Lakshmi Kaanthan (LK)

I’m 47 years old and I’m building 12 startups in 12 months. 🇲🇾🛠️ Most people my age are looking for "exit strategies." I'm looking for my next SwiftUI bug.😀 Project #3: Smartli (AI Digital Closet) launches this Tuesday April 14th on Product Hunt! 🚀 Watch the video to see why I’m doing this and what I'm shipping. 👇 #buildinpublic #solopreneur #12Startups12Months

Day 9 of the banana tree watch. 🌱 It is definitely getting thicker at the base. It’s surviving. I was looking at my analytics for Smartli this morning. I got about 100 combined views on some Facebook and Instagram posts. 100 views is basically nothing when you need 100,000 users. It’s a drop of water in the desert. But just like this little seedling finally pushing out a real leaf, it proves there is a pulse. The developers are here on X, but my actual users—the people tired of messy closets—are over on IG and TikTok. Time to stop talking to builders and start talking to buyers. #buildinpublic #indiehackers #solopreneur

Launching on Product Hunt in a couple of minutes and honestly, I am terrified. 🫠 After fighting Apple rejections all week, startup #3 of my '12 Startups in 12 Months' challenge is officially going live. Smartli is an AI closet that cures morning decision fatigue and automatically prices your unworn clothes for resale. I don't have a marketing agency or an ad budget. I'm just a solo dev trying to figure this out. If you have two minutes today to drop by the page, leave some feedback, and help me not launch to crickets, it would mean the world. 👇 producthunt.com/products/smart… #buildinpublic #indiehackers #solopreneur

Smartli (iOS) is launching on Product Hunt tomorrow! Super excited as a lot of work went into it and we will continue working on this and other projects on my 12 startups in 12 months journey. #buildinpublic #startups #solopreneur #learning #tech

3 months ago I made the choice to ship, to be honest about what I didn't know, and to stop waiting until I felt "ready." That decision forced me to actually build instead of just plan. Overthinking silenced my instincts, blocked my momentum and fed every fear of shipping something broken. Today I am building. Today I am learning in public. Both doubt and belief live in your head before anything ships. I'm glad I chose action over perfection. It wasn't in having all the answers that I found my footing - it was in shipping anyway. #buildinpublic #startups #solopreneur #learning #tech

Day 3 of the banana seedling update. It is noticeably taller today, but because it grew so rapidly, it's actually pretty fragile. It's a perfect visual for the transition I'm trying to force myself through right now: moving from 'developer' to 'founder'. As a developer, shipping the code and getting the App Store approval feels like the ultimate finish line. It's the plant finally breaking the dirt. But watching this flimsy seedling sway today is a harsh reminder that top-level growth is entirely useless without a root system. For Smartli, the roots are the boring, unglamorous things I posted about yesterday: Day 1 retention, free-to-paid conversion rates, and surviving the unit economics of a $2.99/month price point. I spent the last few months focused purely on breaking the surface. Now I have 6 months of runway to figure out how to build the roots before the whole project tips over. #buildinpublic #startups #solopreneur #learning #tech

Confession: My default setting as a dev is to ship the code and immediately hide from the analytics. It's just less painful than watching a dashboard sit at zero. But with this 12-startup challenge, I'm trying to actually learn how to run a business, not just write code. And with my runway ticking down, hiding isn't an option anymore. So I built this daily tracking sheet for Smartli. I'm going to force myself to look at it every single morning. To be completely honest, I don't even know if these green/red targets are realistic for a $2.99 app. I'm literally just guessing based on what I've read and trying to figure it out as I go. If you've launched consumer apps before and my 'Red Flag' thresholds look totally delusional, please tell me. I am learning this entirely on the fly right now. 🫠 #buildinpublic #indiehackers #solopreneur

Day 2 of the banana seedling, and it is visibly taller today. 🌱 There is a parallel here that I can't ignore, especially after the last 24 hours. For the past week, my newest app, Smartli, was stuck in Apple Review. Two consecutive rejections. It felt exactly like this banana stump did before it sprouted: stalled, buried, and completely stuck in the dark. But just now, Apple finally gave me the green light. The app is officially live. Just like this little plant breaking the surface of the sand, the absolute hardest part of building something is just surviving the dirt. When you are constantly getting rejected or fighting bugs, it feels like you are going nowhere. But once you break through, the momentum shifts completely. If you are a solo dev or builder currently stuck in the dirt right now—fighting code, waiting on approvals, or dealing with zero traction—just keep pushing upward. The surface is closer than you think. #buildinpublic #solopreneur #tech #resilience #iosdev

@fordsmith Really appreciate it, Ford. It was definitely a test of sanity. Now comes the hard part: actually figuring out how to market the thing. Thanks for following the chaos!

@LKBuilds That persistence really paid off, getting through multiple rejections makes this win hit even harder, excited to see how Smartli grows from here 🚀🍏

Apple finally said yes. Smartli is officially approved. 🍏✅ After many rejections and a lot of frustration, startup #4 of my '12 Startups in 12 Months' challenge is ready for the App Store. Building solo means the wins feel twice as big because I felt every bit of the struggle to get there. Still have a few early-bird spots open at $19/year before the official launch next week. Link in the bio if you want to be part of the first 100. #buildinpublic #iosdev #solopreneur #indiehackers

@CyberDevOG All of the above!

@LKBuilds Congrats — App Store rejections grind solo founders down more than the code ever does. Curious which reason hit hardest: metadata, subscription terms, or the privacy nutrition label? Those three seem to eat most of the '12 in 12' pace for indie iOS devs.

I planted a banana stump in a makeshift pot a few weeks ago and thought I completely killed it. 🫠 The first leaf stalled out, and the stump actually started getting soft. (Honestly, a pretty accurate reflection of how I've been feeling during this 12-startup challenge). As a last resort, I dragged it into better sunlight. A few days later, two entirely new seedlings broke through the sand. The first one is crawling, but that tiny second one is growing at absolute warp speed. Plants literally don't stop moving. If they get stuck, they just adapt and keep going. I'm constantly fighting bugs, context-switching, and hitting walls right now. But watching this thing survive is a pretty solid reminder that I just need to keep moving, too. Going to post a daily update of these seedlings so I hold myself accountable to the growth. Day 1. 🌱👇 #buildinpublic #solopreneur #indiehackers

@maverickmaltin @contraben exactly, and that's where the real opportunities are hiding the gap between "can use AI" and "can use AI well" is massive rn

@LKBuilds @contraben 100% — average output is easy now. high-quality output is where people get separated

Introducing Contra Labs. The first frontier data and evaluation lab for Creative AI.

@ideabrowser Thank you

@LKBuilds Good luck! Rooting for you

@chddaniel Vibe coding is crazy. We ship or we die.

small dev experiment today came across duolingo on the app store 950M downloads, ~$4.5B worth tried vibecoding it myself on shipper wasn’t gonna pay for the duo Max subscription CC Opus 4.6 literally one-shot duo in 193 sec... lowkey crazy!!?

Just got hit with my second App Store rejection for Smartli. Currently knee-deep in code trying to fix it before my launch next Tuesday. The '12 Startups' challenge is honestly just me spending 50% of my time fighting with Apple reviewers. If you want to support a solo dev slowly losing his mind, the web early-bird spots are still open for $19/yr while I fix this iOS build: smartli.app #buildinpublic #indiehackers #iOSdev

@anything Cool

🚨 JUST IN: Apple caved! the Anything app is back on the App Store to celebrate vibe coding we are launching a $5k weekend hackathon reply to get in + 20k credits