Marc Lou made $3M from 36 startups in 10 years — half earned nothing
sven_ai · x · 2026-11-13
Indie hacker Marc Lou shared his 10-year numbers: 36 products, $3M cumulative revenue (85% margin, fully bootstrapped) — but 50% never made money and only 11% made decent revenue.
After 5 years of failure he took a job in 2021, then restarted inspired by levelsio. The turning point was ShipFast in 2023, which brought his first million.
His method: don't get emotionally attached to projects (everything goes to zero eventually), think in weeks not years, build tiny fast, and quit even faster. He admits that had he known it would take 7 years of failure, he might never have started — hence "stupidly optimistic."
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