Episodes

  • 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 Intro01:43 Randall's background03:33 Coding bootcamp to senior software engineer05:05 Getting a book published with O'Reilly06:37 Going hard on side projects in 202008:01 Audience building and writing another book10:04 Randall's course11:42 Randalls advice to early stage entreprenuers13:13 Why Randall hasn't started a successful SaaS15:47 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book - The DipPodcast - Software SocialIndie Hacker - Kyle Gawley

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.

  • Kieran Ball is the founder of NoCodeLife, a selection of case studies of those making successful businesses using NoCode. Kieran also has courses on how to become a NoCode SaaS founder, specifically using the Bubble platform. I wanted to get Kieran on the pod to discuss and challenge the NoCode movement and if you can actually create a scalable product using the tools available, or if NoCode serves a different purpose.

    Timestamps

    00:00 108 - Kieran Ball02:07 Failing to learn how to code03:05 How Kieran discovered no code04:28 Are no code apps hacky?05:52 Who has been successful building no code tools?06:57 No code for MVPs or for actual startups09:28 Keiran's own blog, No Code Life10:19 Improving your marketing skillset12:49 Kieran's future with no code15:48 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book - The SaaS playbookPodcast - The Bootstrapped FounderIndie Hacker - Hazel Lim @byhazelim

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.

  • Missing episodes?

    Click here to refresh the feed.

  • Today I’m joined by Val Sopi, the founder of Blogstatic, a lightweight blogging platform built to take on the likes of Ghost. Currently Val is sitting around $1k a month, but with a low-priced annual plans approach, he’s relying on new sign ups and plan upgrades instead of recurring subscriptions. So he’s at a crossroads of needing to pour fuel on the fire to grow his low-cost blogging platform, or attempt to build a B2B SaaS, which he believes is a much more sustainable option for an indie founder. Val has been hardened by business successes and failures, so I love his pragmatic approach to the decisions he’s making.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro01:39 Val's background - web design shop to failed SaaS04:10 Learning to code and starting Claritask04:53 Selling Claritask05:52 Launching Blogstatic06:42 Taking a loan to bet on himself07:40 The crossroads of stagnating growth08:39 Being a low cost alternative in a competitive market12:30 Why Val won't take VC14:06 Why Val is trying B2B instead of B2C15:45 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book: The Inner Game of TennisPodcast: Startups for the Rest of UsIndie Hacker: Joe Ashville


    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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 revisiting one of my favourite episodes, from 2020, with Sabba Keynejad, co-founder and CEO of VEED.io, an online video editing platform. When I interviewed Sabba, VEED were at around $2m ARR, fully bootstrapped. Since this interview, they’ve gone on to bootstrap to about $7m ARR before raising a whopping $35m series A from Sequoia. And when I first met Sabba, years before this interview, VEED was just a small product that wasn't generating any revenue. This episode is special to me because I’ve followed VEED’s journey from the start and it’s been inspiring to see.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro02:46 VEED origins03:24 Differentiation03:58 Picking a market04:48 Hiring and learning new skills06:16 Inflection points in growth07:07 Quitting your job07:45 Why you should find a cofounder08:41 Getting the first users09:47 Free vs paid11:16 Growth tactics12:04 Advice to other founders13:01 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Favourite indie hacker is Josh PigfordBest book for indie hackers; TractionFavourite podcast; How I Built This

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.

  • Gilbert Pellegrom, is co-founder and CTO of Lemon Squeezy, a platform for selling software and digital products online. Previously Gilbert created the Nivo Slider all in 2010, which grew to millions of users before selling it. He then went on to work with Orman Clark at ThemeZilla and Dunked, who he’s teamed up with again to build Lemon Squeezy. What’s interesting about Gilbert is that despite being the CTO of a rapidly scaling startup, he’s still making and shipping side projects, which we’ll talk about more on this episode.

    If you want to hear more about Lemon Squeezy, I actually co-host their podcast called Make Lemonade, where I speak with their CEO JR Farr about the behind the scenes of building a bootstrapped company making millions.

    Sign up to the Indie Bites membership for $60 a year to access the full conversation with Gilbert.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro03:57 Working with Orman Clark at Themezilla and Dunked06:11 Delicious Brains06:40 Starting Lemon Squeezy07:52 Why Gilbert makes side projects10:36 Should you charge money for your side projects12:58 Selling side projects14:59 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book - Atomic HabitsPodcast - Yo!Indie Hacker - Marcel Pociot

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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 Jeffrey Bunn, who is the co-founder of Clearful, a digital journal app he built with his wife, Maria. Previously they co-founded Mealime, a meal planning app which grew to a whopping $65k MRR before they exited in 2018. In this episode we cover the story of founding both apps, how they utilised the app stores for growth and why they started a B2C app in a crowded market.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro
    01:30 Starting Mealime
    07:07 Pivot to mobile and reducing prices
    08:36 Mealime Growth
    09:46 Private Equity Exit
    10:38 Life post-exit and learning to code
    12:24 Starting Clearful
    13:31 Clearful growth through the app store
    14:50 Runway and future

    Recommendations

    Book - Range by David EpsteinPodcast - Conversations with TylerIndie Hacker - Maria Golikova, Sebastian Röhl

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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 Michael Christofides, who is the founder of PgMustard, a product which helps people speed up Postgres queries. Michael started out working for a Devtools company as a product manager and went on to run customer success at London based unicorn, GoCardless. Now, Michael might not be as well known and successful as other popular indie hackers, but he works on his own terms and has been committed to his project for years.

    In this episode I want to unpack why Michael stays committed to his product despite slow growth, his unique approach to the indie lifestyle and where he wants to go in future.

    Timestamps

    00:00 - Intro02:18 - Michael's early career03:09 - The PGMustard idea04:28 - Building for a market rather than scratching your own itch06:23 - Launching PGMustard08:15 - Going full time on PGMustard09:47 - Leaving well paid jobs at $0 MRR11:28 - Intentional slow growth15:43 - Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book - Small GiantsPodcast - Panic PodcastIndie Hacker - Michael Koper

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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 runs The Bootstrapped Founder, a podcast, newsletter and educational resource to help founders grow successful bootstrapped businesses. He’s also written two books, Zero to Sold and The Embedded Entreprenuer. Arvid is a returning guest, having previously been on the show almost 3 years ago, to talk about his exit from FeedbackPanda, which he grew to $55k MRR with his partner, Danielle.


    In this episode we talk about life as a creator and solopreneur, how Arvid is scratching his SaaS itch and how people can leave their jobs to work on their side projects.

    👉 Get the full 55 minute conversation here.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro01:45 Turning hobbies into business02:51 Structuring how you spend your time05:14 Revenue for The Bootstrapped Founder07:13 Why do consulting when you have runway08:30 Scratching the coding itch12:07 How to make a side project a main project15:52 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    (Prev. the mom test, IH pod and Sergio Mattei)

    Book: The SaaS PlaybookPodcast: The Greatest GenerationIndie Hacker: Tony Dihn

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.

  • Harvey Carpenter is the founder of Growform, a form builder which is now around 7K MRR. It's a mixture of enterprise and some other clients, and he's tackling a product in a market that is extremely competitive and crowded, but he's trying to carve out his own little slice of that market.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro01:21 Harvey's life before Growform01:35 Side projects as a 17 yr old04:10 Getting a law degree05:04 The idea for Growform06:42 Benefits of picking a niche09:12 Growth tactics10:06 Quitting his job and taking a loan13:16 Future goals13:48 Taking recreation seriously

    Recommendations

    Book: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t TogetherPodcast: Diary of a CEOIndie Hacker: Jack Bridger

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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 is a special episode, because it marks 100 episodes of Indie Bites. And to mark the occasion, I’m bringing back my guest from episode 1, Charlie Ward, founder of Ramen Club to talk about how he’s grown to community into the core of the London indie scene while scaling to £7k MRR in the process. Charlie has also been a long time supporter of the show, having sponsored well over 30 episodes and taking a bet on me early on.

    Timestamps

    00:00 - Intro01:40 - The impact Ramen Club has on other founders03:08 - Rebranding to Ramen Club04:56 - Advice for community building06:27 - Advice to founders on ideas and growth11:10 - Why you should be doing user research14:35 - Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book: $100m OffersPodcast: Lex FridmanIndie Hacker: Elston Baretto

    Other links

    Get Together bookContinuous Discovery Habits bookRosielandCharlie's TwitterRamen Club Podcast

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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 Tom Evans and Jonathan Bull from EmailOctopus, an email platform who have bootstrapped to over $3m ARR since they were founded in 2014. They’ve been battling in a crowded and competitive market, with some huge funded companies to contend with, but they’ve made it work in an indie way. In this episode we talk about how they lost 99% of their users overnight, why they’ve chosen to compete on price rather than in a niche and their reasoning behind staying bootstrapped for so long.

    Get the extended episode here: https://indiebites.com/membership

    00:00 Intro01:24 EmailOctopus Background02:57 How long did EmailOctopus take to build?03:09 Launching for free05:45 Tom joining EmailOctopus07:11 Growth07:48 Building in a crowded market08:55 Differentiating on price11:30 Raising vs bootstrapping12:58 Changing goals as a bootstrapper15:07 Fulfilling the side project urge

    Recommendations

    Book: ReWork, Four Thousand WeeksPodcast: The Rest is Politics, Indie BitesIndie Hacker: Pieter Levels, Jeffrey Bunn

    Guest Links

    Jonathan's TwitterTom's TwitterBlog post about their growth

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.

  • In this episode I have a returning guest, someone who is a keystone of the bootstrapping community, it’s Justin Jackson, co-founder of Transistor, MegaMaker and more. Today we have an unstructured but very useful chat about building a financial engine for your business. This is a topic that has come up countless times in my indie journey and I think it’s something that a lot of indie businesses don’t address as early and seriously as they should. There a ton of actionable tips in this conversation about how to manage your finances, building a solid, profitable business and what to do when things aren’t going well.

    Get the extended episode here: https://indiebites.com/membership

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro01:45 James shocked by tax02:31 Profit first06:51 Building a financial engine09:40 Things falling apart with depression11:00 Desperation affects creativity11:49 How to build your financial engine

    Recommendations (from prev ep)

    Book: Life ProfitabilityPodcast: Software SocialIndie Hacker: Derek Sivers

    Follow Justin

    TwitterBlog

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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

  • Rob Walling is an absolute legend in the bootstrapping and indie scene. He’s a veteran entrepreneur with his most notable exit being Drip in 2016. Rob also founded MicroConf, started TinySeed and is the host of the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast, which has over 680 episodes having started in 2010. It doesn’t stop there for Rob, he’s also written 4 books, Start Small Stay Small, Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding, The Entrepreneurs Guide to Keeping Your Shit Together and most recently, The SaaS Playbook.

    Get the hour long episode here: https://indiebites.com/membership

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro / Sponsor02:03 Why Rob wouldn't do SaaS again03:43 What would an alternative reality look like for Rob05:46 Founder retreats07:40 Building an audience first approach is dumb for SaaS10:29 Building a network12:38 Portfolio of projects15:26 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book: Founding Sales, Deploy EmpathyPodcast: Comic LabIndie Hacker: Ruben Gamez

    Follow Rob

    TwitterWebsite

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.

  • Aaron Francis is currently an Educator at Planet Scale, but you would have seen him all around the internet doing courses, YouTube videos, podcasts and more. Notably he was a founding member of the Hammerstone team, which he’s recently left, to focus his energy on doing something he loves. Most recently, Aaron has launched Screencasting.com, a course teaching you how to make better screencasts.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro01:25 Aaron's Background02:10 Learning Software Engineering through books03:24 Audience Building05:51 Benefits of each content medium08:07 Making time for everything09:27 Having a full time job10:23 Leaving Hammerstone12:36 Launching Screencasting.com14:33 How has the launch gone?15:25 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book - Any textbook in your fieldPodcast - No Plans to MergeIndie Hacker - Jordan O’Connor

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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 a returning guest, Andy Cloke, who runs Data Fetcher. Data Fetcher is an API plugin for Airtable that he’s grown to 20k MRR. In our previous episode Andy was only at around £3k MRR, so in this conversation we talk about what he’s done to grow so rapidly, including investing in new marketing channels such as YouTube.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro01:58 Growing to 20k MRR04:51 Building a machine06:01 YouTube Strategy09:09 Launching another product11:38 Hiring and reinvesting into the business13:07 Future of Data Fetcher

    Recommendations

    Book: Psychology of MoneyPodcast: AcquiredIndie Hacker: Curtis Herbert

    Follow Andy

    Twitter

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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 Andrew Kamphey, who is the founder of Better Sheets, a platform of tools and tutorials to get better at using Google Sheets, that has done well over $200k in revenue since he launched in 2020. He started out working as a tech on cruise ships, before moving to LA to work in the film industry, which is where he gained all of his Google Sheets prowess. From here he’s had a meandering life journey, working while travelling South East Asia, starting and selling an influencer newsletter, writing a book about charging and even launching a SaaS. Andrew has had his finger in piece of the indie hacking pie and has now settled on being the Google Sheets guy. At least for now.

    Timestamps

    00:00 - Intro02:08 - Failing to go full time04:13 - Selling Influence Weekly06:26 - Starting BetterSheets09:32 - Turning Better Sheets into a full time income11:53 - Reluctancy to become the "Google Sheets Guy"13:37 - Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book: Lying for MoneyPodcast: The Deep LifeIndie Hacker: Jon Yongfook, Danny Postma, James & Danielle

    Follow Andrew

    Twitter

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.

  • Jonny White is the founder of Ticket Tailor, a platform for selling tickets online doing over £6m ARR and growing. Jonny founded Ticket Tailor in 2011, grew it to £2k MRR and then sold it to a company called TimeOut a short while later. After a few stagnant years at TimeOut, Jonny then bought the company back to make the lifestyle business he’d always wanted. After hitting all his goals, Jonny made the decision to build out a team and bootstrap the company to profitability and beyond. Now with a team of 20+ people, Jonny has a whole new set of challenges he’s dealing with, which we dig into in this episode.

    Get the hour long episode here: https://indiebites.com/membership

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro01:51 - Jonny's background02:48 - The idea for Ticket Tailor04:39 - Getting those first few customers05:14 - Reaching £2k MRR and considering fundraising06:34 - Selling the company08:00 - Buying back Ticket Tailor09:17 - Post buy back11:13 - Hiring a team / going beyond a lifestyle biz12:12 - COVID13:59 - Losing motivation post-covid15:45 - Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book: Donut EconomicsPodcast: Missing CryptoqueenIndie Hacker: Pietro Saccamani

    Follow Jonny

    Twitter

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.

  • Ryan Gilbert is the creator of the Workspaces newsletter, which showcases the best workspaces in tech and beyond. He grew it to 6,000 subscribers and $2k per month with sponsors + affiliates, before being acquired by Loops (Founder Chris Frantz was on episode 61) and going on to be their first employee. In this episode we talk about how simplicity has been so important for growth of the newsletter, how he makes it appealing for guests to share and his reasoning for selling at such an early stage.

    Timestamps

    00:00 Intro01:26 Life before Workspaces03:37 Did you have any side projects before workspaces?04:47 Growth of the Workspaces newsletter06:40 How long did each edition take?07:45 The best workspaces08:25 Monetizing the newsletter10:22 Selling the newsletter13:08 Imposter syndrome13:57 Recommendations

    Recommendations

    Book - The Creative Act by Rick RubinPodcast - Creator ScienceIndie Hacker - Brett Williams

    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.

  • Tim Leland is the founder of T.LY, a link shortener with almost half a million users that he recently quit his job to pursue full time. Tim started out building chrome extensions, including a weather extension that grew to 200k users at it’s peak. He then capitalised on Google closing down their link URL shortener and tried to build his own competitor, which is where T.LY was born. Tim has gone for the high volume, low price option for his product, which often isn’t recommended as a good route for Indie Hackers, but Tim has made it work.

    00:00 Intro05:15 Building a portfolio of extensions07:45 Starting T.LY10:06 Being the low price option11:49 Getting users for T.LY12:51 Quitting his job15:13 Reccos

    Recommendations

    Book - Atomic HabitsPodcast - My First MillionIndie Hacker - Rob Walling

    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.

  • In this episode I’m joined by Colleen Schnettler, which a lot of you would have heard from through her Software Social podcast she co-hosts with Michele Hansen. Colleen has been on quite the journey over the past few years, going from years of contracting to launching her first product, Simple File Upload, then getting a large contracting gig with Hammerstone, landing a separate full-time job to then quit 3 weeks later to rejoin that Hammerstone as a co-founder. Now Colleen is working on a product called HelloQuery, a reporting tool for SQL queries which has been accepted into a recent TinySeed batch.

    What we covered:

    00:00 Intro02:03 Why start the Software Social podcast?02:59 Why start building products04:04 Colleen's first product: Simple File Upload05:07 Why they stopped the podcast06:37 Joining Hammerstone08:50 Being a solo founder10:16 Hello Query11:47 Closing down a successful product13:50 Reccos

    Reccomendations

    Book: The Mom TestPodcast: Boostrapped WebIndie Hacker: Corey Haines

    Follow Colleen

    Twitter

    My links

    TwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (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.