🆒 How I'm building 12 badass products this year

What am I doing?

TLDR; I’m setting up a simple system for my code and for my time.

For 2024, I am building 12 products in 12 months.

Like most indie hackers, I have a 9-5 job.

But to kick this challenge up a notch, I’m also a dad of two young kids — a 16 month old and a 3 month old.

The only real time I’ll have to hack on these projects is early mornings and late nights, and maybe during their nap time on the weekends.

Needless to say, a lot of my ideas, and even features, won’t make the cut simply because they require too much effort given the circumstances.

However, that doesn’t mean these products won’t be cool as hell.

These 12 products will be badass.

It just means I have to be super intentional and efficient with my every move — something that hasn’t always been my strong suit.

So if you’re ready for a wild ride, hop in and join me as I share my entire process with you over the course of the year.

I might fail or I might succeed.

Also, since it’s now March 2024, be on the lookout for my next couple of posts which will get you caught up on my January and February projects!

Why am I doing this?

I love building and creating. It’s my “infinite game”.
Hell, I even learned to code because I’ve always had so many ideas that I’ve wanted to build. I could never just be the “idea guy”.

So this year I’m taking my passion for building and supercharging it with a dash of intention and a handful of efficiency so that I can start marching towards my end game.

What’s my end game you ask?

Freedom

Financial freedom, freedom to do whatever I choose with my time, freedom to live life on my terms.

I’ve always had an oddly specific barometer to measure this freedom:

If I ever decided one night that I wanted to travel to, say Tokyo, that my family and I could hop on the next plane that night or the following morning and go — with no repercussions.
No letting my boss know, no planning ahead, no saving up, none of that.
Hell, we could go without suitcases and buy some clothes when we land. And even bring friends.

That’s the long-term goal.

But what about the short term?

To get there, I’ve realized I need to work backwards.

Ship more

It’s simple. I need to get more reps in.

The reason I’m launching 12 products this year is to build my shipping muscle.

No more wantrepreneur shit where I make a logo and a landing page then feel some false sense of accomplishment.

Even with 5 Product Hunt launches under my belt prior to 2024, and a number of other products I’ve built and shown to the world — this year is about shipping.

• No time to get everything pixel perfect.
• No time to add tons of features (that no one wants anyway).
• No overthinking every little detail.

Some projects will succeed. Others won’t. It’s a numbers game.

With each new project, I will get better, and so will the products.

My marketing, sales, positioning, branding, copywriting, and code — all of it improves.

The knowledge gained from each product launch will begin to compound.

Creating a system

For starters — every product I ship will be monetized in some way.

No more “playing house”, no more wantrepreneur shit.
You can read more about that here.

The goal is to make that sweet, sweet internet money from every project.

But monetizing alone won’t help me launch faster.

Building a boilerplate for my stack

In order to move quickly — fix bugs, add features, support customers, and still be a great dad and husband — I need a system.

I wish I had every corner of my system ironed out. I don’t.
But I’m starting with Yet Another Boilerplate™.

That’s low-hanging fruit for speed.

Preferred stack:

• GraphQL
• React
• Nest.js (Not Next.js)
• Prisma
• Postgres
• Tailwind

I move fast and confidently with this setup.

The boilerplate will also include:

• Auth
• RBAC
• Admin dashboard
• Web sockets
• Cron jobs
• Email integration
• Stripe integration
• Frontend components
• Layouts
• Landing pages
• …and more

And yeah, I know what you’re thinking:

“Isn’t this just ShipFa.st by Marc Louvion?”

Yes. It’s my version. One that I can ship fast with.

Scheduled time for deep work

In addition to building faster, I’m becoming more intentional with my time.

I write code nearly every day, but I’ve never scheduled creative work.
Scheduling creativity always felt like the least creative thing.

But creativity ebbs and flows.

And now more than ever, I need order in my schedule to hit all my priorities:

• Family
• Fitness & health
• Day job
• Side projects

I need a structured routine for deep work.
I was inspired by Pat Walls’ post — so I’m following a similar plan.

• Weekdays: 7am–9am
• Weeknights: 9pm–11pm
• Weekends: wildcard, mostly for family

I’ll update you as I dial this in — and I’d love to hear what’s working for you too.