Short, bite-sized conversations with indie hackers that have started small, profitable and bootstrapped businesses. You'll learn how they come up with ideas, what they do to validate, find those first customers and make a sustainable income.
Similar Podcasts
The Bootstrapped Founder
Arvid Kahl talks about starting and bootstrapping businesses, how to build an audience, and how to build in public.
Idea to Startup
A podcast for people working on startup ideas. We have 15-minute tactical episodes and occasional interviews with people who did the early things exceptionally well. We've helped launch hundreds of startups worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and these are the building blocks.
"This is, without a doubt, the best podcast for people trying to build startups out there."
"If you aren't listening to this podcast and you're considering building a business (or you're already building one), what are you doing?"
"Must listen for first-time entrepreneurs - excellent storyteller."
30 Minutes of Growth
Founders and marketers are always busy. While there are many marketing podcasts out there telling great stories, frustratingly few give real-life growth marketing tactics.
That’s what makes 30 Minutes of Growth different. Host Alex Garcia, of Marketing Examined, dives into his guest’s brain and pulls out actionable playbooks against the clock.
Every episode Alex pulls out not one, not two, but three growth marketing playbooks for you to instantly put into practice... before time runs out.
The countdown starts on March 14th, with new episodes every Tuesday. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Working towards life-changing outcomes as an indie hacker - Colleen Schnettler, HelloQuery
In this episode I’m joined by Colleen Schnettler, which a lot of you would have heard from through her Software Social podcast she co-hosts with Michele Hansen. Colleen has been on quite the journey over the past few years, going from years of contracting to launching her first product, Simple File Upload, then getting a large contracting gig with Hammerstone, landing a separate full-time job to then quit 3 weeks later to rejoin that Hammerstone as a co-founder.What we covered: 00:00 Intro 02:03 Why start the Software Social podcast? 02:59 Why start building products 04:04 Colleen's first product: Simple File Upload 05:07 Why they stopped the podcast 06:37 Joining Hammerstone 08:50 Being a solo founder 10:16 Hello Query 11:47 Closing down a successful product 13:50 Reccos Reccomendations Book: The Mom Test Podcast: Boostrapped Web Indie Hacker: Corey Haines Follow ColleenTwitterMy links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.
Gamifying products, shipping quickly and knowing when to quit - Marc Louvion
Marc Louvion is an indie hacker with many many products. His tagline on his website is relatable for all “I was fired everywhere so I had to work for myself (even Tai Lopez fired me...)”. If you go to Marc’s Indie Page you can see all his projects, including Habits Garden, Gamify List, Visualise Habit, Make Landing & more. Marc is living in Bali and on his way to $5k MRR across his projects. You might have seen Marc on Twitter with his hilarious launch videos and candid build in public updates.Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:32 Marc's indie hacker journey 03:07 Moving to Bali 03:39 Starting a glove business 05:52 Gamification 07:41 Challenges with gamification 08:29 Knowing when to quit a product 10:32 Portfolio of projects vs single focus 11:46 Marc's day to day 12:53 Building an AI product 14:00 Creative launch videos 15:14 Reccos Recommendations Book: Why We Sleep Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: Danny Postma Follow Marc Twitter Explore Marc's products My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.
Is indie hacking having an identity crisis? - Dominic Monn, MentorCruise
In this episode I’m bringing back a previous guest, Dom Monn, who is the founder of MentorCruise, which he’s now working full time on with a small team. I brought Dom back on to discuss something that has been on my mind, and has come up in twitter conversations recently which Dom has been involved in.Is indie hacking having an identity crisis? Is the indie label and mentality limiting success and holding many founders back? I think it could be and so we discuss why this might be happening and what we can do about it. Jason's tweet which inspired this conversation Mike's response Dom's response Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:56 Indie hacker identity crisis 03:42 How indie hacking has changed 06:32 Why the indie label can be a limiter 08:20 Accepting slow growth instead of fixing it 10:33 Should we set bigger goals? 12:10 We still love the indie hacker community 13:50 Recommendations Recommendations Book - Sprint Podcast - This Indie Life Indie Hacker - Ramen Club Follow Dom Twitter Hire him as a mentor Personal site My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.
How to find and validate your ideas - Bram Kanstein, Startup Stash / No Code MVP
Today I’m joined by Bram Kanstein, who you might know from Startup Stash, which is the most upvoted product ever on Product Hunt. Bram also started the No Code MVP a course, which shows you how to launch an MVP without code. In this episode we focus a lot on how indie hackers can find ideas and launch them the right way.Timestamps 00:00 Intro 03:18 Startup Stash 05:56 No Code MVP 09:47 Finding ideas 12:22 Idea validation 15:00 Recommendations Recommendations Book - Untethered Soul by Michael Singer Podcast(s) - Joe Rogan, HIBT, MFM Indie Hacker - Danny Postma Follow BramTwitterMy links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.
Growing Frontend Mentor to 500k users and $30k MRR - Matt Studdert
Matt Studdert is the founder of Frontend Mentor, which helps people level up their front-end coding skills by building projects. They have over 500,000 users and are hovering around $30k MRR. Matt didn’t start out wanting to run a SaaS, starting out playing poker, then became a personal trainer, before changing his career and learning to code when he was 28.Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:16 Playing Poker full time 02:58 Becoming a personal trainer 04:24 Learning to code with General Assembly 06:33 Front End Mentor 08:33 Building a scrappy MVP 11:29 Growth for Front End Mentor 15:03 Reccos Recommendations Book - badass make users awesome Podcast - Acquired Indie Hacker - Arvid Kahl, Valentin Wallyn Follow MattTwitterMy links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.
Jordan O'Connor on running a $30k MRR SaaS and doing SEO consulting on the side
Jordan O’Connor is the founder of Closet Tools, a bootstrapped app that helps people sell more stuff on Poshmark which has been in and around the $30-40k MRR mark. He’s found a lot of his growth through SEO, like many successful entrepreneurs, and now helps other founders do the same through his Rank to Sell power half hours.Listen to the full 90 minute chat with Jordan here ->Timestamps 00:00 Intro 03:29 Jordan being awful with money 04:30 Jordan's indie hacking journey 06:10 Launching and failing with different products 07:06 Choosing SaaS 08:31 Starting closet tools 11:38 Pricing for Closet Tools 12:35 Reverse stair stepping with Rank to Sell (consulting) 16:08 Reccos Recommendations Book - Deep Work Podcast - Deep Questions by Cal Newport Indie Hacker - Pat Walls Follow Jordan Twitter Personal website My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.
Growing a $2m p/y indie business - Josh Ho, Referral Rock
Josh Ho is the founder and CEO of Referral Rock, a SaaS he founded in 2014 doing over $2m a year in revenue. Referral Rock helps businesses to design, launch and manage a customer referral program. Josh has had decades of experience as a founder, pouring his early entrepreneurship energy into a notes app that he ultimately couldn’t monetize.Timestamps00:00 - Intro01:24 - Josh's background02:11 - Lessons from a failed startup04:16 - Failed startup to new long term bet05:41 - The idea for Referral Rock06:59 - Pricing a B2C product08:33 - Marketing advice for indie hackers12:24 - Challenges along the way14:01 - Raising15:41 - RecommendationsRecommendations Book - Extreme Entrepreneurship Podcast - Don't Say Content Indie Hacker - Monica Lent Follow Josh Twitter Josh's Substack My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.
Building a 6-figure creator business - Jay Clouse, Creator Science
Jay Clouse is the founder of Creator Science, which is a membership, community, newsletter and podcast helping you become build a creator business, which he bootstrapped to over $40k a month towards the end of last year. His podcast is one of the best produced shows out there and it’s on my very short list of shows that I can listen to every episode and know it’s going to be killer. I think the creator business angle is interesting for indie hackers who haven’t quite found a product yet and want to build something. Creating content and speaking to people in your niche, can help you find pain points and problems, while also building extra income for yourself.Timestamps 01:55 The Creative Elements podcast (now Creator Science) 04:45 How to have a point of differentiation 06:11 Building a creator business 08:23 Making $40k in one month 11:03 Multiple projects and revenue streams 13:10 How Jay spends his time 14:02 How to start out as a creator 15:19 Recommendations Recommendations Book - How to Win Friends and Influence People Podcast - Bandsplain Indie hacker / entrepreneur - Justin Moore Follow JayTwitterMy links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.
Building a $15k MRR side project while working at Stripe - Justin Duke, Buttondown
Justin Duke is the founder of Buttondown, a simple email newsletter tool without all the bloat. In December 2022 Buttondown was around $15k MRR. He also runs Spoonbill, which is a way to stay updated on what people change on their social profiles. At the time of recording this Justin was an engineering manager at Stripe so you’ll hear references to that, but he’s since left to go all in on being a founder.👉 Join the Indie Bites membership here.Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:57 Origins of Buttondown 03:25 Buttondown launch 05:37 Keeping Buttondown as a side project 07:47 A pricing conundrum 09:26 Having a free plan 10:20 Finding balance 12:31 Are Stripe side-project friendly 13:56 Recommendations Recommendations Book - The Great Beanie Baby Bubble Podcast - Metamuse Indie Hacker - Amy Hoy Newsletter - Matt Levine Money Stuff Follow Justin Twitter Personal site My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
Breaking Convention: The Radical Thinking of Jack McDade and Statamic
Jack McDade is the creator of Statamic, a content management system for Laravel. He’s been running it since 2012 and making a few million a year with a team of 6. But what I love about Jack is how he approaches all of his projects, including Statamic, to just be different. There is so much cookie cutter content out there and everything just ends up looking the same - but not if Jack has anything to do with it. Just take a look at his personal website, his Radical Design course and Icons and you’ll see what I mean. I love it.👉 Join the Indie Bites membership here.Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:27 Why Jack started Statamic 02:58 Taking 6 years before going full time 04:20 What would Jack have done differently? 05:14 How to be different 07:40 The unfair indie hacker advantage 08:26 Radical Design Course 12:45 Learning with Jack 15:07 Recommendations Recommendations Book: Steal Like an Artist & Extreme Ownership Podcast: Friendship Onion & Darknet Diarys Indie Hacker: Adam Wathan Follow JackTwitterMy links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
From $0 to $10k MRR in 2 years - Elston Baretto, Tiiny Host (Revisited)
Elston Baretto was last on the pod in March 2021, when he’d just grown his tool, Tiiny.host, to $600 MRR and we recorded as part of my mission to share stories of unknown indie hackers with potential. Fast forward 2 years and Tiiny Host has grown to $10k MRR and Elston has just quit his job to become a full time indie hacker.👉 My side project, Whitstable Craft Co.Topics covered: Hitting $10k MRR Why PDF hosting has been pivotal for growth Build what people search for Why SEO has been such a huge growth driver How to do SEO Going full time When is the right time to quit your job? How much to pay yourself Launching before it's perfect Pressure of growth How to keep indie hacking enjoyable Recommendations Book: The New New Thing Podcast: Postgres.fm Indie Hacker: Vetted Founders (tbc) Follow Elston Twitter Tiiny Host My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
Making $12k p/m with Wordpress plugins - Patrick Posner
Patrick Posner is the creator of a portfolio of Wordpress plugins which have been downloaded almost a million tinmes collectively making him $12k p/m. Patrick went full time indie in 2020 and since then has both grown quickly and scaled back operations to build the best sort of life for him. I love these types of stories of relatively unknown indie hackers who are creating the dream life for themselves.What we covered in this episode: Building Wordpress plugins on the side of a day job Marketing for Wordpress plugins Getting 1m downloads Beating a domain reseller Finding SEO keywords to rank for Pricing yearly vs monthly Growing fast and scaling back Recommendations Book - Why We Sleep Podcast - The Bootstrapped Founder Indie Hacker - tbc Follow PatrickTwitterMy links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
From $50m VC-backed to $20k MRR notes app - Alex MacCaw, Reflect (prev. Clearbit)
Alex MacCaw is the founder of Reflect, a note taking app which he’s grown to $20k MRR with a team of 4. Previously, he was the co-founder of Clearbit, a VC-backed company that scaled to $50m in revenue. After stepping down as CEO of Clearbit, he decided to focus on doing the stuff he enjoys. So he’s sailing around the world building an app that gets him excited every day.👉 My side project, Whitstable Craft Co.What we covered in this episode: Why Alex dropped out of school Coding without a CS degree Being unemployable Starting Clearbit Stepping down as CEO of Clearbit Boostrapping Reflect Why another note taking app? Building what you enjoy Growing to 20k MRR Getting the first users for your product Sailing around the world Recommendations Book: Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space Podcast: In Our Time Indie Hacker: Adam Wathan Follow AlexTwitterMy links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
Stair stepping to millions in SaaS revenue - Craig Hewitt, Castos
Craig Hewitt is the Founder and CEO of Castos, a bootstrapped podcast hosting and analytics platform with a services arm for podcast production. He’s been in podcasting almost a decade, having started his own show, Rogue Startups and his production service Podcast Motor (which he folded into Castos). Craig not only shares his ponderings on his show, but he also writes a weekly newsletter called Founder Insights.What we covered in this episode: Craig's background in sales Launching a podcasting productized service in 2014 Stair stepping to SaaS What is Stair Stepping? Acquiring Seriously Simple Podcasting Product positioning Growth and marketing for Castos His approach to podcastingCastos Originals Bootstrapping vs raising Founder Insights newsletter Recommendations Book: Who Not How by Dan Sullivan Podcast: Startups for the Rest of Us Indie Hacker: Moritz Dausinger Follow Craig Twitter Personal website My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website Buy A Wallet 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools
$2.5m ARR bootstrapped from first time founder - Dan Fayle, Chekkit
Today I’m joined by Dan Fayle, who is the co-founder of Checkkit, a company that’s he bootstrapped to almost $2.5m ARR and 20 employees. There’s a few interesting things about Dan’s story I know you’re going to like. This is his first company and he quit his job to go all-in with 3 co-founders, he got his early customers through, and I’m not kidding, door to door sales and finally he’s not changed the price of the product since it’s launch 6 years ago.What we covered in this episode: Dan’s background Why he went all-in on Chekkit from the beginning How he got his early customers from door to door sales How to make cold email work at scale Biggest growth channels How an early pivot lead to more growth Why they stuck to their $99 p/m price for years What’s next for the business Recommendations Book: Shoe Dog Podcast: The Move Indie Hacker: Nathan Barry Follow DanTwitterFollow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website Buy A Wallet 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools