200k followers, $5K MRR, 5.6% body fat

It’s Sunday, 8:01 am in South Korea.

I’m in an empty coffee shop with a latte, waiting for inspiration to strike.

Spoiler: it doesn’t.

So instead, I’ll just write about what I’ve actually been working on.

200K followers

I started sharing my thoughts on Twitter in November 2021.

Growing an audience was never the goal (and never will be), but I thought:

"If I can get a few people watching my work, I won't have to start from 0 when I launch new startups."

It took 8 months to get 1,000 followers. It was very slow, but I didn't care because my north star metric was the number of shipped startups.

I was having fun, and I was committed. I think early followers felt it.

My audience grew faster after shipping 10+ startups. And much faster after the financial success of ShipFast.

In July 2024, my Twitter account crossed 100K followers.

And here we are, August 2025, with 200K followers, a number I never thought possible for a little guy writing JavaScript and surfing.

I'm deeply grateful to every single one of you who has been following the journey. You make me feel less weird and make my life more meaningful.

So thank you 200,000 times ❤️

$5,000 MRR

A year ago, I launched a new SaaS, DataFast.

The growth was very slow at the beginning. I thought I had made a big mistake and wanted to give up.

But I’m stubborn, so I kept improving the product, polishing the onboarding, and building features users requested. This is what the MRR growth looks like:

• $1K MRR → 4 months

• $2K MRR → 3 months

• $3K MRR → 2 months

• $4K MRR → 1 month

• $5K MRR → soon?

I wrote about how I increased the revenue trajectory with better onboarding.

5.6% body fat

You didn’t expect this in a tech newsletter, did you?

Well, it’s not about fitness, but about psychology, productivity, and work.

When I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2016, I neglected physical activity because I perceived it as time wasted. This is partially why I burned out in 2020.

Since 2021, I’ve put my health as my #1 priority. These are my non-negotiables:

• 10K daily steps

• 1 hour of workout

• 8 hours of good sleep

• 95% healthy food (my diet)

These habits create a positive reinforcement loop that impacts every aspect of my life positively:

→ Finishing them gives me an instant hit of “I did it,” which boosts my mood and focus
→ Repeating them compounds into real results (more startups shipped, better shape)
→ Results reinforce my identity, so sticking to the habits becomes effortless

In fact, I enjoy my routine so much, I repeat it 365 days a year.

New project

My Twitter feed is full of 20-year-old founders crushing it with short-form content marketing on TikTok.

I’m a boomer, but I want to give it a try too.

So I’ve created ClipMarc.com — a content reward program to clip my YouTube channel. Clippers get paid $3 per 1k views (well above market average). It’s limited to 30 people, and it has a first-come, first-served policy.

My latte is cold. And I’m late for my swimming class.

That’s it for today. See you next week!

— Marc Lou