How I Smartly Copied ShipFast and Failed Spectacularly 🚀

So there I was, new on X, when I discovered this guy Marc making $40K+ MRR with a Next.js boilerplate called ShipFast. I thought to myself, "I can totally do this but BETTER."

This became the starting point of my entire "making money online" journey. Spoiler alert: it didn't go as planned.

The "Genius" Plan

My brilliant strategy was beautifully simple:

1. Copy ShipFast's concept ✅
2. Add my own "unique twist" ✅
3. Profit??? ❌

I spent 3 months building what I genuinely believed was a superior product. Better documentation, cleaner code, more features. As a developer, I threw in every good programming practice I knew. I was completely convinced I'd cracked the code and built something amazing.

The "Marketing Masterclass"

Here's where my genius really shone through:

Step 1: The YouTube Strategy

I recorded two videos on YouTube - around 10 minutes each explaining my boilerplate. No editing, no script, just boring talk about configurations and technical details.

Current total views: 300. Not exactly viral content.

Step 2: The Blog Empire

I wrote a detailed technical post on my personal blog. You know, that blog with a Domain Rating of 2 that gets visited by my mom and maybe 3 Google bots per month.

I genuinely thought this comprehensive post would somehow reach the right audience and drive traffic to my product.

Step 3: The Product Hunt "Launch"

I submitted to Product Hunt with zero preparation. No community building, no maker friends to support me, no launch strategy. Just raw, unfiltered belief in my superior product.

Final result: 11 upvotes. Ouch.

My Brilliant Customer Acquisition Strategy

Here's where it gets really embarrassing:

• Cold DMs: 0
• Reddit posts: 0
• Twitter outreach: 0
• Email marketing: 0
• Any advertising: 0

I just built it and waited. I somehow thought I was doing everything right and customers would magically discover my amazing product.

Reality Check After 2 Months

• Revenue: $0
• Users: 0
• Sales: One guy from Africa tried to buy twice (maybe that was a bot)

Meanwhile, Marc was still printing money with ShipFast while I sat there wondering what went wrong.

Plot Twist - It Wasn't a Total Failure

Here's the thing though - I still use this boilerplate for all my projects. All that clean code and those programming best practices? They became the foundation for my second product, which actually sells.

My second product stats after 5 weeks:

• 60 users
• 7 paid customers
• $150+ revenue

The product is Pages.Report, and while it's not making Marc-level money yet, it's actually generating revenue.

The Real Lesson

You can copy products all you want, but if you don't copy the marketing strategy, audience building, and distribution tactics, you're basically setting yourself up for failure.

Building a great product is maybe 20% of the battle. The other 80% is getting it in front of people who actually need it.

My marketing is much better now (though still needs improvement). I'm sharing my journey on X @code_luk and actually talking to potential customers instead of just hoping they'll find me.

Key Takeaways

1. Product quality alone doesn't guarantee success - I had better code and more features, but zero marketing
2. Distribution is everything - The best product in the world is worthless if nobody knows about it
3. Failure can be valuable - My "failed" boilerplate became the foundation for a successful product
4. Marketing is a skill - Just like coding, it needs to be learned and practiced

If you're thinking about copying a successful product (which isn't inherently bad), make sure you're also copying their go-to-market strategy. The code is usually the easy part.