Speaker 1And I have built 30 plus product. We recently crossed $1 million. This is Sunscar.
Speaker 2A few years ago, he was working the night shift at a call center. But today he runs eight different products that have combined made him over $1 million.
Speaker 1We have around 1000 paying customers on a monthly basis. And right now we have zero people in our team.
Speaker 2It's just him building really simple apps that solve really simple problems. You see, most people think that you need one big app idea in order to win. But Sunscar proved that he could be successful with a portfolio of tiny heads.
Speaker 1A lot of people watch, very few execute. So if you are going to be the one who execute, you'll be by default ahead of every other person.
Speaker 2So I asked him to come on the channel and break down the system behind everything that he does. And in this video, we're going to talk through the eight different products that he's built that were successful and a bunch that weren't. How he finds ideas that actually have a shot at making money. And the exact steps that he would follow if he was building a product today from scratch. This one is going to be fun. Let's dive in. I'm Gus and this is Starter Story. All right, Sunscar, welcome to Starter Story. Super excited to have you on the channel. Could you share with us who you are, what you built and what's your story?
Speaker 1So my name is Sunscar. I am from Bangalore, India, and I have built 30 plus products out of which eight ended up making revenue. I run this company alone. And today I want to break down all the eight products, how I found each idea, how I build it and where they are at.
Speaker 2That's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the channel because you've built. And launched all these projects. That's kind of how I found you online. So could you just walk through what are all the projects you've built at a high level? And then what are the eight that you mentioned that are the ones that are making money?
Speaker 1Okay. So I have built more than 30 products. You can find the list of all the products on my website, sunscartevari.io/projects. The biggest app of mine is magicslides.app. It basically helps you convert any sort of document, PDF files, YouTube video into a full-fledged presentation, which you can export in PPDX and edit it on behalf of an editor as well. Number two. Ask video is basically an application which helps you talk to video. You can just provide it a YouTube URL and you'll be able to talk to it. Then we have blurb web app is a Chrome extension, which helps people hide sensitive information in a single click. Then there is magic form. So basically I build an app for Google sheet, which is just below, which is called sheet AI, which wants to use AI inside Google sheet. And when that happened to $2,000 in MRR and we got some investor feedback. So one investor wanted me to create a pitch deck in that. That's the whole, like literally where the idea came about. When that happened, I was like, I have covered Google sheet. I have covered Google slides as well. Shall I build something for Google form? So, uh, that's when, uh, magic form happened. Talking PDF is another app similar to ask video PDF thing. And, um, yeah, um, then few more applications are there, but these are the majors.
Speaker 2Yeah. I love that. I love the idea of just having single feature, like tiny apps. I think that's super, super smart. Let's move to the, let's just talk about some of the revenues. So how, how. How much money have these products made over time?
Speaker 1Just give us a little high level. So in total, we have done around 8 56 from these, uh, product and the stripe of them. Then we have 85,000 plus, which we have done through apps. And in total, if we talk about, we recently crossed $1 million in total revenue in last six years. But when I say that, I want to be very clear, literally first two years were zero and like literally other years were like kind of slowly staying. So it was not always, and things like that.
Speaker 2Sunscar is proof that you could. Be successful with a bunch of tiny bets. I really hope you're watching this and feeling inspired to start building your own ideas. If you need somewhere to get started, we put together the side project ideas database. This is a list of over 50 side project ideas, all proven and backed by real data. Inside this free database, you're going to find a ton of information like revenue, cost to start growth, tactics, basically everything you need to validate an idea and go start building. So if you want this database, it's a hundred percent free. Just grab it at the link in the description. Right. Let's get back to Sunscar. Yeah. I think this is super cool to see all the different stuff you build, kind of how it's kind of compiled over time. Like you said, I think, what would you say is like a common theme amongst all your projects?
Speaker 1So number one, all of my products, literally all of them, you'll find, uh, either they are Chrome extension, uh, workspace, uh, add-on, which is Google workspace marketplace. So that was the one clear thing where I was not trying to build everything from scratch and, uh, rather trying to find a platform that I can get. Another one of that is all of them are not like multiple feature. I'm very clear that. This app does this. The point is that when you add too many features, you don't even know yourself what you're selling. The other customer also don't know what they're buying. They are like, dude, tell me what I like. I'll come for one thing though. People don't come from 10 different things. And when you're starting, you cannot create everything. Uh, and the third thing is understanding. So I launched magic slides after two years, learning how to build send simple app. So send simple was a Google sheet add-on, which helps you send email through that, like directly Gmail, your Gmail account. So you'll have emails in the Google sheet. You can set the point. I'm saying that is I knew how to build products that gave me an edge where I can understand how much time a product creation will take. That helped me understand what should I build? Because people are like lost when, when you're trying to create an app, you're like, I don't even know how much time it will take, but if you have some idea,
Speaker 2that would be, I think what I like about what you're sharing is kind of like the ideas just kind of came to you right after doing something or talking to someone or learning about some little problem. And, uh, I personally think that through the cool that you've been able to watch all these, all these different. Apps or projects. I want to get into kind of your, your approach to building multiple projects, but really briefly, I want to talk about your background. How do you get here that you're building 30 plus projects? It tells a little bit about how you got here.
Speaker 1I saw this video of a guy who, uh, shared how he built a software sitting in a room and he was like, I'm selling this for one crew, like, which is like hundreds of thousands of dollars. So I was like, if this guy can do it, maybe I can do it. I was very clear to my father. I'm not doing college. Uh, it didn't work out because two years I did nothing. I was had to kind of do something. So what I did was I applied for a call center job. I worked as a call center. Then I moved to a sales job. I did eight months of sales job, calling people sitting whole day, just coding again after a while, you were like, not, so I came back, I'm sitting at zero again. I was like, okay, I left the job. I want what to do now. I saw a guy who shared sign in, sign up screens, 300 likes, thousands of people are appreciating, and I was like, I want to share that too. I created a GitHub account, the Indian app guy as username, and then I posted a sign up, sign in screen of mine. It got very good feedback. And from then on onwards, I was literally building to share. So I tried to build something of my own. I saw levels IO I in the evenings, and then I got the vacation. I tried to build something. I launched two products. I was able to debate the revenue within two days of launching the lifetime deals, uh, which was myself. So I did that twice. And then I was finally able to leave the job. And from then on onwards, it has been the same journey of just being excited of what next to build, what we are going to build, and it's been an amazing journey of launching 30 plus products now and doing 1 million.
Speaker 2Yeah, I love, I love the like energy you're talking about it with. I think that's super cool. And I think, yeah, I, I also think it's really cool. Kind of the, the background you came from, or you kind of have to really learn everything really from scratch. So congrats on this journey. I think that's really awesome. Let's switch a little bit. So I think, or one of the main reasons I want to have you on the channel, right? Is because you've built all these projects. So Sunscar, I'm really curious, how do you come up with all these app ideas? Do you have a process that you follow for coming up with different
Speaker 1app ideas? Today, if I were to find ideas, what I will do is number one, uh, the trust MRR platform, which I have showed you is a very interesting place where you can kind of see revenue and stuff of companies. The other place, which is very good is Twitter. I'm very active there. And I feel once you start liking the right posts to following the right people, you are going to get inspired so much, you will be able to come up with better idea and everything. If you execute a lot of time, what people feel is they should be ready from the day one. With the best idea in the right. I, if I would have tried that, I would never have launched 30. Like keep in mind, I, for people who think why I did the 30 is because first year I just did one and I realized that I was trying to sell something which people might not even want. So this part, which is very important, keep iterating because you'll also be able to start thinking it in a way where you'll understand that maybe I should try it this act. Maybe I should try that. One more way is that basically solving your own problem. Solving your own problems is a very interesting way of doing this. Just keep in mind. I feel a lot of people are taking it wrong in a way of they are college students or someone who won't pay for things and they will try to solve their own problems. Make sure whatever the problem you're solving, there are people who can pay because this whole indie hacking, everything works only if there is revenue is the other people valuing your product enough to pay for it. If it is not either, you're targeting wrong people or you're not solving the rights problem. The other thing is, um, Put buy buttons before you even create the product. This is very interesting. And honestly speaking, even I didn't follow it for a very long time. I am builder. I love building, right? And when you love building, you get too much into the, uh, details of it. You forget that, Hey, you got to launch first. Now I can just please the buy button. If people are buying, then I'll create that. So that is another way. Whatever idea you have, like literally after watching this video, you're like, I have this idea. I've been wanting to create it. Maybe I should figure out how to build. No, just take five minutes, create a simple. Page use any, uh, vibe coding tool, create a simple page of that. Hey, I'm selling this. It's available, but you order just mark the date to be 10 to 30 days. Whatever you feel, I will be able to make a minimum viable product off. And you are like, uh, it will be available within 10 days or 30 days of your purchase. And when you get your first sale, then you start the 10, 10 days timer, right? So it's a very interesting way. So that is another way, which I'll suggest a lot of people.
Speaker 2Cool. So that's, I love the idea of like put by buttons and see if people even want it before you build it. So, so let's say there is an idea that you're ready to build. What is. your build process. Talk us through at a high level how you do it and then some of the tools that you use to build
Speaker 1so if you want to build a web application here's the text tag which i use i use nextgis for the coding for backend i use superbase plus cloudflare then when it comes to sending emails i have been recommending two different solutions number one i use recent the other way which i do use is app script but now the main part which is actually doing all this is not done by me manually it's done by clock so obviously you build all
Speaker 2these products and it's obviously really awesome that they exist just walk us through at a high level how do you get customers for these how do you tell people about the different products that
Speaker 1you know i got my first sale through facebook i was going into facebook groups and i found a group which had the target audience which i made the product for now if i tell about the other part i started sharing on appsumo platform so i launched there and again i got sales from there then i started doing content on youtube so a lot of people feel that they need to be ready today to uh able to do content this was me five years ago you can see i didn't had a good setup because i was not prepared at all but i didn't let that stop me i realized that the power of content is amazing if you just put yourself out there you'll get i made a new channel for every single product right i created a for magic slides for sheet ai for everyone and i created content around that because if you create a single page which is talking about different applications you're just confusing because my apps were not all just for one audience right they were for different different audience the best part about youtube is the longevity which means the video you create five years ago can generate sales even today so if you see here oldest video this is like three years ago yeah this is literally magic slides similarly if you search for magic form you'll see this one this is magic form same thing and you'll see this thing 1,45,000 views new channel it's all organic right then we have sheetai.app you see here it also has close to 2,000 um and if you go popular 17,000 10,000 7,000 this helped me grow to 2,000 plus MRR all by creating content on youtube the other platform is this instagram in today's age i feel instagram is must so instagram gives you a very good on if you post today you'll be able to get that now my journey on instagram has been what i have done in other places and what i have been doing with apps i feel i am not expert in it i know this will work so what i did i launched multiple applications so i was literally posting 10 videos they were literally me holding my phone this app helps you do this this is this i'll record that open edits app instagram edits app you just add title through that and caption and post within one hour i was able to post 10 videos keep in mind i was like i don't know what what is going to work i am just going to push content and i have been active so that is the other way i think i
Speaker 2think the theme here is like you tried a lot of different experiments so like you kind of had an idea you built it you kind of saw what happened and what did work you doubled down on it or built another version of it or whatever same with the content you know post 10 videos see which one gets the most views do something like that again tomorrow hopefully someone watching if they're watching at this point in the video is seeing like that they don't have to make like one big bet you know you can make a lot of tiny bets kind of like you've had both with content both with your projects and maybe that's one of the reasons you're successful so i think that i think that's really really cool cool sunscar well that leads me to our last question which is a question we ask everyone that comes on the starter story you know if you could stand on your shoulders from five five six years ago when you started this or you know again for that person watching who is just getting started what would be like one final big piece of advice that you would give to yourself from back then or give to somebody watching so the
Speaker 1advice which i will give to my younger self is the biggest mistake which i did which was kept working on a single thing even when it was not working i was trying to sell something which i thought will be great and i was like why are these people not using it i think this is great to summarize it in a single word it's put more bio buttons on the internet if you don't have an option for people to pay you're not even letting the god make the magic happen i hear talk to people and i am like hey how are you doing there like i want to learn something i also want to do the side hustle i want to make some money i was like is there a way for people to buy something from their answer is always so if you are someone who wants to make money who wants to generate income close your eyes and tell me how many buy buttons do you have if you have zero then you have your answer if you have few you have your answer to increase that cup i would have told myself sanskar stop trying to add more features put the buy button that's super great advice
Speaker 2sunscar thank you so much for breaking everything down talking about your process how you find ideas this was really very awesome leave a comment for sunscar or any questions you might have and we'll try to answer them in
Speaker 1the comments if you're going on this journey and you want some learnings and everything i'm documenting my whole journey everything i learn on a day-to-day basis and if you have any questions you can connect me with uh with me on instagram and uh message me and i too reply always happy to help because i know how impactful this can be but man thanks for joining appreciate it thank you for having
Speaker 2me it was great okay i just wrapped up with sanskar that was a really fun conversation one i love his energy i think he's like a cool dude and i loved his like passion i could you could just like feel it hopefully if you watch the whole video but i kind of said this somewhere in the middle of the interview which is my biggest takeaway is to run like a bunch of experiments he kind of in one year he launched one product and for whatever reason you know they didn't that didn't work out and so he sort of shifted his mindset to launch a bunch of different things uh until you know something worked now i know there's debate on whether you should really focus on one thing or if you should focus on a bunch of different projects you know i i think you could win either way and we have examples of that on the channel but experiment's part i think is what is cool because when he was just getting started or if you're just getting started you you don't know you know you don't know what's gonna work you don't know what is not gonna work and so if you run a bunch of experiments you launch a bunch of stuff you're gonna get the signal you maybe need to to know whether you should or you shouldn't go down the path and then the last thing is to take the same approach when it comes to content and i'm so vic i fall victim to this so like wanting it to be perfect or you know feeling stupid if it's not good enough whereas his approach was just like i just record myself boom boom post it and i don't even think about it anymore and he uses that kind of as well as like an experiment ground to see like what people connect to what people don't connect to and i think that's something i'm going to try to adopt a little bit more so yeah um this is a really fun interview i hope you i hope you enjoyed it i hope you enjoyed learning from him and his process how he finds ideas how he builds them if you are ready to start building your own projects we have a link in the description to a database of a bunch of ideas that you could get inspiration from validate and start building yourself so that's it for this episode thank you guys so much for watching we will see you in the next one peace
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