I tried ShipFast...and Failed.

Summary

The video discusses the 'ship fast' movement in the dev community, where developers create minimal viable products (MVPs) to quickly validate app ideas. The narrator, a software engineer, shares their experience using Mark Lou's 'ship fast' template to build an affiliate link scraper. Despite the template's efficiency, the project's complexity led to its abandonment, highlighting the challenges of rapid MVP development without compromising on quality or user experience. The narrator reflects on the balance between speed and passion in project development.

Takeaways

• 🚀 The 'ship fast' approach in the dev community involves creating minimal viable products (MVPs) with a single feature and a simple paywall to quickly validate app ideas in the market.
• 💡 The goal is to minimize time and resources spent on an idea that may not be successful, allowing developers to pivot quickly if the MVP doesn't gain traction.
• 🤔 The speaker expresses skepticism about building a sustainable business with 'ship fast' products, especially if they lack passion for the projects and find the process unfulfilling.
• 🌐 Successful 'ship fast' entrepreneurs like Mark Lou have a significant online presence, which raises questions about the feasibility of the approach for developers without a pre-existing audience.
• 🛠️ The speaker purchased Mark Lou's 'ship fast' template to streamline the development process, despite initial hesitations about its quality due to the creator's self-proclaimed lack of development skills.
• 🔍 The speaker's project idea was to create an affiliate link web scraper, which was believed to be a useful tool for affiliate marketers based on insider knowledge.
• ⏱️ The development of the affiliate link scraper took 15-20 hours, highlighting the time-saving aspect of using a template for the 'ship fast' methodology.
• 🛑 The project was ultimately shelved due to technical limitations, such as the need for a long-running web scraping script that was incompatible with the 'ship fast' deployment strategy.
• 💡 The experience taught the speaker the importance of aligning the project's technical requirements with the 'ship fast' philosophy and the potential pitfalls of not managing user expectations properly.
• 📉 The speaker ended up with a financial loss from the template purchase and domain registration, but views it as a learning experience and an investment in future projects.
• 🔄 The speaker is still considering a middle ground between 'ship fast' and more developed projects, valuing the importance of passion and quality in software development.

Q & A

What is the 'ship fast' movement in the development community?

The 'ship fast' movement is an approach where developers aim to build and launch very small Software as a Service (SaaS) products with the simplest possible Minimum Viable Product (MVP) as quickly as possible. The goal is to validate the app idea in the market quickly, often using a simple payment wall like Stripe, with no free trials or complex subscription tiers.

What is the primary objective of the 'ship fast' philosophy?

The primary objective of the 'ship fast' philosophy is to validate app ideas in the market as quickly as possible to avoid spending significant time and resources on an idea that may not be successful. If the MVP does not attract paying customers, it is deemed not worth pursuing, minimizing the loss of time and effort.

What are the speaker's initial thoughts on the 'ship fast' approach?

The speaker is initially attracted to the 'ship fast' approach due to their inclination towards having a 'move fast and break things' mentality. However, they express skepticism about the sustainability of a business built on quickly launching minimally viable products without a strong personal connection or challenge.

Who is Mark Lou and what is his role in the 'ship fast' community?

Mark Lou is a well-known influencer in the 'ship fast' community, making tens of thousands of dollars per month from his mini SaaS products. However, a significant portion of his profit comes from selling a project template to his audience, which raises questions about the replicability of his success without a pre-existing online presence.

What skepticism does the speaker express regarding success without a pre-existing online audience?

The speaker is skeptical about whether it's possible to be successful with the 'ship fast' method without a pre-existing online audience, such as a YouTube channel or Twitter presence. They question if simply launching new projects on platforms like Product Hunt for marketing would be sufficient for success.

What did the speaker purchase and why?

The speaker purchased Mark Lou's 'ship fast' template, despite initial hesitation due to Mark's self-proclaimed lack of development skills. They decided to buy it because it uses TypeScript and Superbase, which the speaker finds useful, and they believed it could save them time, especially with the landing page and copywriting aspects.

What was the speaker's project idea using the 'ship fast' template?

The speaker's project idea was to build an affiliate link web scraper, an aggregation tool for affiliate links across the web. They believed this could be a useful tool for people working in affiliate marketing.

Why did the speaker's affiliate link web scraper project not work as a 'ship fast' product?

The affiliate link web scraper project did not work as a 'ship fast' product because the web scraping script took too long to run (an hour), and optimizing it would have violated the 'ship fast' principle. Additionally, hosting such a long-running job on a platform like Vercel, which is typically used for 'ship fast' products, was not feasible, and managing task status on the front end was necessary for a good user experience.

What was the speaker's conclusion about the 'ship fast' approach after their failed project?

After their failed project, the speaker concluded that they might prefer a more balanced approach, working on projects they are passionate about and building them to a certain extent before launching. They believe that even if a fast-ship software fails, it's unclear whether people might have liked the idea more if more care had been put into it.

What financial outcome did the speaker experience with their 'ship fast' project?

The speaker ended up with a negative financial outcome of $180 after spending $170 on the 'ship fast' template and $10 to register a domain for their failed project.

What is the speaker's current status and future plan regarding the 'ship fast' approach?

The speaker is currently working on a more established startup, which is taking up most of their free development time. They plan to keep their audience updated on their progress and will consider trying another 'ship fast' project in the future.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Rapid MVP Development in the Dev Community

The script discusses a trend in the development community where developers aim to quickly build and ship minimal viable products (MVPs) with a single feature, often using a simple Stripe paywall. The goal is to quickly validate app ideas in the market and avoid investing significant time in an idea that may not be viable. The narrator expresses both interest and skepticism about this approach, noting the success of influencers like Mark Lou, who earns substantial income from such mini SaaS products, but also questioning the sustainability of this method without a pre-existing audience. The narrator's personal experience with the 'ship fast' philosophy is shared, including the purchase and use of Mark's template for creating an affiliate link web scraper, which ultimately proved to be too complex for a quick launch due to the time-consuming nature of web scraping and the need for state management.

05:02

🤔 Reflections on the 'Ship Fast' Method and Future Plans

In the second paragraph, the narrator reflects on the challenges and lessons learned from attempting to implement the 'ship fast' method with their affiliate link web scraper project. Despite investing time and money into the project and utilizing the 'ship fast' template, the idea was shelved due to its complexity and the narrator's preference for projects that align with personal passion and a more thoughtful build process. The narrator acknowledges the potential of the 'ship fast' approach but remains uncertain about its suitability for their own work style. They conclude by sharing their current financial status in relation to the project and hint at future attempts, while also balancing their time with work on a more established startup.

Keywords

💡SaaS

SaaS stands for Software as a Service, which is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is provided on a subscription basis over the internet. In the video, the creator discusses building small SaaS products to quickly validate app ideas in the market, emphasizing the importance of rapid deployment and minimal feature sets.

💡MVP

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product, which is a version of a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development. The script mentions creating an MVP for an app with the simplest possible feature set to quickly test market viability.

💡Stripe

Stripe is a technology company that provides services for payment processing, allowing businesses to receive payments online. In the context of the video, Stripe is mentioned as a simple paywall solution for SaaS products, where users must pay to access the feature.

💡Ship Fast

The term 'ship fast' refers to the strategy of quickly releasing a product to the market to validate its demand and gather user feedback. The video discusses the philosophy of 'ship fast' as a way to avoid spending excessive time on development and to quickly pivot if the product does not meet market needs.

💡Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy where businesses reward affiliates for each customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. The script describes an idea for an affiliate link web scraper, which would aggregate affiliate links for a given product across the web.

💡Web Scraper

A web scraper is a software program that extracts information from websites, often used for data mining or data extraction. The video script describes an attempt to build an affiliate link web scraper as a SaaS product, highlighting the challenges of making it viable under the 'ship fast' approach.

💡TypeScript

TypeScript is an open-source programming language that builds on JavaScript by adding static type definitions among other features. The script mentions using TypeScript in the 'ship fast' template, which is a choice that can enhance code reliability and maintainability.

💡Superbase

Superbase is a backend-as-a-service platform that simplifies the process of building and deploying APIs and databases. In the video, the creator mentions using Superbase in conjunction with TypeScript, indicating a preference for streamlined development tools that align with the 'ship fast' philosophy.

💡Product Hunt

Product Hunt is a website that lets users share and discover new products, typically tech startups. The script discusses using Product Hunt as a marketing platform for launching new projects, suggesting it as a potential avenue for gaining visibility without a pre-existing online audience.

💡AWS EC2

AWS EC2, which stands for Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud, is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. The video script mentions the need for an EC2 instance to handle a long-running web scraping task, indicating the limitations of 'ship fast' strategies when dealing with complex backend processes.

💡State Management

State management refers to the process of tracking and updating the state of an application over time. In the context of the video, the creator felt that implementing state management was necessary for a good user experience, even though it could complicate the 'ship fast' approach due to the additional development time required.

Highlights

The movement in the dev community focuses on building and shipping very small SaaS products quickly with a single feature MVP.

Products are often protected by a simple Stripe paywall with no free trials or subscription tiers, aiming for rapid market validation.

The approach avoids spending significant time on an app that may not be marketable, minimizing time and resource loss.

The 'move fast and break things' mentality is appealing to those with many ideas and a desire for quick iteration.

Skepticism exists about the sustainability of businesses built on quickly shipped, minimally featured products.

Concerns are raised about the difficulty of staying motivated when working on projects that do not challenge or excite the developer.

Successful examples like Mark Lou, who makes thousands from mini SaaS, show the approach can work but often relies on a pre-existing audience.

The challenge of success without a significant online presence is questioned, as is the reliance on platforms like Product Hunt for marketing.

The author purchased Mark's 'Ship Fast' template despite hesitation due to his self-proclaimed lack of development skill.

The 'Ship Fast' template uses Next.js with TypeScript and Superbase, providing a basic foundation for rapid app development.

The author's project idea was an affiliate link web scraper, aimed at aggregating links across the web for affiliate marketers.

Coding the MVP took 15-20 hours, and the 'Ship Fast' template saved significant time, especially for the landing page.

The project faced challenges with the web scraping script's runtime, which was not compatible with a fast deployment platform.

Optimizing the script was considered against the 'Ship Fast' philosophy, leading to the decision to not pursue the project further.

The need for state management on the front end to track task status was identified as crucial for a good user experience.

The author ultimately shelved the project due to the complexity of managing state and the long-running background job.

Despite the failure, the author learned valuable lessons and plans to reuse the 'Ship Fast' template for future projects.

The author reflects on the preference for a balance between rapid shipping and building projects with passion and care.

The author is currently at a financial loss due to the investment in the 'Ship Fast' template and domain registration.

The author is working on a more established startup and will update on future 'Ship Fast' attempts in subsequent videos.

Transcripts

by now you've probably seen somewhere

either on YouTube or Twitter X whatever

this movement in the dev Community where

you try and build really small SAS

products and ship them as fast as

possible basically you pick just one

feature the simplest possible MVP for an

app you code just that feature and ship

it usually this is done with a very

simple stripe pay wall so users have to

pay to access your feature but no free

trials or fancy subscription tiers and

the goal is to validate your app idea in

the market as quickly as possible to the

point of being extreme and if no one or

only a very small percentage of your

landing page visitors pay for the

product then you can decide it's not

worth pursuing and you haven't lost much

because you only spent a very small

amount of your time building the MVP

this way the thinking is that you can

avoid wasting a year building an

elaborate and fully fleshed out app idea

only to discover that nobody wants to

pay for it now I'm a person who usually

has a lot of ideas and I kind of like to

have the move fast and break things sort

of mentality so the ship fast approach

kind of appeals to me in that way at the

same time I'm skeptical of a few things

for one thing I think it's very hard to

make a sustainable business as a

developer about something you really

don't care about at all putting out very

partially baked rather poorly coated

software products one after another that

don't challenge you as an engineer or

really do anything very exciting to try

and find things that stick seems to me a

little bit unfulfilling and maybe hard

to stay motivated however after a dozen

or so tries it does seem that this is

definitely working for some people who

kept at it Mark Lou is probably one of

the best known influencers in the ship

fast community and he's making tens of

thousands of dollars per month from

these little mini sass that he's

released the catch is that by far the

vast majority of that profit is coming

from a project template product that he

sells to his own audience which brings

me to my second skepticism is it

possible to be successful at this

without a pre-existing online audience

if you don't want to make YouTube videos

or have a Twitter presence or whatever

and you just want to be a programmer

could you successfully make a profit

using the ship fast method and just

launching your new projects on places

like product hunt for marketing would

that be enough so I was intrigued and I

went ahead and bought Mark's template

which is called ship fast I'll admit I

was a little hesitant because he says

multiple times in his videos quote I'm

not a good developer and so I was like

does it make sense for me a hopefully

decent software engineer to pay for

boilerplate code from someone who's a

self-proclaimed bad programmer but it's

basic enough nextjs stuff that you

really do have to do over and over if

you're creating an app from scratch so

once I saw that he had a version of the

template that uses typescript and super

base I figured why not if it's really

that bad I'll just tweak it and have my

own version that I can reuse my project

idea was to build an affiliate link web

scraper I have reason to believe from

people I know who work in affiliate

marketing that this could be a really

useful tool basically doing affiliate

link aggregation for a given product

across the web so I spent about 15 to 20

hours coding this Mark's template I will

say is great it does what you needed to

do and definitely saves a huge amount of

time for me especially on the landing

page part it guides you through what

kind of copy to use to help you sell

which is something that would take me

ages to do myself even with chat GPT I

was genuinely excited about this and I

was trying to get it out in less than a

week keeping the app as minimal as

possible to stay within the ship fast

philosophy but unfortunately even my

most minimal idea was not minimal enough

because I ended up realizing that it was

not really viable to build something

like this as a ship fast product the web

scraping script I wrote worked great but

it took like an hour to run for various

reasons there were limitations to making

it much faster plus I felt that spending

the time to try to optimize it wouldn't

be aligned with the ship fast principle

but such a long-running job can't be

hosted on a really easy and fast

deployment platform like versell

serverless functions you need something

like an AWS ec2 instance to handle that

kind of task and if you're familiar with

working with AWS you know it is a very

robust platform even using elastic beant

stock the simplest deployment service on

AWS still requires a lot of setup time

and permissioning AWS is just typically

not what I would call a ship fast

strategy for SAS not to mention that

with a long running background job I

would need some way to manage that state

on the front end by keeping track of the

task status in my database so if the

user closed their browser during the

hour the script was running they

wouldn't have to start all over I guess

you could make the argument that to

truly ship fast I could have just

launched without State Management but I

personally felt that was too sloppy even

for an MVP and i' just be processing re

funds for any customers I got because

that would be a really frustrating user

experience ultimately I had to shelf

this I still think it's a decent idea

maybe I'll come back to it at some point

but it wasn't doable to make it a

product I felt good about in a week I

was definitely bummed to have wasted 20

or so hours on it but they say you have

to fail many times with this before you

get your first winner and I did learn

some things along the way particularly

with the ship fast template which I can

hopefully reuse in the future I think

for myself I still suspect I'll prefer a

more happy medium with working on

projects that I have an actual passion

for and are at least a bit more build

tow before launching after all even if

you ship a really fast software and it

fails you'll never know if maybe people

would have liked your idea more if you

put a little more care into it but in

the meantime I spent $170 on the ship

fast template and $10 to register a

domain for my failed project so I'm

currently negative $180 on my ship ship

fast Journey I'll keep you updated on

how it goes if and when I try my next

one I am working on a more established

startup right now so that's taking up

most of my free development time but

subscribe to the channel if you want to

keep up with the progress and I'll see

you soon in another video