How I Finally Built a $10K/Month SaaS (30 Failures)
Starter Story
Aug 23, 2025
This is the story of how Thomas Sanlis failed 30 projects, and then finally found his successful idea, Uneed, that now makes $10K/month.
Get design inspiration from the world's best apps → https://go.starterstory.com/thomas
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Follow Thomas: https://x.com/T_Zahil
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🏁 We're hiring: starterstory.com/jobs
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:05 - Who is Thomas
1:21 - 30 failed projects
2:23 - Why projects fail
4:27 - Uneed: the successful project
5:15 - Timing behind Uneed
5:58 - Get design inspiration for your app
6:53 - Good VS bad idea
8:10 - Numbers behind Uneed
9:10 - Tech stack
9:50 - Build a lifestyle business
11:08 - The final word
This video is an educational case study of one founder’s experience. It is not financial advice and does not guarantee any income or results. Every business is different and your results may vary.
Chapters
Stack
Transcript
Chapters
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No tools listed for this business.
We
get
the
same
complaints
on
every
YouTube
video
You
just
talk
about
successful
ideas
but
what
about
the
failures
I
hear
you
and
I
get
it
So
today
we're
doing
something
a
little
different
Today
we're
talking
to
Thomas
a
guy
who's
failed
with
over
30
ideas
I
failed
way
more
often
than
I
ever
succeeded
After
failing
with
over
30
ideas
over
many
years
something
finally
clicked
Yeah
it
started
to
grow
step
by
step
until
I
reached
10
000
of
revenue
last
month
In
this
video
Thomas
breaks
down
the
five
core
reasons
why
your
project
will
fail
what
he
thinks
makes
a
good
idea
and
what
makes
a
bad
idea
and
why
his
new
project
finally
worked
and
made
10
000
a
month
I
wasn't
even
sure
this
would
ever
work
Thomas's
journey
is
what
it
actually
looks
like
to
build
a
successful
business
and
this
video
might
change
how
you
think
about
building
online
forever
A
lot
of
indie
hackers
especially
developers
don't
realize
this
All
right
let's
get
into
it
I'm
Pat
Walls
and
this
is
Starter
Story
All
right
welcome
Thomas
to
the
channel
Tell
me
about
who
you
are
what
you
built
and
what's
your
story
My
name
is
Thomas
Sanlis
and
I'm
the
founder
of
YouNeed
YouNeed
is
a
product
and
alternative
that
makes
10
000
per
month
But
before
this
I
launched
more
than
30
projects
that
all
failed
One
of
the
reasons
why
I
wanted
to
bring
you
on
this
channel
is
that
you
have
built
a
ton
of
stuff
and
most
of
them
failed
Lots
of
different
projects
Can
you
just
tell
me
about
some
of
the
projects
you've
built
I
built
Gum
Affiliates
It
was
a
marketplace
to
connect
gumroad
sellers
with
affiliates
I
think
I
made
something
like
500
from
it
but
I
just
gave
up
after
two
years
I
also
built
a
simple
platform
in
a
day
with
my
girlfriend
called
Frisbee
a
platform
to
exchange
feedback
about
your
product
but
never
published
it
We
can
have
a
look
at
my
GitHub
account
and
yeah
as
you
can
see
I
have
a
lot
of
repositories
and
most
of
them
are
abandoned
For
example
this
one
the
repository
is
named
Scald
but
the
name
of
the
project
was
Gridly
and
it
was
a
simple
website
builder
This
one
was
a
simple
Twitter
feed
I
built
something
really
useless
called
Sidiri
a
simple
web
app
to
manage
your
plans
actually
I
used
it
for
maybe
a
year
or
two
for
myself
This
one
was
a
bookmark
manager
and
yeah
there
are
a
lot
of
things
on
my
GitHub
profile
All
right
so
you
show
me
all
your
failed
projects
There's
a
lot
in
there
and
you
spent
a
lot
of
time
kind
of
thinking
about
why
those
didn't
work
I'd
love
if
you
could
break
down
the
reasons
why
these
projects
failed
I
think
the
first
reason
is
because
we
give
up
too
early
you
know
I
often
see
people
launching
a
project
and
giving
up
after
a
week
or
two
because
they
haven't
had
any
registrations
or
sales
and
so
on
I
don't
think
a
product
will
ever
work
overnight
I
think
we
have
to
make
sure
the
market
exists
and
we
have
to
kind
of
iterate
and
iterate
again
and
iterate
again
learning
from
our
mistakes
Another
reason
is
maybe
your
purpose
is
unclear
I've
seen
hundreds
of
landing
pages
that
may
look
great
with
a
lot
of
animation
details
and
so
on
but
if
people
don't
understand
exactly
what
your
product
is
offering
when
they
read
your
headline
it's
a
lose
and
lose
situation
Nobody's
going
to
scroll
down
if
they
don't
understand
your
headline
Another
reason
could
be
the
loss
of
momentum
When
I
think
about
my
failed
projects
I
realize
a
huge
part
of
them
failed
because
of
this
loss
of
momentum
That's
a
classic
mistake
If
you
build
in
public
every
time
you
post
about
your
product
on
social
media
you
create
momentum
Step
by
step
people
will
see
the
name
of
your
product
your
name
in
their
feed
They'll
end
up
remembering
you
and
your
product
and
recognizing
it
If
you
stop
talking
about
your
project
for
a
few
weeks
or
a
month
you
have
to
start
again
to
build
this
momentum
Another
reason
I
often
see
the
phrase
build
it
and
they
will
come
I
just
hate
that
phrase
and
I
think
it's
very
wrong
People
won't
come
to
see
your
product
because
it
has
amazing
features
or
things
like
that
No
matter
what
your
product
is
if
you
don't
do
any
marketing
if
you
don't
talk
about
it
no
one
will
come
to
your
website
The
last
reason
would
be
the
timing
timing
Timing
is
important
when
launching
a
project
If
your
project
doesn't
work
in
let's
say
January
it
doesn't
mean
it
won't
work
in
July
So
my
advice
here
would
be
to
stay
consistent
and
don't
give
up
because
you
don't
have
the
right
timing
You
never
know
Okay
so
we
talked
about
all
these
reasons
why
projects
fail
Let's
now
talk
about
the
idea
that
actually
worked
for
you
The
idea
that's
making
over
10
000
a
month
What
is
that
You
need
is
a
launch
platform
today
where
you
can
showcase
your
tech
products
It
started
as
a
simple
directory
for
front
end
tools
At
first
you
need
wasn't
really
a
successful
product
even
though
it
got
a
bit
of
traffic
I
think
I
reached
to
200
per
month
at
some
point
but
that
was
my
best
month
So
at
some
point
I
pivoted
you
need
from
a
simple
tool
directory
to
launch
platform
And
at
first
it
was
a
huge
failure
I
was
scared
because
my
revenue
went
down
a
lot
A
few
months
after
the
pivot
my
revenue
started
to
grow
up
again
It
started
to
grow
step
by
step
until
I
reached
10
000
of
revenue
last
month
And
that's
cool
I
mean
one
of
the
reasons
why
businesses
sometimes
don't
work
or
why
projects
fail
is
timing
It's
just
too
early
or
you
stop
working
on
it
then
maybe
it
could
have
been
successful
later
Can
you
tell
me
a
little
bit
about
the
timing
aspect
of
you
need
If
I
had
pivoted
you
need
from
a
directory
to
a
launch
platform
maybe
a
year
before
I
did
it
could
have
been
a
huge
failure
I
took
advantage
of
drama
around
Productant
and
a
few
indie
hackers
who
were
complaining
on
social
media
about
the
fact
that
they
couldn't
be
featured
on
Productant
or
Productant
was
only
talking
about
the
big
products
or
people
with
the
big
audiences
and
so
on
That
was
the
right
moment
to
launch
a
concurrent
an
alternative
to
Productant
And
yeah
I
don't
think
it
would
have
worked
without
this
timing
Okay
let's
just
pause
for
one
second
I
know
a
lot
of
you
watching
are
building
apps
right
now
You've
got
the
idea
the
momentum
to
build
it
but
then
you
hit
the
UI
stage
and
suddenly
you're
up
at
1am
tweaking
and
spacing
buttons
and
second
guessing
every
single
layout
and
design
decision
Well
I
have
good
news
for
you
And
that's
where
Mobbin
comes
in
And
yes
they're
today's
sponsor
but
honestly
they're
one
of
my
favorite
tools
for
getting
out
of
the
design
spiral
and
building
beautiful
apps
Mobbin
is
basically
a
giant
organized
vault
of
real
world
product
designs
Actual
apps
actual
screens
all
broken
down
by
feature
flow
style
all
of
it
So
instead
of
guessing
how
to
design
a
pricing
page
or
an
onboarding
flow
you
can
just
see
how
the
best
apps
in
the
world
do
it
Personally
it
saved
me
hours
And
honestly
it
makes
design
kind
of
fun
again
If
you
want
to
check
out
Mobbin
just
click
the
first
link
in
the
description
They're
offering
Starter
Story
subscribers
20
off
All
right
let's
get
back
to
the
story
Okay
let's
kind
of
pivot
a
little
bit
to
ideas
A
lot
of
people
watching
this
are
looking
for
ideas
You
probably
have
a
lot
to
share
on
that
So
if
you
could
potentially
break
down
based
on
your
experience
what
makes
a
good
idea
for
an
online
business
and
what's
a
bad
idea
The
better
thing
that
makes
an
idea
a
good
one
is
that
you
know
how
to
sell
it
That
could
be
because
you
know
the
market
because
you
have
a
huge
distribution
channel
or
because
you
have
a
great
marketing
idea
But
if
you
don't
know
how
to
sell
your
idea
it's
a
bad
one
From
my
personal
experience
Gum
Affiliates
my
marketplace
between
Gumroad
sellers
and
affiliates
I
didn't
have
a
plan
I
didn't
really
know
Gumroad
I
didn't
really
know
the
affiliation
business
And
it
failed
With
Unid
though
it
was
a
bit
different
because
I
knew
Productant
I
knew
Indie
Hackers
I
knew
Launch
Platforms
I
knew
the
market
I
started
to
have
a
great
distribution
channel
my
Twitter
account
I
knew
how
to
sell
my
idea
Another
thing
that
makes
an
idea
a
good
one
is
you
have
competitors
Not
having
competitors
means
that
there's
no
market
So
you
won't
be
able
to
sell
anything
to
anyone
You're
not
Steve
Jobs
Creating
a
new
market
is
nearly
impossible
So
if
you
don't
have
competitors
you
don't
have
a
market
and
your
idea
won't
sell
All
right
well
let's
dive
into
some
of
the
numbers
behind
Unid
your
successful
business
that's
crushing
it
Can
you
break
down
those
numbers
The
revenues
are
very
irregular
There
are
a
lot
of
up
and
downs
because
it
depends
on
my
marketing
ideas
on
my
success
on
social
media
and
so
on
But
yeah
I
think
you
can
say
that
it's
oscillating
between
8
000
per
month
and
10
000
In
terms
of
numbers
I
think
we
just
reached
40
000
users
on
the
platform
So
that's
huge
I
cannot
even
comprehend
this
I
think
I
also
reached
2
000
customers
So
people
who
paid
to
skip
the
line
or
advertise
their
products
In
terms
of
traffic
we're
at
30
000
unique
visitors
per
month
But
there
are
a
lot
of
up
and
downs
regarding
traffic
too
Another
number
I
can
share
to
my
opinion
it's
the
most
important
one
We
redirected
10
000
people
last
month
to
the
listed
website
So
we
generated
10
000
clicks
on
the
product
So
that's
a
great
number
That's
amazing
Congrats
Let's
talk
about
the
tech
stack
how
this
thing
actually
runs
Can
you
break
down
your
tech
stack
for
Unid
I
use
Next
js
as
a
full
stack
framework
So
the
front
end
and
the
back
end
I
use
Superbase
for
the
database
Bento
for
the
emails
and
automation
on
a
lot
of
marketing
things
The
website
is
hosted
on
Etzner
on
VPS
And
I
use
Qualify
to
manage
it
I
also
self
host
Cloziber
for
the
analytics
I
use
Fernand
a
not
very
well
known
SaaS
to
handle
customer
support
I
also
use
a
lot
of
TimeFully
for
social
media
scheduling
And
finally
I
use
Polar
a
merchant
of
record
for
sales
Cool
All
right
right
Well
the
last
question
that
we
ask
all
founders
who
come
on
Starter
Story
if
you
could
stand
on
Thomas's
shoulder
before
or
during
or
after
you
had
all
those
projects
that
failed
any
advice
you
can
give
for
people
that
are
thinking
about
getting
started
building
or
have
some
failed
projects
under
their
belt
what
would
be
your
advice
on
how
to
get
to
where
you
are
now
My
answer
to
this
question
is
going
to
be
very
personal
because
it
depends
a
lot
lot
of
your
personality
and
maybe
your
personal
life
and
a
lot
of
things
like
that
But
for
me
I
needed
to
have
a
personal
space
and
I'm
not
the
type
of
person
who
can
work
maybe
10
hours
per
day
I'm
not
like
that
I
can't
do
that
I
need
to
do
some
sports
like
cycling
and
see
my
friends
I
go
outside
every
day
you
know
And
one
advice
I
could
give
is
you
don't
have
to
lock
down
in
your
bedroom
and
code
and
market
for
months
without
seeing
anyone
You
just
have
to
take
your
time
and
find
a
way
to
make
it
sustainable
in
the
long
run
Don't
forget
your
personal
life
and
realize
you're
in
this
game
for
the
long
run
and
you
have
as
much
chances
of
becoming
rich
in
a
month
as
winning
the
lottery
You
can
think
of
it
as
a
marathon
not
a
sprint
Well
that's
great
advice
Thank
you
Thomas
for
coming
on
the
channel
I
love
the
business
you
built
I
think
it's
going
to
keep
growing
and
you're
going
to
be
really
successful
Thanks
for
coming
on
Thank
you
Pat
Thank
you
Thomas
for
coming
on
the
channel
I
think
his
story
is
awesome
because
it's
realistic
Almost
nobody
I
know
is
an
overnight
success
There
are
always
years
of
work
behind
every
successful
project
even
the
ones
you
see
on
this
channel
But
most
importantly
if
you
don't
build
anything
then
you
never
know
if
it
actually
could
be
successful
in
the
first
place
And
that's
why
we
launched
Starter
Story
Build
It's
the
place
to
learn
how
to
build
fast
with
AI
In
just
a
few
days
you'll
have
a
real
working
app
shipped
to
the
real
world
If
you're
interested
just
head
to
the
first
link
in
the
description
to
check
out
Starter
Story
Build
All
right
that's
it
for
this
one
Thank
you
guys
for
watching
We'll
see
you
in
the
next
one
Peace
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