Daniel Vassallo (@dvassallo) and Arvid Kahl (@arvidkahl) have both already made it as indie hackers. They join Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen) to discuss making money as an indie hacker, designing your life after you reach financial freedom, avoiding risk, mitigating inflation, and whether or not college is worth it.Related episodes:#212 – Actionable Steps for Building the Right Business with Arvid Kahl#177 – Mastering the Lifestyle-First Approach to Indie Hacking with Daniel Vassallo#140 – Vital Learnings from Bootstrapping and Selling a $55k a Month Business with Arvid Kahl of FeedbackPanda

When Daniel Vassallo (@dvassallo) quit his job to become an indie hacker, he was making over $500,000 per year. It could have been a disastrous choice. Instead, less than two years later, he's built a suite of products that most founders would envy. In this episode we discuss how Daniel minimizes risk by running multiple projects simultaneously, how he turns time into a friend instead of an enemy by lowering his costs, and how a lifestyle-first business mindset can make you both richer and happier.The Good Parts of AWS, Daniel's eBook: https://dvassallo.gumroad.com/#MsVlGEveryone Can Build a Twitter Audience, Daniel's video course: https://dvassallo.gumroad.com/#PBkrOUserbase, Daniel's platform for building end-to-end encrypted web apps: https://userbase.comFollow Daniel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dvassallo

Today, I am talking to Daniel Vassallo, writer, founder, and person with very strong opinions. He is building a portfolio of small bets in public, on Twitter. I will talk to him about the importance of making money in diversified ways, how to structure your life around being a founder, and how to figure out which business ideas might actually work. Here is Daniel Vassallo.What is the lifetime value of a subscription business? 1:12Different kinds of software fit different pricing models. 5:04What is a portfolio of small bets? 9:30Business is unpredictable. You need to radically reduce the input. 13:48What common things do you share with other entrepreneurs? 17:46Don’t try to be too novel. 21:31What’s a good approach to spreading out your experiments? 26:14What is the best price for your business? 40:08How Pieter Levels’ portfolio has changed over time. 45:58How you can use social media to get new ideas. 51:26Sometimes it’s something seemingly unrelated that opens your eyes to a new way of doing things. 55:01Links:- Daniel's Revenue/Days on Market graph. This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. Here's the blog post for this episode.You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

In our ops & infra world, we learn to optimise for redundancy, for mean time to recovery and for graceful degradation. We instinctively recognise single points of failure, and try to mitigate the risks associated with them. For some years now, Daniel Vassallo has been doing the same, but in the context of life & work. Daniel talks about the role of randomness, about learning from small wins & about optimising for a lifestyle that matches your true preferences. Apparently, ideas too should be treated like cattle, not pets. Join the discussionChangelog++ members save 2 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs. Changelog++ – You love our content and you want to take it to the next level by showing your support. We’ll take you closer to the metal with extended episodes, make the ads disappear, and increment your audio quality with higher bitrate mp3s. Let’s do this! Featuring:Daniel Vassallo – Twitter, WebsiteGerhard Lazu – Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, WebsiteShow Notes: Creator Spotlight: Daniel Vassallo’s Success on Gumroad Small Bets The Good Parts of AWS Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts 🎧 Mastering the Lifestyle-First Approach 🎬 Building a Portfolio of Small Bets with Daniel Vassallo - The Bootstrapped Founder #166 Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Daniel Vassallo, an entrepreneur who left a $500K job at Amazon to forge his own path, shares his inspiring journey. He discusses embracing randomness and the importance of adaptability in entrepreneurship. Daniel highlights the transition from corporate life to freelancing and building a thriving community. He also opens up about his newfound passion for woodworking during the pandemic, alongside insights on email marketing and the role of personal connections in business. Join him as he challenges conventions and champions small wins!

In my conversation with Daniel Vassallo this week, I learned that Daniel uses social media —Twitter in particular— to find inspiration for his own work as a teacher and content creator. Intentionally doomscrolling Twitter to come up with writing prompts and business ideas? Why not!If we consider this a strategic effort, not just wasting our time on social media, let's develop a few frameworks that lead to more tangible results.Today, I want to talk about finding ideas, problems, and points of tension that hint at practical business opportunities on social media.- Find Business Ideas on Social Media- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurshipThis episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire. You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

Daniel Vassallo, a former Amazon employee turned self-employment aficionado, delves into his journey of building community-driven businesses. He shares insights on transitioning from corporate life to cultivating a personal brand and launching the Small Bets initiative. Vassallo discusses the importance of adaptability in community engagement, the challenges of self-promotion, and the dynamic nature of pricing models. He emphasizes leveraging small projects for financial freedom and highlights the power of collaboration in nurturing vibrant learning communities.

Daniel Vassallo, cofounder of Small Bets, shares his innovative approach to building a thriving community with over 5,000 paying members. He discusses the unique model of paying guest speakers $1,000 per class to ensure quality content and engagement. Vassallo reveals the benefits of a one-time membership fee, emphasizing its role in reducing churn and enhancing member value. He also explores effective strategies for re-engaging inactive members and the creation of Smallbot, a playful AI to boost community interaction. Tune in for insightful takes on community dynamics!

Join Daniel Vassallo, creator of Small Bets community, as he shares insights on career transitions, Small Bets philosophy, and self-employment. Learn about market understanding, lifestyle improvements, time allocation, and criteria for idea selection.

Daniel Vassallo, who quit his job at Amazon, discusses the importance of understanding one's work environment preferences and the risks of quitting secure jobs. He also explores strategies for surviving in challenging circumstances and the pitfalls of labeling individuals on social media. Additionally, he critiques startup incubators and emphasizes the importance of focusing on individual growth in business.