3 builders who never spoke to each other

Expect almost everything you release to fail

Across a decade of consistent shipping the hit rate is brutal: most products earn nothing, a couple reach real money and typically one replaces a salary. Volume of attempts, not the quality of any single bet, is what eventually produces a result, so judge yourself on the inputs you control and keep the mediocre releases coming.

The method

1. 01

   Expect nearly everything you release to fail and the result to arrive after years of repeated attempts rather than from a single hit.

2. 02

   Release a large number of small products and accept that only a tiny fraction will find a market at all.

3. 03

   Expect a very low hit rate even over a decade of consistent shipping: most products earn nothing, a couple reach real money, and typically only one gets anywhere near replacing a salary.

4. 04

   Quantity has to come before quality; you cannot reach the good work without shipping the mediocre work first.

5. 05

   Accept that you control the inputs and not the result: you can build and market as hard as you like without determining how much sells, so judge yourself on effort and survival rather than the weekly number.

What it returned

• 98%

  Ten years of attempts, 98% of projects failed, ending at $100k a month.

• $100k

  Of roughly twenty-something products Zue built over ten years, five made some money, two made at least $100k, and only Pegasus reached salary-replacement level

• Four of more than seventy projects made money and grew.

• Zue has built several products that failed outright and publishes the full list of a decade of projects

Sources

• 100 Scrappy ThingsFlorin Pop · florin-pop.com · 100 Scrappy Things · 2024-09-03
• @levelsio's blogPieter Levels · levels.io · Overnight success is the biggest myth: 10 years and 98% failed projects to make $100k/mo · 2018-12-27
• The Sport of Indie HackingCory Zue · coryzue.com · 2023-11-27
• When the line stops going upCory Zue · coryzue.com · The scary possibility of starting over · 2025-12-30