Indie Bites

Aaron Francis, an Educator at Planet Scale and founder of Screencasting.com, discusses his journey in audience building and making difficult decisions. He shares insights on learning through books, the benefits of different content mediums, and the challenges of balancing multiple projects. Aaron also reflects on leaving his long-term partnership with the Hammerstone project and launching Screencasting.com, discussing the success of the launch and future plans.

Andy Cloke, founder of Data Fetcher, discusses how he grew his API plugin for Airtable to $20k MRR. Topics include investing in new marketing channels, YouTube strategy, launching another product, hiring and reinvesting, and the future of Data Fetcher.

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.Timestamps00:00 - 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 - RecommendationsRecommendationsBook: Lying for MoneyPodcast: The Deep LifeIndie Hacker: Jon Yongfook, Danny Postma, James & DanielleFollow AndrewTwitterMy linksTwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)This Indie Life PodcastSponsor - 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, Founder of Ticket Tailor, sold and repurchased the company, bootstrapped it to profitability and beyond. They discuss starting Ticket Tailor, early marketing efforts, building a lifestyle business, growing the company, adapting to COVID, and finding purpose and motivation in business growth.

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.Timestamps00:00 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 RecommendationsRecommendationsBook - The Creative Act by Rick RubinPodcast - Creator ScienceIndie Hacker - Brett WilliamsSponsor - 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 ReccosRecommendationsBook - Atomic HabitsPodcast - My First MillionIndie Hacker - Rob WallingSponsor - 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 ReccosReccomendationsBook: The Mom TestPodcast: Boostrapped WebIndie Hacker: Corey HainesFollow ColleenTwitterMy linksTwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)This Indie Life PodcastSponsor - 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.

Marc Louvion, an indie hacker with many products, discusses his journey from being fired to working for himself. He talks about moving to Bali, starting a glove business, and the challenges of gamification. He also shares insights on knowing when to quit a product, the debate between having a portfolio of projects vs single focus, and his process of making creative launch videos.

In this episode I’m bringing back a previous guest, Dom Monn, who is the founder of MentorCruise, which he’s now working full time on with a small team. I brought Dom back on to discuss something that has been on my mind, and has come up in twitter conversations recently which Dom has been involved in.Is indie hacking having an identity crisis? Is the indie label and mentality limiting success and holding many founders back? I think it could be and so we discuss why this might be happening and what we can do about it.Jason's tweet which inspired this conversationMike's responseDom's responseTimestamps00:00 Intro01:56 Indie hacker identity crisis03:42 How indie hacking has changed06:32 Why the indie label can be a limiter08:20 Accepting slow growth instead of fixing it10:33 Should we set bigger goals?12:10 We still love the indie hacker community13:50 RecommendationsRecommendationsBook - SprintPodcast - This Indie LifeIndie Hacker - Ramen ClubFollow DomTwitterHire him as a mentorPersonal siteMy linksTwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)This Indie Life PodcastSponsor - 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 Bram Kanstein, who you might know from Startup Stash, which is the most upvoted product ever on Product Hunt. Bram also started the No Code MVP a course, which shows you how to launch an MVP without code. In this episode we focus a lot on how indie hackers can find ideas and launch them the right way.Timestamps00:00 Intro03:18 Startup Stash05:56 No Code MVP09:47 Finding ideas12:22 Idea validation15:00 RecommendationsRecommendationsBook - Untethered Soul by Michael SingerPodcast(s) - Joe Rogan, HIBT, MFMIndie Hacker - Danny PostmaFollow BramTwitterMy linksTwitterIndie Bites TwitterIndie Bites YouTubeJoin the membershipPersonal Website2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)This Indie Life PodcastSponsor - 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.