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.
Build in a competitive market, or go niche? - Derrick Reimer, SavvyCal
Derrick Reimer is the founder of SavvyCal, a new approach to calendar scheduling and has grown to multiple thousands MRR since he launched it earlier in 2020. Derrick also co-founded Drip with Rob Walling in 2012, which was acquired by Leadpages in 2016. You might have heard Derrick on the Art of Product podcast with Tuple co-founder Ben Orenstein where they document their journey building their products.Get ad-free and extended conversations of the podcast with Indie Feast membership, for just £4 a month.What we covered in this episode: What is SavvyCal? What problem is it trying to solve? Why go into such a crowded market? A nice market or crowded one? The advantage of being a solo founder or small team vs larger competition How long did Derrick build before launching the MVP? How much growth has come from pre-existing audience? What goes into a good Product Hunt launch? When should Indie Hackers bring marketing support on? What marketing tactics can you employ? How does TinySeed funding work? Should other founders look for this type of funding? Art of Product podcast Recommendations Book: The Mom Test Podcast: Software Social Follow Derrick Twitter Website SavvyCal Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thanks to this episode's sponsor, ChurnkeyIt can be a huge challenge to keep churn down when your SaaS product starts to see traction. The founders of Churnkey know exactly how much of a challenge this can be, having collectively grown three SaaS companies to over $4m in ARR.They realized that they were thinking about cancellations all wrong. A relationship with a customer doesn’t stop with the “Cancel” button. So they built Churnkey, which reduces churn by up to 42% with custom cancellation flows. For every customer who clicks “Cancel,” Churnkey offers up dynamic offers that encourage customers to stay subscribed.Just connect Stripe and plug in a small bit of code. In minutes, you’ll be reducing churn by immediately unlocking subscription pauses, dynamic offers, and cancellation insights. See how much revenue Churnkey can recover for you. Visit churnkey.co to start your free trial.
How to build a business you actually enjoy - Natalie Nagele, Wildbit
Natalie Nagele is the co-founder of Wildbit, the company behind Postmark, Beanstalk, People-First Jobs and more. Wildbit has just turned 20 years old, so Natalie knows exactly what it takes to grow and scale successful bootstrapped businesses. What makes Natalie so interesting to me is that she’s in the group of seriously successful indie hackers (over 100k customers, around for 20 years, pretty large team etc.) and they’re still indie very much living by their own rules.What we covered in this episode: What would you tell yourself 20 years ago before starting Wildbit? How do you find work that you enjoy and fulfils you? How much time should you spend on hobbies vs your business? At what point is a hobby a business and vice versa? How to get into deep workCal Newport, Deep Work How many hours you can actually work in a day How much should you work on your business? Why you need to take time to step back and think How much is Natalie working now? How do you fit work in with the stuff you enjoy? Work life balance Recommendations Book: Anti-fragile Podcast: 99% Invisible Indie Hacker: Chris Savage + Brendan Schwartz Follow Natalie Twitter Wildbit Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thanks to this episode's sponsor, ChurnkeyIt can be a huge challenge to keep churn down when your SaaS product starts to see traction. The founders of Churnkey know exactly how much of a challenge this can be, having collectively grown three SaaS companies to over $4m in ARR.They realized that they were thinking about cancellations all wrong. A relationship with a customer doesn’t stop with the “Cancel” button. So they built Churnkey, which reduces churn by up to 42% with custom cancellation flows. For every customer who clicks “Cancel,” Churnkey offers up dynamic offers that encourage customers to stay subscribed.Just connect Stripe and plug in a small bit of code. In minutes, you’ll be reducing churn by immediately unlocking subscription pauses, dynamic offers, and cancellation insights. See how much revenue Churnkey can recover for you. Visit churnkey.co to start your free trial.
$600 MRR and 150 new users per day with SEO and marketing - Elston Baretto, Tiiny Host
Elston Baretto is the founder of Tiiny.host and is in a similar position to most indie hackers - working on his side-project alongside a full time job, but has had a career packed with learnings that we're going to talk through in this episode. Elston started out his career at JP Morgan, having reluctantly accepted a graduate job he planned to stay at for 6 months. 4 years later, he was still at the conglomerate bank, but he wasn't satisfied staying there for the rest of his career.While at JP Morgan, Elston launched a few side-projects, some of which still make revenue today, but decided to leave to chase the startup dream. Fast forward a year and the startup dream was over, a company with 14 employees but little traction - sound familiar?Elston went back to work full-time while he figured things out. In January 2020, he launched Tiiny.host, a super simple way to host your projects. After launching, he made $1,000 in just 3 days using lifetime deals and is now chugging away nicely as a side project.What we covered in this episode: What is Tiiny Host and why did Elston start it How he made lifetime deals work for his launch Why Elston has put marketing first for Tiiny Host Setting goals for your indie hacker business How Tiiny Host got 150 sites a day being created from free SEO pages How has he made marketing fun Doing side-project marketing Elston's plans to go full-time Recommendations Book: Traction Podcast: Tim Ferris Show Indie Hacker: Sabba Kenyejad Follow Elston Twitter Tiiny Host Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’‘Absolutely love this community.’These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.
Building a mid 6-figure Notion course in under a year, solo - Marie Poulin, Notion Mastery
Marie Poulin is the host of Notion Office Hours, creator of Notion Mastery, Run Your Learning Launch, Digital Strategy School, Think Like a Digital Strategist, and co-founded Oki Doki with her husband, where they help folks create, launch, and market online courses and training programs.What we covered in this episode: What is Notion Mastery and why did Marie start it? The impact YouTube had on growth How the course earned $10k in the first week Why Marie doubled down on the course as her main project Why it's important not to be a perfectionist Why niching is important How 80% of Marie's course revenue came from YouTube How to make the most out of Notion How to enjoy the work you do Making $10k extra a month with Gumroad templates Recommendations Book: Do More Great Work Podcast: This Is Uncomfortable Indie Hacker: Anne-Laure Le Cunff Follow Marie Twitter Notion Mastery Marie's YouTube Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thank you to this episode's sponsor, ilo.so!You probably know that Twitter is an incredibly useful tool for us as indie hackers, but sometimes Twitter's in-built analytics tool doesn't quite give you the metrics that really matter. Dan Rowden, from Indie Bites episode 17, has created the most useful analytics tool for Twitter, giving you the metrics that actually help you understand your tweet performance and grow your audience.With one glance, ilo helps you easily see which kind of tweets get more impressions, likes, profile clicks and more so you can get grow your Twitter audience.Head to ilo.so and use the code INDIEBITES20 to get 25% off your ilo subscription for life. There are only 10 codes available so check it out before they all go!
Lessons learned bootstrapping and selling a $55k p/m SaaS - Arvid Kahl, TheBootstrappedFounder
Arvid Kahl is a software engineer turned entrepreneur. He co-founded and FeedbackPanda, an online teacher productivity SaaS company, with his partner Danielle Simpson. They sold the business for a life-changing amount of money in 2019, two years after founding the business. Arvid writes on TheBootstrappedFounder.com because bootstrapping is a desirable, value- and wealth-generating way of running a company. In over a decade of working in startup businesses of all sizes, Arvid has learned a thing or two about what works, what doesn't, and how to increase the chances of building a successful business.Get the full, 60 minute conversation with Arvid here with the Indie Feast membership.What we covered in this episode: The Feedback Panda story Was the ambition to sell the company from the start?Built to Sell, John Warrillow What Indie Hackers can learn from Zero to Sold What happens once you sell a business? Why settle on the format of a book? Why didn't Arvid make his book free? How to find a critical problem in a market that's willing to pay Tips for going into a crowded market How to to find your audience Recommendations Book: The Mom Test Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: Sergio Mattei Follow Arvid Twitter The Embedded Entrepreneur Zero to Sold Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Today we have Embarque.io supporting the show! Embarque is run by a fellow indie hacker and has just crossed 6 figures in revenue. Embarque is an agency that offers productised SEO content that converts.It blew my mind when Julian told me about the growth their client MentorCruise had from the SEO content, resulting in 107% increase in MRR, 100% increase in monthly trials and a 114% increase SEO traffic. My word, wouldn't you want those kind of results for your indie business.Go and check out what Embarque are offering at Embarque.io and get $100 off your first package with the code 'INDIEBITES'.
Making $15k in 24 hours selling a book on Gumroad - Philip Kiely, Gumroad
Today we're joined by Philip Kiely, who is currently Head of Marketing at Gumroad. Philip also launched "Writing for Software Developers" last May, making $20,000 in sales in its first week without any pre-existing audience. Since then, Philip has been on a mission to help as many software developers as possible realize that they possess the skills they need to become great writers. What we covered in this episode: Why Philip wrote 'Writing for Software Developers' How Philip made $20k in 24 hours with no pre-existing audience Should you do pre-sales if you're selling an info product? How Philip got his job at Gumroad Why there has been a boom in the creator economy Why choose Gumroad as your selling platform Where a new creator should start when selling a product Who made the most money on Gumroad in 2020 Gumroad Stats 2020 Follow Philip Twitter Website Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites, which is launching in the US this week!‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’‘Absolutely love this community.’These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.Interested in ad-free episodes an exclusive content? Sign up to the Indie Feast membership.
Making over $5k/month from a portfolio of side projects - Dan Rowden, ilo
Dan, like many other indie hackers, runs a bunch of projects alongside a full-time job which all compound to him making over $5k a month. In 2012 he started Magpile, a free online resource about magazines, which was followed by Subsail, a platform to help indie publishers sell magazine subscriptions.Earlier this year Dan started using the publishing platform Ghost, which he then started to build a suite of products around, now including: Gloat; a productised service for hosting and self hosting Cove; a commenting tool for Ghost blogs Substation; a theme for Ghost Dan also launched ilo, a better analytics platform for Twitter a few months ago, which has earned over $6k in revenue since launch.What we covered in this episode: Why Dan lives in Mauritius Why choose multiple projects over doing just one? How do you manage your time with 3 kids, a wife and a full-time job? Why Dan isn't too worried about 'growing' his side projects The pros and cons of working on your side project with a full-time job Not worrying about the money your side project earns - does it take the fun out of it? Why is Dan so bullish on Ghost? Why having a 'suite' of products is complimentary to each other Getting a 75k acquisition offer Awesome thread on the $75k offer What were the options? Being prepared to sell your projects Building an alternative to Twitter analytics Recommendations Magazine: Courier Newsletter: Dense Discovery Podcast: Startup Indie Hacker: Justin Jackson Follow Dan Twitter Website Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites, which is launching in the US this week!‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’‘Absolutely love this community.’These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.Interested in ad-free episodes an exclusive content? Sign up to the Indie Feast membership.
Turning $100 into $52,000 selling handmade candles DTC - Dianna Allen, TERRA
Dianna Allen is the founder of TERRA, a DTC candle brand, where she designs and hand pours a variety of candles. In October 2020, Dianna left her life as a freelancer behind to put her efforts into TERRA full-time, which as we all know, is a huge leap to make.What we covered: Should more indie hackers work on physical products? What happened with Budget Meal Planner? Should more indie hackers kill projects more often? Does turning a passion into a business take the enjoyment away? What was the breakthrough moment with Terra Making the leap going full-time with your business Why Dianna went straight into How do the economics of a physical product business work? How Terra was started with just $100 Using Instagram for 99% of growth The hardest part of running a physical product business How to balance one-term purchases vs MRR Why we should support more small businesses? Links Dianna's IH podcast episode Dianna's article on growing TERRA to 50k Recommendations Book: Shoe Dog Indie Hacker: AJ from Carrd Podcast: Doesn't listen Follow Dianna Twitter Instagram Terra Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites, which is launching in the US this week!‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’‘Absolutely love this community.’These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.
How Pat Walls made $20k in 2 weeks from his SEO course - Pat Walls, Starter Story
Pat Walls is the founder of Starter Story, a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. They interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started their business and how they grew it, including revenue figures for every business they interview.But in this episode, we’re going to be discussing the new SEO course that Pat launched this week, making over $20k in pre-sales.What we covered 20k in 2 weeks, how did you do it? How and why Pat started Starter Story? How he grew it to 500,000 monthly visitors Why Reddit can be a goldmine, but why Pat stopped using it How Starter Story allowed Pat to go full-time The most insane story out of 2,000 posts Brumate D*ck at Your Door Using Twitter to validate an idea Executing on that idea How to price a course The benefit of building in public How to execute so quickly How to build an audience Recommendations Book: Deep Work by Cal Newport Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: Harry Dry Follow Pat Twitter Starter Story Pat's Building Thread Lean SEO Course Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’‘Absolutely love this community.’These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.
Choosing freedom over money - Rob Hope, One Page Love + Yo!
Today I’m joined by Rob Hope, who is a South African designer, developer and the host of one of my favorite podcasts out there for entrepreneurs Yo!. He's also the founder of One Page Love, Email Love, and has recently released an ebook with a hundred landing page tips. It's safe to say Rob knows his stuff. When it comes to building landing pages, having started One Page Love back in 2008.What we discussed in this episode: Have we lost the joy of simplicity? How to cut through the noise What makes a good landing page Rob's mammoth landing page Twitter thread How to write a good Twitter thread Have lots of projects at the same time Do you have to make money off a side project How do you achieve freedom Recommendations Landing Page: Muzzle Book: Anything You Want by Derek Sivers Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: AJ (from Carrd) Follow Rob Twitter Landing Page Thread One Page Love Website Yo! Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’‘Absolutely love this community.’These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.
Why indie hackers should be podcasting - Mark Asquith, Rebel Base Media
Mark Asquith (aka That British Podcast Guy) is the CEO of Rebel Base Media, the U.K. podcast tech company that makes Captivate.fm and so much more. What we discussed in this episode: What makes podcasting such a good medium Is the amount of investment in podcasting (from the likes of Spotify) a good thing? Is podcasting oversaturated? What does it take to grow a podcast? How to stay consistent with producing your show How Mark started out with his businesses Bootstrapping the next venture Recommendations Book: E-Myth Revisited Podcast: The Jordan Harbinger Show Indie Hacker: Corey Haines Follow Mark Twitter Rebel Base Media Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’‘Absolutely love this community.’These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.Go to weekendclub.co and enter promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for a 30 day free trial.
Making a full-time income working just one day per week - Ramy Khuffash, Page Flows
Ramy Khuffash is the founder of Page Flows, a library of inspiration videos for product designers. Ramy started Page Flows after building a UI newsletter to thousands of subscribers, trying to improve his own skills as a developer who cares about design. Ramy is now a full-time indie hacker, with Page Flows making enough revenue to sustain him, alongside a few other side projects.What we discussed in this episode: Is the full-time indie hacker dream all it's made out to be Why Ramy tried six startups in six months, was it a success? Do founders work on things for too long? Ramy's journey working for a VC backed startup How it compares to bootstrapping What is Page Flows? How does it earn money? The trend of content / directory businesses Has he wasted his spare time? Why Ramy stopped sharing revenue numbers Recommendations Book: Hatching Twitter Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: Pieter Levels Follow Ramy Twitter Page Flows Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’‘Absolutely love this community.’These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.
Paying off $250k in debt by starting a company making $1.5m ARR - Nick Fogle, Wavve
Nick Fogle is the co-founder of Wavve and ChurnKey, but there is a lot more to Nick than just that. Wavve is an audio to video platform which has now hit $1.5m in ARR, but Nick has only left his full time job 3 years after starting the company and 9 months after it had eclipsed his salary. Why? Well, Nick had $250,000 student loans to pay off.What we covered in this episode: How Nick got into $250,000 of debt How he felt in Christmas 2016 when he was looking at the massive number What steps he took to get out of debt (he wrote a book about this) What advice he'd give to others in the same position Why he started Wavve, a video to audio platform How the business grew to $1.5m ARR What it takes to work full time and run a business Why staying lean is so important for him Recommendations Book: Anti Fragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Podcast: Reply All Indie Hacker: Scott Hurff
Building the one of the most popular Slack apps of all time - Wilhelm Klopp, Simple Poll
Wilhelm Klopp is the founder of Simple Poll, a super simple (but powerful) poll Slack app that has over 600k active users. Wil now works on Simple Poll full time having left his job at GitHub in September 2019 (1 year ago 🎉).What we discussed in this episode: Hows the year been after leaving GitHub What is Simple Poll How Wil came up with the idea How he grew the app to 600k users What he did to start charging for a free app The danger of building for another platform (Slack) How he transitioned to work full-time on Simple Poll What it's like being a full-time indie hacker Why it's quite good having a job while working on side projects Quick fire answers Podcast: Art of Product Book: The Great CEO Within Indie Hacker: Natalie Nagele Follow Wil Twitter Simple Poll Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Thanks to Mugshot Bot for sponsoring Indie Bites.Mugshot Bot automatically generates unique, beautifully designed images for every page on your website or blog so you don’t have to worry about them. This means you can focus on what matters: building your product and creating great content.Mugshot Bot is a tool that I use personally and made by another indie hacker, Joe Masilotti. To level up your link previews, go to mugshotbot.com/indiebites, link in the show notes, to create an image for your site, completely free.
Building a SaaS with just one hour every day - Mubashar Iqbal (Mubs)
Mubashar 'Mubs' Iqbal is a prolific maker who has started over 90 projects. Currently Mubs is building Founderpath with Nathan Latka, and on One Hour SaaS where he spends one hour every day working on SaaS businesses.In this episode we talked about: How Mubs got into starting side-projects How he comes up with ideas and decides what to work on Why some of his projects run on auto-pilot How much it costs to run those that are on auto-pilot How to sell side-projects How to build side-projects quickly What Mubs most successful project has been How did Founderpath come about Why Mubs started One Hour SaaS Recommendations Book: Built to Sell Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: Ben Tossell Follow Mubs Twitter One Hour SaaS Mubs' projects portfolio Founderpath Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Thanks to Mugshot Bot for sponsoring Indie Bites.Mugshot Bot automatically generates unique, beautifully designed images for every page on your website or blog so you don’t have to worry about them. This means you can focus on what matters: building your product and creating great content.Mugshot Bot is a tool that I use personally and made by another indie hacker, Joe Masilotti. To level up your link previews, go to mugshotbot.com/indiebites, link in the show notes, to create an image for your site, completely free.