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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$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.
What it takes to build a community - Rosie Sherry, Indie Hackers
Rosie Sherry is a community builder, indie hacker and founder. She currently runs the Indie Hackers community and also a weekly newsletter where she talks about building communities. Previously, Rosie founded Ministry of Testing.In this episode we talked about: Rosie's background as an indie hacker Going full time on Ministry of Testing, growing that into a £1m+ business What it's like running the Indie Hackers community What makes a good Indie Hackers post How to make the most out of the platform Why Rosie started Rosieland, her paid newsletter What goes into building a community How we can be a more inclusive community Recommendations Book: Anything from Derek Sivers Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: Monica Lent Follow Rosie Twitter Rosieland 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.
Leaving a full-time head of growth role to be a full-time indie hacker - Corey Haines, Swipe Files and more
Corey Haines is the founder of Swipe Files, he also runs refactoring growth, mental models for marketing, hey marketers and he was previously the head of growth at Baremetrics. I've been a follower of Corey for a while and impressed by the level and consistency of everything he produces.In this episode we talked about: What projects Corey is currently working on Why he left Baremetrics What it's like leaving a stable, full-time job to be an indie hacker How he manages his time between projects How much revenue he makes How to build things quickly Deciding on what ideas to focus on Advice for indie hackers wanting to live the dream Recommendations Book: Atomic Habits Podcast: Akimbo Indie Hacker: David Perrell Follow Corey Twitter Swipe Files Mental Models for Marketing Refactoring Growth Hey Marketers 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.Full TranscriptJames: You've got a lot going on. Tell me a little bit more about your various side projects, where your main focus is right now.Corey: Yeah. So I don't know, maybe I just caught the entrepreneurial bug or have an itch to create stuff. But, about two years ago I started just making stuff on the side. I started with a newsletter actually that ended up shutting down later, but it was called the TLDR on SaaS marketing. And that was like my first entry point into creating something and sharing it online and it's actually the reason why I created my Twitter account in the first place. and then, yeah, it's just been through a little bit of. serendipity and connection between projects.um, you know, I was talking with a Baremetrics customer, actually. And he's like, Hey, where do I find someone like you? where would you post a job if you were hiring yourself? And I was like, actually, I don't know. There isn't really like a job board for marketers. So I went out and built it. Later on I was talking about different mental models and frameworks that I've found really helpful for my work at Baremetrics.Other people were asking for the Notion doc and you know where to learn more about it. So I figured out why don't I just package this up into a course, same thing with B2B SaaS marketing, with what we've done at Baremetrics is figuring out how to create this new course too. Now Swipe Files, I would swipe something and I would write some notes, some bullet points about here's, what I think is great about it and then I noticed this is actually pretty useful because there's a few sites out there, like swipefile.com and Swipe Worthy, or I think it's swiped.co, which are fantastic sources of inspiration, but you still have to do the work to figure out what you want to glean from it.So Swipe Files is my attempt to build a library of content where I will tell you and show you what it is you can take away from it instead of having to deduce it for yourself. And now I've got a bunch of other things I'll do in the future, but, yesterday went full time as a creator on my own stuff.James: Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that. So previously you head of growth at Baremetrics. How long were you there for and, what went into making decision that now is the right time to leave?Corey: I was there for almost two years and had a fantastic time, experimented with a ton. We grew about 30% which was great for a bootstrapped company. I really changed a lot and I was all over the place with, trying to find different channels and breakthroughs, and really what we came to was that company wasn't at the right spot to really support a growth role with the budget and the engineering time that was needed to really push the ball forward and so just decided to part ways. And I was already the place that I wanted to go full time and my own stuff anyways I think coincidentally, a little bit serendipitously was perfectly the timing for me to start working on my own stuff full time and, head on to this new chapter of my life.James: So with your various side projects, or they're not side projects now that you're full time projects, How do they each look in terms of revenue what's making the most for you? Corey: Yeah right now the breadwinner are the courses, refactoring growth and mental models for marketing and I've done about 36,000 in the last 10 months. I couldn't do what I'm doing today without that revenue on the side, to be able to, fund myself into going full time as a creator. The other one, now that I'm trying to build into becoming the breadwinner is Swipe Files. And to date I actually, I couldn't tell you the revenue that has done, I think it's probably done a couple thousand in revenue because it's split between monthly annual in lifetimes.It's a little bit more difficult for me to... I didn't go through Stripe and do the math beforehand. but, um, it does about like the MRR today is about a thousand dollars. and then, Hey Marketers, to be honest, I've started to neglected for the last year. I launched it and then I spent a good four or five months working really hard on it. And then figured I would outsource it to my nephew, who is a poor college student and, and needs some cheap, manual labor.It still does $100 to $300 a month, maybe. And it's a pay what you want model too. So sometimes I'll get a job posting for one dollar and sometimes I'll get a job posting for a hundred bucks. But it depends. James: so you've got all of these projects so much going on now. How do you squeeze it all in? And how did you manage your time before? I guess this week?Corey: The answer is I didn't, and I'm going to figure it out now. When I was with Baremetrics full time, I was very much working in these sprints. With Hey Marketers; I created the job for within three weekends and then I would just work here and there nights and weekends, especially, it wasn't very much work, to be honest. With the courses I created Mental Models for Marketing within the span of a month, about a week of that was spent on vacation with a Thanksgiving break. Same thing with Refactoring Growth; it took me about 45 days to create that course. About two weeks of that was spent on vacation, just heads down, creating a lot of the content. With Swipe Files now that's really been kinda my nights and weekends project, where Monday nights is like my night or I'll sit down and I'll write the tear down schedule the email, schedule the tweet thread. Now, what I'm wanting to do is, really go all in on Swipe Files, and trying to get into a cadence.I heard some advice from, from my friend, Michael Taylor, but I'd also been thinking this beforehand, but getting into a cadence where Mondays are going to be my podcasting day. Tuesday are going to be my tear down's day. Wednesday is going to be my meetings day, maybe with friends and or consulting or whatever. Thursday is going to be my, articles and guides day.And then Friday, it's going to be my newsletter, something like that, Where I kind of time blocks specific parts of that I can really get into deep work and focus. James: How do you decide which ideas to pursue, and then how do you stay focused on it and not get distracted by new ideas or, or pursuing something until it gets to a point where it's growing nicely?Corey: Yeah, I probably skew towards spending too much time on something. So that's something I'm trying to work against. Like for example, when I was doing the newsletter, my very first project, I did it a full year and only got 200 subscribers and just didn't feel like it was going anywhere, I think that what's helped with the courses and it Swipe Files is that they're very much, you get the content work done once and then you can just market it afterwards.And so that's really helped me and my own weaknesses and my own personality. Just being able to jump between projects. I was like, alright, great, I've created one course now let's create another course. Now let's create a membership site. Like they all just, allowed me to be all over the place.But what's helped me cause I have a bazillion other ideas that I could pursue. And all of these came from that same kind of idea bucket. And what I found helps is just writing every single thing down. I used to use Evernote, then I used Notion now use Roam and I've ported everything over there and had been using that for several months now.But literally every single thought that enters my brain gets put somewhere, especially business ideas and I'll flush it out. All right. Type up all the things that I have that way I can just get it out of my mind, not thinking about it again. And usually what I like to do is if I think about it again over and over again, and it keeps coming up and I keep revisiting and I keep writing more ideas, then I know that there's something here . James: Yeah, I think what you're able to do as well is build things quite quickly. Corey: Yeah, I think speed is vastly underrated and underappreciated for aspiring entrepreneurs, indie hackers, anyone who's building something.The point is to create something quickly and fast and to get it out and get it in front of people. Each of the courses I did under 45 days, Swipe Files took me about 60 days, about two months to get from first breaking ground in Webflow to launching and feeling done with it. And that's really allowed me to 1/ be able to do it and finish it cause the longer something goes on, the less likely you are to finish it. but 2/ be able to grow and see significant progress.James: yeah. What, what what's been your biggest struggle with building your various projects?Corey: Time, I think just lack of time. Not wanting any of the time to bleed into time at Baremetrics, I'm working full time at a job where I have an obligation. And so that was, so many nights and weekends where I was just like half falling asleep, writing, creating something, trying to plan something. And so that's been the biggest struggle for me has just been; feeling a little bit like, kinda caged up, like I'm wanting to get out. I working in a straight jacket. Like I can't do all the things that I want to do because I don't have the physical time.James: And I'd ask you what your advice is. For indie hackers who are sort of in the position you're in before working a full time job, got various different projects on the go and they want the dream of leaving their job and working full time on their projects.What advice would you give to them?Corey: I would say just make a lot of stuff and get it out of your system, and test things out because there's no safer time to do that when you have a paycheck. I think the mistake that. This isn't a knock on them, but I was just listening to the Dru Riley podcast with Courtland and on the indie hackers podcast.And, he was talking about how he had an amazing job saved up 250 grand and then quit. And then basically has just been burning through savings for the last three years because he was comfortable. and I was like"that's amazing, that's great, I'm glad he found something that worked for him "but you don't have to do it that way. If he hadn't been experimenting while he was still at his job. And then he found something, that worked or that was viable, or that was promising and then left his job, he would have had the savings to work on that thing full time, instead of doing the opposite of, let me burn through my savings to find something that works and then race against the clock to replace that income.So I would say experiment, get yourself in a good financial position. The more savings, the better, but also the more traction initially, the better as well. You need the cushion traction. So try to find as much of both of those as you can while you're still working full time.James: Corey, I wanted to talk just quickly, very quickly about Twitter because you're super active on Twitter. What's your strategy or goal with Twitter?Corey: I didn't have a Twitter strategy I think up until I started with Swipe Files, to be honest. Because, one, it was just me sharing, interesting, relevant things, working at Baremetrics, sharing about marketing, commenting with people . I shared basically nothing about my personal life on Twitter. It's all business, marketing, SaaS, entrepreneurship. So that gives people a reason to follow me. yeah, I think the main three things are. Being an interesting person with interesting things to say, making a lot of friends who can amplify you and then having a consistent schedule of, I mean, I think threads are a fantastic way of delivering content.they're more interesting. People are more likely to retweet it just cause it's more valuable than a single tweet. and I keep it very focused on again, SaaS, marketing, entrepreneurship, and business in general.James: Yeah, without a doubt, that's a really cool way to do it. we'll sort of round off with a final question about. the tools you use, because we haven't really discussed that at all,what are the marketing tools and growth tools would you recommend for indie hackers?Corey: Yeah. So I build most of my sites in Webflow. I have one site, on Carrd, I'm a huge fan of Webflow and I love the flexibility. I still don't really don't know how to use Carrd that much, to be honest. So I might eventually move off of it. It's just crazy cheap and it's amazing deal and AJ is a great creator so I like supporting him. I use right message for all my kind of email capture and that connects with Convert Kit, which is what I use for all email marketing newsletter related things. I use Member Stack on top of Webflow to create the membership site for Swipe Files.I've also been using Sparkloop for my newsletter, a referral program, which needs some tweaking and some massaging, but has also worked really, I've gotten a couple of big wins from it, which has already justified the cost for where, the vast majority of people do not refer anyone, but a couple people do and they bring in 50 subscribers each and I'm like, all right.Wow. This is, you know, glad we had that in place James: All right then final, quick fire questions. What's your favorite book, Corey?Corey: Oh man. I'm looking at my book sack back here. You know, I don't know if I have a favorite book. how about this? I'll give you my favorite books from the last three years. So I've like a favorite book of the year. 2018 for me was Atomic Habits. 2019 for me was Ultra Learning. 2020 for me has been a book called the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by a guy named John Mark Homer and, it's just about essentially the way you're supposed to live life as a Christian, you know, religious, but I think there's a lot of really practical implications for kind of this culture of Busy-ness in America that we've gotten ourselves into and try to reverse that a bit.James: and you say you're a podcast binger, what's your favorite? Corey: Akimbo - Seth Godin. James: Which indie hacker do you admire slash who should people Follow?Corey: Oh man. You know what? David Perrel is... dude, the guy's just, I don't think people even understand what he's done, with his Twitter following where he's come from his podcasts, his course. the guy is just a machine he's super smart, but also his success already is amazing, you just look at the success of them and you can, you can't ignore, the guy does a million plus course sales a year.He has the podcast, he does the angel investing. Many other things we probably don't even know about yet that he has his hands in, and it's just, sky's the limit for that guy.James: Very impressive. And then finally, what are you most excited for the future? Both personally and business or both?Corey: I'm really stoked to start working on a SaaS business, to be honest. It's a long journey. It's a long road, but that's my end goal. James: Absolutely Corey, you've been an immense guest we've recorded for 50 minutes and it's going to go all into a 15 minute podcast. Corey: Cool. Amazing, man. Yeah. Thanks for having me.Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Indy bites. I hope you feel inspired by listening to this conversation between me and Corey. if you did enjoy this episode, I'd love you to share the episode with just one in the hacker that will find it useful. It does help the podcast grow. As always you'll find links for everything discussed in the episode, in the show notes. That's all from me enjoy the rest of your day