Starter Story
Starter Story

From 30 failed projects to a successful $10K/month app | Starter Story

October 5, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Thomas, a developer who failed with over 30 ideas over many years, finally reached $10,000 in monthly revenue from a single product. In this conversation with Pat Walls on Starter Story, he breaks down why those earlier projects failed, what he now looks for in an idea, and how his successful app—a tool for managing and sharing code snippets—finally clicked. The episode is a systematic postmortem of repeated failure, not a rags-to-riches story, and it offers a clear framework for evaluating whether a project is worth building.

The five failure modes

Thomas categorizes his 30-plus failed projects into five recurring reasons. The first is building a solution to a problem you do not have. He recalls building a note-taking app for developers that he himself would never use, because his own note-taking habits were already fine. Without personal pain, he had no intuition for what the product should be, and no motivation to iterate when early users gave feedback.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (01:29) **Opening: The "Failure" Episode** - Host Pat Walls introduces a different format: a deep dive with Thomas, a developer who failed with over 30 ideas before hitting $10K/month.
  • 2 (02:28) **Core Mistake #1: Building a Solution Without a Problem** - Thomas explains the most common trap for indie hackers: starting with a technical solution and then hunting for a problem to fit it.
  • 3 (04:02) **Core Mistake #2: Building for the Wrong Audience** - Thomas details why targeting "everyone" or other developers is a recipe for failure.
  • 4 (05:30) **Core Mistake #3: Over-Engineering the MVP** - Thomas admits he spent months building features nobody asked for, a classic case of premature optimization.
  • 5 (07:15) **Core Mistake #4: Ignoring Distribution Until After Launch** - Thomas explains that he used to focus 100% on building and 0% on how people would find the product.
  • 6 (09:00) **Core Mistake #5: Giving Up Too Early** - Thomas reveals that even his successful project nearly died in the first month due to zero traction.
  • 7 (11:45) **The Pivot: How He Found the Right Idea** - Thomas tells the story of how he stumbled into the niche that eventually worked.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Pat Walls

Show Notes

From 30 failed projects to a successful $10K/month app

Sharing ideas that make money!

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------------ Keywords: business podcast, app marketing, business ideas

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