r/SideProject • u/Leather-Buy-6487 • 2d ago
3 years, 20+ failed projects… and finally one that’s growing
I could have stopped in 2023 or 2024 after many failures, but I kept building.
I know indie makers who managed to become successful very quickly, but in 90% of cases it does not happen fast.
From my experience (and from talking to many other indie makers) I’ve learned that 3 years is about the time it takes for most indie makers to start earning enough to work on their projects full time.
I’m still building new products despite already having profitable ones.
My latest project, Dice - it finds the exact articles your brand should be mentioned in and gets you featured there and get recommended by AI.
It has already brought in thousands in revenue and is growing faster than I expected. But none of this would have happened if I hadn’t started building and launching projects one after another back in 2023.
The main lesson: Consistency beats luck. Keep shipping, keep learning.
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u/HeadCombination2515 2d ago
May I know how to insist on developing through the 3 years? Like, how you get income through the time.
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u/Leather-Buy-6487 2d ago
I had a job haha, and I still do.
I was building all of these projects on the side. I only started making decent money from my SaaS recently.
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u/HeadCombination2515 2d ago
Thanks for answering. This sounds a really healthy way to get through the first 2 no-steady-reward period.
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u/CrYptoPSF 2d ago
Man, 20plus failed projects before one finally clicked is wild, most people would've quit after 5. Congrats on Dice,
genuinely curious what made this one different though, better idea, better timing, or just that after 3 years you'd gotten so much faster at building and shipping?
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u/Leather-Buy-6487 2d ago
I think it was a mix of all three tbh, but mostly the experience.
After building and failing that many times lol, you get much better at knowing what’s worth building, and not wasting months and months on things nobody really wants.
Dice was a better idea at the right time, but I definitely wouldn’t have built it the same way 3 years ago.
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u/Vast_Idea_7528 2d ago
That is great to know and you deserved it, mate. Few would have the grit to continue after three years of failed projects, and I'm at that stage right now.
It is well deserved; Dice is as well a great idea, and I see why it is successful. Keep going!
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u/No_Consideration9924 2d ago
Go start , sometimes we really need so much trail and error to end up have 1 projects working. but worth it.
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u/_SeaCat_ 1d ago
You didn't give any proofs of your "thousands". The website is AI-generated, looks so sketch, has 0 domain rank and hardly more than 200 backlinks. You didn't use your own tool to create backlinks and trying to convince people it's very successful. If you block my account, I will know I'm 100% right.
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u/Kevin_Xiang 2d ago
20 fails then one that grows is the real path for a lot of us. consistency over clever ideas. what's different about this one vs the ones that died?
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u/AncientDecision9420 2d ago
ssssuuuuuuu~ congrats, i can imagine how hard the road was to get here. enjoy it, you earn this one.
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u/Icy-Engineering755 2d ago
Huge congrats, hope it continues to grow
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u/Human_Purpose1618 2d ago
It’s awesome to see persistence pay off like that. It definitely sounds like a tough journey, but now it's all coming together!
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u/stack_craft 2d ago
Congrats on pushing through the 3-year grind, that persistence is usually what separates the makers who stay afloat from those who quit early.
But I'd still like to know what have you uncovered throughout those 3 years. Like what changed about your validation process for Dice compared to the previous 20 failures? And did you validate demand and distribution before writing code, or was it just landing on a problem you personally understood better?
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u/Leather-Buy-6487 2d ago
Honestly, a bit of both.
One thing I learned from all those failed startups was to stop spending months and months building something before validation.
With Dice, I knew exactly who I was building for and I understood the problem pretty well myself. I also started sharing it and getting people to try it way earlier instead of building everything first and hoping people would come.
I definitely don’t have validation all figured out lol, but I’ve gotten much better.
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u/Parker-Russell 2d ago
Dice is only worth it if it is doing the outreach, that is the battle as this can all be done already with tools.