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

Rob Walling (@robwalling) returns to the show to talk about new and not-so-new trends in SaaS that Indie Hackers should be paying attention to.  Listen to Rob's podcast: https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ Follow Rob on Twitter: https://twitter.com/robwalling Check out Tiny Seed: https://tinyseed.com/

Nathan Barry (@nathanbarry) has grown ConvertKit from $7M to $27M since I last spoke with him three years ago. He’s done several things in the last few years to grow—including making ConvertKit’s first acquisition and riding the wave of the creator economy. But mostly we’ll discuss how incremental improvements over eight years is responsible for the email marketing tool’s compound growth.   Follow Nathan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nathanbarry Find and build your audience with ConvertKit: https://convertkit.com/

Today I have Chris Justin (@Chris_Justin) and Eathan Janney from the Run With It podcast. They are coming on the show today to share some business ideas for 2021 for indie hackers. In this episode we discuss flying cars (VTOL), NFTs, people coins, and other trends to get ahead of for the next year. Listen to new ideas on the Run With It podcast: https://www.runwithit.fm/

Joining me is prolific indie hacker and Bitclout enthusiast Mubashar Iqbal (@mubashariqbal) to discuss the pros and cons of the new platform. Is it a scam? Is it not a scam? Are we all living in a real life episode of Black Mirror? We get to the bottom of your burning questions in this episode.

Austin Rief (@Austin_Rief) started the newsletter Morning Brew in college when he didn’t care if he made money or mistakes. That freedom in the early days resulted in an authenticity that he credits for their growth. In this episode, I talk to Austin about how he’s using Twitter to grow, what types of customers become brand ambassadors, and so much more.

Today I’m catching up with Ben Orenstein (@r00k) after nearly two years. Since then his company Tuple has grown 3x and is hitting millions on annual revenue. In this episode, I talk to Ben about the factors behind his insane growth, what it’s like being single as a startup founder, and why he’s hiring a coach for nearly every aspect of his life.

Today I’m talking to some of the best online course creators that I know. So many indie hackers got started and became successful because they found ways to teach others online. So I invited Andrew Berry (@Bazzaruto), who runs the On Deck Course Creators Fellowship, Marie Poulin (@mariepoulin), who runs an online course called Notion Mastery, and Ali Abdaal (@AliAbdaal), who runs Part Time YouTuber Academy. In this episode, we’ll talk about how to get started, overcome imposter syndrome, and how everyone has something to teach.

One of the best ways to build a successful business as an indie hacker is to teach people a valuable skill. So in this episode, I sat down to talk to you two of the best educators that I know. Darrell Silver (@darrellsilver) is the founder of Thinkful (an online learning service that's helped thousands of students get high paying jobs in tech) and Quincy Larson (@ossia), the founder of freeCodeCamp. We’ll get into some of the best ways for indie hackers to get started as educators and the economics behind an education business.

Nadav Keyson and his brother built a podcast recording tool on the bleeding edge of technology. By being hyper-focused and product-driven they were able to score clients like Hillary Clinton and the NFL as first customers. In this episode, I’ll talk to Nadav about how he reached out to big names, turned them into customers, and built a product with innate virality.

In just two years, Ben Tossell (@bentossell) grew Makerpad to over 10,000 users, $400,000 ARR and got bought by Zapier in a deal that became Zapier’s first acquisition. In this episode, I’m going to put Ben’s poker face to the test as I dig into the details of the deal and what it’s like for a founder to go through that process for the first time.

David Perell (@david_perell) is someone whose own friends told him he wasn’t a good writer. By his own account, he was “horrible” at it. In this episode, we talk about why he decided to get really, really good at writing instead of just giving up and what specific techniques made it possible.

Sabba Keynejad (@sab8a) is the founder of one of the fastest growing companies that I've ever featured on the show. In this episode we get into exactly how he used YouTube, side project marketing, Reddit and even getting banned from Qoura to grow Veed.io.

Kevin Lee (@kevinleeme) has run the premiere community for product managers online and is now working on something brand new, but it's not what you'd expect. He's working on noodles. Better, healthier, instant noodles. So in this episode, we just get really personal. We talk about our own health and wellness. We even talk about deathbed regrets and how to avoid them by working on the things that actually bring you joy.

Jay Clouse first popped onto my radar when he posted on Indie Hackers that he sold his community to Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income. You typically don't see communities get acquired because they're often built around a single individual and frequently they get worse as they grow instead if better. In this episode, we'll find out how Jay not only grows this thing, but also holds the ship together as it scales.

So many kids decide to become software engineers because they were captivated by video games at a young age, and they dreamed of crafting that magic themselves someday. More often than not, they end up working at Facebook or Google building web apps and selling ads. But not Dave Geddes. Dave (@geddski) followed his passion, quit his lucrative job, and is making a living creating games that teach people to code. In this episode, Dave and I talk about the moment that led to him leaving his high-paying job, the launch of his first game, and how he's reaching tens of thousands of people.

When Yaro Bagriy (@yarobagriy) set to learn about paid newsletters, he was disappointed by what he found. So in true indie hacker fashion, he decided to create his own learning resource to teach others like him — Newsletter Crew: a podcast, blog, and community all about the paid newsletter ecosystem. In this episode, Yaro and I discuss some of the most inspiring stories from newsletter creators, Yaro's process for coming up with paid newsletter ideas, and why indie hackers building newsletter software may stand to gain more than anyone else.

When Li Jin (@ljin18) was young, she dreamed of going to school to pursue her passion in the arts. Instead she settled for little old Harvard, because common wisdom said there was no money in the passions. Today, the world has changed. The passion economy is stronger than ever, and Li is its patron saint. People are making millions of dollars on passion economy platforms like Shopify, Etsy, Teachable, TikTok, and Substack. And founders are creating millions of jobs by creating these platforms to empower other people. In this episode, Li and I discuss how she's indie hacking in the passion economy space despite being a venture capitalist; power-law distributions and their role in wealth inequality; and her massive ambition to expand the middle class.

When the founders of WhereBy.Us set out to connect people in their city, they weren't sure where to start. Holding events? Press conferences? Opening a bar? Local news? In this episode, Chris Sopher (@cksopher) and Bruce Pinchbeck (@BrucePinchbeck) share the story behind how they created local media brands in cities across the country, and then used their learnings to spin out a SaaS product for newsletters.

Evan Britton (@Evan_Britton) runs a massive website focused on digital celebrities called Famous Birthdays. It gets multiple billions of pageviews a year, has dozens of employees, and he bootstrapped it to profitability without raising a dime from investors. They key to Evan's approach is his laser focus. He says no to almost everything, including the most obvious of opportunities. Instead he prefers to "stay in his lane." He'd rather make one thing great than do a mediocre job at 4 or 5 different things. The story of how Evan made Famous Birthdays great is one of fame, focus, ambition, patience, and just a little bit of luck.