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ShipFast
Technology B2B & B2C

ShipFast is a NextJS boilerplate that helps indie hackers and developers launch SaaS, AI, and web applications much faster by providing ready-to-use code and...

shipfa.st · Founded 2023 · 84 public sources · Updated about 12 hours ago

Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 84 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →

How ShipFast Grew

Boilerplate for building Next.js SaaS startups faster

How did ShipFast grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

ShipFast grew primarily through organic and community-driven channels such as media coverage, social media presence, and engagement on platforms like Reddit and Hacker News. Marc Lou built trust and momentum by consistently sharing progress and interacting with followers on Twitter over several years before launching ShipFast. User feedback and customer-driven product development helped optimize onboarding and feature prioritization, improving conversion rates. Additional growth came from leveraging Marc's personal brand and audience, launching on Product Hunt, and creating a community around the product.

Channels

19 channels · grouped by how ShipFast grows

  • Organic social media

    · 11 mentions · 11 sources
    “J'étais tous les jours sur Twitter, tous les jours je partageais à la fin de la journée un truc que j'avais fait, un truc que j'avais appris, un truc que j'avais un exploit, un truc. Tous les jours ? Tous les jours, ouais. C'était ta règle ? Ouais. Un post par jour sur, soit il y a un apprentissa...”
    high
    Show 10 more quotes
    “Since his launch on Product Hunt, more than half of ShipFast’s entire website traffic has come from his personal brand on Twitter which has over 40,000 followers. Marc attributes his Twitter growth and derived traffic to “building in public”, meaning sharing the journey of building his projects o...”
    high
    “I discovered my role models on Twitter: Pieter Levels, Danny Postma, and other cool kids working solo on their projects from anywhere in the world, making much more money than needed to live comfortably... I grew a Twitter account to 55K followers... I kept adding features while tweeting about it.”
    high
    “I always launch on Twitter as well. I make videos that I think I remember you were one of the first person who made a comment on that Joe Rogan video.”
    high
    “Marc also shared the launch on Reddit, Hacker News, and Twitter ... He also dropped playful clips into tweet threads, editing himself into movie scenes, to keep engagement high even with a modest Twitter following.”
    medium
    “Mark Liu is a perfect example of the Bid in Public approach, a strategy where developers share their progress and experiences in real time during product development. ... Mark Liu has drawn the attention of many indie hackers by sharing expert content. ... he's not just gaining followers, he's tu...”
    medium
    “For a year, I shared daily progress on Twitter. Most tweets went completely ignored. But every now and then, one post would click and bring in dozens of signups.”
    high
    “So it went live with a tweet. I also shared on LinkedIn, Threads and Reddit and got the first customers.”
    high
    “Lou started posting his work on X as he made it — the wins, the numbers, the products that flopped within a week of launch. He wrote later that in two years he launched 17 products, grew a newsletter to 7,000 readers, and built a Twitter following of 55,000 people.”
    medium
    “basically your exiting audience, 1000 people of them, subscribed to use it. cool cool try it without audience, not so easy to grow a saas”
    medium
    “Marketing channels: X / Twitter”
    medium

  • Product Hunt

    · 4 mentions · 4 sources
    “When Marc launched Shipfast on August 23, 2023, he didn't just post it and hope for the best. He engaged with other products on the platform, built excitement by announcing the launch on his Twitter account, and made a fun promotional video for his product page.”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “Marc used Product Hunt as the initial launch strategy in order to validate his idea, and to his surprise he was able to generate generate $1,000 in sales in the first 7 hours of his launch. After 48 hours, Marc mentioned he had already made $6000 in profit. His Product Hunt launch turned out to b...”
    medium
    “Utilizing platforms like ProductHunt for launches, Marc highlights the importance of pre-validation and community feedback in fine-tuning his products, illustrating his strategic and responsive methodology to product creation.”
    medium
    “He launched it on Product Hunt, drove 3,000 visitors, and made $6,000 in 48 hours.”
    medium

  • Building in public

    · 4 mentions · 4 sources
    “Marc attributes his Twitter growth and derived traffic to “building in public”, meaning sharing the journey of building his projects openly for everyone to see. This not only built social proof and grew his following from 1,000 followers in July of 2022, but also allowed his announcement post of ...”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “I discovered the build-in-public community on Twitter. It changed my life.”
    high
    “Actually for ZenVoice so the last product I launched I build it live on YouTube. I set up my stream. I have a little microphone and I go live every morning and I would spend two to six or eight hours live building the product. And then I get people’s feedback... This is my pre validation thing.”
    high
    “Lou started posting his work on X as he made it — the wins, the numbers, the products that flopped within a week of launch. He wrote later that in two years he launched 17 products, grew a newsletter to 7,000 readers, and built a Twitter following of 55,000 people.”
    medium

  • Reddit

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “The third part of the strategy was sharing the product organically on Reddit and Hacker News—places where indie hackers hang out. On Reddit, Marc posted a video demo of Shipfast on r/SideProject, a subreddit with 120,000+ members. The post got 100+ upvotes, which meant tens of thousands of people...”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “Marc has also been able to drive traffic to his website and get paying users via Reddit. He did this all organically by sharing his start up on relevant subreddits like r/SideProject which has 120,000 members. Here he made a post which simply was a video demo of ShipFast and this post got 100 upv...”
    high
    “Rather than rely on a single platform, Marc also shared the launch on Reddit, Hacker News, and Twitter. Each community brought fresh eyes. Subreddits related to web development and startups drove an initial wave of signups”
    medium

  • Word of mouth

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “It created momentum. Part 2: Twitter and 'Building in Public' ... Because of this consistent presence, when Marc tweeted about Shipfast, his followers already trusted him.”
    medium
    Show 1 more quote
    “And every time you ship something, you learn more stuff, you share about it. So you grow a little audience of people who discover your work.”
    medium

  • Online Community

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “But someone mentioned do you have a Discord community? And I was like, why not? Let’s give it a try and I opened the Discord. And I made it part of the premium plan. And people started to join and like share, like crazy help, like debug each other, vote each others. Me for someone who has never b...”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “j'ai créé un discord pour plusieurs raisons des raisons marketing de pouvoir avoir un accès plus direct aux gens ... il peut poser des questions et il n'y a pas que moi qui réponds ... il y a un aspect où les autres gens vont lui répondre les questions”
    high

  • Newsletter

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “je prends toutes leurs questions et je fais une newsletter dessus ... ça me permet de toucher tous les gens qui ont cette question là”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “And Sunday would be for writing the newsletter and a couple tweets related to that newsletter.”
    high

  • Hacker News

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “Rather than rely on a single platform, Marc also shared the launch on Reddit, Hacker News, and Twitter.”
    medium
    Show 1 more quote
    “He used the same strategy by posting on Hacker News as well.”
    medium

  • Twitter

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “For two-and-a-half years before launching Shipfast, Marc did this relentlessly on Twitter. He posted updates about his projects. He answered questions from followers. He shared stories about failed products—17 projects failed before Shipfast. He showed his income numbers, his struggles, and his v...”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “Lou started posting his work on X as he made it — the wins, the numbers, the products that flopped within a week of launch. He wrote later that in two years he launched 17 products, grew a newsletter to 7,000 readers, and built a Twitter following of 55,000 people.”
    medium

  • Referral Program

    · 1 mention
    “Affiliate Program: Paying up to $124 per sale to create a scalable acquisition channel”
    medium

  • Affiliate program

    · 1 mention
    “Et tu découvres Product Hunt, tu découvres aussi le fait de launch sur Hacker News, Product Hunt, Reddit et tous ces sites qui te permettent d'avoir du trafic.”
    medium

  • Promotional videos

    · 1 mention
    “Demo videos created with Screen Studio highlighted the boilerplate’s speed. He also dropped playful clips into tweet threads, editing himself into movie scenes, to keep engagement high even with a modest Twitter following.”
    medium

  • Content marketing

    · 1 mention
    “He tracked conversions and tweaked messaging based on user comments.”
    medium

  • AppSumo Launch

    · 1 mention
    “Marc Lou doesn't separate his personal brand from ShipFast. His journey (16 startups in 2 years), credibility (Product Hunt Maker of the Year), and audience (135,000+ Twitter followers) are all leveraged as business assets. This creates trust that can't be replicated by competing products and pro...”
    medium

  • Bubble community

    · 1 mention
    “Marc Lou's community is ShipFast's most underrated feature. The Discord has 5,000+ members, many of whom have built products on ShipFast and can answer specific questions from experience.”
    medium

  • PR

    · 1 mention
    “Marc was making $50,000+ per month, which got media attention. Newsletters wrote about him. YouTubers covered his story. Podcasts interviewed him. All this publicity drove more traffic to his website, which created more revenue, which got more coverage.”
    medium

  • Side project marketing

    · 1 mention
    “My first batch of DataFast customers came from my course CodeFast and my boilerplate ShipFast — where I upsold my analytics tool. When people deploy a site built with ShipFast, I nudge them to try DataFast”
    high

  • Community marketing

    · 1 mention
    “ShipFast isn't just selling code; it's providing access to a community of like-minded builders. This community serves multiple strategic purposes: Creates additional value beyond the code itself ... Generates organic testimonials and success stories ...”
    medium

  • Thought Leaders

    · 1 mention
    “Lou started posting his work on X as he made it — the wins, the numbers, the products that flopped within a week of launch. He wrote later that in two years he launched 17 products, grew a newsletter to 7,000 readers, and built a Twitter following of 55,000 people.”
    medium

How 3,362 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — ShipFast’s highlighted.
  • Social media
    64% ◀
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    63% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    58%
  • Email
    47% ◀
  • Community
    37% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    36% ◀
  • Partnerships
    32% ◀
  • Events
    24%
  • Paid ads
    23% ◀
  • Outbound/Sales
    18%
  • Press/PR
    17% ◀
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    12% ◀
  • Podcasting
    4%
  • Influencer partnerships
    3%
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