0:00
and I have built 30 plus product. We
0:02
recently crossed $1 million.
0:04
>> This is Sunscar. A few years ago, he was
0:06
working the night shift at a call
0:08
center. But today, he runs eight
0:10
different products that have combined
0:11
made him over $1 million.
0:13
>> We have around thousand uh paying
0:15
customers on a monthly basis. And right
0:17
now, we have zero people in our team.
0:20
>> It's just him building really simple
0:21
apps that solve really simple problems.
0:24
You see, most people think that you need
0:26
one big app idea in order to win. But
0:28
Sunscar proved that he could be
0:29
successful with a portfolio of tiny
0:32
pets. A lot of people watch. Very few
0:34
execute. So if you are going to be the
0:36
one who execute, you'll be by default
0:37
ahead of every other person. So I asked
0:39
him to come on the channel and break
0:41
[music] down the system behind
0:42
everything that he does. And in this
0:43
video, we're going to talk through the
0:45
eight different products that he's built
0:46
that were successful and a bunch that
0:48
weren't, how he finds ideas that
0:50
actually have a shot at making money,
0:52
and the exact steps that he would follow
0:54
if he was building a product today from
0:55
scratch. This one is going to be fun.
0:57
Let's dive in. I'm Gus and this is
1:02
All right, Sunscar, welcome to Starter
1:04
Story. Super excited to have you on the
1:06
channel. Could you share with us who you
1:07
are, what you built and what's your
1:09
story? So, my name is Sanskar. I am from
1:11
Bangalore, India and I have built 30
1:13
plus products out of which eight ended
1:15
up making revenue. I run this company
1:17
alone and today I want to break down all
1:19
the eight products, how I found each
1:22
idea, how I build it and uh where they
1:24
are. That's one of the reasons I wanted
1:25
to have you on the channel is because
1:27
you've built and launched all these
1:28
projects. That's kind of how I found you
1:30
online. So, could you just walk through
1:31
what are all the projects you built at a
1:33
high level and then what are the eight
1:34
that you mentioned that are the ones
1:36
that have made money? Okay. So, I have
1:38
built more than 30 products. You can
1:40
find the list of all the products on my
1:44
The biggest app of mine is magic
1:46
slides.app. It basically helps you
1:48
convert any sort of document, PDF files,
1:50
YouTube video into a full-fledged
1:52
presentation which you can export in
1:54
PPDX and edit it. We have a editor as
1:56
well. Number two, ask video is basically
1:59
an application which helps you talk to
2:01
video. You can just provide it a YouTube
2:03
URL and you'll be able to talk to it.
2:05
Then we have blur web app is a chrome
2:07
extension which helps people hide
2:09
sensitive information in a single click.
2:11
Then there is magic form. So basically I
2:14
built an app for Google sheet which is
2:16
just below which is called sheet AI
2:18
which was to use AI inside Google sheet
2:20
and when that happened $2,000 in MR and
2:23
we got some investor feedback so one
2:25
investor wanted me to create a pitch
2:27
deck and that's the whole like literally
2:28
where the idea came about when that
2:30
happened I was like I have covered
2:32
Google sheet I have covered uh Google
2:33
slides as well shall I build something
2:35
for Google form so uh that's when uh
2:38
magic form happened talking PDF is
2:39
another app similar to ask video PDF
2:41
thing and Um yeah u then few more
2:45
applications are there but these are the
2:47
>> Yeah I love that. I love the idea of
2:49
just having single feature like tiny
2:51
apps. I think that's super super smart.
2:54
Let's move to the let's just talk about
2:56
some of the revenue. So how how much
2:58
money have these products made over
2:59
time? Just give us a little high level.
3:01
So in total we have done around 856 from
3:04
these uh product and the stripe of them.
3:06
Then we have 85,000 plus which we have
3:09
done through appsumos. And in total if
3:11
you talk about we recently crossed $1
3:14
million in total re revenue in last 6
3:16
years. When I say that I want to be very
3:18
clear literally first two years were
3:20
zero and like literally other years were
3:22
like kind of slowly steadying. So it was
3:24
not always and things [music] like that.
3:26
Sunscar is proof that you could be
3:27
successful with a bunch of tiny bets. I
3:30
really hope you're watching this and
3:31
feeling inspired [music] to start
3:32
building your own ideas. If you need
3:33
somewhere to get started, we put
3:35
together the side project ideas
3:36
database. This is a list of over 50 side
3:39
project ideas, all proven and backed by
3:41
real data. Inside this free database,
3:43
you're going to find a ton of
3:44
information like revenue, cost of start,
3:47
growth tactics, basically everything you
3:48
need to validate an idea and go for. So,
3:51
if you want this database, it's 100%
3:53
free. Just grab it at the link in the
3:55
description. All right, let's get back
3:56
to Sunscar. Sunscar. Yeah, I think this
3:58
is super cool to see all the different
4:00
stuff you built, kind of how it's kind
4:02
of compiled over time. like you said I
4:04
think what would you say is like a
4:05
common theme amongst all your projects.
4:07
>> So number one all of my products
4:09
literally all of them you'll find uh
4:11
either their chrome extension uh
4:12
workspace uh add-on which is Google
4:14
workspace marketplace. So that was the
4:16
one clear theme where I was not trying
4:18
to build everything from scratch and uh
4:20
rather trying to find a platform where I
4:22
can do. Another one of that is all of
4:24
them are not like multiple feature. I'm
4:26
very clear that this app does this. The
4:28
point is that when you add too many
4:30
features you don't even know yourself
4:32
what you're selling. The other customer
4:33
also don't know what they're buying.
4:34
They they are like dude tell me what I
4:36
like I'll come for one thing. People
4:38
don't come for 10 different things and
4:39
you're starting you cannot create
4:40
everything. Uh and the third thing is
4:42
understanding. So I launched magic
4:45
slides after 2 years learning how to
4:47
build send simple app. So send simple
4:49
was a Google sheet add-on which helps
4:52
you send email through that like
4:54
directly Gmail your Gmail account. So
4:55
you'll have in emails in the Google
4:57
sheet and you can set the point I'm
4:58
saying that is I knew how to build
5:00
products. That gave me an edge where I
5:02
can understand how much time a product
5:04
creation will take. That helped me
5:06
understand what should I build because
5:07
people are like lost when when you're
5:09
trying to create an app. you were like I
5:11
don't even know how much time it will
5:13
take but if you have some idea that
5:14
would be helpful. I think what I think
5:15
what I like about what you're sharing is
5:16
kind of like the ideas just kind of came
5:18
to you right after doing something or
5:20
talking to someone or learning about
5:21
some little problem and uh I personally
5:24
think that's really really cool that
5:25
you've been able to launch all these all
5:26
these different apps or projects. I want
5:29
to get into kind of your your approach
5:31
to building multiple projects but really
5:32
briefly I want to talk about your
5:34
background. How do you get here that
5:36
you're building 30 plus projects? Yeah.
5:40
I saw this video of a guy who uh shared
5:43
how he built a software sitting in a
5:44
room and he was like I'm selling this
5:46
for 1 cr like which is like hundreds of
5:48
thousands of dollars. So I was like if
5:50
this guy can do it maybe I can too. I
5:52
was very clear to my father I'm not
5:53
doing college. Uh it didn't work out
5:55
because 2 years I did nothing. I was had
5:58
to kind of do something. So what I did
6:00
was I applied for a call center job. I
6:02
worked as a call center. Then I moved to
6:03
a sales job. I did eight months of sales
6:06
job calling people sitting whole day
6:08
just coding again after a while you were
6:10
like not so I came back I'm sitting at
6:11
zero again I was like okay I left the
6:13
job I what what to do now I saw a guy
6:15
who shared signin signup screens 300
6:18
likes how's it like people are
6:19
appreciating and I was like I want to
6:21
share that too I created a GitHub
6:23
account the Indian app guy as username
6:25
and then I uh posted signup sign his
6:27
screen of mine it got very good feedback
6:30
and from then on onwards I was literally
6:32
building to share so I tried to build
6:34
something of my own. I saw levels I io.
6:36
I in the evenings and when I got the
6:38
vacation I tried to build something. I
6:40
launched two products. I was able to
6:41
generate the revenue within 2 days of
6:43
launching the lifetime deals. Uh which
6:45
was myself. So I did that twice and then
6:47
I was finally able to leave the job and
6:49
from then on onwards it has been the
6:51
same journey of just being excited of
6:53
what next to build what we we are going
6:55
to build and it's been an amazing
6:56
journey of launching 30 plus products
6:58
now and doing 1 million.
7:00
>> Yeah. I love I love the like energy
7:03
you're talking about it with. I think
7:04
that's super cool and I think yeah I I
7:06
also think it's really cool kind of the
7:07
background you came from where you kind
7:09
of had to really learn everything really
7:10
from scratch. So congrats on this
7:12
journey. I think that's really awesome.
7:14
Let's switch a little bit. So I think or
7:15
one of the main reasons I wanted to have
7:16
you on the channel Ryan is because
7:18
you've built all these projects. So
7:20
Sunscar I'm really curious how do you
7:22
come up with all these app ideas? Do you
7:24
have a process that you follow for
7:25
coming up with different app ideas?
7:27
Today if I were to find ideas what I
7:30
will do is number one uh the trust MR
7:32
platform which I have showed you is a
7:34
very interesting place where you can
7:35
kind of see revenue and stuff of
7:37
companies. The other place which is very
7:39
good is Twitter. I'm very active there
7:41
and I feel once you start liking the
7:43
right post following the right people
7:45
you are going to get inspired so much.
7:47
You will be able to come up with better
7:49
idea and everything if you execute. A
7:52
lot of time what people feel is they
7:54
should be ready from the day one with
7:57
the best idea in the right idea. If I
7:59
would have tried that I would never have
8:02
launched 30 like keep in mind I for
8:04
people who think why I did the 30 is
8:06
because first year I just did one and I
8:08
realized that I was trying to sell
8:11
something which people might not even
8:13
want. So this part which is very
8:15
important keep iterating because you'll
8:18
also be able to start thinking it in a
8:20
way where you'll understand maybe I
8:21
should try this a maybe I should try
8:22
that. One more way is that basically
8:25
solving your own problem. Solving your
8:27
own problems is a very interesting way
8:29
of doing this. Just keep in mind I feel
8:31
a lot of people are taking it wrong in a
8:34
way of they are college students or
8:36
someone who won't pay for things and
8:38
they will try to solve their own
8:39
problems. Make sure whatever the problem
8:41
you're solving, there are people who can
8:43
pay because this whole indie hacking
8:46
everything works only if there is
8:47
revenue. Is the other people valuing
8:49
your product enough to pay for it? If it
8:51
is not, either you're targeting wrong
8:53
people or you're not solving the rights
8:55
problem. The other thing is um put buy
8:58
buttons before you even create the
8:59
product. This is very interesting and
9:01
honestly speaking even I didn't follow
9:03
it for a very long time. I am builder. I
9:05
love building, right? And when you love
9:07
building, you get too much into the uh
9:09
details of it. You forget that hey, you
9:12
got to launch first. Now I can just
9:13
place the buy button. If people are
9:15
buying, then I'll create that. So that
9:17
is another way. Whatever idea you have,
9:18
like literally after watching this
9:20
video, you're like, I have this idea.
9:22
I've been wanting to create it. Maybe I
9:23
should figure out how to build. No, just
9:25
take 5 minutes. Create a simple page.
9:27
Use any uh V coding tool. Create a
9:29
simple page of that. Hey, I'm selling
9:31
this. It's available pre-order. just
9:32
mark the date to be 10 to 30 days
9:34
whatever you feel I will be able to make
9:36
a minimum viable product of and you are
9:37
like uh it will be available within 10
9:39
days or 30 days of your purchase and
9:41
when you get your first sale then you
9:43
start the 10 10 days timer right so it's
9:45
a very interesting way so that is
9:46
another way which I'll suggest a lot of
9:48
people cool so that's I love the idea of
9:50
like put buy buttons and see if people
9:52
even want it before you build it so so
9:54
let's say there is an idea that you're
9:55
ready to build what is your build
9:57
process uh talk us through at a high
9:59
level how you do it and then some of the
10:02
So if you want to build a web
10:03
application, here's the DAX stack which
10:05
I use. I use NextJS for the coding. For
10:08
back end, I use Superbase plus
10:10
Cloudflare. Then when it comes to
10:12
sending emails, I have been recommending
10:13
two different solutions. Number one, I
10:15
use resend. The other way which I do use
10:18
is appcript. But now the main part which
10:20
is actually doing all this is not done
10:22
by me madly, it's done by clock. So
10:24
obviously you build all these products
10:26
and it's obviously really awesome that
10:28
they exist. just walk us through at a
10:30
high level how how do you get customers
10:31
for these? How do you tell people about
10:33
uh the different products that you
10:34
built? I got my first sale through
10:37
Facebook. I was going into Facebook
10:39
groups and I found a group which had the
10:42
target audience which I made the product
10:45
for. Now if I tell about the other part,
10:48
I started sharing on Absumo platform. So
10:50
I launched there and again I got sales
10:52
from there. Then I started doing content
10:54
on YouTube. So a lot of people feel that
10:56
they need to be ready today to uh able
10:59
to do content. This was me 5 years ago.
11:02
You can see I didn't had a good setup.
11:04
You can I was not prepared at all. But I
11:06
didn't let that stop me. I realized that
11:08
the power of content is amazing. If you
11:11
just put yourself out there, you'll get
11:13
I made a new channel for every single
11:15
product, right? I created a for magic
11:18
slides for sheeti for everyone and I
11:19
created content around that because if
11:22
you create a single page which is
11:24
talking about different application
11:25
you're just confusing because my apps
11:27
were not all just for one audience right
11:28
they were for different different
11:29
audience the best part about YouTube is
11:31
the longevity which means the video you
11:34
create 5 years ago can generate sales
11:36
even today so if you see here oldest
11:38
video this is like 3 years ago yeah this
11:40
is literally magic slides similarly if
11:42
you search for magic form you'll see
11:44
this one this is magic form same thing
11:46
and you'll see this thing 1 lakh 45,000
11:49
views new channel it's all organic right
11:52
then we have sheetaiapp you see here it
11:55
also have close to 2,000 um and if you
11:57
go popular 17,000 10,000 7,000 this
12:00
helped me grow to 2,000 plus mr all by
12:03
creating content on YouTube the other
12:05
platform is this Instagram in today's
12:08
age I feel Instagram is must so
12:11
Instagram gives you a very good on if
12:13
you post today you'll be able to get
12:14
that now My journey on Instagram has
12:17
been what I have done in other places
12:18
and what I have been doing with apps. I
12:21
feel I am not expert in it. I know this
12:25
will work. So what I did I launched
12:26
multiple application. So I was literally
12:28
posting 10 videos. They were literally
12:30
me holding my phone. This app helps you
12:32
do this this this. I'll record that.
12:34
Open edits app Instagram edits app. You
12:37
just add title through that and caption
12:39
and post. Within 1 hour I was able to
12:41
post 10 videos. Keep in mind I was like
12:43
I don't know what what is going to work.
12:45
I am just going to push content and I
12:47
have been active. So that is the other
12:48
way. I think I think the theme here is
12:50
like you tried a lot of different
12:52
experiments. So like you kind of had an
12:54
idea, you built it, you kind of saw what
12:55
happened and what did work, you doubled
12:57
down on it or built another version of
12:58
it or whatever. Same with the content,
13:00
you know, post 10 videos, see which one
13:02
gets the most views. Do something like
13:04
that again tomorrow. Hopefully someone
13:05
watching, if you're watching at this
13:06
point in the video, is seeing like that
13:08
they don't have to make like one big
13:10
bet. you know, you can make a lot of
13:12
tiny bets kind of like you've had both
13:14
with content, both with your projects
13:15
and maybe that's one of the reasons
13:17
you're successful. So, I think that I
13:18
think that's really really cool. Cool,
13:20
Sunscar. Well, that leads me to our last
13:22
question, which is a question we ask
13:23
everyone that comes on starter story.
13:25
You know, if you could stand on your
13:26
shoulders from five five six years ago
13:28
when you started this or you know,
13:30
again, for that person watching [music]
13:31
who is just getting started, what would
13:34
be like one final big piece of advice
13:36
that you would give to yourself from
13:38
back then or give to somebody watching?
13:40
So the advice which I will give to my
13:41
younger self is the biggest mistake
13:44
which I did which was kept working on a
13:46
single thing even when it was not
13:48
working. I was trying to sell something
13:50
which I thought will be great and I was
13:52
like why are these people not using it?
13:54
I think this is great. To summarize it
13:55
in a single word it's put more biotins
13:58
on the internet. If you don't have an
14:00
option for people to pay you're not even
14:02
letting the god make the magic happen. I
14:05
hear talk to people and I am like hey
14:08
how are you doing there? like I want to
14:10
learn something. I also want to do the
14:11
side hustle. I want to make some money.
14:13
I was like is there a way for people to
14:15
buy something from me? Their answer is
14:17
always. So if you are someone who wants
14:19
to make money, who wants to generate
14:20
income, close your eyes and tell me how
14:22
many buy buttons do you have. If you
14:24
have zero, then you have your answer. If
14:26
you have few, you have your answer to
14:28
increase that. I would have told myself,
14:30
Sanscar, stop trying to add more
14:32
features. Put the buy button.
14:34
>> That's super great advice, Sanscar.
14:36
Thank you so much for breaking
14:37
everything down, talking about your
14:39
process, how you find ideas. This was
14:41
really, really awesome. Leave a comment
14:42
for Sunscar or any questions you might
14:44
have and we'll try to answer them in the
14:46
comments. If you're going on this
14:47
journey and you want some learnings and
14:49
everything, I'm documenting my whole
14:51
journey, everything I learn on a
14:53
day-to-day basis. And if you have any
14:54
questions, you can connect me with uh
14:56
with me on Instagram and uh message me
14:58
and I do reply. Always happy to help
15:01
because I know how impactful this can
15:03
>> But man, thanks for joining. Appreciate
15:05
it. Thank you for having me. It was
15:07
>> Okay, I just wrapped up with Sunscar.
15:08
That was a really fun conversation. One,
15:10
I love his energy. I think he's like a
15:12
cool dude and I loved his like passion.
15:14
I could you could just like feel it
15:15
hopefully if you watched the whole
15:16
video. But I kind of said this somewhere
15:18
in the middle of the interview which is
15:19
my biggest takeaway is to run like a
15:22
bunch of experiments. He kind of in one
15:24
year he launched one product and for
15:26
whatever reason you know they didn't
15:27
that didn't work out and so he sort of
15:29
shifted his mindset to launch a bunch of
15:31
different things uh until you know
15:33
something worked. Now, I know there's
15:34
debate on whether you should really
15:36
focus on one thing or if you should
15:37
focus on a bunch of different projects.
15:39
You know, I I think you could win either
15:41
way and we have examples of that on the
15:42
channel, but the experiments part I
15:45
think is what is cool [music] because
15:46
when he was just getting started or if
15:48
you're just getting started, you you
15:49
don't know, you know, you don't know
15:50
what's going to work. You don't know
15:51
what is not going to work. And so, if
15:53
you run a bunch of experiments, you
15:54
launch a bunch of stuff, you're going to
15:56
get the signal you maybe need to [music]
15:58
to know whether you should or you
16:00
shouldn't go down a path. And then the
16:01
last thing is to take the same approach
16:04
when it comes to content. And I'm so
16:06
vict I fall victim to this of like
16:08
wanting it to be perfect or you know
16:09
feeling stupid if it's not good enough.
16:11
Whereas his approach was just like I
16:12
just record myself boom boom post it
16:14
[music] and done. I don't even think
16:15
about it anymore. And he uses that kind
16:18
of as well as like an experiment ground
16:20
to see like what people connect to, what
16:22
people don't connect to. And I think
16:24
that's something I'm going to try to
16:25
adopt a little bit more. So yeah. Um
16:27
this is a really fun interview. I hope
16:28
you I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you
16:30
enjoyed learning from him and his
16:31
process, how he finds ideas, how how he
16:33
builds them. If you are ready to start
16:35
building your own projects, we have a
16:36
link in the description to a database of
16:38
a bunch of ideas that you could get
16:40
[music] inspiration from, validate, and
16:42
start building yourself. So, that's it
16:44
for this episode. Thank you guys so much
16:46
for watching. We will see you in the
16:47
next [music] one. Peace.
