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.
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Bootstrapping to over $250k MRR - Baird Hall, Churnkey
Baird is a 4x SaaS founder based in Charleston, SC. His background is in sales, marketing, and support. He bootstrapped and grew two SaaS companies to over $1M in ARR. When he isn't working on Churnkey's sales and marketing, he is on the water with his wife and daughter.What we covered in this episode: The big challenges faced when bootstrapping Did Baird always want to bootstrap Why leave a job to start a company Did he ever get funding from utalk How did Waave come about? How to avoid quitting when times get tough Getting early customers in for Waave What was different when they launched Zubtitle (108k MRR) Why they started a new business completely Why churn is such a difficult problem to solve Is it harder or easier to do B2C vs B2B How to manage context switching How to make time to run 3 huge businesses at once Recommendations Book: Range by David Epstien Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: Nathan Barry Follow Baird Twitter Churnkey Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet Sponsor - UpvotyDo you want to build the best product possible? Then listening to user feedback is one of the best ways to do so. Because by listening to the problems of your users, you can build a real problem-solver that they'll love.Upvoty is a user feedback tool that gives your user's a voice and makes it really easy at the same time for you to prioritize what to build next. By installing Upvoty's feedback boards, you'll have all of your user feedback in one central place and it will really help you connect with your customers and understand their needs. On top of that, you can close the feedback loop by setting up your Changelog and Product Roadmap. Your users will be actively involved in building new features and will love you for that.Try Upvoty 14-days for free and with the code 'INDIEBITES' you'll get a 10% discount on any of their plans.Sign up here.
Building Copy.ai in Public - Blake Emal (CMO), Copy.ai
Blake Emal is the CMO at Copy.ai, but it's not been a traditional route into that role. 8 years ago Blake was living in the South of France and when he moved back to the US, he had no idea what he wanted to do. As he spoke French, he landed a gig in the French team of an SEO firm. This was his first foray into marketing and he didn't intend to stay in marketing.Fast forward 7 years of working for agencies, freelancing and in-house, he stumbled across a little tool called Copy.ai. He was quite happy in his current role, but sent the Copy.ai founder a DM on Twitter, asking if he needed any help with marketing. After a few back and forths and a grand total of 3 Zoom calls, Blake became CMO at Copy.ai.In this episode we cover: What is copy.ai and how does it work? What does being a CMO in public mean? Where should founders start with marketing Why you should just "put a camera in front of you" when building Why is building in public so effective? Who is building in public well? How to get good at Twitter? Who is doing Twitter well? Are threads dead? Why do marketers ruin everything? Recommendations Book: Lord of the Flies Podcast: Creator Lab Indie Hacker: Bereket Follow Blake Twitter Luma Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet SponsorThank you to Dan Rowden for sponsoring this episode with his product, ilo which helps you easily see which kind of tweets get more impressions, likes, profile clicks and more so you can get grow your Twitter audience. Use the code "INDIEBITES27" for 25% off your plan for life.Sign up here.
Founder Hot Seat - Overcoming mental health challenges [Bonus]
Listen to the full conversation here on Stefan's podcast.This is about 17 minutes of a recording with my friend Stefan on his Founder Hot Seat podcast, which is a show that explores the real challenges that founders have in their business and how to overcome them.I've had a ton of messages from people after listening to my previous bonus episode where I explained some of the challenges I've had with mental health over the past few months, and this episode was super helpful for me to navigate some of those challenges and set a path forward.From StefanThis episode is a twist on the normal format. James has publicly shared the challenges he's been going through with his mental health.We explore the journey James has been on over the past year, including when things began to change, what that felt like on a day-to-day basis, how James has worked on his recovery and how he plans to move forward.Follow Stefan Twitter Talk To Stefan Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet
Bootstrapping Transistor.fm to 13,000+ podcasts - Justin Jackson, Transistor.fm
Justin Jackson is the co-founder of Transistor.fm, a successful bootstrapped podcast hosting company. The journey building Transistor were documented on the Build Your SaaS podcast, which is a must listen. Justin is the founder of the MegaMaker community which he started in 2013, so if you're part of the maker sphere - you'll probably have heard of him.In this episode we cover: What is Transistor and why did they start it Why work in podcast hosting? Was it not already a solved problem? How did they get the first few customers? What's next for Transistor? What's it like having "made it" as an indie hacker? What challenges does Justin run into? Should you just get a job at a tech company or run your bootstrapped co? Why bootstrapping is not a level playing field When you should quit your job Addressing mental health as an entreprenuer Recommendations Book: Life Profitability Podcast: Software Social Indie Hacker: Derek Sivers Follow Justin Twitter Blog Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet SponsorThank you to Dan Rowden for sponsoring this episode with his product, ilo which helps you easily see which kind of tweets get more impressions, likes, profile clicks and more so you can get grow your Twitter audience. Use the code "INDIEBITES27" for 25% off your plan for life.Sign up here.
Making $10k in a weekend selling emoji email addresses - Ben Stokes, Tiny Projects
Ben Stokes a full stack developer and entrepreneur based in Bristol in the UK, who's started an ice cream business and cookie dough business amongst other things. Ben, like many indie hackers, has a bunch of small side project ideas, but not enough time to do them. So he started Tiny Projects. Tiny Projects documents his progress with these small ideas, launching 6 projects since May last year, including One Item Store, which he sold, and his most recent, Mailoji, which has just crossed $10k in revenue.SponsorThank you to today's sponsor, VEED.io, who are hiring developers, designers, product people and more. So if you're looking to join a growing bootstrapper-friendly business, reach out to their CEO, Sabba (s@veed.io), or take a look at their published roles here.Get ad-free and extended conversations of the podcast with Indie Feast membership, for just £4 a month.What we covered in this episode: Why Ben started an ice cream business Buying an ice cream machine for £700 after a few pints Growing a cookie dough business to £13k a month Why Ben started Tiny Projects The six projects he's worked on How to sell a project for $5,000, that only made $2 Selling $10k of emoji domain names How to go viral on hacker news Recommendations Book: Shoe Dog Podcast: Product Journey Indie Hacker: Alex West Follow Ben Twitter Tiny Projects Follow Me Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Personal Website Buy A Wallet
Struggling with my own mental health
I've never really understood mental health, or those who have had these challenges in the past. So when I've had my own challenges, I've struggled to comprehend what has been happening to me. This episode is hopefully an interesting insight into how I've been feeling over the past few months to hopefully help others who might be going through a similar thing.Here's some things I talk about: Where I've been Overworking What went wrong Why I didn't notice a problem Why family and friends are so important The supportive indie hacker community YouTube videos are hard Burnout / depression are real shitty My future plans How I'm going to get out of this mess I mentioned in the pod I'd been making videos about my motorbike, here's a few links if you'd like to watch: Here's the YouTube channel, Monkeying Around The video I spent 5 hours on Most recent video and here's how to contact / support me: Twitter Email - james@mckinven.co Indie Feast Membership
Growing a podcast to 50k downloads in 6 months - Danny Miranda, The Danny Miranda Show
Today I'm joined by Danny Miranda, who is the host of The Danny Miranda podcast, which has rapidly grown to over 50,000 downloads in less than 6 months. He publishes 3x a week and has had some awesome guests including Harry Dry, Gary Vee and David Perell. Danny is a walking case study of shooting your shot, making your own luck and having laser focus on one single thing.But this episode isn't going to be about podcasting specifically, we're going to talk about how consistency, compounding and execution can lead to you making progress in your personal projects or entrepreneurial ventures. I think you'll be inspired by Danny's story.What we covered: Who is Danny Miranda? Why Danny started out dropshipping? and what stopped him from pursuing that? How did the podcast come about? Why podcasting isn't that saturated Why Danny committed to 100 episodes when he started The unintended benefits of podcasts? Why laser focus and consistency is the key to Danny's growth How Danny switched from a starter to a finisher How to stop context switching Why accountability is the key to motivation Short term vs long term thinking Why the 75 hard program had so much of an impact on Danny Danny's plan to make money with the pod! Recommendations Book: Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It Podcast: Modern Wisdom Indie Hacker: Steph Smith Follow Danny Twitter Website Podcast 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.
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.