I'm launching 4 startups, with 4 products, in 4 quarters

The title says it all. Over the next year, I’m launching a new product-based startup (no consulting, services, etc) every three months. Each one owned, constructed, and operated by only one person—me. And each week, I’ll publish a transparent update on this newsletter about what I’m trying, what’s working, and what isn’t.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: why would anyone want to do that?

Let me explain.

What I thought I wanted

For years, I thought my best future would be a repeat of my past: pick a problem with a huge market, raise an investment round, and cross my fingers that we’d make it to the moon (or land on a nice company like Confluent).

But the closer I got to making that a reality, the more I sensed something wasn’t quite right. If I’m honest, I felt anxious about building a big team of people. I felt unexcited about locking myself into just one problem area. I felt unhappy about having to delegate parts of the well-rounded skillset I’ve fought to learn.

It’s different when it’s your baby, everyone says. Maybe I should just get started, and all those uncertain feelings would sort themselves out?

What I realized

Thankfully, I pumped the breaks on that plan. I spent only a few weeks wallowing, unsure where my career was going, before I found exactly what I needed.

Sitting in the shade of my backyard, I stumbled into a blog post from 2014 titled “I'm Launching 12 Startups in 12 Months”. It’s what it sounds like. In order to confront his fear of shipping, Pieter Levels played a lightning-round game of startup.

Herein lies the realization. Sometimes in life, your focus can narrow so much that you stop seeing all of the options available to you. You see only options A and B, completing missing C, D, E, and F. That was me. But in that moment, reading the nearly decade-old post, my blinders came off. A few things became clear to me.

First, VC funding isn’t the only path to building a company. It’s hard to believe because our industry’s social conversation is dominated by large funding rounds. But there’s a happy minority of people bootstrapping their companies, albeit more quietly and slowly, who are doing just great.

Second, very small companies can succeed. When Facebook bought Instagram for $1B, the company had only 13 employees. WhatsApp was similar—55 employees to the tune of $19B. Even a company of one can succeed if the problem size is right.

Last, no one ever thinks they’re ignoring their natural inclinations, but we all do it to fit in. I love to try and be proficient at a bit of everything. I like to code, market, sell, write, storytell, design. There’s no reason to run away from wanting to do all of that. It isn’t a bug of being “unfocused”. It’s a feature. At least it is for me.

What I actually want

Solopreneuer, indie hacker, micro-enterpeneur. Call it what you want. I think all the names are dumb, but the purpose isn’t. My goal is to independently run as many little software businesses as I can. Many will fail, but only a few need succeed. I’ll share my concrete goals in a future post, but in short, I’ll consider this a win if I can at least cover my living expenses.

All credit to Pieter, my pace will be a little more tempered than his. Every three months, I’ll pick a new idea, validate the problem/solution, build it, market it, and launch it. The aim is for every startup to become profitable on day 1.

Each week I’ll share, with as much humility as I can, what’s going on inside my head. My goals. My rationale. My feelings. My results. There’s going to be a lot of pain ahead, but with some luck there’ll be good outcomes too.

And if all this still sounds nuts, maybe it’s true: it’s different when it’s your baby.