Indie Bites – Details, episodes & analysis

Today I’m joined by Jijo Sunny, who is the co-founder of Buy Me A Coffee, one of the most popular donation and membership platforms on the internet. They’ve processed 10’s of millions for creators and have built a 26 strong team. Since founding Buy Me A Coffee, Jijo has dabbled in all sorts of projects, including a stint in YC with a podcasting app. Now though, Jijo is back building a new product, Voicenotes, a voice driven AI note taking app.

👉 Listen to the full 1 hour conversation with Jijo here: indiebites.com/membership

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:48 Background
• 02:27 Buy Me a Coffee Origin Story
• 03:37 How did Buy Me A Coffee grow
• 05:35 Jijo on multiple products
• 06:35 Making products cheap to run
• 09:21 Starting voicenotes.com
• 14:02 Parting advice
• 15:56 Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book: Friendly Ambitious Nerd
• Podcast: Dithering
• Indie Hacker: Danny Postma

My links

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Indie Bites YouTube
• Join the membership
• Personal Website
• 2 Hour Podcast Course
• PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)
• This Indie Life Podcast

Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Marybeth Alexander is the founder and Chief Executive Owl of KnowledgeOwl, a bootstrapped knowledge base software founded in 2015. Started as an idea within SurveyGizmo, where Marybeth was working at the time, the company has since flourished into a small, profitable, sustainable business ultimately being built to improve the lives of the founders, employees and customers. In this episode we talk about how Marybeth bought the company from her previous employers, how they grew through reviews and why more indie hackers should put customer happiness front and centre.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Intro
• 01:26 Founding story of KnowledgeOwl (prev Help Gizmo)
• 06:54 Marketing and Growth
• 08:58 How to have happy customers
• 10:54 KnowledgeOwl's appraoch to product development
• 13:35 How important is the KnowledgeOwl brand
• 15:07 Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book: Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell
• Podcast: Startup to Last
• Indie Hacker/Entrepreneur: Ari Weinzweig - The Lapsed Anarchist's Approach to Being a Better Leader

My links

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Indie Bites YouTube
• Join the membership
• Personal Website
• 2 Hour Podcast Course
• PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)
• This Indie Life Podcast

Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Today I’m joined by Randall Kanna Franson. Randall is a senior software engineer who has written 3 books, including one published by O’Reilly and a self published one which made over $70k. She also created a course called Hack the Tech interview which made $20k in the first 24 hours and $50k in the first month. All of this has been through Randall’s efforts to share her learnings from almost a decade being a software engineer and growing her twitter audience to over 50,000 followers. She’s also dabbled in SaaS products, notably launching and growing CodeTutor which she sold after the birth of her first child.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:43 Randall's background
• 03:33 Coding bootcamp to senior software engineer
• 05:05 Getting a book published with O'Reilly
• 06:37 Going hard on side projects in 2020
• 08:01 Audience building and writing another book
• 10:04 Randall's course
• 11:42 Randalls advice to early stage entreprenuers
• 13:13 Why Randall hasn't started a successful SaaS
• 15:47 Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book - The Dip
• Podcast - Software Social
• Indie Hacker - Kyle Gawley

My links

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Indie Bites YouTube
• Join the membership
• Personal Website
• 2 Hour Podcast Course
• PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)
• This Indie Life Podcast

Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Arvid Kahl is a software engineer turned entrepreneur. He co-founded and FeedbackPanda, an online teacher productivity SaaS company, with his partner Danielle Simpson. They sold the business for a life-changing amount of money in 2019, two years after founding the business. Arvid writes on TheBootstrappedFounder.com because bootstrapping is a desirable, value- and wealth-generating way of running a company. In over a decade of working in startup businesses of all sizes, Arvid has learned a thing or two about what works, what doesn't, and how to increase the chances of building a successful business.

Get the full, 60 minute conversation with Arvid here with the Indie Feast membership.

What we covered in this episode:

• The Feedback Panda story
• Was the ambition to sell the company from the start?
  • Built to Sell, John Warrillow
• What Indie Hackers can learn from Zero to Sold
• What happens once you sell a business?
• Why settle on the format of a book?
• Why didn't Arvid make his book free?
• How to find a critical problem in a market that's willing to pay
• Tips for going into a crowded market
• How to to find your audience

Recommendations

• Book: The Mom Test
• Podcast: Indie Hackers
• Indie Hacker: Sergio Mattei

Follow Arvid

• Twitter
• The Embedded Entrepreneur
• Zero to Sold

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Today we have Embarque.io supporting the show! Embarque is run by a fellow indie hacker and has just crossed 6 figures in revenue. Embarque is an agency that offers productised SEO content that converts.

It blew my mind when Julian told me about the growth their client MentorCruise had from the SEO content, resulting in 107% increase in MRR, 100% increase in monthly trials and a 114% increase SEO traffic. My word, wouldn't you want those kind of results for your indie business.

Go and check out what Embarque are offering at Embarque.io and get $100 off your first package with the code 'INDIEBITES'.

Today we're joined by Philip Kiely, who is currently Head of Marketing at Gumroad. Philip also launched "Writing for Software Developers" last May, making $20,000 in sales in its first week without any pre-existing audience. Since then, Philip has been on a mission to help as many software developers as possible realize that they possess the skills they need to become great writers.

What we covered in this episode:

• Why Philip wrote 'Writing for Software Developers'
• How Philip made $20k in 24 hours with no pre-existing audience
• Should you do pre-sales if you're selling an info product?
• How Philip got his job at Gumroad
• Why there has been a boom in the creator economy
• Why choose Gumroad as your selling platform
• Where a new creator should start when selling a product
• Who made the most money on Gumroad in 2020
• Gumroad Stats 2020

Follow Philip

• Twitter
• Website

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites, which is launching in the US this week!

‘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 hosting
• Cove; a commenting tool for Ghost blogs
• Substation; a theme for Ghost

Dan also launched ilo, a better analytics platform for Twitter a few months ago, which has earned over $6k in revenue since launch.

What we covered in this episode:

• Why Dan lives in Mauritius
• Why choose multiple projects over doing just one?
• How do you manage your time with 3 kids, a wife and a full-time job?
• Why Dan isn't too worried about 'growing' his side projects
• The pros and cons of working on your side project with a full-time job
• Not worrying about the money your side project earns - does it take the fun out of it?
• Why is Dan so bullish on Ghost?
• Why having a 'suite' of products is complimentary to each other
• Getting a 75k acquisition offer
  • Awesome thread on the $75k offer
  • What were the options?
• Being prepared to sell your projects
• Building an alternative to Twitter analytics

Recommendations

• Magazine: Courier
• Newsletter: Dense Discovery
• Podcast: Startup
• Indie Hacker: Justin Jackson

Follow Dan

• Twitter
• Website

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites, which is launching in the US this week!

‘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 Terra
• Making the leap going full-time with your business
• Why Dianna went straight into
• How do the economics of a physical product business work?
• How Terra was started with just $100
• Using Instagram for 99% of growth
• The hardest part of running a physical product business
• How to balance one-term purchases vs MRR
• Why we should support more small businesses?

Links

• Dianna's IH podcast episode
• Dianna's article on growing TERRA to 50k

Recommendations

• Book: Shoe Dog
• Indie Hacker: AJ from Carrd
• Podcast: Doesn't listen

Follow Dianna

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Terra

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites, which is launching in the US this week!

‘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 covered

• 20k in 2 weeks, how did you do it?
• How and why Pat started Starter Story?
• How he grew it to 500,000 monthly visitors
• Why Reddit can be a goldmine, but why Pat stopped using it
• How Starter Story allowed Pat to go full-time
• The most insane story out of 2,000 posts
  • Brumate
  • D*ck at Your Door
• Using Twitter to validate an idea
• Executing on that idea
• How to price a course
• The benefit of building in public
• How to execute so quickly
• How to build an audience

Recommendations

• Book: Deep Work by Cal Newport
• Podcast: Indie Hackers
• Indie Hacker: Harry Dry

Follow Pat

• Twitter
• Starter Story
• Pat's Building Thread
• Lean SEO Course

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.

‘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 noise
• What makes a good landing page
• Rob's mammoth landing page Twitter thread
• How to write a good Twitter thread
• Have lots of projects at the same time
• Do you have to make money off a side project
• How do you achieve freedom

Recommendations

• Landing Page: Muzzle
• Book: Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
• Podcast: Indie Hackers
• Indie Hacker: AJ (from Carrd)

Follow Rob

• Twitter
• Landing Page Thread
• One Page Love
• Website
• Yo!

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.

‘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 medium
• Is the amount of investment in podcasting (from the likes of Spotify) a good thing?
• Is podcasting oversaturated?
• What does it take to grow a podcast?
• How to stay consistent with producing your show
• How Mark started out with his businesses
• Bootstrapping the next venture

Recommendations

• Book: E-Myth Revisited
• Podcast: The Jordan Harbinger Show
• Indie Hacker: Corey Haines

Follow Mark

• Twitter
• Rebel Base Media

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website

Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.

‘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.