How I Made $1M Building 30 Micro-Apps — Transcript

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1. 0:00And I have built 30-plus products. We
2. 0:02recently crossed $1 million.
3. 0:04This is Sanskar. A few years ago, he was
4. 0:06working the night shift at a call
5. 0:08center, but today he runs eight
6. 0:10different products that have combined
7. 0:11made him over $1 million. We have around
8. 0:141,000 paying customers on a monthly
9. 0:16basis. And right now, we have zero
10. 0:18people in our team. It's just him
11. 0:20building really simple apps that solve
12. 0:22really simple problems. You see, most
13. 0:24people think that you need one big app
14. 0:26idea in order to win, but Sanskar proved
15. 0:29that he could be successful with a
16. 0:30portfolio of tiny apps. A lot of people
17. 0:33watch, very few execute. So, if you are
18. 0:35going to be the one who execute, you'll
19. 0:37be by default ahead of every other
20. 0:38person. So, I asked him to come on the
21. 0:40channel and break down [music] the
22. 0:41system behind everything that he does.
23. 0:43And in this video, we're going to talk
24. 0:44through the eight different products
25. 0:45that he's built that were successful and
26. 0:47a bunch that weren't, how he finds ideas
27. 0:49that actually have a shot at making
28. 0:51money, and the exact steps that he would
29. 0:53follow if he was building a product
30. 0:55today from scratch. This one is going to
31. 0:57be fun. Let's dive in. I'm Gus, and this
32. 0:59is Starter Story.
33. 1:02All right, Sanskar, welcome to Starter
34. 1:04Story. Super excited to have you on the
35. 1:06channel. Could you share with us who you
36. 1:07are, what you built, and what's your
37. 1:09story? So, my name is Sanskar. I am from
38. 1:11Bangalore, India, and I have built
39. 1:1330-plus products, out of which eight
40. 1:15ended up making revenue. I run this
41. 1:17company alone. And today I want to break
42. 1:19down all the eight products, how I found
43. 1:21each idea, how I build it, and where
44. 1:24they are. That's one of the reasons I
45. 1:25wanted to have you on the channel,
46. 1:27because you built and launched all these
47. 1:28projects at a high level.
48. 1:30So, could you just walk through what are
49. 1:32all the projects you built at a high
50. 1:33level, and then what are the eight that
51. 1:35you mentioned that are the ones that
52. 1:36have made money? Okay, so I have built
53. 1:38more than 30 products. You can find the
54. 1:40list of all the products on my website,
55. 1:42sanskartiwari.io/projects.
56. 1:44The biggest app of mine is
57. 1:45magicslides.app. It basically helps you
58. 1:48convert any sort of document, PDF files,
59. 1:50YouTube video into a full-fledged
60. 1:52presentation, which you can export in
61. 1:53PPTX and edit it to be
62. 1:56edited as well. Number two, Ask Video is
63. 1:58basically an application which helps you
64. 2:00talk to video. You can just provide it a
65. 2:02YouTube URL and you'll be able to talk
66. 2:04to it. Then we have blur web app is a
67. 2:07Chrome extension which helps people hide
68. 2:09sensitive information in a single click.
69. 2:11Then there is magic form. So basically I
70. 2:14built an app for Google sheet which is
71. 2:16just below which is called sheet AI
72. 2:18which wants to use AI inside Google
73. 2:20sheet. And when that happened it got
74. 2:22$2,000 in MRR and we got some investor
75. 2:24feedback. So one investor wanted me to
76. 2:26create a pitch deck in that's the whole
77. 2:28like literally where the idea came
78. 2:29about. When that happened I was like I
79. 2:31have covered Google sheet. I have
80. 2:32covered Google slides as well. Shall I
81. 2:34build something for Google form? So
82. 2:37that's when magic form happened. Talking
83. 2:39PDF is another app similar to ask video
84. 2:41PDF thing. And
85. 2:44then few more applications are there but
86. 2:46these are the major.
87. 2:47>> Yeah I love that. I love the idea of
88. 2:49just having single feature like tiny
89. 2:51apps. I think that's super super smart.
90. 2:53Let's move to the Let's just talk about
91. 2:56some of the revenue. So how much money
92. 2:58have these products made over time? Just
93. 3:00give us a little high level.
94. 3:01>> So in total we have done around 856 from
95. 3:03these products in the stripe of them.
96. 3:06Then we have 85,000 plus which we have
97. 3:09done through AppSumo. And in total if
98. 3:11you talk about we recently crossed $1
99. 3:14million in total revenue in last 6
100. 3:16years. When I say that I want to be very
101. 3:18clear literally first 2 years were zero
102. 3:20and like literally other years were like
103. 3:22kind of slowly staying. So it was not
104. 3:24always and things like [music] that.
105. 3:26>> Sanskar's proof that you can be
106. 3:27successful with a bunch of tiny bets. I
107. 3:30really hope you're watching this and
108. 3:31feeling inspired [music] to start
109. 3:32building your own ideas. If you need
110. 3:33somewhere to get started we put together
111. 3:35the side project ideas database. This is
112. 3:37a list of over 50 side project ideas all
113. 3:40proven and backed by real data. Inside
114. 3:42this free database you're going to find
115. 3:43a ton of information like revenue, cost
116. 3:46to start, growth tactics. Basically
117. 3:48everything you need to validate an idea
118. 3:50and gold start building. So if you want
119. 3:51this database it's 100% free. Just grab
120. 3:54it at the link in the description. All
121. 3:56right, let's get back to Sanskar.
122. 3:57>> Sanskar yeah I think this is super cool
123. 3:59to see all the different stuff you built
124. 4:01kind of how it's kind of compiled over
125. 4:03time, like you said. I think What would
126. 4:04you say is like a common theme amongst
127. 4:06all your projects?
128. 4:07>> So, number one, all of my products,
129. 4:09literally all of them, you'll find
130. 4:11either they are Chrome extension or
131. 4:12Workspace add-on, which is Google
132. 4:14Workspace Marketplace. So, that was the
133. 4:16one clear thing where I was not trying
134. 4:18to build everything from scratch. And
135. 4:20rather trying to find a platform where I
136. 4:22can get Another one of that is all of
137. 4:24them are not like multiple feature. I'm
138. 4:26very clear that this app does this. The
139. 4:28point is that when you add too many
140. 4:30features, you don't even know yourself
141. 4:31what you're selling. The other customer
142. 4:33also don't know what they're buying.
143. 4:34They they are like, "Hey dude, tell me
144. 4:35what I like I'll come for one thing."
145. 4:37People don't come for 10 different
146. 4:39things. And when you're starting, you
147. 4:40cannot create everything. And the third
148. 4:41thing is understanding. So, I launched
149. 4:44Magic Slides after 2 years learning how
150. 4:47to build Send Simple app. So, Send
151. 4:48Simple was a Google Sheet add-on, which
152. 4:51helps you send email through that, like
153. 4:54directly Gmail, your Gmail account. So,
154. 4:55you'll have in emails in the Google
155. 4:57Sheet, and you can send The point I'm
156. 4:58saying that is I knew how to build
157. 5:00products. That gave me an edge where I
158. 5:02can understand how much time a product
159. 5:04creation will take. That helped me
160. 5:05understand what should I build because
161. 5:07people are like lost when when you're
162. 5:09trying to create an app, you are like,
163. 5:11"I don't even know how much time it will
164. 5:12take." But if you have some idea, that
165. 5:14will be helpful.
166. 5:14>> I think what I think what I like about
167. 5:15what you're sharing is the kind of like
168. 5:16the ideas just kind of came to you,
169. 5:18right? After doing something or talking
170. 5:20to someone or learning about some little
171. 5:22problem. And I personally think that's
172. 5:24really, really cool that you've been
173. 5:25able to launch all these all these
174. 5:27different apps or projects. I want to
175. 5:29get into kind of your your approach to
176. 5:31building multiple projects, but really
177. 5:32briefly, I want to talk about your
178. 5:34background. How did you get here that
179. 5:36you're building 30-plus projects? Yeah,
180. 5:38tell us a little bit about how you got
181. 5:39here.
182. 5:40>> I saw this video of a guy who shared how
183. 5:43he built a software sitting in a room,
184. 5:45and he was like, "I'm selling this for 1
185. 5:47crore," like which is like hundreds of
186. 5:48thousands of dollars. So, I was like,
187. 5:49"If this guy can do it, maybe I can do."
188. 5:51I was very clear to my father, "I'm not
189. 5:53doing college." It didn't work out
190. 5:55because 2 years I did nothing. I was had
191. 5:57to kind of do something. So, what I did
192. 5:59was I applied for a call center job. I
193. 6:01worked as a call center, then I moved to
194. 6:03a sales job. I did eight months of sales
195. 6:06job calling people sitting whole day
196. 6:08just coding. Again, after a while you
197. 6:09were like not. So, I came back. I'm
198. 6:11sitting at zero again. I was like,
199. 6:12"Okay, I left the job. I what what to do
200. 6:14now?" I saw a guy who shared sign-in
201. 6:16sign-up screens. 300 likes, thousand
202. 6:19like people are appreciating and I was
203. 6:20like, "I want to share that, too." I
204. 6:22created a GitHub account the Indian app
205. 6:24guy as username and then I posted
206. 6:27sign-up sign-in screen of mine. It got
207. 6:29very good feedback and from then on
208. 6:31onwards I was literally building to
209. 6:33share. So, I tried to build something of
210. 6:35my own. I saw levels.io I in the
211. 6:37evenings and then I got the vacation I
212. 6:39tried to build something. I launched two
213. 6:40products. I was able to generate the
214. 6:42revenue within two days of launching the
215. 6:44lifetime deals, which was my salary. So,
216. 6:46I did that twice and then I was finally
217. 6:48able to leave the job and from then on
218. 6:49onwards it has been the same journey of
219. 6:52just being excited of what next to build
220. 6:54what we we are going to build and it's
221. 6:56been an amazing journey of launching 30
222. 6:57plus products now and doing 1 billion.
223. 7:00>> Yeah, I love I love the like energy
224. 7:03you're talking about it with. I think
225. 7:04that's super cool and I think Yeah, I I
226. 7:06also think it's really cool kind of the
227. 7:07the background you came from where you
228. 7:08kind of had to really learn everything
229. 7:10really from scratch. So, congrats on
230. 7:12this journey. I think that's really
231. 7:13awesome. Let's switch a little bit. So,
232. 7:15I think one of the main reasons I wanted
233. 7:16to have you on the channel, right, is
234. 7:17because you've built all these projects.
235. 7:19So, Sanskar, I'm really curious, how do
236. 7:21you come up with all these app ideas? Do
237. 7:23you have a process that you follow for
238. 7:25coming up with different app ideas?
239. 7:27>> Today, if I were to find ideas, what I
240. 7:30will do is number one, the Trust Matter
241. 7:32app platform which I have showed you is
242. 7:33a very interesting place where you can
243. 7:35kind of see revenue and stuff of
244. 7:36companies. The other place which is very
245. 7:38good is Twitter. I'm very active there
246. 7:41and I feel once you start liking the
247. 7:43right posts to following the right
248. 7:44people, you are going to get inspired so
249. 7:47much. You will be able to come up with
250. 7:49better idea and everything if you
251. 7:51execute. A lot of time what people feel
252. 7:53is they should be ready from the day one
253. 7:56with the best idea and the right idea.
254. 7:59If I would have tried that, I would
255. 8:01never have launched 30. Like keep in
256. 8:03mind, I for people who think why I did
257. 8:05the 30 is because first year I just did
258. 8:08one and I realized that I was trying to
259. 8:10sell something which people might not
260. 8:12even want. So this part which is very
261. 8:15important keep iterating because you'll
262. 8:17also be able to start thinking it in a
263. 8:19way where you'll understand that maybe I
264. 8:21should try it this act. Maybe I should
265. 8:22try that act. One more way is that
266. 8:24basically solving your own problem.
267. 8:26Solving your own problems is a very
268. 8:28interesting way of doing this. Just keep
269. 8:30in mind I feel a lot of people are
270. 8:32taking it wrong in a way of they are
271. 8:35college students or someone who won't
272. 8:37pay for things and they will try to
273. 8:38solve their own problems. Make sure
274. 8:40whatever the problem you're solving
275. 8:42there are people who can pay because
276. 8:44this whole India hacking everything
277. 8:46works only if there is revenue. Is the
278. 8:48other people valuing your product enough
279. 8:50to pay for it? If it is not either
280. 8:52you're targeting wrong people or you're
281. 8:54not solving the right problem. The other
282. 8:55thing is
283. 8:57put buy buttons before you even create
284. 8:59the product. This is very interesting
285. 9:01and honestly speaking even I didn't
286. 9:03follow it for a very long time. I am
287. 9:04builder I love building, right? And when
288. 9:07you love building you get too much into
289. 9:08the
290. 9:09details of it you forget that hey you
291. 9:11got to launch first. Now I can just
292. 9:13place the buy button. If people are
293. 9:14buying then I'll create that. So that is
294. 9:17another way. Whatever idea you have like
295. 9:19literally after watching this video
296. 9:20you're like I have this idea I've been
297. 9:22wanting to create it. Maybe I should
298. 9:23figure out how to build. No, just take 5
299. 9:25minutes create a simple page use any web
300. 9:28coding tool. Create a simple page of
301. 9:29that hey I'm selling this. It's
302. 9:31available pre-order just mark the date
303. 9:33to be 10 to 30 days whatever you feel I
304. 9:35will be able to make a minimum viable
305. 9:36product of. And you're like it will be
306. 9:38available within 10 days or 30 days of
307. 9:40your purchase. And when you get your
308. 9:41first sale then you start the 10 10 days
309. 9:44timer, right? So it's a very interesting
310. 9:46way.
311. 9:46>> So that is another way which I'll
312. 9:47suggest a lot of people. Cool. So that's
313. 9:49I love the idea of like put buy buttons
314. 9:51and see if people even want it before
315. 9:53you build it. So so let's say there is
316. 9:54an idea that you're ready to build. What
317. 9:56is your build process? Talk us through
318. 9:59at a high level how you do it and then
319. 10:00some of the tools that you use to build.
320. 10:02>> So if you want to build a web
321. 10:03application here's the tech stack which
322. 10:05I use. I use Next.js for the coding. For
323. 10:08back end I use Superbase plus
324. 10:10Cloudflare. Then, when it comes to
325. 10:11sending emails, I have been recommending
326. 10:13two different solutions. Number one, I
327. 10:15use Resend. The other way which I do use
328. 10:17is App Script. But now, the main part,
329. 10:20which is actually doing all this, is not
330. 10:22done by me manually. It's done by
331. 10:23Cloudinary.
332. 10:24>> So, obviously, you build all these
333. 10:25products, and so obviously really often
334. 10:28with they exist. Just walk us through at
335. 10:29a high level. How How do you get
336. 10:31customers for these? How do you tell
337. 10:32people about all the different products
338. 10:34that you build?
339. 10:35>> I got my first sale through Facebook. I
340. 10:38was going into Facebook groups, and I
341. 10:40found a group which had the target
342. 10:43audience which I made the product for.
343. 10:45Now, if I tell about the other part, I
344. 10:48started sharing on AppSumo platform. So,
345. 10:50I launched there, and again, I got sales
346. 10:52from there. Then, I started doing
347. 10:54content on YouTube. So, a lot of people
348. 10:56feel that they need to be ready today to
349. 10:59uh able to do content. This was me five
350. 11:01years ago. You can see I didn't had a
351. 11:03good setup. Because I was not prepared
352. 11:05at all. But I didn't let that stop me. I
353. 11:07realized that the power of content is
354. 11:10amazing. If you just put yourself out
355. 11:12there, you'll get I made a new channel
356. 11:14for every single product, right? I
357. 11:16created a new for Magic Slides, for
358. 11:18SheetAI, for everyone. And I created
359. 11:20content around that. Because if you
360. 11:22create a single page which is talking
361. 11:24about different application, you are
362. 11:25just confusing. Because my apps were not
363. 11:27all just for one audience, right? They
364. 11:28were for different different audience.
365. 11:29The best part about YouTube is the
366. 11:31longevity, which means the video you
367. 11:34create five years ago can generate sales
368. 11:36even today. So, if you see here, oldest
369. 11:37video, this is like three years ago.
370. 11:39Yeah, this is literally Magic Slides.
371. 11:41Similarly, if you search for Magic Form,
372. 11:43you'll see this one. This is Magic Form.
373. 11:45Same thing, and you'll see this thing.
374. 11:47145,000
375. 11:49views. New channel. It's all organic,
376. 11:52right? Then, we have sheetai.app. You
377. 11:54see here, it also have close to 2,000 um
378. 11:57and if you go popular, 17,000, 10,000,
379. 11:597,000. This helped me grow to 2,000 plus
380. 12:02MRR. All by creating content on YouTube.
381. 12:04The other platform is
382. 12:06this Instagram. In today's age, I feel
383. 12:09Instagram is must. So, Instagram gives
384. 12:11you a very good on if you post today,
385. 12:13you'll be able to get that. Now, my
386. 12:15journey on Instagram has been what I
387. 12:17have done in other place and what I have
388. 12:19been doing with apps. I feel I am not
389. 12:23expert in it I know this will work. So,
390. 12:25what I did I launched multiple
391. 12:26applications. So, I was literally
392. 12:28posting 10 videos. They were literally
393. 12:30me holding my phone. This app helps you
394. 12:32do this this is this. I'll record that
395. 12:34open edits app Instagram edits app. You
396. 12:37just add title through that and caption
397. 12:38and post within 1 hour I was able to
398. 12:41post 10 videos. Keep in mind I was like
399. 12:43I don't know what what is going to work.
400. 12:45I am just going to push content and I
401. 12:47have been active. So, that is the other
402. 12:48way.
403. 12:48>> I think I think the theme here is like
404. 12:50you tried a lot of different
405. 12:51experiments. So, like you kind of had an
406. 12:53idea you built something you kind of saw
407. 12:55what happened. And what did work you
408. 12:56doubled down on it or built another
409. 12:58version of it or whatever. Same with the
410. 13:00content, you know, post 10 videos see
411. 13:01which one gets the most views do
412. 13:03something like that again tomorrow.
413. 13:04Hopefully someone watching if they're
414. 13:06watching at this point in the video is
415. 13:07seeing like that they don't have to make
416. 13:09like one big bet. You know, you can make
417. 13:11a lot of tiny bets kind of like you had
418. 13:13both with content both with your
419. 13:15projects and maybe that's one of the
420. 13:16reasons you're successful. So, I think
421. 13:18that I think that's really really cool.
422. 13:19Cool Sanskar well, that leads me to our
423. 13:21last question which is a question we ask
424. 13:23everyone in the couple of starter story.
425. 13:25You know, if you could stand on your
426. 13:26shoulders from five five six years ago
427. 13:28when you started this or you know, again
428. 13:30for that person watching [music] who is
429. 13:32just getting started. What would be like
430. 13:34one final big piece of advice that you
431. 13:36would give to yourself from back then or
432. 13:38give to somebody watching?
433. 13:40>> So, the advice which I will give to my
434. 13:41younger self is the biggest mistake
435. 13:43which I did which was kept working on a
436. 13:46single thing even when it was not
437. 13:48working. I was trying to sell something
438. 13:50which I thought will be great and I was
439. 13:51like why are these people not using it?
440. 13:53I think this is a great. To summarize it
441. 13:55in a single word it's put more buy
442. 13:57buttons on the internet. If you don't
443. 13:59have an option for people to pay you're
444. 14:02not even letting the God make the magic
445. 14:04happen. I heard talk to people and I am
446. 14:07like hey hey how are you doing? They're
447. 14:09like I want to learn something. I also
448. 14:10want to do the side hustle. I want to
449. 14:12make some money. I I like is there a way
450. 14:14for people to buy something from Their
451. 14:16answer is always So, if you are someone
452. 14:18who wants to make money, who wants to
453. 14:20generate income, close your eyes and
454. 14:22tell me how many buy buttons do you
455. 14:23have. If you have zero, then you have
456. 14:25your answer. If you have few, you have
457. 14:27your answer to increase that income. I
458. 14:29would have told myself, Sanskar, stop
459. 14:31trying to add more features. Put the buy
460. 14:33button.
461. 14:34>> That's super great advice. Sanskar,
462. 14:35thank you so much for breaking
463. 14:37everything down, talking about your
464. 14:39process, how you find ideas. This was
465. 14:41really really awesome. Leave a comment
466. 14:42for Sanskar or any questions you might
467. 14:44have and we'll try to answer them in the
468. 14:45comments.
469. 14:46>> If you're going on this journey and you
470. 14:48want some learnings and everything, I'm
471. 14:50documenting my whole journey, everything
472. 14:52I learn on a day-to-day basis. And if
473. 14:54you have any questions, you can connect
474. 14:55with me with with me on Instagram and
475. 14:58message me and I do reply. Always happy
476. 15:00to help because I know how impactful
477. 15:02this can be. But man, thanks for
478. 15:04joining.
479. 15:04>> Appreciate it.
480. 15:05>> Thank you for having me. It was great.
481. 15:07>> Okay, just wrapped up with Sanskar. That
482. 15:08was a really fun conversation. One, I
483. 15:11love his energy. I think he's like a
484. 15:12cool dude. And I loved his like passion.
485. 15:14I could you could just like feel it.
486. 15:15Hopefully you watched the whole video.
487. 15:16But I kind of said this somewhere in the
488. 15:18middle of the interview, which is my
489. 15:19biggest takeaway is to run like a bunch
490. 15:22of experiments. He kind of in one year
491. 15:24he launched one product and for whatever
492. 15:26reason it didn't work out. And so he
493. 15:28sort of shifted his mindset to launch a
494. 15:30bunch of different things until you
495. 15:32know, something worked. Now, I know
496. 15:34there's debate on whether you should
497. 15:35really focus on one thing or if you
498. 15:37should focus on a bunch of different
499. 15:38projects. You know, I think you could
500. 15:40win either way. We have examples of that
501. 15:42on the channel. But the experiments part
502. 15:44I think is what is cool because [music]
503. 15:46when he was just getting started or if
504. 15:47you're just getting started, you you
505. 15:49don't know. You know, you don't know
506. 15:50what's going to work. You don't know
507. 15:51what is not going to work. And so if you
508. 15:53run a bunch of experiments, you launch a
509. 15:54bunch of stuff, you're going to get the
510. 15:56signal you maybe need to
511. 15:58>> [music]
512. 15:58>> to know whether you should or you
513. 15:59shouldn't go down a path. And then the
514. 16:01last thing is to take the same approach
515. 16:04when it comes to content. And I've so
516. 16:05vic- I fall victim to this of like
517. 16:07wanting it to be perfect or you know,
518. 16:09feeling stupid if it's not good enough.
519. 16:11Whereas his approach was just like, I
520. 16:12just record myself, boom, boom, post it.
521. 16:14[music]
522. 16:15I don't even think about
523. 16:16And he uses that kind of as well as like
524. 16:18an experiment ground to see like what
525. 16:21people connect to, what people don't
526. 16:22connect to. And I think that's something
527. 16:24I'm going to try to adopt a little bit
528. 16:25more. So yeah,
529. 16:26this is a really fun interview. I hope
530. 16:28you I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you
531. 16:30enjoyed learning from him and his
532. 16:31process, how he finds ideas, how he how
533. 16:32he builds them. If you are ready to
534. 16:34start building your own projects, we
535. 16:36have a link in the description to a
536. 16:37database of a bunch of ideas that you
537. 16:39could get [music] inspiration from,
538. 16:41validate, and start building yourself.
539. 16:43So that's it for this episode. Thank you
540. 16:45guys so much for watching. We will see
541. 16:47you in the next one. [music] Peace.