I built a startup in 31 hours (SaaS)

The startup is ZenVoice, a no-code tool for Stripe users to generate invoices without paying the 0.4% fee: zenvoice.io/
I forgot to mention I used AI heavily to code fast: I use GitHub Copilot and my boilerplate ShipFast. Copilot already has an entire codebase with database models, API routes, etc.. so I type English and AI writes functional code.
🔗 All my startups - www.marclou.com
⚡️ Ship your startup in days, not weeks - shipfa.st/
💡 Newsletter for solopreneurs (20K readers) - marclou.beehiiv.com/
📸 Instagram - / marclouvion
💼 LinkedIn - / marclouvion
🐦 Twitter - / marc_louvion
0:00 Intro
0:28 Startup ideas
1:59 Shipping fast
6:53 Launch and 1st customer
8:30 Should I focus or move on?
9:35 Outro

[@marc-lou]

14,631 readers get my newsletter every Saturday morning - marclou.beehiiv.com I share everything I learn as a solopreneur: How to find startup ideas, launch fast, and get profitable. No spam, sponsorship, or email retargeting BS - Just my thoughts and learnings.

[@konstantinl6131]

which analytics tool do you use for your website visitors?

[@Silb0tic]

This is insane. I am always overthinking my ideas and then I am to overwhelmed with everything and let the idea down. You show the right spirit.

[@justcode.4641]

same there

[@vulturebeast]

Same with me bro it sucks ngl

[@pauleboselume3369]

So true bro

[@gbfreddy7235]

Same! I know I want to build something, but then think too hard about it. haha.

[@omilaW]

Same here mate, getting overwhelmed is a startup killer.

[@nonefvnfvnjnjnjevjenjvonej3384]

speed is everything. i was a staff developer at a faang and i now run a 1 person agency where i build the first version of a product for $5000 in 2 weeks. that is the guarantee. i work with people, trim the product and build it on a stable stack in 2 weeks so that they can go and test different messages and marketing about the product. most people take so long to build the first version and launch. at this point i have seen so many of these that i know in almost any industry what the saas product should be like. speed is everything.

[@Codemakesense]

Hey mate can we have a talk i recently learned devlopment can we work together or something.

[@myotun9271]

how did you get it built for $5000, and in 2 weeks?

[@jon9103]

Sounds like a substantial pay cut unless there is more to the story.

[@nonefvnfvnjnjnjevjenjvonej3384]

@@Codemakesense sorry i cant control the speed if it i hire more right now.. :(

[@nonefvnfvnjnjnjevjenjvonej3384]

@@myotun9271 what do you mean how? like i write the code to build it? 5000 is what i charge which includes making sure the app is going to do the right things and nothing else. maybe clarify your question a bit if i am getting something wrong.

[@matteomustermann2492]

45k/month is crazy, amazing job. This is not some hustler course that gets selled to use people as the source of money but an actual helpful and well made video

[@matten_zero]

This is actually pretty wise. I'm building and Everytime I get the urge to add a feature, I have to write it down and tell my self "ship the MVP" first. This was a nice reminder thank you!

[@Mujahedeen_]

Bro just explained everything in 9 minutes unlike those crap who waste hours to deliver shits. Bro deserves millions views. Take love.

[@nadraqamariabintemohamedsa3173]

no-nonsense stuff. you're a top tier creator, marc

[@PhilsRealm]

Really good advice! I used to work as a Product Manager of a SaaS like product and it is so hard to stay focused on one feature, but so valuable! So much time is wasted because you get pressured into edge case features that seem super important.

[@benSfft]

Build fast, fail fast ! You're video is awesome dude ! You're totally right because a couple of years ago, I created a startup that ultimately failed because I was too focused on features that did not bring the main added value to my customers... Moreover I liked that you confessed in a previous video that you failed as a software engineer but instead has a agile mindset focused on product that can bring revenue ! Merci encore, tu m'as redonné l'envie d'ouvrir VScode et de coder des petits projets à tester sur le marché 🙏

[@tomhirst8679]

Just purchased ship fast, I came across I've come across it organically in the past and your content has pushed me to buy, can't wait to get started!

[@nikolai.kolosov]

Thanks for the video, Marc. I think that making startups in your manner is also good method to improve hard skills and educate yourself in general. Good luck!

[@ajlive6737]

Thank you for sharing your experence with micro saas. Myself also a full stack developer had some failed SAAS products. i was good at making but bad at marketing. your videos giving me ideas to make my saas ideas to life. Thanks for sharing .

[@arturiooo]

I have build a big saas before, bootstrap, solo, and I find this video to be super valuable for folks like us

[@pablovaldes2397]

priceless perspective, this taught me so much, thank you man

[@pedroaquino3042]

Thanks Marc, really appreciate by sharing this content! Best of luck 🎉

[@smovie9]

Love the video Marc! Been following you for a while now on twitter, great to see you in my recommendations.

[@buildwithbakir]

So helpful! ❤️ This is going to save me from many mistakes and wasting my time. I‘m just about to wrap up and launch. Now I know what to build (no free tier and only one product) and what prices tiers to pick.

[@ad98yt]

Thank you for creating this! What an eye-opening video. Huge respect for you Marc 🙏

[@AeoJx]

Very interesting marc! Loved your simplified (slightly unconventional) philosophy and quick deployment

[@SwiftUIForBeginners_TY]

Really nice tips I love the idea of making just 1 feature.. that is super helpful. Also speed is great because the less "attached" we become to the product before validating it the better!

[@milseq]

I love your fast shipping methodology!

[@thatnikita]

oh man, you're a rockstar! Really valuable takes on indie-making

[@nicobuildspublic]

This video is so helpful! Really good breakdowns, and I love your business-model around the product! Made me think I should move from subscription to one-time fee as well

[@Inspired_JG]

Very direct and straight to the point. Solid video.

[@synwix]

Love these type of videos of yours!

[@Chiragsharma-gi1eb]

Great job on building a startup in such short time! 👏

[@rocketPower047]

I love how you manage your product lines like a stock portfolio. You're basically working off expectancy

[@zilvestro1]

You are awesome, Marc! We can learn so much from you.. love your videos

[@abcsofai]

Great video! Building something right now thanks for all the info!

[@MichealPeggins]

This was incredibly insightful and helpful. Thank you!

[@Warmatx68]

Clearing the path like that is very helpfull, thank for your explanation

[@mlanc7775]

This is really great. I wish I could think on a smaller scale like this. Often times my ideas are too large and scary and probably wouldn’t even succeed if I did know where to start. But this was such a simple idea for a simple need..

[@affrokilla]

The Zenvoice idea is actually genius, great product!

[@ScottJames02]

I love the memes throughout the video, keep em coming!

[@leoingson]

Lots of good information in this video, thanks a lot!

[@majdevelops]

Great value. Appreciate the information conveyed.

[@joshbedo8291]

Dang this is so good this like a masterclass on launching a saas product. Thanks for putting this together im feeling inspired.

[@joshbedo8291]

@marc-lou oh yeah forgot to ask how to you track $ per visitor

[@thesirpython]

Wow! This is a masterclass in under 10min. Impressive!

[@hnnhml]

wow this video is PACKED with value, thank you so much!

[@beehack]

Marc this was your best video very well explained

[@kizo-niklas]

Amazing, seriously so helpful!

[@edson9544]

This video is awesome, so much value!

[@dabi_]

It’s so funny because I literally got asked by my client for an invoice today…so I ended up purchasing your product 🤣 I’d say the single most effective thing for me were 1. the pain point mentioned at the top for VAT is literally the bane of my existence, and 2. one time pricing is a deal. So yep…your startup principles worked on me lol, and I’m glad for it.

[@marc-lou]

Haha nice, let me know if you have any suggestion!

[@nilni]

Learned a lot, thank you marc!

[@callmefred]

I fully agree that shipping fast is the way to go. I've shipped 3 micro SaaS in 6 months and now I'm in position where I can safely ship a new product in a week. All my products are fully AI-coded, all built on the same stack: Flask/Python, HTML, Tailwind CSS, vanilla JS (yup, no framework, to deploy the project as a single Flask web app).

[@henrydeveloper2388]

Thanks for this perk Marc 🤝

[@nils7971]

Hey I mean even if you decide not to focus on it, still reaching out to customers and asking them what could be improved is always a great way to grow it without spending all your time and energy on it

[@frikitdotnet]

ANOTHER MARC LOU VIDEO??? today is good.

[@komikahanda]

Loved your video mate

[@javiasilis]

I've began to indie development, and you've been one of my inspirations. After failing at 5 startups over the last 10 years and 6,000+ hours of investment in them, I've come to the realization of starting small and beginning Indie Hacking. Thank you so much for sharing this video as this will serve as a blueprint for the next weeks of development! While I know that you keep using the same stack over and over again, I've decided to learn something new and different for this adventure (Go + HTMX + HyperScript). I do plan to reuse this structure for all other projects

[@blasttrash]

what were 5 failed startups?

[@akmalsalikhov3732]

One feature mindset is pretty awesome! But finding that one most important feature is sometimes the hardest part

[@sn3lling]

Great video as always 👍

[@zendigitalsolutions]

Awesome, thank you! Subscribed!

[@AlbertKlorer]

Thanks so much for the advice!

[@sebastianfeistl]

I admire the idea of focusing on a single feature. I tend to get lost in the details so much.

[@mathieug.6855]

Great video, well done

Thank you for sharing brother

[@kunalratra7808]

Bro you're the best content creator out there 100% underrated! How can we connect ? Thanks.

[@SonAyoD]

Amazing work

[@simonswiss]

So many nuggets of wisdom here ✨ Sorry to be spamming your KZbin comments lol - really enjoying the creativity and transparency of your content.

[@gregoryubigen]

Excellent video.

[@younesaberkane6721]

This video is a gem

[@gabrielfono844]

Damn I am building my first SASS to help students or anyone in life choose major based on other people experience in the workforce and in school. I am wasting time writing unit and integratinon testing on the backend now and I haven't started the frontend yet ,which is crazy. it is my first building a SASS product Thanks

[@footballuniverse6522]

need help to deploy all of that in a cheap way?

[@Jalgmees]

What a great video thumbnail!

[@thomasthurzo8792]

Hi. Very great content. Thank you

[@billnalen]

Great advice 🙂

[@mahirlabib808]

Thanks for sharing.

[@adnanrruka5152]

This man knows his thing

[@granadamusic]

holy moly wakamole, the new video editor person is fire haha, lets go marc!!

[@marc-lou]

It's actually the last video I edited haha. Appreciate it, man!

[@granadamusic]

taking up too much time then lol, really good work, keep on rockin!!

[@ladgonemad]

It would be nice to give us a video about the tax and how do you manage all that for multiple products. Great videos so far!

[@busimo]

stripe?

[@callmefred]

My advice = do not use Stripe, use Paddle. It's a bit more expensive but it handles VAT & Sales Tax for you, as the merchant of record. It's as easy to implement as Stripe.

[@segu_.]

typescript does slow the process if u want to launch fast , no branches was a sorpise 😂 really good insights marc!

[@cant_sleeeep]

no branch no typescript is the way to go. both are for teams in my opinion

[@arjundureja]

Not sure if dollars earned per visitor is a good metric since you have a pretty large following now. I'm sure a ton of people view your websites just for inspiration, rather than actually being a customer.

[@TheRealMxnny]

Great one

[@supersimple1686]

Hey bro, would you happen to have a recording of the 31 hour stream? I’d love to see more. Thank you

[@irookain5239]

Great Video. Thanks. How did you orginaze all of those projects?

[@ykorshev]

Man you are god. I am building my apps for sport for a few years and not even launched them. I just can’t do simple things. My inner perfectionist are resisting (

[@MdNaimurRahmanHera]

Learned a lot of things. Thank you brother ❤️

[@spirkinp]

Hi Marc! Great video by the way. I am a student, learning programming. I want to ask about the perspective areas in demand. What is your opinion, what is needed now?) (not necessarily from development)

[@andrelimatv]

this is gold

[@KlindCardinale]

Marc, what do you use to design/build your websites? Thanks for the great content man!

[@AndyFitia]

Tout est génial, le contenu et touttt☺️

[@AndyFitia]

Mais honnêtement, je ne capte pas vraiment le domaine d’étude ni le contexte 😅

[@sitrakaforler8696]

That is so fcking cool man T^T I wish to be so productive !

[@lardosian]

Was gonna ask how much focus is on testing, kinda not surprised, I mean that in a nice way!! Your killing it so who gives a sh1t! Your so lucky to not have to deal with the daily grind of a regular software job, it gets tiring very quick.

[@BillTheGreek7]

Loved this GG

[@OA00000]

how much do you co-relate your launch successes to your 80k twitter followers? it feels kinda like a cheat code after you have enough audience

[@austinlance4404]

Every video like this I’ve watched is the same thing, there’s always a point where they “leveraged their audience”.

[@nicolasdiot7007]

And I've needed 31 days to create my first SaaS 😂 How do you manage to be so fast?

[@younesbalah684]

Because this is like his 100th time 🙄

[@nicolasdiot7007]

You're right @@younesbalah684 !

[@guizaoacc]

@@younesbalah684He explained that he does not branch, does not use TS, or wastes time fixing bugs.

[@devanshgarg31]

Lmao

[@nicolasdiot7007]

@@guizaoacc really interesting ! I would do this for my next SaaS thank you 😊

[@oleksandroliynyk8437]

That’s very inspiring! Thanks for sharing! I wonder how do you maintain all these without types. Is it taking a reasonable amount of time to fix older projects? Do you support moneybacks in case users don’t like the service?

[@marc-lou]

I barely have any bugs because I reuse the same tech stack. Yes, I refund all the time if it's asked politely :)

[@viraclip8022]

marc! Can you make a video on how you built PoopUp? I love it and would love to learn more on how you built it

[@marc-lou]

Exactly what I was working on! Coming this week :)

[@Aspiiire]

Just got Laid off, this video is super helpful thank you so much, tbh i need money asap

[@semsomify]

Thanks for sharing all this information Marc. So inspiring! I have a question please. You are always in favor of asking customers to pay once for the product and then it's theirs forever. My question is: How do you make sure that you can continue to serve them if it turns out they're a heavy user? Also, what if the business flops and you wanna discontinue the service? Would that cause any legal issues with customers that already paid for the service?

[@cerinoivan]

good for you

[@theaimuse]

You forgot the part where you spent years learning to code :D Great video though! Thanks

[@VideO__HuB]

Idea ❌ ide ✅

[@ThePharaohsCat]

Great value. 🔥 Thumbnail had me in 2 minds on clicking. Returning to web ventures after a long gap, and things have really moved. No need for long hours php coding that site. What platform you used for the product showcase site? Webflow or similar?

[@marc-lou]

Good to hear! It's hard coded with my little hands 😁

[@LucasLtb]

Hi Marc, that was a great video, but I was wondering where I could find your 31-hour live video? I want to create my first SaaS, and I think it would help me a lot. Thanks!

[@marc-lou]

Sure, it's here: www.youtube.com/@marc-lou/streams

[@jonyfrany1319]

AMAZING

[@samosborne]

Still waiting to learn what your alternative to french autoentrepreneur was 😉 Looking forward to seeing what your 3 month long project is gonna be !

[@marc-lou]

Still a french solopreneur... INPI didn't close my status yet 😅 On the road for this year: - corp in SG - tax resident in Bali

[@samosborne]

@@marc-lou awesome 😎

[@evanethens]

The day (if) i cross 90, i might remember 5 things only...you my friend, will be on that 5 thing list....i bow down to your content and your consciousness.. For things that i m struggling with, have never been understood so well. Ayushmaan Bhava ❤

[@nemethricsi]

Hi Marc! I love your videos! I understood they you ship products very fast. How much energy is needed to maintain such a lot of products over time?

[@marc-lou]

Not much as I build them to be self sustainable > barely any customer support

[@nemethricsi]

@@marc-lou thank you for your response! What I mean is are you upgrading packages to the latest etc?

[@kno2843]

Looks good, is the livestream where you build the website still on KZbin? I am really interested how publishing a Website looks and how to track all the traffic and so on. Thanks :)

[@marc-lou]

100% it's on my /live section of my channel :D

[@kno2843]

@@marc-lou awesome, thaaaanks