Indie Bites

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 bootstrappingDid Baird always want to bootstrapWhy leave a job to start a companyDid he ever get funding from utalkHow did Waave come about?How to avoid quitting when times get toughGetting early customers in for WaaveWhat was different when they launched Zubtitle (108k MRR)Why they started a new business completelyWhy churn is such a difficult problem to solveIs it harder or easier to do B2C vs B2BHow to manage context switchingHow to make time to run 3 huge businesses at onceRecommendationsBook: Range by David EpstienPodcast: Indie HackersIndie Hacker: Nathan BarryFollow BairdTwitterChurnkeyFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletSponsor - 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.

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 marketingWhy you should just "put a camera in front of you" when buildingWhy 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?RecommendationsBook: Lord of the FliesPodcast: Creator LabIndie Hacker: BereketFollow BlakeTwitterLumaFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletSponsorThank 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.

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 StefanTwitterTalk To StefanFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet

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 itWhy 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 fieldWhen you should quit your jobAddressing mental health as an entreprenuerRecommendationsBook: Life ProfitabilityPodcast: Software SocialIndie Hacker: Derek SiversFollow JustinTwitterBlogFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletSponsorThank 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.

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 ([email protected]), 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 businessBuying an ice cream machine for £700 after a few pintsGrowing a cookie dough business to £13k a monthWhy Ben started Tiny ProjectsThe six projects he's worked onHow to sell a project for $5,000, that only made $2Selling $10k of emoji domain namesHow to go viral on hacker newsRecommendationsBook: Shoe DogPodcast: Product JourneyIndie Hacker: Alex WestFollow BenTwitterTiny ProjectsFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet

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 beenOverworkingWhat went wrongWhy I didn't notice a problemWhy family and friends are so importantThe supportive indie hacker communityYouTube videos are hardBurnout / depression are real shittyMy future plansHow I'm going to get out of this messI 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 AroundThe video I spent 5 hours onMost recent videoand here's how to contact / support me:TwitterEmail - [email protected] Feast Membership

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 saturatedWhy Danny committed to 100 episodes when he startedThe unintended benefits of podcasts?Why laser focus and consistency is the key to Danny's growthHow Danny switched from a starter to a finisherHow to stop context switchingWhy accountability is the key to motivationShort term vs long term thinkingWhy the 75 hard program had so much of an impact on DannyDanny's plan to make money with the pod!RecommendationsBook: Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On ItPodcast: Modern WisdomIndie Hacker: Steph SmithFollow DannyTwitterWebsitePodcastFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 competitionHow 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 podcastRecommendationsBook: The Mom TestPodcast: Software SocialFollow DerrickTwitterWebsiteSavvyCalFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 WorkHow many hours you can actually work in a dayHow much should you work on your business?Why you need to take time to step back and thinkHow much is Natalie working now?How do you fit work in with the stuff you enjoy?Work life balanceRecommendationsBook: Anti-fragilePodcast: 99% InvisibleIndie Hacker: Chris Savage + Brendan SchwartzFollow NatalieTwitterWildbitFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 itHow he made lifetime deals work for his launchWhy Elston has put marketing first for Tiiny HostSetting goals for your indie hacker businessHow Tiiny Host got 150 sites a day being created from free SEO pagesHow has he made marketing funDoing side-project marketingElston's plans to go full-timeRecommendationsBook: TractionPodcast: Tim Ferris ShowIndie Hacker: Sabba KenyejadFollow ElstonTwitterTiiny HostFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 growthHow the course earned $10k in the first weekWhy Marie doubled down on the course as her main projectWhy it's important not to be a perfectionistWhy niching is importantHow 80% of Marie's course revenue came from YouTubeHow to make the most out of NotionHow to enjoy the work you doMaking $10k extra a month with Gumroad templatesRecommendationsBook: Do More Great WorkPodcast: This Is UncomfortableIndie Hacker: Anne-Laure Le CunffFollow MarieTwitterNotion MasteryMarie's YouTubeFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThank 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!

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 storyWas the ambition to sell the company from the start?Built to Sell, John WarrillowWhat Indie Hackers can learn from Zero to SoldWhat 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 payTips for going into a crowded marketHow to to find your audienceRecommendationsBook: The Mom TestPodcast: Indie HackersIndie Hacker: Sergio MatteiFollow ArvidTwitterThe Embedded EntrepreneurZero to SoldFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletToday 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'.

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 audienceShould you do pre-sales if you're selling an info product?How Philip got his job at GumroadWhy there has been a boom in the creator economyWhy choose Gumroad as your selling platformWhere a new creator should start when selling a productWho made the most money on Gumroad in 2020Gumroad Stats 2020Follow PhilipTwitterWebsiteFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 hostingCove; a commenting tool for Ghost blogsSubstation; a theme for GhostDan 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 MauritiusWhy 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 projectsThe pros and cons of working on your side project with a full-time jobNot 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 otherGetting a 75k acquisition offerAwesome thread on the $75k offerWhat were the options?Being prepared to sell your projectsBuilding an alternative to Twitter analyticsRecommendationsMagazine: CourierNewsletter: Dense DiscoveryPodcast: StartupIndie Hacker: Justin JacksonFollow DanTwitterWebsiteFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 TerraMaking the leap going full-time with your businessWhy Dianna went straight intoHow do the economics of a physical product business work?How Terra was started with just $100Using Instagram for 99% of growthThe hardest part of running a physical product businessHow to balance one-term purchases vs MRRWhy we should support more small businesses?LinksDianna's IH podcast episodeDianna's article on growing TERRA to 50kRecommendationsBook: Shoe DogIndie Hacker: AJ from CarrdPodcast: Doesn't listenFollow DiannaTwitterInstagramTerraFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 covered20k in 2 weeks, how did you do it?How and why Pat started Starter Story?How he grew it to 500,000 monthly visitorsWhy Reddit can be a goldmine, but why Pat stopped using itHow Starter Story allowed Pat to go full-timeThe most insane story out of 2,000 postsBrumateD*ck at Your DoorUsing Twitter to validate an ideaExecuting on that ideaHow to price a courseThe benefit of building in publicHow to execute so quicklyHow to build an audienceRecommendationsBook: Deep Work by Cal NewportPodcast: Indie HackersIndie Hacker: Harry DryFollow PatTwitterStarter StoryPat's Building ThreadLean SEO CourseFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 noiseWhat makes a good landing pageRob's mammoth landing page Twitter threadHow to write a good Twitter threadHave lots of projects at the same timeDo you have to make money off a side projectHow do you achieve freedomRecommendationsLanding Page: MuzzleBook: Anything You Want by Derek SiversPodcast: Indie HackersIndie Hacker: AJ (from Carrd)Follow RobTwitterLanding Page ThreadOne Page LoveWebsiteYo!Follow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A WalletThanks 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.

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 mediumIs 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 showHow Mark started out with his businessesBootstrapping the next ventureRecommendationsBook: E-Myth RevisitedPodcast: The Jordan Harbinger ShowIndie Hacker: Corey HainesFollow MarkTwitterRebel Base MediaFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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.

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 beWhy 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 startupHow it compares to bootstrappingWhat is Page Flows?How does it earn money?The trend of content / directory businessesHas he wasted his spare time?Why Ramy stopped sharing revenue numbersRecommendationsBook: Hatching TwitterPodcast: Indie HackersIndie Hacker: Pieter LevelsFollow RamyTwitterPage FlowsFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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.

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 debtHow he felt in Christmas 2016 when he was looking at the massive numberWhat steps he took to get out of debt (he wrote a book about this)What advice he'd give to others in the same positionWhy he started Wavve, a video to audio platformHow the business grew to $1.5m ARRWhat it takes to work full time and run a businessWhy staying lean is so important for himRecommendationsBook: Anti Fragile by Nassim Nicholas TalebPodcast: Reply AllIndie Hacker: Scott Hurff

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 GitHubWhat is Simple PollHow Wil came up with the ideaHow he grew the app to 600k usersWhat he did to start charging for a free appThe danger of building for another platform (Slack)How he transitioned to work full-time on Simple PollWhat it's like being a full-time indie hackerWhy it's quite good having a job while working on side projectsQuick fire answersPodcast: Art of ProductBook: The Great CEO Within Indie Hacker: Natalie NageleFollow WilTwitterSimple PollFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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.

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-projectsHow he comes up with ideas and decides what to work onWhy some of his projects run on auto-pilotHow much it costs to run those that are on auto-pilotHow to sell side-projectsHow to build side-projects quicklyWhat Mubs most successful project has beenHow did Founderpath come aboutWhy Mubs started One Hour SaaSRecommendationsBook: Built to SellPodcast: Indie HackersIndie Hacker: Ben TossellFollow MubsTwitterOne Hour SaaSMubs' projects portfolioFounderpathFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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.

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 hackerGoing full time on Ministry of Testing, growing that into a £1m+ businessWhat it's like running the Indie Hackers communityWhat makes a good Indie Hackers postHow to make the most out of the platformWhy Rosie started Rosieland, her paid newsletterWhat goes into building a communityHow we can be a more inclusive communityRecommendationsBook: Anything from Derek SiversPodcast: Indie HackersIndie Hacker: Monica LentFollow RosieTwitterRosielandFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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.

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 onWhy he left BaremetricsWhat it's like leaving a stable, full-time job to be an indie hackerHow he manages his time between projectsHow much revenue he makesHow to build things quicklyDeciding on what ideas to focus onAdvice for indie hackers wanting to live the dreamRecommendationsBook: Atomic HabitsPodcast: AkimboIndie Hacker: David PerrellFollow CoreyTwitterSwipe FilesMental Models for MarketingRefactoring GrowthHey MarketersFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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 i

Sabba Keynejad is the co-founder and CEO of VEED - an online video editing platform. VEED is a fully-fledged collaborative video editing product used by many influencers, coaches and businesses for adding subtitles, captions, text, merging videos, making meme videos, turning podcasts to videos and much more.What we covered in this episode:On VeedWhat is Veed?Where did you come up with the idea?What is your current revenue?Had you started and failed with anything before?What made Veed work out?Many indie hackers are solo. You have a co-founder split 50/50 on the business, do you think it's worth indie hackers going out to find a co-founder?There are many online video editing tools out there. Wavve, Headliner, Kapwing. What makes Veed different and how has that fed into your growth?On growth and marketingVeed has grown super quickly, but how did you get your first 100 users?Then how did you convert them to paying customers?Your marketing strategy. What did you do at the start for your growth?When you started generating revenue, you hired content creators. Why?What are your tips for marketing without budget?Biggest mistakes / advice you'd give to foundersRecommendationsFavourite indie hacker is Josh Pigford.Best book for indie hackers; Traction.Favourite podcast; How I Built This.Follow SabbaTwitterFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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 transcript coming soon.

Courtland Allen founded Indie Hackers in 2016, grew the business $8k MRR with sponsors, and then sold to Stripe 9 months later. An inspirational story that doesn't end there. Courtland has now been working from within Stripe for the past 4 years, where he continues to build on the platform and produce the excellent Indie Hackers podcast. He's a fountain of knowledge and I think you'll love this episode.What we covered in this episode:On Indie Hackers:Why did Courtland start IH?What is an 'indie hacker'?What are the pros and cons of building within Stripe?Does he have goals for IH set by Stripe?Does he have any other side projects, aside from IH?On indie hacking:Where should new indie hackers start?How do you stay motivated as a one-person team?The growth of communitiesThe growth of paid newslettersThe current state of bootstrappingQuick fireFavourite indie hackers are; Lynne Tye, Rosie Sherry, Amy Hoy, Natalie Nagele.Best book for indie hackers; Thinking, Fast and Slow, Sapiens, Hooked.Favourite podcast; Conversations with Tyler.Follow CourtlandTwitterFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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: Courtland has inspired so many of us to build our profitable internet businesses. Let's talk to him to find out what's important as an indie hacker in 2020. Courtland, welcome to the podcast. How are you?Courtland: Excellent James. Thanks for having me.James: To set the scene and for those that might not know, tell me a little bit more about what Indie Hackers is and why you started the website?Courtland: Yeah. So I moved to the Bay Area when I was like 23. I wanted to start a very stereotypical high growth tech startup. I wanted to be a unicorn company. I wanted to make billions and be world famous. After seven or so years of that struggle, I was just tired of it. I got tired of the VC funded software world.And so I took time off work. I was doing a lot of contract development and I just started searching for other examples of people who've done the same thing. And it turns out there wasn't really a good way to learn how to do this. Everybody online was doing the same thing I was doing; just like looking for comments left by Pieter Levels or like tweets where some people would share some tidbit of their story, but like we couldn't find anything great. And so I kind of just solved my own problem and said, you know, I should build the thing that helps people do this. I was surprised it didn't exist. And here we are 4 years later, somewhat ironically, I decided that I wanted to be a bootstrapper. I decided that I wanted to get out of the high growth startup game.And within a year, starting Indie Hackers, it was acquired by Stripe and fulfilled one of the goals of a lot of people in the high growth startup game want to. So that's how we got to where we are today.James: What is your definition of an indie hacker?Courtland: I think Tyler Tringas actually put it well recently. He said that "the new American dream is to build a profitable, sustainable, remote software business that you can run from home ". You can run from wherever you want work with wherever you want, that scales nicely, and that prints money for you. And I think an indie hacker is somebody who's trying to achieve that. Someone who doesn't like the status quo, someone who doesn't want to work for the man for the rest of their life.There's no problem with doing that. I think jobs provide a lot of stability for people, a lot of predictability, but if you're like me, you just don't want to have a boss. You don't want there to be a cap on your salary. You don't want somebody else telling you what to work on. You want to control your own life and you're an indie hacker.James: What are the challenges and benefits of building Indie Hackers from within Stripe?Courtland: I don't have to get on the phone with advertisers anymore. Indie Hackers makes $0. It's a hundred percent just me focusing on making the community good and helping it grow. I think probably the one challenge is that I'm someone who puts a lot of pressure on my shoulders to, I think, perform well for others. And at Stripe, Patrick Collison is my boss. He went out on a limb and acquired Indie Hackers, and I feel a lot of pressure to make sure that any hackers, is a success.And at Stripe, like I'm extremely autonomous

Anne-Laure Le Cunff is the founder of Ness Labs, a learning platform dedicated to mindful productivity while also studying neuroscience part-time at King's College with her masters. Previously Anne-Laure worked at Google leaving that job in 2017. As part of Ness Labs, she creates some truly exceptional content that I've had shared with me time and time again, which is evidenced by her 19,000 strong email lists for her newsletter, Maker Mind.Here's what we covered in this episode:On Ness LabsTell me a little about your back story and why you started Ness Labs?What is Ness Labs?When did you start generating revenue?What have you done to grow the membership & newsletter subscribers?Neuroscience at King's College on the side! How does that help you research and write articles?You're a proponent of building in public, what are the benefits of this for indie hackers?You have a sizeable audience, how do you cut through the noise / deal with the inbound?What advice would you give to aspiring female indie hackers navigating a male-dominated sector?On mindful productivityWhat is mindful productivity?You're a prolific writer, how do you get so much done?!Time management articleIt can be long and hard to grow a side-project / business, how do you stay motivated?As indie hackers, what are the best ways to stay on top of everything and not get overwhelmed?Taking care of yourself. Sleep, taking breaks, journaling. Why is it important and why do so many people neglect it?Quick fireFavourite book is 50 Great Myths of Popular PsychologyAnne-Laure doesn't listen to podcasts 😱Follow Marie Denis, Steph Smith and Rosie SherryFollow Anne-LaureTwitterNess LabsFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteFull TranscriptJames: Anne-Laure, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing? Anne-Laure: Great. Thanks for having me.James: Good to have you. Tell me a little bit more about Ness Labs for people who don't know? What's it all about?Anne-Laure: Ness Labs is a platform for ambitious makers, knowledge workers, creators who want to be their most productive and creative without sacrificing or mental health, and so it offers content, a community, and also coaching for people to achieve these goals. James: Yeah. And where did you come up with the idea? Anne-Laure: I both at Google and while working at startups, I went through burnout and I think lots of ambitious people have this experience at some point in their work life. And when I was looking for resources to help me go through this, there's actually wasn't much out there. So it started with this goal of helping people really taking care of their mental health at work.I've always been fascinated with how the mind works, how the brain works, how do we think, or where do ideas come from? How do we make decisions? So that's always been an area that I've been really curious about.James: Yeah, absolutely. Where are you at now in terms of subscribers and revenue with Ness Labs? And was it always generating revenue?Anne-Laure: So in the first six months of Ness Labs, most of the revenue was coming from sponsors. And I didn't really like this model because it meant having to chase them, a lot of back and forth. Also quite irregular revenue where some weeks, I have three sponsors reaching out and saying, "hey, can I start with the newsletter?"and some weeks there was no one. I figured that really wanted to have some recurring revenue that I could, even if it was growing slowly, sell something that is a bit more stable. And at this point I have about 600 members and the Ness Labs community generating about $3,000 a month.And that doesn't include all of the, one time revenue that nest labs leaking through books and other products that I'm selling.James: It's amazing how you've grown it and I think that there'll be a lot of indie hackers who are at that level where they're trying to build something up and deciding on a monetization model. Why at the start did you go for the sponsorship route and also, how did you start to build your newsletter list, which made it appealing for sponsors?Anne-Laure: At the very beginning, with the sponsors, I didn't really have any outbound process. I just grew the newsletter and I made it clear with the little inserts and signed it, that there was a spot here. So if any reader was also either an entrepreneur or working at a company that was relevant to the audience, I was reaching that they could just reply back and claim that spot for the next newsletter. There was no outbound work, but I think that making it very clear that this spot existed and also having a very niche topic made it appealing to sponsors because they could in one go reach a certain amount of people.The audience; I can really think Twitter, I think, for most of my subscribers. James: How beneficial has that Twitter following been for you? Cause you have about 30,000 Twitter followers. And over how long was that built? Was there a specific time where you just started growing or was it q

Helen Ryles is a prolific indie hacker, having launched over 40 projects in the last 10 years, selling a few of them along the way. Helen is a proponent of the no code movement, advocating for the tools that allow non-technical folks, like me, create amazing projects. To tie in with this, she also runs the community at Makerpad, the no-code education and community platform.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.Here's what we covered in this episodeOn side projectsHow did you start indie hacking?What are you currently working on?Where do you come up with ideas?How do you define a side-project?Having launched so many, what is your process for getting an idea up and running, validated and then deciding how long you run with it before it gets sold / canned?You wrote a great thread on selling side projects. How do you know when it's time to sell?How do you sell a side project?!On no-codeYou joined Makerpad last month to help run their community. Tell me a little bit more about what Makerpad is and what your role will be there.What is no-code and why do you think it's important?What are some of the most exciting things you've seen people do with no-code?What are the non-obvious benefits of no-code?What are the best no-code tools?RecommendationsBook: AuthorityPodcast: Side Hustle SchoolIndie Hacker: Michael GillFollow HelenTwitterFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal Website[Full transcription coming soon]

Harry Dry is the founder of Marketing Examples, a fast-growing showcase of successful startup marketing stories. When I first spoke to Harry on the Marketing Mashup about a year ago, he was on 5,000 subscribers and £1k revenue. Now, he has 6x that amount with 30,000 subscribers and 50,000 Twitter followers. An incredible growth story from a smart marketer.In 2022, Harry also created Copywriting Examples, the site for anyone writing new copy. Here's what we covered in this episode:On Marketing ExamplesI've given a little summary of Marketing Examples, how would you describe it?Where did you come up with the idea?How is your revenue shaping up with the audience you have?If you could choose one case study as your favourite, which one would it be?On Audience BuildingWhen you first started Marketing Examples, how did you get your first 100 subscribers?You're an expert on Twitter, now with 50k followers. What did it take to grow a Twitter audience so large, so quickly?What's been the biggest struggle building Marketing Examples?What advice would you give to other indie hackers trying to build an audience?Talk me through your decision to add a new personal touch to Marketing Examples?Tell me the Kanye Story in 30 secondsRecommendationsBook: Man's Search for MeaningPodcast: IFL TVIndie Hacker: Pat WallsLinksFollow Harry on TwitterMarketing ExamplesMarketing Examples TwitterFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteThanks 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.

In this episode we discuss:On Ramen Club (formerly Weekend Club)How would you describe Ramen Club?Where did you come up with the idea for Ramen Club & IndieBeers?What was your initial plan for making revenue with Ramen Club?What's your revenue now?What have you done specifically to grow those first few users?On Community BuildingYou've cultivated quite the community in London, why did you choose to build the community here?What does it take to build an active community? Is it as simple as just setting up a Slack and a Stripe account and away you go?What's been the biggest struggle building the community?What advice would you give to other indie hackers trying to build a community?RecommendationsBook: InfluencePodcast: The Knowledge ProjectIndie Hacker: Wilhelm KloppLinksFollow Charlie on TwitterRamen Club (formerly Weekend Club)Indie LondonIndie BeersFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast Course

I'm your host James McKinven, I'm the founder of a podcasting company called Striqo and passionate indie hacker.Now I love long podcasts and what Courtland Allen has done with the Indie Hackers show, but this podcast will just supplement that. With less commuting, we now have less time to listen to podcasts and those long, albeit interesting, backstories. I'll aim to cut to the chase and find out what it really takes to build a sustainable, profitable business on the side.I'm James, I run a podcast company called Striqo and I love hearing about the ups and downs of what it takes to be an indie hacker.I'm a fellow indie hacker and side-project-starter and I love hearing the stories of other makers who have started their businesses while working a full-time job.Whether that's a small little earner on the side or something that has grown into tens of thousands of ££ income that means you could quit your job.Having started many of my own side-projects I know how hard it is to get it off the ground and generate revenue. I wouldn't have been able to make progress on any of my projects if it wasn't for the kindness and support I've received from everyone in the Indie Hackers community.Everyone has a story to tell, advice they can give and lessons to teach - I want to share them with as many people as I can.I hope you can join me for this podcast talking to our favourite indie hackers.If you like the sound of this, please subscribe to the podcast and tweet me which indie hacker you'd like me to feature.