Candle dealer builds $5k MRR software to solve own problem - Dianna Allen & Jeremy Blalock, Inventora

In this episode I’ve got my first ever returning guest with Dianna Allen and first ever double act as we’re joined by her fiance Jeremy Blalock. I spoke to Dianna about a year ago after growing her handmade candle business from $100 to $50k in that year. Since then Dianna is still running TERRA and doubled the revenue in 2021, but has also co-founded Inventora which has just hit $5k MRR. Inventora is inventory tracking system for handmade businesses, solving Dianna’s own problem with TERRA.

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What we covered in this episode:

How TERRA is going
Handmade business vs SaaS business. Which is better?
Solving her own problem with TERRA to build Inventora
Spreadsheet to SaaS
Asking Jeremy (Dianna’s partner) to build the product
Growing without paying for ads
Leveraging existing relationships
Choosing to raise a small funding round
Why raise money if you’re an indie hacker?
Spending $25,000 on a domain
Tactics for growing to $5k MRR
Hiring a videographer to make a documentary

Recommendations

Books: The Innovation Stack, The Gardeners Almanack
Podcasts: Acquired, The Product Boss
Indie Hackers: Elon Musk, Jon Yongfook

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