John Rush came onto my radar when he acquired a website builder, Unicorn Platform, for $800k. He's a really interesting entrepreneur and now he's building a holding company of bootstrapped startups. John joined me for an interview where he talked about his holding company MarsX, why product beats distribution and his journey from VC startups to bootstrapping.
Why did you leave the VC world to bootstrap your own startups?
I felt like I was the only one trying to focus on users and value for the users, and everyone else in the VC startup world was obsessed with conferences, the next funding round, and media press.
Also, I moved to a Turkish village with my family and my VCs would always push me to travel to their office. It felt like I was an employee and they were my bosses. Which is in fact the reality for most founders of VC backed startups. You can't say no to VCs. You have to pretend their jokes are funny. Then I saw indie makers on Twitter, followed them for a while, and saw that their approach resonates with me a lot more than the VC approach.
Can you explain what MarsX is?
It’s a universe of products, e.g. a Holdco that aims to create a full ecosystem of tools to ideate, build, grow and monetize startups.
The core product is Mars IDE that let’s us build SaaS, apps and directories using nocode, lowcode, AI and full code. A perfect mix that makes the whole process ultra productive. I can ship few products every month.
How are you going to build 1,000 tools by 2025?
The end goal is to create Mars OS that will make it easy to use all Mars products with one user and company profile. No more cluttered process where you have 30 accounts in different SaaS tools and pay for all of them.
My model is this: I team up with a fellow maker and we build a tool inside the Mars ecosystem that gets added into Mars OS but also is launched as a standalone tool to the market.
Since I launch all tools in collabs, there is practically no limit on the number of tools. Once the tool is launched, my job is done and the fellow maker takes the tool forward so that I can get into next collabs on the next tools.
The next step is to open Mars OS for everyone, so that others can create apps there and we can do not hundreds but thousands of apps.
How did you get your start in entrepreneurship?
I was studying Computer Science and Interaction Design in Halden, Norway but dropped out once I entered a startup as a CTO. I learned a lot in uni about coding, architectures, OOP, design, UX and more, but I saw no value in the degree (diploma) itself, so I went with startups.
I sold my first startup (it was bootstrapped) and then went into 10 years of VC funded startup world. I invested most of my money into my startups and other startups as an angel, graduated 500-startups incubator and spent years in the UK & US. I invested a lot in crypto, stock market and property.
Following different circumstances, I lost most of my investments and failed most of my startups. Two of my VC backed startups did well. In 2020 I got to know the indie maker world and buildInPublic movement. I watched it for several years. In 2022 I bought Unicorn Platform from Alexander Isora for $800k and entered the bootstrapper world.
You bought Unicorn Builder for $800k - how did that deal come about?
I followed Alex online for more than a year and then DMed him on Telegram to make an offer. We had one talk and made a deal. I really liked him, so to be honest, I bought Unicorn Platform to get access to his brain and learn how to be an indie maker ASAP.
How does the micro app store in MarsX work?
SaaS tools are based on micro-apps (auth, profile, sidebar, CRUD table, payment…). So building an app on mars means you grab lots of micro-apps, glue them together with a business logic and launch it as a SaaS tool. It saves about 90% of the work.
These micro apps are in a high demand among the app builders. So they pay to micro app builders a commission to use their micro apps and to access the updates.
You have loads planned for this year! How do you manage so many projects?
I have a team that works on Mars IDE and infra. Then I have contractors and fellow makers as collaborators/cofounders per product. I have a designer. I use discord, where I have a channel per product where it’s me, my designer and a cofounder or contractor. That’s where we cook.
How can bootstrappers make their websites more attractive to buyers?
I bought the “founder”. But overall, if I buy again, I will buy if I see the SaaS that’s stable and grows with SEO and organic channels. I will not buy a product that grows out of social media, because the moment the founder stops tweeting, I will lose the traffic.
What’s your spiciest opinion about startups?
Great products win. Bad products lose.
Many think “the best distribution wins”. But in reality, I have never seen a product that has bad distribution but great product. If the founder can’t distribute, how can he/she build a good product? For a good product you need users and their constant feedback and tons of iterations. To get these users, you need distribution.
Where can people find out more about you and MarsX?
On my twitter profile x.com/johnrushx or my personal site johnrush.me
