From $6k to $16k

On the road from $6k in 2022, to $16k in 2023, what made all the difference?

Last year, I shared hard truths, thought about what I can do, asked friends on X for ideas. And then I executed like hell.

Today, 1 year on, want to take a moment to recap if whatever I planned had actually worked…

Last year the broad intentions were to:

• Increase revenue of existing projects
• Find new sources of indie revenue
• Cut costs

Specifically, I wanted to do these:

1. Double down on Plugins to increase revenue - launch more free and paid plugins, buy more ads, find more distribution channels, affiliates.
2. Continue building Lifelog - side project weekend is working, keep going.
3. Pivot the half-completed projects, to see if they bring in new revenue sources - Sheet2Bio, Career Conversation Cards, Inclusive Design SG.
4. Launch completely new products to create fresh income streams. Truth is, diversity in my portfolio was down. Launch info products, digital downloads, single feature micro SaaS.
5. Build something based off my Twitter audience? Some Twitter tool, info product, community?

And what actually happened, what brought results and what didn’t:

1. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ I launched 12 plugins in 12 months of 2023. Increased distributions channels massively – last count was about 40 channels. Ads and affiliates didn’t work though…
2. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Proud to have shipped 30 new features on Lifelog in 2023. Getting there on the road to being feature-complete. But no increase in MRR.
3. 🌚 No work done there for half-completed projects like Sheet2Bio, Career Conversation Cards.
4. ⭐️⭐️ For paid products, I only launched Lists Kit, my HTML boilerplate. Did good shipping it. It got a few purchases but didn’t do well at launch on X. I need to build more, ship more, launch more! And more different things.
5. ⭐️ I did launch a few small projects based off my Twitter audience, like Commit365, SaaS Starters directory. But none paid.

So basically, my Carrd plugins carried the portfolio from $6k to $16k.

So what should I do next?
What should I continue doing?
What new things should I do?

• First things first: Keep growing my Carrd plugins. Let’s not be one of those indie hackers who refused to acknowledge the goldmine they are standing right under, because they were distracted by a shiny new thing elsewhere.
• Launch 10x more things, but not in vastly unfamiliar markets that I have 10x no clue about. Launch 10x more things in markets and problem space I am at least somewhat familiar in, or ideally, deeply competent in. Going for volume is great, but it must be more selective and targeted in order for quantity to lead to quality.
• Then, the key question is how to I hit $10k/m? Don’t earn my way up, solve a big enough problem to earn that right away, a problem big enough that fit my goal. Don’t dream incrementally just because I work incrementally and consistently!

Anything else I should try?