of the park. I find this tremendous useful. Thanks!

The newsletter might be a great add on for the paid level. But then again if you keep it or a basic version of it free, you’ll grow that list faster.

But don’t focus too much on making it so professional it doesn’t get done each week. Use your back end skills to include the top 5 or so new entries, then make a way to easily feature one new one. Include more of your thoughts on what makes this such an interesting or successful idea. If you can think of a way for your followers to add User Generated Content (like this forum), include some of the best of that. Then most of your weekly email is done and just needs editing.

I’m surprised that these people include their revenue- don’t most ppl hide their revenue to keep others from trying to knock off their success?
 

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Jim Miotke
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RecordEditPodcast... I go to that one to check it out and see if these companies you're getting from Indie are real and my bs flag goes up. At this podcast editing business, I click "Plans" and get a 404 error. I enter my email and click to join the "Community" and am redirected to a Facebook group with 19 members. I can't imagine they are really making $17,600/month. The listing does have a Stripe verified icon on it so maybe I'm wrong.

Part of your service can be extra validation to get the bs-ers out there.
 

Einfamilienhaus

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Cool Website, but how do you track the revenue of those providers?
 
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SunnyDftw

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The Problem i have is in 2021 building these softwares from scratch costs five-six figure numbers if not more. How can an average Joe like myself build something like this ? i could give you a list of ideas i have that solves many everyday issues. But i need capital to make it happen and unfortunately (not bringing race into this) but it's extremely hard for Black people to raise money. its not the year 2000 anymore any CS kid with a degree has built many of these simple softwares you need something huge to make these kind of monthly revenue today. Apologies for the rant its just MJ had it much easier to build something that was needed back almost 20 years now.
Like someone else said, these startups are being built with sweat equity not funding. However, as a fellow black entrepreneur, there are resources for funding if you needed it if you seek it out.
 

drahz

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Do you get data outside IndieHackers as well?

Maybe I miss something, because I don't see how is your tool superior to the IH filter which allows to search by many criteria including stripe verified revenue.
 

lamine

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Fantastic! Lamine you have really hit the ball out of the park. I find this tremendous useful. Thanks!

The newsletter might be a great add on for the paid level. But then again if you keep it or a basic version of it free, you’ll grow that list faster.

But don’t focus too much on making it so professional it doesn’t get done each week. Use your back end skills to include the top 5 or so new entries, then make a way to easily feature one new one. Include more of your thoughts on what makes this such an interesting or successful idea. If you can think of a way for your followers to add User Generated Content (like this forum), include some of the best of that. Then most of your weekly email is done and just needs editing.

I’m surprised that these people include their revenue- don’t most ppl hide their revenue to keep others from trying to knock off their success?

Thanks for the feedback! You're right about the newsletter, I will have to find a system or sections that stay consistent to be able to pump out at least one newsletter a week. Yes the strategy is to keep it free, and try to dominate. Thanks for the tips on the sections, I'll keep that in mind!

There's a niche inside the startup scene called open startups where founders share most of their business metrics. This, in turn, attracts more people/customers/investors/acquirers to their business and builds trust because of the transparency.
 
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lamine

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RecordEditPodcast... I go to that one to check it out and see if these companies you're getting from Indie are real and my bs flag goes up. At this podcast editing business, I click "Plans" and get a 404 error. I enter my email and click to join the "Community" and am redirected to a Facebook group with 19 members. I can't imagine they are really making $17,600/month. The listing does have a Stripe verified icon on it so maybe I'm wrong.

Part of your service can be extra validation to get the bs-ers out there.
This startup is Stripe-verified, yes. That means the revenue numbers is income received via Stripe by this startup.
 

lamine

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Do you get data outside IndieHackers as well?

Maybe I miss something, because I don't see how is your tool superior to the IH filter which allows to search by many criteria including stripe verified revenue.
Makerlead is not trying to compete with IH, you'll understand as I assemble the lego pieces together over time
 
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BizyDad

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The Problem i have is in 2021 building these softwares from scratch costs five-six figure numbers if not more. How can an average Joe like myself build something like this ? i could give you a list of ideas i have that solves many everyday issues. But i need capital to make it happen and unfortunately (not bringing race into this) but it's extremely hard for Black people to raise money. its not the year 2000 anymore any CS kid with a degree has built many of these simple softwares you need something huge to make these kind of monthly revenue today. Apologies for the rant its just MJ had it much easier to build something that was needed back almost 20 years now.
Yeah you did bring race into this. The problem is not that you're black. The problem is that you're average. (hey, you said it). Making excuses like MJ somehow had it easy ain't gonna get you where you want to get to.

You can keep seeing the obstacles in your path as reasons to stop. That's why average Joe's don't become pros.

Pros see obstacles as challenges to overcome. To persevere. To rise up and be better.

i could give you a list of ideas i have that solves many everyday issues
Seriously?

Do you know how hard it is for me to get a single good money making idea? Shoot Fam, I suck so much at ideas I've worked my way into a partnership on every business I've been a part of. I make other people's ideas better. I would kill for one solid original idea of my own.

And you have tons? And you can't think of any way to bring a single one of these ideas to life that doesn't involve raising capital? Come on... Maybe you aren't trying hard enough.

Here on this forum there are dozens of "average Joe's" learning to code to bring software to life. And much of that education is free online.

Those resources were harder to get 20 years ago before YouTube, GitHub, and stack overflow were around. Not to mention how many coding repositories are available to people now. You don't even have to write nearly as much code from scratch anymore...

But you think MJ had it easy, and you wanna complain how hard it is for you? Nope. Not gonna fly.

you need something huge to make these kind of monthly revenue today.

This is also untrue.

I know at least 4 people who have simple softwares that fix a simple problem for an industry.

Most of the companies on that site in the op make $30k or less per month. That's only 300 businesses paying $99 a month. Or 20 businesses paying $1500 a month. How are these numbers "huge"?

I think you are the kind of person that sees mountains where there are merely hills.

Turn that mindset around before it's too late.
 

lamine

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Aug 1, 2021
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Fantastic! Lamine you have really hit the ball out of the park. I find this tremendous useful. Thanks!

The newsletter might be a great add on for the paid level. But then again if you keep it or a basic version of it free, you’ll grow that list faster.

But don’t focus too much on making it so professional it doesn’t get done each week. Use your back end skills to include the top 5 or so new entries, then make a way to easily feature one new one. Include more of your thoughts on what makes this such an interesting or successful idea. If you can think of a way for your followers to add User Generated Content (like this forum), include some of the best of that. Then most of your weekly email is done and just needs editing.

I’m surprised that these people include their revenue- don’t most ppl hide their revenue to keep others from trying to knock off their success?
Hey proHappyJim,

This is what I came up with for the newsletter, would love your feedback, it's pretty condensed and straight to the point, let me know: MakerLead Newsletter #1 - 23.08.2021
 

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Jim Miotke
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This is what I came up with for the newsletter, would love your feedback, it's pretty
Hi Lamine
Looks excellent - right to the point. I benefited from your arrangement, curation, and organization.

That Record Edit Podcast is still really puzzling me (as I mentioned above), but I think what it might be is that they purposely leave the Plans page broken to get more ppl to book a call on Calendy. They probably get more people to their sales pitch.

Love the newsletter - keep the target prospect in mind and include a CTA once you have it. Excellent!
 
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lamine

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Hi Lamine
Looks excellent - right to the point. I benefited from your arrangement, curation, and organization.

That Record Edit Podcast is still really puzzling me (as I mentioned above), but I think what it might be is that they purposely leave the Plans page broken to get more ppl to book a call on Calendy. They probably get more people to their sales pitch.

Love the newsletter - keep the target prospect in mind and include a CTA once you have it. Excellent!
Thank you, appreciate the feedback!
 

Gina H.

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Very cool – thanks for sharing with everyone @lamine! Subscribed to your email list. :)

CC: @LeahCeee you should check this thread out.
 

lamine

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Quick update: I launched sponsored posts, and started charging businesses to be sticky on top of the leaderboard.
This is what it looks like at the moment:

1630240676722.png
 

lamine

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Added 4 ad slots on top, and redesigned the webpage a little bit, it looks cleaner doesn't it?

1630609003579.png
 

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Jim Miotke
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Looks very clean, Lamine!
 
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woken

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Quick update:

Made my first sale for a top banner sponsored ad spot on MakerLead!!

Boom !! Only 3 left :)

View attachment 39884
Congrats!!

What about direct affiliate earnings??

Earn 40% lifetime commissions on the sales of subscriptions and courses
( from one of the startups in top 5, as to not post direct links)

Would it hurt if you’d redirect to main page with your affiliate link? I really found useful startups there !

Why not? Please explain
 

woken

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Holy moly!
there’s one transforming html pages to pdfs making $6.6k/ month.


And here we are trying to reinvent the wheel!
 
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lamine

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Congrats!!

What about direct affiliate earnings??


( from one of the startups in top 5, as to not post direct links)

Would it hurt if you’d redirect to main page with your affiliate link? I really found useful startups there !

Why not? Please explain
Very good question. This is definitely something I thought about, a good way to make some cash.

But then it would turn MakerLead into an affiliate lead generation business.

My aim is to build a platform with a monthly membership for investors, something along those lines.

Maybe I will add affiliate links into the startup individual pages but I'm trying to avoid it for now.

Hope that made sense!
 

woken

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Very good question. This is definitely something I thought about, a good way to make some cash.

But then it would turn MakerLead into an affiliate lead generation business.

My aim is to build a platform with a monthly membership for investors, something along those lines.

Maybe I will add affiliate links into the startup individual pages but I'm trying to avoid it for now.

Hope that made sense!
Indeed it does make sense.

What features will you have for the membership? Thanks
 

lamine

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Indeed it does make sense.

What features will you have for the membership? Thanks
I'm thinking:

- ad free version
- access to advanced filters
- access to more data points than free users
- access to more startups

for $49/mo

anything else you think would be worth adding?
 
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