The Indie Hackers Podcast: How Developers Are Bootstrapping, Marketing, And Growing Their Online Businesses

Laura Roeder (@lkr) talks life coaching, starting multiple successful businesses (and selling one for millions), early growth via SEO, and designing a company to align with your lifestyle with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

Marko Saric (@markosaric) talks living in Brussels, things he learned working in marketing, joining an existing project as a late co-founder, succeeding on Hacker News, surviving against a behemoth competitor, and learnings from bootstrapping an open-source project to over $1.2M in annual revenue with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

Kapil Kale (@kapil) talks AI-generated art, going through YC, buying out his investors to own 100% of the company, pivoting from an okay idea to a great idea, and growing a profitable business to 8-figures in annual revenue with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

Tony Dinh (@tdinh_me) talks growing up in Vietnam, quitting his job working for the man, failed vs successful side projects, growing via Twitter, and managing multiple projects that add up to $18,000 in monthly revenue with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

Liron Shapira (@liron) talks relationship and dating advice, building a coaching business, marketing via Facebook groups, and growing his revenue to millions of dollars with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

Dashiell Bark-Huss (@DashBarkHuss) talks quitting the fashion industry, living in a van, learning to code, selling to sex workers, lucid dreaming, and growing her first-ever startup to $36k/mo with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

We're talking to Patrick Campbell, an indie founder who just sold his company for $200,000,000. That's an insane nine figure exit for a bootstrapped founder. In this episode, we talk with Patrick about his champagne problems and what indie hackers need to know today to get to where he is more quickly.  Follow Patrick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Patticus Check out ProfitWell: https://www.profitwell.com/

Sahil Lavingia (@shl) and Justin Jackson (@mijustin) join Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen) for a special debate-style episode. It's four dudes talking about Elon Musk. What could go wrong? Follow Sahil on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shl Check out Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/ Follow Justin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mijustin Check out Transistor.fm: https://transistor.fm/

Vincent Woo (@fulligin) sold his company for tens of millions of dollars. He joins the pod to talk to Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen) about advice for fledgling indie hackers trying to make money, the purpose of business, defining principles for one's life, and why he shouldn't have to pay Courtland for a $10,000 bet he lost.

Daniel Vassallo (@dvassallo) and Arvid Kahl (@arvidkahl) have both already made it as indie hackers. They join Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen) to discuss making money as an indie hacker, designing your life after you reach financial freedom, avoiding risk, mitigating inflation, and whether or not college is worth it.Related episodes: #212 – Actionable Steps for Building the Right Business with Arvid Kahl #177 – Mastering the Lifestyle-First Approach to Indie Hacking with Daniel Vassallo #140 – Vital Learnings from Bootstrapping and Selling a $55k a Month Business with Arvid Kahl of FeedbackPanda

Long-time listener, first-time guest — Courtland (@csallen) and Channing's (@ChanningAllen) mom, Eva, joins the pod to talk raising twins, buying gifts, selling computer parts, co-founder theft, an Indie Hackers quiz for moms, and why you should never retire.

I'm making some changes to the Indie Hackers Podcast. Check out this episode for a sneak peek into what's ahead. 

Julian Shapiro is back on the show today.  He's been my co-host for our podcast Brains, he's an investor at Julian.capital and a writer at Julian.com. Lately, he's been super into investing. He's managed to take an overly complex thing like investing and reverse-engineer it, breaking it down into its simplest frameworks.  Follow Julian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/julian Check out Demand Curve: https://www.demandcurve.com/ Become an investor with Carveout: https://www.withcarveout.com/ Apply to Hyper: https://hyper.com/ Read Julian's memos for founders: https://www.julian.capital/

My twin brother Channing (@ChanningAllen) joins the show for the first time, for a casual chat about our recent trip to Italy, the best and worst parts of getting COVID, the future of media companies and indie creators, and DALL-E 2 and the future of AI.

When Sam Eaton hears a new idea, it's all he can do to contain his excitement and dive right into the code. So when his sister told him she wanted to start a cookie delivery business, there was never any question that he'd apply his indie hacker skills to help out however he could. And to great effect — today they're selling hundreds of thousand of dollars worth of cookies every month. In this episode, Sam and I discuss the advantages of target your local community as a niche, ways to leverage scarcity and social proof to increase sales, and how software engineers can best apply their skills to selling products in the real world.

Twenty pages into reading his first business book, Peldi Guilizzonni (@peldi) closed it for good and told himself, "This is not for me. I'm never going to start a business. It's insane." Not long after that, he rolled up his sleeves and got started building Balsamiq Mockups, which would go on to employee dozens of people, serve thousands of customers, and generate over $6M per year in revenue. Over ten years later, it's still going strong. Learn about the path Peldi took to get where he is today, why he's a legend among bootstrappers, and how he's building a business that's meant to last.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/085-peldi-guilizzoni-of-balsamiq

Today I'm talking to Indie Hacker Brett Williams (@brettfromdj) who has built a $1M ARR agency of one. In this episode we talk about how he manages 50 clients as a solo designer and was able to double his prices in the process.  Check out DesignJoy: DesignJoy.co Follow Brett on Twitter: twitter.com/brettfromdj

Today I'm talking to Greg Isenburg of Late Checkout and Dru Riley of Trends.vc. In this episode, we cover a bunch of topics around media and community. I'll ask them where they get their content ideas, how they create product stickiness, how they stay productive and what new business ideas are sitting in their notes app.  Follow Greg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Follow Dru on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DruRly Check out Late Checkout: https://latecheckout.substack.com/ Subscribe to Trends.vc: https://join.trends.vc/

Today I'm talking to Victoria Young (@victoriahyoung) and Ravi Mehta (@ravi_mehta) about their coaching platform Scale Higher. In this episode we talk about the type of person who could benefit from a coach and how they've been inspired by platforms like Noom and TalkSpace to change the way people are able to level up their professional lives.  Follow Victoria on Twitter: https://twitter.com/victoriahyoung Follow Ravi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ravi_mehta Find a coach on Scale Higher: https://www.scalehigher.com/

Today I'm talking to Steph Smith (@stephsmithio). She runs Trends.co and recently got my attention when she posted on IH how she grew her podcast from 0 to 15k downloads/month. She took a really unique approach to launching her show, The Sh*t You Don't Learn in School, and I want to find out how she did it.  Follow Steph on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio Check out her new book: https://doingcontentright.com (Enter code "INDIE" to get 60% off!) Subscribe to her podcast: https://keeplearning.buzzsprout.com