I built 80 different income streams that together had made over $500,000. This is Florin, a developer who's made over $500,000 online. I tried building one perfect idea, but it didn't work out. But instead of betting everything on one big idea, he's built dozens of online projects. Slowly, they added up, and now he has a diversified portfolio of income streams on the internet. I think everyone should be building multiple projects. Florin is proof that you can stack small wins and build something bigger. So I asked Florin to come on the channel to break down his process. And in this video, we'll dive into all of his different projects, how much money they make, how he manages all these projects at the same time, and his exact five-step playbook for finding your first win. All right, let's get into it. I'm Pat Walls, and this is Starter Story. Okay, before we get into the interview, you are about to get a masterclass on how to build a portfolio of online projects. But quick reminder that, of course, it all starts with just one. After watching this video, if you get inspired and you're ready to start your first side project, you can click the link in the description, and we'll help you find your first idea and get started on that first win. But more on that later, let's get into the episode first. Florin, my man, welcome to the channel. Tell me who you are, what you built, and what's your story. My name is Florin Pop, I'm a developer, content creator and entrepreneur, and over the last six years, I built a portfolio of online projects that together had made over $500,000. I used to chase big, money-fast ideas, and I burnt out. Now I focus on a simpler approach, build cool stuff, share it online, get feedback, monetize, and repeat. Okay, cool. I love this approach. Can you give me an overview of all your different projects and income streams that you've had? Sure. I look at everything I'm building as building a portfolio of income sources. I had a course which made over $180,000. My first successful SaaS made $68,000 in revenue, which later I sold for $50,000. I had YouTube, which generated over $100,000 from ads and sponsorships. I did freelancing, which alone brought in tens of thousands of dollars. I also had an e-book, which made over $30,000. I've done consulting, which brought in another $14,000. I also built a bunch of smaller products that added another $10,000 to $15,000 combined. None of these streams is massive on its own, but together they reduce risk. It shows that if one slows down or disappears, the portfolio still works. All right, well, I really like this strategy. I'm seeing a lot more people do it online with AI tools. You can do so much now as just one person. And I think it's especially starting to work and catch on more now. Before we get into all that, I do want to understand a little bit more about your background. How do you get to this point? Yeah, I learned how to code during high school and got into freelancing. This is how I made my first dollar online. Then I continued freelancing through college and after I got married, for stability, I decided to try a full-time job as a developer. I did that for two years, but to be honest, I felt like I was wasting my potential in a corporate job. So in 2019, I quit and went all in building my own things online. Doing whatever it takes to succeed and be free. Over time, this turned into a portfolio mindset. Instead of betting everything on one big idea, I built multiple smaller projects that could support each other and generate income even when I wasn't actively working on them. Before we dive deeper into Florence projects, I need to call something out. Florence has built this amazing portfolio of income streams, but here's what happens when those SaaS projects start getting traction with enterprise customers. These customers don't just ask, does it work? They ask, are you SOC2 compliant? What about HIPAA? ISO 27001? And if you can't answer, yes, the deal is likely dead. Well, that's why we partnered with Vanta on this video. Vanta automates the painful parts of compliance so you can keep building instead of drowning and audit paperwork. It hooks right into your stack, runs continuous checks, and keeps all the evidence clean for auditors. In the best part, when you're running multiple projects like Florence, you can't afford to spend months figuring out compliance for each one. While Vanta handles this so you can stay in build mode, over 14,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp and Ryder already use Vanta to prove security in real time. And right now, Vanta is offering $1,000 off for starter story viewers. So if you're building SaaS projects in WandaLand Enterprise customers without the compliance headache, check out Vanta at the first link in the description. Huge thank you to Vanta for this partnership. All right, let's get back to the episode. Okay, cool. So the multiple projects approach. I'm sure some people watching this have heard of Peter Levels or Mark Liu. They've obviously pioneered this. But also, there's a lot of people online that say, no, this is scatterbrained, focus on one thing and one thing only. I'm curious what your experience has been in this. How do you get to the point where you have a bunch of different sources of income and why does it work for you? Yeah, I didn't start out thinking that I want to build a dozen of projects. Early on, I was obsessed with finding the right idea that would change everything. Every time something didn't work fast enough, though, I felt like I failed. And over time, I realized two things. One is that most projects fail, not because they're bad or you're bad, but because they're timing, distribution, or the market is not right. And secondly, placing all your bets on one idea is very risky, both emotionally and financially. This can quickly lead to burnout, which happened to me many times. So I shift how I think. Instead of trying to build one perfect business, I started building an income portfolio. Smaller projects, which comes with less pressure. Some projects were about learning, some were about making money, some were about growing an audience, some failed, but that was fine because the portfolio didn't depend on one single project. Over time, these projects started compounding. Content got attention and then attention made products easier to sell. Products created leverage, and that's how I ended up with multiple income streams instead of having one single fragile bet. It's very similar to investing. You don't put all the money into one stock, but instead you spread your investments over hundreds or even thousands of stocks through index funds or ETFs. So I stopped putting all my time into one idea and I started iterating fast. I think, you know, the data's on a video like this will say, like, how could you spread yourself so thin you won't, you know, build anything meaningful if you are just going skin deep on eight different projects? So I'm curious how you kind of stay sane in this process. How do you manage your time and how do you think about spreading your time across these, you know, six, seven, eight plus different projects? Yeah, of course, it's not about building eight projects at the same time. It's about building one project at a time, focusing on it, and growing it to a phase where it can grow on its own and then you can subtract yourself from the day-to-day operations. So all of these projects were built one at a time and then grew to a point where they can sustain themselves and then they moved on to the next one. Yeah, I think that's true, especially with AI tools and how you can kind of automate a lot and you can have this one person business. So yeah, I agree with that. I think a lot of people see this and they go, okay, I'm going to start eight projects right now. I'm going to run all of them. I guess my question for you is when you see other people building lots of projects and having this multiple income stream portfolio, what do you see when people are sort of getting it right and they're making good money and building a great career out of this? And where do you see people getting it wrong? Yeah, so I see people getting wrong by going over multiple projects at the same time in different niches. They build a fitness app and then they build B2B SaaS for creators. But I think the right way to do it is to focus on building a portfolio project around the same niche. And this is especially useful if you know the niche very well and you can understand all the ins and outs of it. So from my experience, I started creating content for developers. Then I created products for developers and then I built a platform where developers can learn. So even though it was different products like a course, a new book, a SaaS, they were all targeting developers. So this is what I think successful serial entrepreneurs do. They focus on one niche and they build multiple products to serve that niche, but in different ways, sort of. If you're watching this video right now, you might be thinking about your first online side project. But you might also be thinking, how do I find an idea? How do I know if it's good and what should I use to launch it fast? I've talked to thousands of founders and many of them have the same story. They started by shipping lots and lots of things online, just like Floren, until they finally found their first winning idea. So I've put something together for you for free to help you launch your project as fast as possible. You'll learn exactly what it takes to find a good idea and we'll show you the right tools to use. If you're ready to actually ship, you can click the link in the description and you can get started on your project right now. All right, let's get back to the episode. I mean, I 100% agree on this. You can have multiple projects, but it really, really works when they all serve the same customer. You start building different solutions for the same customer. You can start cross-selling someone who takes your course will also sign up for your SaaS. This is when it really starts working and it's what I've noticed about the best who do it. I want to switch topics a little bit and talk about how to kind of find your first win. You know, if you do aspire to start lots of different things, you kind of have this ADHD brain where you're excited to do a bunch of things. It really is important to find that first win, right? So what would be your playbook if you're starting over today and you had to find your first win? Yeah, so if I was to start over right now, this is what I would do. Step one would be to build something small but useful. Start with something you can build quickly in days or weeks, not months. You don't want to spend too much time on it and burn out. Don't aim for a perfect product. Aim for something useful, either a tiny tool or an app or a guide, something that solves a real problem. I personally found it best if I focused on building something for myself. Step two would be to ship it publicly. Shipping is non-negotiable. Post it on Twitter, on YouTube, on Reddit, on TikTok. Wherever you think your potential clients hang out. Most projects don't fail because they're bad. They fail because nobody ever heard of them. Step three is to get feedback. Do people use your tool? Do they ask questions? Do they come back? Do they complain? Gather all the feedback and use it to improve the product. Step four would be to add monetization early. Add a pay tier. This is the real validation strategy. Do people pay for a product? If they do, then you have something valuable. The goal isn't to get rich at this point. The goal is to validate that the problem you are trying to solve is worth paying for. Step five is to decide if you want to double down or move on. After a few weeks or months, make a clear decision. If the product shows traction, then double down. If it's flat, move on to the next idea without feeling any guilt. Every project teaches you something, even the ones that fail. So we can summarize the loop as building, shipping, get feedback, monetize, decide and repeat, until something works. Once you find something that's working, the next step is to reduce how much it depends on you. Automate what you can, simplify the product and remove yourself from the day-to-day operations as much as possible. That does two things. One, it frees up your time to work on the next idea. And two, it makes the project easier to sell later because it can run on its own. For example, I have my coding course. I worked on it years ago, built it, launched it, and now it brings in passive revenue, even if I'm not spending time on it. And I can focus on building the next product. Okay, let's switch topics a little bit and talk about tech stack. I know you have a developer background. How do you build your products and what's your tech stack? What do you use in these days? I use Next.js for development, SuperBase for database and authentication. I use Cream for payment processing, VersaL for hosting, BeHive to send my newsletter, DataFest for analytics for my websites, and I use ChatGPT for AI. That's my main go-to AI tool. Cool. All right. Well, thanks for sharing that. Last question that we asked, everyone who comes on Starter Story, if you could go back in time and give young Floren advice before you got started, before you kind of found this sort of multi-product strategy, income stream strategy, or for anyone watching this that wants to do something similar to you, what would be your advice? My advice would be to stop comparing yourself to others. Everyone has their own journey and it's at a different stage on that journey. Stop comparing your level three with someone's level 20. Well, that's great advice. Thank you, Floren. Long time fan and follower of yours. Love your stuff. Thanks for coming on and sharing all this so transparently. I love what you're doing. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. All right. Gus, producer of Starter Story, what do you think about this one? What do you think about the portfolio strategy? Yeah, I think for someone like me who's more of a beginner, what I'm feeling is like reassured, which maybe that's a weird word to say, but it feels like there's lots of different ways to win, which is you've probably seen that on obviously all the videos on Starter Story. But for this one guy, he like he has eight or whatever, 12 different projects or things that he's built, and he's sort of winning with all of them. And so it kind of feels like I like what he said about, you don't need like one, only one big thing to work because I feel like that puts a lot of pressure on like the one thing you're building. And so I feel like reassured like, okay, I can try one thing, maybe it doesn't work, maybe it does. And then I can write it as long as possible and then I kind of can shift to the next thing. So those are some initial thoughts like what I love about this, as you said, is there's so many ways to win. You can have go all in on one project and maybe that's better for a different type of person, but you can also be someone like Florin who's got lots of different interests and you can also be successful with multiple projects. I think all what it really comes down to is just shipping, getting it out there. And like if I'm looking at someone, I'm not looking at, hey, you have multiple projects versus you don't, I'm looking at, are you shipping? Are you putting that YouTube video out? Are you putting that course out? Are you putting that SaaS out? Are you putting out that MVP? Are you just putting it out into the world? If you go look at Florin's Twitter, you'll see how open, or his social media, you'll see how open he is. He's just putting himself out into the world all day, every day. And sometimes that's all you need. And if you can do that over a long enough period of time, you'll find something that works. Yeah, totally. I think that like, yeah, the shipping, shipping more probably is like phrase I'm taking away from this. Like, you know, shipping doesn't have to mean like you build an app or SaaS or whatever, but it's like putting out the video, putting out the piece of content, putting out the whatever thing. There's another phrase I've heard once that was like probably from some guru that was like action produces information or something like that. That sticks with me. And I kind of what I'm feeling after this interview is like, he's just taking a bunch of like steps, you know, and even if they were wrong, he learned something and kind of adjusted it for the next project. And I think that's kind of inspiring for me. If you don't know what to do, just start doing just take action. And as you said, you'll learn something, you'll see something, and that will allow you to take more action and then keep going on that cycle. If you are ready to take action, ready to build something, check out the link I put down below for starter story build. You can click that right now and get started on your app. We'll help you find an idea, build it and get it in the hands of real people in a matter of as little as a couple days. So if you click that link, check it out, start building promise you won't regret it. All right. Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you in the next one. Peace.
