Marclou

I build tons of startups and see what sticks. Currently at $33,000 monthly revenue.

Founder

Retail Ecommerce Ventures

Genghis is a new company owned by Tai Lopez launching blockchain projects
- Learned the technical fundamentals of web3  Solidity, web3.js, Truffle
Suite, MetaMask)
- Forked SushiSwap & attempted to create a new kind of DeFi yield
farm where users earn tokens that can be spent to purchase electronic items on RadioShack.com

Full Stack Engineer

GameWidget

I created GameWidget, a fun game embeddable on Escape Rooms websites to convert traffic into customers.
I built a whole B2B SaaS from scratch with these stacks:
- React app
- Auth
- Stripe integration for payment processing
- Mailgun API for transactional emails
- Node backend 
- MongoDB database
- REST API architecture

Founder & CEO

NSJ Tech

NSJ Tech provides unique advanced price prediction models based on machine learning algorithms. 

Our mission is to focus on high price fluctuation products that matter to customers. We are bringing price comparison technology to the next level by answering the « When to buy at the best price? » question. 

We have built SmartOil, a gasoline price prediction mobile app for Korean market available on both Android and iOS platform. 

Tech stack used:
- React Native
- Python for Machine Learning algos
- AWS
- Restful API

Co-Founder & CTO

Hip's

Hip's is a social & innovative project to help users finding people around them to practice sports. Find the right sport partner thanks to a smart matchmaking algorithm. 

Join the community through a mobile app available on both Android & iOS app stores.

Ecclesia Limited

I have worked for six months for the startup Ecclesia Limited in Hong Kong as a web developer. They offer low cost corporate services to customers willing to transfer their companies in Hong Kong.

Tasks : 
- Infrastructure optimization
- Add new features on the website
- SEO improvement (working with Google Analytics)
- ERP systems formation
- Promote the company on social networks
- Add gateway to QuickBook Online

Technical skills : 
- IT languages ( HTML / CSS / Javascript / PHP / MySQL )
- Administration system 
- Cloud computing
- Versioning tool
- UX basic knowledge 
- SEO

I had the chance of visiting the international company, Pylones,  in Shenzhen (China). I visited one of their manufacturing line to discovered their efficient ERP.

Human skills : 
- Teamwork
- Multinational communication 
- Autonomy
- Problem solving skills

Full Stack Developer

Solopreneur shipping startups like a madman | $44,000/month

I built over 20 startups in the last 3 years. 7 made money. 1 pay much more than the bills.

Fuck yeah. 

$100,000 in revenue in the last 30 days.

In November 2021, I built a movie recommendation app based on your mood (Mood2Movie).

It made $0...

So I built more apps.

It took 5 months to make $100.

I learned everything on the fly: coding, marketing, designing, and writing.

For 2.5 years, I shipped every day.

SaaS, AI tools, courses, free tools, I tried everything that crossed my mind.

23 projects later, one finally took off — ShipFast.

Currently, it's making $4,000 per day.

When I started, I dreamt of earning that amount every month, to cover rent and food without worry.

Entrepreneurship is hard. 

And the brain struggles to understand non-linear outcomes.

But if you stay in the game long enough (without sacrificing what's important to you), the reward is 1000x worth it.

Just ship it.

Marc Lou

I never change my tech stack.

My 21 products get 550,000 page views per month using this simple — not fancy — tech stack:


1. Front-end

I use ReactJS, Tailwind CSS, and NextJS.

I also use daisyUI, the awesome Tailwind component library to speed things up.

Design trends give birth to new UI components every day. It’s a distraction. daisyUI has 20+ themes and all the components, that’s enough.


2. Back-end

I use serverless functions by NextJS. I don’t have to install packages or maintain an OS. I clone a NextJS project and I have a scalable API for my micro SaaS in seconds.

My database is hosted on MongoDB Atlas. I create a free M0 customer for each new project and use daily backups ($10/month). I use mongoose on top to simplify queries.


To send emails, I use Mailgun ($4/month). It’s easy and free to start.

Payments are processed via Stripe (3.5%). Getting started is a bit daunting. I wrote this tutorial to handle subscriptions with Stripe: https://lnkd.in/gfh6tRV6.

3. Hosting

I host my 21 apps on Vercel ($20/month). I push changes to a GitHub repo and it automatically deploys them.


4. Monitoring

Simple metrics like visitors and pageviews are handled by Plausible ($29/month).

If something goes wrong, I check Vercel deployment logs.

I query the database using relevant filters for advanced monitoring, like split testing. But I rarely do that.


5. Extras

I hired a junior developer for $10/month. His name is GitHub Copilot.

Some of my products use AI models like GPT-4. Pricing varies on usage, currently, I spend ~$20/month.

And if I need specific features, like image hosting or a CDN, I use AWS (1$/month)



When I learned to code, I struggled to decide on the right tech stack with all the noise out there.

Tech stack doesn’t matter.

Pick one and stick to it. You’ll get comfortable and ship much faster.


Me in April 2022:

• $500/month
• 500 followers

Me in April 2023:

• $3,000/month
• 10,000 followers

Me in April 2024:

• $120,000/month
• 85,000 followers on X
• 37,000 followers on YouTube
• 18,000 readers on my newsletter

Trust the process.

Revenue for 6 years of entrepreneurship and 28 products:

- Most never made money
- 1 pays higher than a programmer's hourly rate
- 72% of the revenue was generated in the last 6 months


2017: I spent a year building a startup that made $0.
2023: I launched 10 products and made $263,000.

Speed is solopreneurs' best friend.

This is how to get ideas and build them fast: 


1/ An idea, quick

The most successful products were built by solopreneurs scratching their itches.

@levelsio building NomadList while traveling the world is a great example.

There are tons of existing problems gravitating around you.

Build a habit of looking around.

If you’re working 9/5, it’s the best place to explore. Search for experiences that bother you. Or knowledge you wish you had.



If nothing comes, start something new. Try a new sport, start a new daily routine, or acquire new skills.

You can also solve universal problems: Businesses want more revenue, and people want to be more productive.

Finally, you can upgrade a product you or your friends use.

When you get started, ideas don’t matter. Building them does. You’ll discover real problems and get tons of promising ideas.

2/ The 24-hour startup

My 2017 startup failure went like this: I threw away all the code, quit my girlfriend, and moved to a new country.

The more time invested, the higher the expectations.

In the tough world of entrepreneurship where expectations are rarely met, spending months on a product is a recipe for burnout.

Every startup has a 24-hour version: Airbnb is a spreadsheet, and Instagram is a Google Drive.

Find yours. Remove all non-critical features. Spend a week or two building. Write a good headline and ship with a buy button.

TL;DR;

Building a successful startup is a repetition of tiny failures.

Be comfortable being imperfect. Take action. Now is a good time to write some code.



I share everything I learn as a solopreneur every Saturday morning:

How to find startup ideas, launch fast, and get profitable ↓

https://lnkd.in/dQ_n33mC

I moved my startup office to Japan for a few weeks 🇯🇵

こんにちは


Product idea I don't have time to build:

An app to generate Apple Keynote bento grids like this.

$19 one-time payment (if your design is top notch) or free with watermark (pay to remove)

Goal: make it easy for anyone to create this

It's not a unicorn startup but definitely an app I'd build.

Just like LogoFast
logofa.st 

Their startup office — My startup office


What do you think about this ad for ShipFast?

I'm trying YouTube ads for fun.


@ethansalves made the video 🤩

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