Forem: John Rush

I've tried all (46 😵‍💫) AI Coding Agents & IDEs

John Rush — Thu, 29 May 2025 21:21:48 +0000

Factory AI

An advanced AI coding tool: generates complex apps, docs, works well with large existing projects, has access to web search, MCPs, can run code on my local machine + UX is best for coders.

I'm building "Inbox agent" using this tool, gonna report back soon.
Heyboss AI

I'd say the most creative AI Coding tool on the market.

Can build production-grade apps, with backend and database.

I'm building my inbox agent here too; so far, I really love the design output.

Works great for non-coders.
Emergent Labs

Agentic Vibe coding tool. Handles entire apps with frontend & backend.

Works pretty fast and feels like a CTO or a tech cofounder.

The multi-agent thing (coding agent, testing agent...) is cool too. I think it might turn into something big.
Wrapifai

Best for form-based apps (calculators, AI generators, etc).

I use it to build mini tools for SEO or lead magnets.

100% no-code. Super easy to use.

I built this little app today with 1 prompt and 1 minute.
Create.xyz

It can clone a product when you drop the link to it.

Has connections to things like the movie DB, HackerNews, and more.

Auth with one prompt.

Good if you wanna create functioning products with just a few prompts.
CodeMate

Perhaps the best for generating mobile apps from your phone.

Also, it's mobile-first itself—basically "generate mobile app from your mobile".

Produces React Native apps (not just web wrappers).

Uses Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
Cursor

The best.

Works best for coders and not such a good fit for no-coders.

Can assist, autocomplete, refactor, and even build entire modules/projects.

Here it's been asked to migrate from Tailwind v3 to v4.
Bolt

Started as a side project of StackBlitz and went huge, raising $105M.

Works for everyone (coders, no-coders, marketers...).

Has out-of-the-box integration with Supabase for data, auth...

I built several lead magnets using Bolt.
Lovable

Fastest-growing EU-based startup today ($10M ARR).

Native Supabase integration.

The best AI+NoCode mix on the market (the WYSIWYG part).

Takes in screenshots as input and can produce full web apps.

I use it instead of Figma.
Windsurf

Works well for advanced apps. My top 3.

Acts as a true agent.

Can use web search.

Has memory.

Best for lazy coders.
Stitch from Google

Best for prototyping.

Can be used by founders, designers, no-coders.

Much faster than all the others.
Grok Studio from xAI

My favorite way of playing with code.

I think people could use it to learn coding (I strongly suggest all vibe coders to learn coding).
Canva Code

Perfect for lead magnets for founders, no-coders, and marketers.
Augment Code

Works in VS Code and JetBrains.

Built for coders.

Can execute code, run terminal, find issues, and analyze the code.

Find performance optimization ideas in production.
Build with Mocha

For non-coders.

Builds full-stack apps from prompts.

100% complete (auth, DB, hosting, emails...).

Perfect for non-tech people, e.g., for your grandma.
Rork

Text-to-app AI agent.

Builds mobile apps.

Publishing directly on TestFlight.

Perfect for building mobile apps for non-coders.
Clark

AI agent to build internal enterprise apps.

Can build an app from Jira tickets.

A mix of prompting, Figma-like editing, and coding.
GitHub Copilot

The OG of this game, started back in 2020.

Can generate code.

Handles large codebases.

Can merge PRs, fix bugs, search code.

Supports agent mode now and also it's open-sourced.
Replit AI

Most advanced AI Agent for coding, in my opinion.

Has two modes: Agent or Assistant.

True full-stack app generator. Has its own server, DB, hosting...

Here is the real app I built using it.
v0 from Vercel

Best for making well-designed web pages or UIs.

Doesn't work well for full-stack apps.

Can use Figma as a starting point.

Lets you edit elements one by one.
MarsX

(My own product)

A mix of AI, NoCode, and High Code.

I built SEO Bot AI, Listing Bott, and Index Rusher using MarsX.

It takes the whole coding world to the next level since it isn't a website builder, but a "SaaS builder".
Devin

Not expensive anymore.

Targets the corporate world.

Acts as a junior dev in a dev team.

Sends pull requests, works alongside you or your team.

Doesn't work as well for me yet; I don't know why. Feels like it works well for good repos. Mine is a mess.
Webdraw

Best for people with zero coding experience.

Totally genius UX.

Free.

Turns sketches into web apps.
Tempo Labs

Generates full-stack apps using a text or image prompt.

It starts by making an architecture and diagrams.

I think they have the best AI Coding UX—wow.
Trae

Goes all the way from 0 to 1 via prompting.

Free.

From ByteDance.

Can do full-stack web apps.

For coders.
Cline

VS Code plugin.

Works for large codebases.

Supports any LLM.

Runtime awareness.
Databutton

From my friends from Norway.

Backed by VCs who backed one of my startups.

Has a very unique approach, different from most of the players.

Works great for true no-coders.
Continue.dev

An open-source alternative to Cursor.

Great for those who want to build their own AI IDE (like the maker from Pear AI who forked it).
Base44

For non-coders.

All-in-one.

Creates dashboard-like apps pretty well.
Qodo

For coders.

Can write tests, refactor, and generate code.

Supports all LLMs (including DeepSeek).
Caffeine AI

New player.

Too early to say anything. For now, just putting them into the list to come back to them later when they launch.
Aider

Can generate most things out of prompts.

Has a cool terminal UI.

Acts as a pair programmer.

Works locally.
Pear AI

Entered into YC.

Had a huge drama around forking a GitHub repo.

Had a mentor call with them—two very talented guys taking an alternative path on competing with Cursor.
GitHub Spark

Works well for small or demo apps.

Still behind the "waitlist" for the technical preview.
IDX

Free alternative to Cursor.

Can build mobile apps.

Uses Gemini.
Tabnine

Mostly works as an advanced AI Autocomplete.

Slowly getting into AI code generation.
Amazon CodeWhisperer

Can generate unit tests.

Helps with coding.
JetBrains

I'd expect them to be leading this whole AI Code Generation thing. Back in the day, their autocomplete and ReSharper were just so cool. But somehow, they just wasted it all. I hope they catch up.
ChatGPT Code Interpreter

Great for no-coders learning to code.

Building Windows 95 demo.
Haystack

An IDE built on top of a canvas.

Really cool and creative idea for UX of code refactoring with AI.

Also does code reviewing.
Claude 3.7 or 4 Sonnet

The best coding LLM.
Claude Code

Can search code, run tests, and push to GitHub.

Claude Code is a CLI tool that lets you delegate engineering tasks to Claude with full access to your codebase, tests, and GitHub—all from your terminal.
OpenAI Codex

For coders.

Works for existing repos.

Seems like it'll compete with Devin.
Jules from Google

For coders.

Can be used as a bug fixer or for simple tasks.

Can review code.
AmpCode

From Sourcegraph.

Agentic (parallel) coding tool

That's it.

Let me know if you know more.

Here are some of my own startups:

↳ Unicorn Platform – website and directory builder

↳ ListingBott – finds all relevant web directories & lists you there

↳ SEO Bot AI – AI blog generator for SEO

↳ TinyAdz – B2B ad network for tech products & services

↳ More about me: johnrush.me

My newsletter: johnrushx.substack.com

How to build web directories: johnrush.me/directory-guide

How to promote your startup with no followers

John Rush — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 19:19:53 +0000

How to promote your startup with no followers

1) Reddit subreddits.

entrepreneur
saas
sideproject
bootstrappedsaas

Be genuine, tell the story, from the start. No marketing. Make it sound like a story or diary entry.

2) Hackernoon.

They allow one branded article per startup. Brings good backlink and trafffic. But don’t just promote, but again ,
give more than you take. Use stories, guides, lessons, analysis etc

3) Launchpads

List for free

DevHunt
Product Hunt
uneed
micro launch
betalist

Or buy sponsored spot.
E.g. devhunt.org brings sales to listingbott.com every day almost due to this banner:

4) Directories.

Paid: Betalist, 1000tools, futurepedia.
Free: betapage, saashub,..
Automation: use listingbott.com to submit to 100+ directories (from a db of 10,000+).
Directory ads: pick smaller directories that sell a week/month banner for $100.

5) search for posts and reply with your tool.

Don’t spam, make sure it’s actually relevant.
Ideally look for actual questions.

6) Sponsor influencers.

Find small influencers (3-10k followers). Make sure they have real stats, simply read their posts and comments to see.
The price is around $100 too, can bargain down to $50.
But influencers almost never bring positive ROI.

7) Sponsor newsletters.

Same here, pick small newsletters.
Once I paid for Product Hunt newsletter ad and got zero sales. Just wasted money.
But right after a small one brought me sales.

8) Sponsor events.

hackathons
workshops
education programs I did it with one a month ago and it brought 100+ sign ups for $999.

9) Cold outreach

emails
LinkedIn (don’t do it on X, you’ll be instantly banned)
telegram DMs It works if you find relevant emails, not just anyone. Also keep the message short.

10) affiliate partners.

I have about 100 partners in total, some do pretty well.
There are marketplaces for affiliates or do cold outreach to find them.

11) Channel traffic from directories.

It’s easier to win traffic for directories than for main projects. Make several directories for your audience and place your banners there.
To quick start

use unicornplatform.com to build them
guide to learn johnrush.me/directory-guide

12) Free side projects.

Same as with directories.
E.g: is on top 10 by traffic source for unicornplatform.com .

It’s a free project. Purely for traffic. That needs no maintenance and has no costs. It grows on itself via SEO.

I generated 20+ succesfull Ideas doing this:

John Rush — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 12:30:39 +0000

(Number 14 is 👌)

Pain at my own work
Listing tools on directories took ages, so I made a listing bot for it.
Needed full control over my analytics dashboard, none existed, so I created one.
Wanted to automate my SEO, built an AI agent for it.
Pain mentioned by others at work
My sister, a kindergarten worker, complains about paper schedules causing mix-ups. I suggest: "How about an app or tool?".
Pain in my pivate life
Spending hours finding a movie my wife and I both like, only to have her fall asleep before it starts.
I make an app that combines our preferences and suggests available movies on our streaming service.
*warning: b2c is way harder than b2b
Pain in the life of people I know.
I'm a football player.
My coach says: I wish there was a system to book training online across all stadiums and see their schedules.
Personal pain from strangers.
I open social media and see "I wish I could book a nanny for an hour".
I check the comments where 34 people say "Me too".
I build a nanny marketplace.
Clone an idea for a new niche.
Website builder for bakeries.
Clone an idea for new geography.
Hotel booking marketplace for Mongolia.
Clone an idea for a new user case.
AI content creator for university teachers.
Clone an idea with new pricing.
Ahrefs that doesn't cost me a fortune.
Clone an idea as an open-source project.
Open source Carta alternative.
Idea>Tech>Application
Don't do this. It's called "a solution looking for a problem". It rarely works.
Ask a random person: is there a tool/app/directory you wish existed and you'd pay to use?
Keyword led idea.
Search for random keywords based on your intuition on google keywords planner. Find one with high traffic, low completion and no product available in search results when you google the kw.
Search intent led idea.
When you start typing in google search bar, it suggests you options.
This way you can see what people actually type there.

I used my own advice to come up with:

listingbott for backlinks.
seobotai automate my seo.
unicornplatform to build directories fast.
countvisits better analytics for websites.
indexrusher index page pages faster

P.S. I'm running a pre-sale for my Directory Playbook guide

1417 Open Source alternatives to tools you pay for

John Rush — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 10:06:52 +0000

I made a 100% free directory for open source and self-hosted tools.
Enjoy saving your hard-earned money by not having to pay for all those expensive SaaS alternatives.

369 open source tools

osssoftware.org/open-source-alternatives

1417 products you can self-host

hostedsoftware.org

26 Ways to Make Money as a Startup Founder (for developers)

John Rush — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 12:15:35 +0000

I've launched 24 projects (here is the proof johnrush.me).

None of my projects is making millions a month, but many of them make over $1k a month, some do over $10k, and few do even more.

I'd not recommend anyone to start by trying to build a unicorn. Better start simple. Aim for $2-4k a month first. Once you get there, either scale it or start a new project with large TAM.

From my own experience, the 26 Ways to Make Money as a Startup Founder:

One-Feature SaaS.
Extract a feature from a popular tool and build a micro SaaS around it.
Idea: A SaaS that only offers automated email follow-ups.
Launchpads.
Develop a launch platform for a specific industry. Idea: A launchpad for growth tools.
SEO Tools.
Create a tool that focuses on a single aspect of SEO.
Idea: A tool that generates alt texts for images.
Productized Services.
Offer standardized services that are repeatable. Idea: design, coding or social media management.
Marketplace Platforms.
Create a platform that connects buyers and sellers, earning transaction fees.
Idea: An online marketplace for domains.
Membership Sites.
A subscription-based site with exclusive content. Idea: A founder 0-to-1 site.
White Labeling.
A product that other businesses can rebrand as their own.
Idea: A white-labeled website builder.
Selling Data.
Provide anonymized data insights to companies.
Idea: Selling user behavior data.
Affiliate Marketing.
Promote products/services and earn commissions on sales. Idea: Recommending hosting services on a tech blog.
Selling Leads.
Generate and sell business leads.
Idea: Selling leads who raised a fresh seed round.
Niche Social Networks.
Create a paid community around a specific interest. Idea: A network for SEO experts.
Sell Domains.
Buy and sell domain names for profit.
Virtual Products.
Sell digital products like templates or graphics.
Idea: Website themes for nextjs or boilerplates.
On-Demand Services.
Build a platform for gigs like delivery or tutoring. Idea: An app for freelance tutors.
Niche Job Boards.
Start a job board focused on a specific industry.
Idea: A job board for remote tech jobs.
Crowdsourced Content.
Create a user-generated content platform and monetize through ads.
Idea: Site to share startup hacks.
Buy and Flip Businesses.
Purchase underperforming businesses, improve them, and sell for profit. Idea: Acquiring a low-traffic blog, optimizing it, and selling.
AI-Powered agents.
Develop AI tools that solve specific business problems. Idea: An AI tool that automates customer support.
Microservices.
Offer small, specialized tools, sdks or APIs.
Idea: An api for currency conversion.
Influencer Platforms.
Create a platform connecting influencers with brands.
Idea: Connect AI influencers with AI founders.
Niche Directories.
Build a paid directory for a specific industry.
Idea: A directory of developers who can train models.
E-Learning Platforms.
Build a platform for educators to sell courses.
Idea: A site where AI experts sell AI courses.
Virtual assistants.
Hire them and sell on subscription.
No-Code Tools.
Create tools that allow non-technical users to build things.
Idea: A no-code website builder for bakeries.
Labor arbitrage.
Idea: Connect support agents from Portugal with US clients and charge commission.

Raising Series A almost killed my startup :(

John Rush — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 14:28:03 +0000

[Seed]

After graduating from 500 Startups & and raising a seed round, our mobile app startup pivoted into b2b saas.
We quickly found PMF, lined up a bunch of clients, and our team worked 100 hours a week to deliver.

[2019] Series A

Our TAM was too small for a unicorn, so investors wanted us to expand it.
I had mixed feelings about it, but all I saw were the startups in growth/unicorn mode.
So we expanded.
We added more verticals, products, people, and sales force and hired super-expensive sales experts and marketers.
We put loads of money into paid marketing, sponsored conferences, and media.
It was all done just like in the Silicon Valley playbook.

[2020] All IN

Covid lockdown. All our customers are closed and don’t know when to reopen.
We’re burning cache like WeWork in their worst days.
The whole strategy fails.
We added a bunch of new verticals, and suddenly, our product is not great for any of them, just average, like the competitors'.

[2021] Failed

We keep losing all the money we raised. We know the whole model failed. We know we can’t make it to work. But we can’t turn the ship.

[2022] Out of cash

We run out of investor money.
But we still can’t turn the ship around. At that time, I was a CTO.
The CEO gets a burnout out and leaves.
The whole thing was heading toward oblivion.
We spent our last money.

I sold my apartment and used my own money to keep things afloat and pay the developers' salaries.

[2023] Pivot

I don’t know what to do. I can’t watch the company die.
I tell the board: we need to change the course. We need to give up on a unicorn dream. We need to turn into an organically growing mid-size profitable business.
It took me one year to convince the chairman.

[The Change]

We cut all sales and marketing people.
Cut costs on everything. I stopped paying my wife and me a salary(she also worked with me).
Stop all sponsorships and pretty much everything that’s not development or support.
We transform into a product-led company.
I jump on a call with each client and tell the whole story as it is. This turns them into loyal friends, and they turn into our ambassadors and start bringing new leads.

[NOW]

In 3 months, we go breakeven and I don't have to fund the salaries from my pocket.
We have great ,.
We cancel all non-core products,
We do only one product for one niche, but we’ve got the best product in the world for that niche.

I setup 100% inbound marketing that relies only on two channels

SEO (fully run by SeoBOT)
affiliate partners(I give them 33% of the income for the first 3 years)

A year after this, I'm signing a POS with one of the largest biz on the continent (controls 60% of the market) that will double the revenue.

My dream is coming true: we have zero marketing and sales people. The whole thing runs on autopilot, and I only make demo calls. My next step is to even get rid of demo calls by replacing them with self-served demos.

[TakeAway]
Not all ideas can be unicorns and need investor money.
My company was nearly killed by Series A.
I pivoted it at the end and managed to bring it back to life.

[FUTURE]
I’m not building unicorns anymore.
I’m not aiming for series A or IPO.
My mission is to build profitable businesses that do one thing really well for one niche so that we’re the best in the niche.
It means most of my products won’t make more than 1M ARR. And this is fine. This is the new world.

--
I'm on twitter: x.com/johnrushx

Predictions for the future of startups:

John Rush — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 09:33:52 +0000

1. The AI Model race will hit the wall, and all providers will be roughly on the same level, including the open-source players.

2. The b2b digital SaaS will be heading toward commoditization, prices will be dropping, and at some point, we may even see the b2c model, where tools are free, but the user is "the product".

3. Startups in real sectors will be the "next hot thing" for the next 20 years—things like bio, healthcare, agriculture, construction, etc.

The hardware will return since most of these startups will be hardware+software.

4. New platforms will emerge.
Right now, deploying an app for healthcare is the same as making an app prior to the iPhone era. One would also have to build one's own device.

We will see all "real world" verticals adopting shared platforms so that startup founders can deploy their apps there

5. Distribution will mean everything.

The next generation of founders are those who built their audience and then reverse-engineered products & services to supply to the audience.

ChatGPT makes it easier for marketers to learn coding than for coders to learn marketing.

6. Governments will go crazy on IT.

Building platforms/products/tools on top of government APIs will be huge.

Most governments don't have APIs, so this will start by utilizing scrapers. But governments will adopt rules that make everything into APIs so that others can build on top.

7. VC money will totally exit the "pre-seed" stage.
Funding pre-seed founders is a form of a negative selection. Betting on those who can't pull off their MVP alone is a recipe for a failed investment.
Ofc with some exceptions, such as repeat-founders.

8. Elon Musk will launch a satellite platform.
We will be able to build and deploy our apps there.

Overall, the next 20 years will be the best time to be alive if you're a startup founder or an indie maker as I am.

I'm here johnrush.me
or on x.com/johnrushx

I pay for 78 products to run my 24 projects.

John Rush — Tue, 14 May 2024 13:56:01 +0000

I pay for 78 products ➤ to run my 24 projects.

You know a better alternative? Let me know, and I may switch.
‎

Hosting and Cloud Services

1) Digital Ocean for hosting.

2) AWS for hosting, storage, and CDN.

3) Hetzner for bare metal.

4) Heroku for db hosting.

5) Monovm for hosting.

6) Google Cloud.

7) Github for teams.

8) Vercel for nextjs hosting.

9) Supabase as CMS and DB.

10) MONGODB Atlas for nosql db

11) Microsoft Azure websites and tables

‎

Web and Dev Tools

12) Apify Web Automation

13) Notion for docs

14) Figma for design and mockups

15) Canva for videos

16) Excalidraw for wireframes

17) BunnyCDN for images

18) TWILIO for SMS

19) Sendgrid for emails

20) Sensorpro for emails

21) FloatUI for UI tailwind kit

22) IMGIX for image resizer

23) ScreenshotOne for screenshot API

24) UploadCare for image upload and storage

25) Scrapingbee to scrape internet

‎

AI & LLMs

26) Open AI for LLMs and image gen

27) Anthropic for claude LLM

28) Azure Open AI

29) Pinecone for vector db

‎

Security, Testing and Monitoring

30) Cloudflare for ddos protection, IPs, storage, AI

31) New Relic for server monitoring

32) Sentry for js even logging

33) STATUSCAKE for uptime monitoring

34) Uptimerobot for uptime monitoring

35) GHOSTINSPECTOR for e2e visual testing

36) LAMBDATEST for e2e testing

37) Qase for testing

‎

Communication and Collaboration

38) Zoom to record calls

39) Loom for async communication internally

40) Sinch Mailjet to send emails

41) Skype for shared US phone number

42) Slack for shared channels with enterprise clients

43) Microsoft Teams for enterprise clients

44) Google (Gsuite) for emails and drive

45) 1Password to share passwords across the team

46) Hubstaff to track hours to bill for enterprise clients

‎

Marketing and Sales

47) Gumroad

48) Firstpromoter for affiliate partners

49) Crisp for customer support

50) Intercom for customer support

51) Mailtrap for emails

52) Stripe

53) Paddle

‎

Legal & Accounting

54) Pandadoc for legal paperwork and docs

55) Quickbooks for accounting

56) Mercury for banking

57) Carta for captable

‎

Other

58) Proxysell for proxies

59) TLDR to record and transcribe meetings

60) VeeD for making videos

61) Grammarly to fix my dyslexia

62) X(Twitter) for verified badges

63) Facebook for ads

64) Google Adword

65) Godaddy & Namecheap for domains

66) Ipostal for a postal address

67) appliku for web application deployment

68) AWS SES for emails

69) Loops for campaigns

70) Google Play for android apps

71) Apple Dev Account for IOS apps

72) Black Magic for twitter

73) Zenvoice

74) Fibery for internal tooling

75) ChatGPT

76) Serper for google search via API

77) Indie Hackers portal subscription

78) startups dot com

‎Also, I use my own products

79) Unicorn Platform to build websites, waitlists, directories and landing pages.

80) FloatUI tailwind UI kit to code the frontend.

81) SeoBOT to research & generate blog articles.

82) ListingBott to grow domain rating and list my products on all web directories with one click.

83) IndexRusher to force google to index my web pages faster.

84) MarsX to build all my saas tools really fast using lowcode/AI IDE.

‎

What products would you recommend?

I built 30 startups in 20 years

John Rush — Wed, 08 May 2024 15:08:01 +0000

I built 30 startups in 20 years.

VC-backed, Bootstrapped, Apps, SaaS, B2B, B2C.
All mistakes I regret making:

1. Doing consumer apps.

The Failure rate here is 100x of b2b rates, nearly a lottery.

2. Raising VC money.

I felt like Marc Zuckerberg when we raised the first round. All journalists interviewing us. Felt like a dream.
Eventually, most of these startups failed by being funded too early.

‎

3. Hiring too early.

Previously, startups took pride in large teams - a key sign of growth back then.

Founders should do most of the work until PMF.

Employees and contractors won’t have enough love and passion for your project.

‎

4. Ignoring SEO.

None of the people in my network did SEO. We all thought it was something too late, and we kept postponing it forever.

5. Ignoring content marketing.

Never took blogging seriously. Big mistake.

6. Social Media Marketing.

This is my biggest regret. I started using twitter just a year ago. Got to 20k followers now. What if I started 20 years ago? Could I have 1M followers now? I think so.

7. Skipping idea validation.

I’d always assume for the audience. Anticipate what they need. It almost never turned out to be true.

My best projects were those I thought will fail and failed projects had my highest hopes at the start.

8. Hiring managers.

I haven’t yet seen any useful manager in a startup.
They might be useful for corporations, but for startups, I should have hired only doers.

9. Chasing Investors.

For every startup, I’d spend 40% of my time fundraising.
I’d succeed in most of the cases, but at what cost?
I haven’t done a single outreach to investors in 2 years, but I get VCs knocking my doors, because I have good traction and they search for such projects daily.

10. Hiring specialized of developers.

There is nothing less efficient than a team of specialized developers for a startup.

Today I have 1 fullstack dev doing 5x more progress on a project than a team of 12 back then.

Avoid “teams” at all costs.

11. Hiring people I don’t wanna hug.

My cofounder, an old Danish man said this to me in 2015. If you don’t wanna hug the person, it means you dislike them on a chemical/animal level.

12. Betting on partners.

I have partnered up with large billion-dollar corporations many times with different startups.
They promise huge stuff, millions of users, but end up just wasting your time, destroying focus, shifting priorities, making you spend zillions on ramping up security and compliance, and eventually bringing in no users/money.

13. Shiny objects.

I fell for crypt0 hype. Got super rich, then lost it all.
Years wasted. Almost got depressed by seeing how scammy and greedy humans can be, even my own partners.

14. Holding on a bad project for too long.

I kept believing in projects after years of no traction.
I thought that one day, something magical would happen, and things would go up. It was just a waste of time.

15. Went to tech conferences.

It's a total waste of time.
Most people there are the “good” employees of corporations who were sent there as a perk for being loyal to the corporation.

16. Scrum is a Scam.

If I had a team that had to be nagged every morning with questions as if they were children in kindergarten, then things would eventually fail. The only good stuff I managed to do happened with people who were grownups and could manage their stuff on their own. We would just do everything over chat in sync on goals and plans.

17. Outsourced development & marketing.

The vendors were good, but the outcome was not good.
Startups are so difficult that there is almost no chance someone from outside can do a good job for them.

18. Started with a free tier in b2b.

Free projects attracted the totally wrong crowd, who gave feedback that was only relevant to please the rest of the “free” crowd. However, “paid” users turn out to be very different and have different needs.

A few times, I started with no free version and had no sales, so later, I added a free version. But this was a mistake, too. If nobody wants to pay for my product, I have to fix it or find another audience for it.

19. Code from scratch.

My team would spend the first 3 months coding basic things like auth, admin panel, cruds and etc.
It was a huge waste of time.
The moment I started using boilerplates, the speed went up 10x.

20. Spent little time with my family & friends.

I worked way too much. Didn’t take holidays at all.
It was very destructive to my creativity. Once I started having some off, I became way more creative.

Quality >Quantity.

That’s it.

I share my experience daily on twitter.com/johnrushx

See all my projects here

As a coder who learned marketing, my advice for you:

John Rush — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 14:14:59 +0000

As a coder who learned marketing,
my advice for devpreneurs:

You think in binary: 0 / 1.
You share results when the work is done.
But marketing is “storytelling”.

You heroically code 100h/week, for that moment when it's all done, you launch it and people say WOW.
But I'm sorry, nobody will bother to react.

Imagine watching Titanic with just one scene - Jack’s death. Boring, right?
It’s the story and plot that make it interesting. in fact, the outcome isn't even important after all.

So, apply this to your work.
Turn your journey into a captivating tale. Like a TV series, or social media drama with episodes.
People are less interested in what you built but more in how you did it and the rollercoaster ride along the way.

Here are some tips:
→ Talk about your idea and how you came up with it
→ Share your brainstorming process
→ Show off any mockups you’ve made
→ Discuss why you chose certain tools or frameworks
→ Regularly update on your progress, including both successes and failures(hide nothing)
→ Post small demos daily/weekly
→ Be real and honest. Don’t look perfect.
→ Write like you’re chatting with your best friend.
→ Engage with others sharing their journeys.
→ Summarize each stage of your project.
→ Publish "how-tos" every week based on ur project

→ Remember: People love stories more than products!
The more raw and unfiltered the story is, which again relates back to our key notion here, people will engage more because it serves them as imported experience; learning from other people's hacks and mistakes."

→ What if your target audience doesn't care about the process? They aren't developers?
It doesn't matter, the goal here is to master storytelling.
It's easier to master it in the known space first.
Once you mastered it, slowly start switching to the actual target audience. You can use X for devpreneur audience and Linkedin or reddit for your target audience.

→ Your next step?
If you never done anytihng from above, do it now, and reply with your post here. I'll read it and give you direct feedback on quality and what can be improved.
Let's go.

I'm sick of Vendor Lock 🤕

John Rush — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 23:32:45 +0000

The future is Open Source, Self-Hosted and One-Time.
Cloud is great, but only when we have a choice to download the data and selfhost.

A curated a list of 694 self-hosted software tools.
50 categories, Free & Proprietary.

→ hostedsoftware.org

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The following categories are include in the directory:

All
Analytics Platform
Archiving And Digital Preservation System
Automation Tool
Blogging Platform
Bookmark And Link Sharing Tool
Calendaring And Contact Management System
Communication System
Conference Management Tool
Content Management System (CMS)
DNS Management Tool
Document Management System
E-Book And Integrated Library System (ILS)
Federated Identity/Authentication Service
Feed Reader
File Sharing And Synchronization Tool
Gaming Platform
Gateway Service
Groupware Solution
Human Resources Management (HRM) System
Internet Of Things (IoT) Platform
IPBX (VoIP System)
Learning And Course Management System
Maps And GPS Service
Media Streaming Service
Miscellaneous Tool
Money, Budgeting, And Management Tool
Monitoring Tool
Note-Taking And Editor Tool
Office Suite
Password Management Tool
Pastebin Service
Personal Dashboard
Photo And Video Gallery
Polls And Events Tool
Project Management Tool
Proxy Service
Remote Support Tool
Resource Planning Tool
Search Engine
Self-Hosting Solution
Software Development Tool
Static Site Generator
Task Management/To-Do List Tool
Ticketing System
Time Tracking Tool
URL Shortener
VPN Service
Web Server
Wiki Platform

all "MPV For Fixed Price" vendors in one directory

John Rush — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 20:51:12 +0000

Project Report: Launching MVP Wizards Directory

What I Did

Domain Purchase: Acquired the domain mvpwizards.com for $11.
Idea Validation: Garnered 100 likes and 50 comments in 2 hours, validating the interest in the project.
Website Setup: Used @unicornplatform to clone a directory template. Unicorn AI generated 80% of the site's text.
SEO Research: Conducted keyword research using Google Keyword Planner to optimize the homepage.
Logo Creation: Designed the logo using ChatGPT.
Content Management: Utilized Google Sheets (as CMS on Unicorn) to organize offers collected from comments.
Offer Submission: Implemented a form for MVP builders to submit their offers.
Newsletter Signup: Added a form for visitors to sign up for updates.
Progress Report: Compiled and shared the steps taken so far.

Next Steps

Offer Updates: Add new offers received throughout the week.
Directory Listings: Use ListingBott to list the directory on other relevant platforms.
Content Marketing: Deploy SEObot for blogs related to productized agencies and MVPs.
Search Engine Indexing: Accelerate indexing on Google with IndexRusher.
Cross-Linking: Link the directory from all other projects I manage.
Social Media Strategy: Draft engaging posts for platforms like Hacker News, Reddit, DevTo, Hackernoun, X, and LinkedIn.
Community Engagement: Monitor internet discussions related to MVPs and promote MVP Wizards.
SEO Optimization: Refine SEO strategy based on keyword performance.
Networking: Reach out to incubators and accelerators to highlight the directory's value.
Market Outreach: Monitor Upwork for potential clients seeking fixed-price MVP services.

Reflection

This project was spontaneously conceived and launched within hours, inspired by the demand for fixed-price MVP services observed on social media and personal inquiries. The quick action plan and execution demonstrate the project's potential impact and value proposition.

I'll provide an update on the project's progress and its impact in the coming weeks.

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