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

Jen Yip (@lunchbag) is the founder of Lunch Money, a budgeting app that's going head-to-head with big names like Mint and YNAB. The catch? She's a solo founder, doing 100% of the work on her own. In this episode, Jen and I cover the wide breadth of experiences and skills she's gained in order to make this possible, her strategies for working hard enough to catch up with competitors but soft enough to avoid burning herself out, and why she's doing this all as a digital "snowmad" who works overseas during the winter.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/150-jen-yip-of-lunch-money

Greg Rog (@greg_rog) is one of the few indie hackers I know who's actually managed to build a passive income business. His website, LearnUX.io, makes over $10k per month, yet he spends less than a day each month updating the content and answering questions. His secret? A combination of hard work over a sustained period of time, obsessive focus on making a 10x better product, and embracing no-code tools to support automation despite knowing how to code himself. In this episode, Greg walks me through his story, his successes, and his failures, and we discuss why teaching what you know is an underrated path that anyone can embrace.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/149-greg-rog-of-learnux

Nathan Rosidi has bootstrapped his side project, Strata Scratch, to 2500 users and over $1,500 in monthly recurring revenue. In this episode we discuss the lessons he's learned from past failures, how to prioritize what to work on when you're getting ideas from so many different people, and why it's both a blessing and a curse to be able to take things slowly as an indie hacker.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/148-quick-chat-with-nathan-rosidi

Cory Zue (@czue) made over $26,000 in profit from multiple side projects in 2019, including a printable place card business and a Django-powered SaaS template. In this episode Cory explains how his journey began by taking a sabbatical from work, he lays out his plan to reach financial independence by 2023, and he shares some tips for ensuring your indie hacker journey is an enjoyable one the whole way through.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/147-cory-zue-of-place-card-me

Alexandria Procter (@alexprocter101) is the last person you would ever describe as timid. When the bureaucracy at her college in South Africa failed to address a massive student housing crisis, Alex taught took things into her own hands, learned to code, and created a startup to help. In this episode, Alex and I talk about the personality traits and the economic realities that drive people to take risks and solve problems. We attempt to answer the question, "What do founders in the developing world have that founders elsewhere do not, and vice versa?" Alex also shares the incredible story behind how her startup, DigsConnect, has grown to find over 70,000 beds for students in just two years.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/146-alex-procter-of-digsconnect

Jane Portman (@uibreakfast) is no stranger to making money online. Not only has she run a successful consultancy for nearly a decade, but she's also published 4 books and become a leading authority on UX and product design. So when Jane decided to start a SaaS company—Userlist— she was surprised to learn just slow and difficult the process can be. In this episode, Jane and I discuss the variables that makes companies faster or slower to grow, the importance of nailing your customer messaging so people understand what it is that you do, and her tips for how other founders can stick through the tough times to turn their side projects into successful SaaS businesses.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/145-jane-portman-of-userlist

Vlad Magdalin (@callmevlad) might just be the most principled founder I've had on the podcast. "When it came to making hard decisions, I've leaned more on my morality rather than my business sense. That's what I regret the least." Sticking to his heart has paid off. Not only has he built a company that's changing and improving lives by the millions, but he's also grown it to millions in revenue and 155 employees. In this episode Vlad and I talk about the ups and downs of raising money from investors, the impact of building something that empowers your customers to create, and the compounding benefits of focusing on people and relationships over profit and product.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/144-vlad-magdalin-of-webflow

Pete Macleod (@petecodes) didn't have a cushy fallback plan when he set out to become an indie hacker. Eight months ago he was unemployed, and a few months after that he was working a minimum wage job with dangerous clientele. He knew figured his best bet would be to strike out on his own: "I don't really have anything to lose at this point, so I suppose I'll just go for it." Today he runs No CS Degree, a profitable online business that helps aspiring software engineers who don't have the stereotypical credentials. In this episode, Pete and I discuss his remarkable ability to get help from others, his techniques for rapidly learning how to create a successful company, and the reasons it was crucial for him to solve a problem he was passionate about.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/143-pete-codes-of-no-cs-degree

When Dmitry Dragilev (@dragilev) looked at the personal lives of his business heroes, he didn't like what he found. "Horrible family lives. Just horrible personal relationships." He knew he wanted something different, so he made the conscious decision to prioritize his family life and build his business around that. In this episode, Dmitry and I talk about how he was able to bootstrap from $0 to $30,000/month in revenue working just 25 hours a week, as well as how his business JustReachOut.io helps indie hackers do PR with less time, effort, and money.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/142-dmitry-dragilev-of-just-reach-out

When Cesar Kuriyama (@cesarkuriyama) first got started, he had nothing but a dream of freedom, an app idea, and a rapidly declining bank account. When every dev shop in New York City turned him down, things looked dire. But through sheer persistence and a penchant to seize every opportunity in front of him, Cesar managed to create an experience that people loved, give a talk on the TED main stage, launch a successful Kickstarter campaign, bootstrap his app to millions of dollars in revenue, and even get it featured in a Jon Favreau movie. In this episode we break down Cesar's improbable path to success, and in the process discover why you should never give up as a founder.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/141-cesar-kuriyama-of-1-second-everyday

In the span of two years, Arvid Kahl (@arvidkahl) and his partner Danielle Simpson (@SimpsonDaniK) went from new idea, to $55k a month in revenue, to selling their business, all without hiring a single employee. In this episode Arvid and I discuss the ideal market size for indie hackers to target, the importance of building with a specific audience in mind, and the vital learnings from Arvid's past businesses that contributed to his recent success.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/140-arvid-kahl-of-feedbackpanda

When John O'Nolan (@JohnONolan) set out to create Ghost, he made an unintuitive decision for a mission-driven founder: to use his skillset to tackle the *obvious* thing to work on, rather than chasing the most *interesting* thing to work on. But 8 years later, and perhaps as a direct result of that decision, Ghost finds itself in one of the most interesting places of any indie business I've had on the show: reinventing online publishing in the the midst of a crisis for journalism, and making close to $2M/year while doing it.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/139-john-onolan-of-ghost

Robert James Gabriel (@RobertJGabriel) never had it easy growing up. Before he was finally diagnosed with dyslexia at age 17, he had teachers counsel him to drop out of school and was told he would never amount to anything. But with some positive encouragement from a few helpful mentors and individuals, Robert found his way, learned to code, and became a prolific indie hacker. In this episode Robert and I discuss the psychological effects of being trapped inside both negative and positive feedback loops, his strategy for coming up with dozens of product ideas, and the story behind how he bootstrapped his app Helperbird into a six-figure business that helps others with learning disabilities like dyslexia.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/138-robert-james-gabriel-of-helperbird

When Taylor Otwell (@taylorotwell) first sat down to create Laravel, he had no idea it would be the seed of an ecosystem that would revitalize an entire programming language. He was just building it for himself. In the years to come, his "build it for myself" strategy would continue to pay off, resulting in numerous million-dollar products such as Forge, Envoy, Spark, and Nova. In this episode Taylor and I discuss his strategy for turning his own problems into a source of product ideas; how to have extraordinary impact as a solo founder and self-described "regular guy;"and the almost-unfair benefits of building goodwill, trust, and community around your products and ideas.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/137-taylor-otwell-of-laravel

Dave Sims (@floifydave) has bootstrapped two tech companies to millions of dollars in annual revenue, and with the help of his wife and co-CEO, he's running them both at the same time. With his latest business, Floify, he's proven that you don't have to know a ton about an industry to discover an opportunity and build a valuable idea… but you do have to learn, and learn rapidly. In this episode, we discuss exactly how Dave came up with his idea by keeping his eyes open to problems and opportunities in everyday life, how he built the right product by learning from his customers and even going so far as to shadow them in their places of work, and why all business is about relationships.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/136-dave-sims-of-floify

Despite running a successful design agency that caters to big-name clients like FKA Twigs, Stefan Endress (@stefanendress) has known for years that he wanted to build a product of his own and be an indie hacker. In this episode, Stefan and I dig into what it's like running an agency while developing a new product on the side, how to surmount the challenge of finding customers by focusing on people like yourself, and why bringing a unique style and brand to your business may be more important than having a unique product idea.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/135-quick-chat-with-stefan-endress

The no-code movement is picking up steam, with more people than ever building apps and businesses without knowing how to code themselves. Ben Tossell (@bentossell), the creator of Makerpad, is betting his business that no-code is the future of work. However, Sahil Lavingia (@shl), the founder of Gumroad, isn't so sure that code. In this episode, I hosted a lively discussion between these two thoughtful bootstrappers about code vs no-code. Which approach should a new indie hacker should take? What gaps in the market are opening up due to the changes in tooling landscape? And what does the future hold?Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/134-ben-tossell-and-sahil-lavingia-on-code-vs-no-code

Anne-Laure Le Cunff (@anthilemoon) is working at the intersection of neuroscience and entrepreneurship to produce content that inspires, educates, and sustains makers like you. In this episode, we talked about how Anne-Laure builds free products that are good for the world while monetizing related products, how she juggles multiple career paths simultaneously by maximizing overlap, and how to combine multiple interests into a single niche topic that's unique and differentiated.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/133-quick-chat-with-anne-laure-le-cunff

When Ryan Born (@_RyanBorn) first emailed me about becoming one of Cloud Campaign's early customers, I replied with a long list of reasons why I wasn't going to use it. Two years later, he's generating over $25,000/month in revenue and growing at 32% month-over-month! In this episode, Ryan shares how he found his way to product-market fit by interviewing hundreds of people to find out who is and who isn't his ideal customer. He also discusses the advantages of picking a niche, the ins and outs of running Facebook ads profitably, and how dipping his toe in the water of numerous marketing channels helped him discover which one was worth diving into more deeply.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/132-ryan-born-of-cloud-campaign

Tyler Tringas (@tylertringas) may not look like Tarzan, but that hasn't stopped him from expertly swinging from vine to vine. Since we last spoke in episode 10, Tyler transitioned from founder to investor, sold his SaaS business, and is helping to spearhead a whole new approach to funding indie hacker businesses. In this episode, Tyler and I discuss the existing VC model and why it doesn't work for bootstrappers, a new funding model that bootstrappers should all be paying attention to, and why he's betting that "90% of startups fail" should no longer be the accepted wisdom.Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/131-tyler-tringas-of-earnest-capital