Indie Bites

Macgill Davis and Will Goto are the founders of Rize, a time-tracking platform that helps you increase your productivity, started in August 2020. Will and Macgill met at a company called Peer, which then got acquired by Twitter, they then left Twitter and founded a company called Humble Dot, which they raised for but unfortunately had to shut down.Join the membership for extended conversations 👈What we covered in this episode:Working on a side project while at TwitterRaising funding then leaving their jobsCo-founders with the same technical backgroundA different approach to finding a co-founderShutting down a business when it’s not doing wellSearching for a new idea and solving your own problemCreating a landing page and running some adsPicking a market to focus onTime tracking for productivityGetting traction through AppSumoCash up front with lifetime dealsRaising vs bootstrappingHow to be more productiveRecommendationsBook: Deep Work by Cal Newport, Atomic Habits by James ClearPodcast: The Rest is History/Revolutions, Masters of ScaleIndie Hacker: Tony Dinh, Arvid KahlFollowMacgill on TwitterWill on TwitterFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - FiguraOften great design makes products stand out in this day and age; stop trying to figure it out yourself. Figura offers vetted product designers for startups and fast-growing companies. Find your first designer or contractor, or land a helping hand for your product in less than 48hours. Save $199 and start your project for free, using code "INDIE199".Head to figura.digital to try it out.

Milly Tamati is not your usual founder. She lives on an remote island off Scotland with a population of just 170 people, previously co-owned a hostel in Thailand, co-founded a wine-tour in Australia and founded an illustration-agency in the UK. Now she’s working on a community called generalist.world, where’s she’s helping generalists like us indie hackers, find like minded individuals and jobs that fit us well.What we covered in this episode:Living on a remote island with 170 peopleRemote life vs city lifeBeing isolated when not in a cityEmbracing communitiesMilly’s crazy career journeyGetting a customer in 12 hoursTesting your product before you launchWhy generalists aren’t valued in the worldGrowing to 850 community members in a few monthsHow to cultivate communityRecommendationsBook - Range by David EpsteinPodcast - Lennys PodcastIndie Hacker - Molly RetterFollow MillyTwitterLinkedInFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - Ramen ClubMy favourite community has just got a significant upgrade as it rebrands to Ramen Club, the best community to help you get to Ramen Profitability.Ramen club has 4 remote coworking sessions a week, masterminds, accountability calls, live AMAs, a fractional CFO, in-house VA, discounts and so much more. But most of all, the founder Charlie has done a wonderful job at cultivating a wonderfully friendly and supportive community.To join the world's most supportive community for bootstrapped founders to reach ramen profitable and beyond, head to ramenclub.so and use code "INDIEBITES" to let Charlie know I sent you and get 50% off your first month.

Today I’m joined by Dominik Sobe, the founder of Helpkit, a product he started last year that turns Notion pages into a professional help center, doing $4.5k MRR. In this episode we talk about Dom’s many failed projects, how he finally found something that worked with Helpkit and how he went from wanting to be a management consultant to being an indie hacker.What we covered in this episode:Dom’s previous projectsWanting to become a management consultantManagement consultant to indie hackerMaking his first internet moneyBeing embarrassed about your first productOverengineering your first productBuilding an MVP during a hackathonValidation before building a productSide projects as marketingBuilding in a growing marketInvesting in SEORecommendationsBook: Start Small, Stay Small by Rob WallingPodcast: Indie HackersIndie Hacker: Minh-Phuc TranFollow DominikTwitterPersonal SiteFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - FiguraOften great design makes products stand out in this day and age; stop trying to figure it out yourself. Figura offers vetted product designers for startups and fast-growing companies. Find your first designer or contractor, or land a helping hand for your product in less than 48hours. Save $199 and start your project for free, using code "INDIE199".Head to figura.digital to try it out.

Joe Masilotti is the founder of RailsDevs a reverse job board for Ruby on Rails developers, which is over $4k MRR and on for $100k revenue. Joe also runs the monthly Hotwire Dev newsletter, which has over 2,000 subs. And then late last year, Joe sold his side-project Mugshot Bot, which he took from idea to sale in just 14 months.What we covered on this episode:How and why Joe sold Mugshot Bot at $200 MRRWhen to stop working on projectsHow RailsDevs started with a spreadsheetSolving a problem with a simple solutionWhy a reverse jobs board worksA unique approach to a marketplace businessGrowing RailsDevs (from both sides)Being an embedded entrepreneurWhy RailsDevs has a hiring fee and subscriptionDealing with high churnGrowing a newsletter to 2,300 subsRecommendationsBook: Obviously Awesome by April DunfordPodcast: The Business of AuthorityIndie Hacker: Colleen SchnettlerFollow JoeTwitterRead his blogFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - Ramen ClubMy favourite community has just got a significant upgrade as it rebrands to Ramen Club, the best community to help you get to Ramen Profitability.Ramen club has 4 remote coworking sessions a week, masterminds, accountability calls, live AMAs, a fractional CFO, in-house VA, discounts and so much more. But most of all, the founder Charlie has done a wonderful job at cultivating a wonderfully friendly and supportive community.To join the world's most supportive community for bootstrapped founders to reach ramen profitable and beyond, head to ramenclub.so and use code "INDIEBITES" to let Charlie know I sent you and get 50% off your first month.

Geoff Roberts is the co-founder of Outseta, a bootstrapped all-in-one platform to help manage and grow your recurring revenue business. Before Outseta, Geoff was Head of Marketing for Buildium, a product that went through the phases of bootstrapping, raising and exiting, that was started by current co-founder Dimitris.What we covered in this episode:Taking a big 15 year bet on your businessGoing into an established, durable marketWhy not raise for the company?Single focus vs portfolio of small betsWhy Outseta focused on brand building and not SEOMarketing trade-offsWhy freemium doesn’t work for everyoneBuilding a flat, self-managed organisationRecommendationsBook: Reinventing Organistations; Life ProfitabilityPodcast: Tim Ferris ShowIndie Hacker: Anthony CastrioFollow GeoffTwitterRead the Outseta BlogFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - FiguraOften great design makes products stand out in this day and age; stop trying to figure it out yourself. Figura offers vetted product designers for startups and fast-growing companies. Find your first designer or contractor, or land a helping hand for your product in less than 48hours. Save $199 and start your project for free, using code "INDIE199".Head to figura.digital to try it out.

David Kofoed Wind is the co-founder and CEO of Eduflow an education platform started in 2015 as Peergrade, which was a peer to peer feedback tool. David is the definition of technical, having studied for a degree in applied math and computer science, then a Ph.D in machine learning. This is where the idea for Peergrade was born, as he started teach a course in data science and solved his own problem.👉 Extended version of this episode.What we covered in this episode:How Peergrade started in 2015Scratching your own itchSelling to universitiesUsing your "unfair advantages"Why David took a Ph.DWhat it's like building a product with a Ph.DHaving a terrible productGoing for and ending the VC dreamPivoting Peergrade to EduflowWhy David resonates with Indie HackersRecommendationsBook: Rework by BasecampPodcast: Out of BetaIndie Hacker: Jon YongfookFollow DavidTwitterFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - Ramen ClubMy favourite community has just got a significant upgrade as it rebrands to Ramen Club, the best community to help you get to Ramen Profitability.Ramen club has 4 remote coworking sessions a week, masterminds, accountability calls, live AMAs, a fractional CFO, in-house VA, discounts and so much more. But most of all, the founder Charlie has done a wonderful job at cultivating a wonderfully friendly and supportive community.To join the world's most supportive community for bootstrapped founders to reach ramen profitable and beyond, head to ramenclub.so and use code "INDIEBITES" to let Charlie know I sent you and get 50% off your first month.

If you’re wanting to learn about building in public, Kevon Cheung is your guy. After not getting the fulfilment he desired from the VC funded startup dream, Kevon struck out on his own in 2020 to become an indie hacker. Since then he’s launched the Build in Public Mastery course, started a newsletter called Public Lab, wrote the Definitive Guide to Building in Public and then to top this all off, wrote a book called Find Joy in Chaos. What we covered in this episode:Building credibilityTaking a 6 month betStarting from scratch to learn a trendChoosing to build in publicAnyone can learn any topicIs building in public just sharing MRR numbers?What is building in public?False positives of building an audienceBuilding a creator businessHow to differentiate course content to blog contentInfo products vs SaaSRecommendations:Book: Life Is What You Make It by Peter Buffet, $100m Offers by Alex HormoziPodcast: Socialette, The Bootstrapped FounderIndie Hacker: Monica Lent, Jay Clouse, Marie NgFollow KevonTwitterPersonal websiteFollow MeTwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - Ramen ClubMy favourite community has just got a significant upgrade as it rebrands to Ramen Club, the best community to help you get to Ramen Profitability.Ramen club has 4 remote coworking sessions a week, masterminds, accountability calls, live AMAs, a fractional CFO, in-house VA, discounts and so much more. But most of all, the founder Charlie has done a wonderful job at cultivating a wonderfully friendly and supportive community.To join the world's most supportive community for bootstrapped founders to reach ramen profitable and beyond, head to ramenclub.so and use code "INDIEBITES" to let Charlie know I sent you and get 50% off your first month.

Marie Ng is the founder of Llama Life, a to-do-list app that helps you focus. As someone who struggles with focus myself, Marie’s app looked to be the perfect thing. Having taught herself how to code 2 years ago, after a career in branding, Marie did what everyone does when they learn to code, build a to do list app. But with her branding background and new quirky angle on a productivity app, she’s made it work. From a solo indie project to now raising a $690k pre-seed round, Marie is making her entrepreneurial dream happen.👉 Extended version of this episode.What we discussed in this episode:How Marie got into brandingWhat is branding?Why indie hackers should consider their “brand”How to create a brandBuilding a product to help with ADHDBuilding to solve your own problemHow to work with ADHDLlama Life’s brand impactWhy Marie raised fundingRecommendationsBook: Honest Guide to Indie Making by Kyleigh SmithPodcast: The Best One YetIndie Hacker: Carl PoppaFollow MarieTwitterFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - Ramen ClubMy favourite community has just got a significant upgrade as it rebrands to Ramen Club, the best community to help you get to Ramen Profitability.Ramen club has 4 remote coworking sessions a week, masterminds, accountability calls, live AMAs, a fractional CFO, in-house VA, discounts and so much more. But most of all, the founder Charlie has done a wonderful job at cultivating a wonderfully friendly and supportive community.To join the world's most supportive community for bootstrapped founders to reach ramen profitable and beyond, head to ramenclub.so and use code "INDIEBITES" to let Charlie know I sent you and get 50% off your first month.

Chris Frantz is the co-founder of Loops, YC backed email tool for startups. Chris is one of those people who just knows how to run a SaaS business, having founded and sold Snazzy AI, acquired by Unbounce last year. Chris has been living rent free in my brain after a conversation we had a few weeks ago about my multiple projects. A lot of you are going to have multiple projects too, and wondering why you’re not getting anywhere with them. In this episode, Chris is going to explain why.What we cover in this episodeSome of Chris previous bootstrapped projectsPH profileHow Chris started and sold Snazzy.aiSelling articleTackling email with Loops.soMaking the chef’s knife of emailWhy you should have a single focusWhy having a portfolio of small bets doesn’t workDoing the hard thingsHaving hobby projects vs a businessRecommendationsBook: Atomic HabitsPodcast: The VergecastIndie Hacker: Sahil BloomFollow ChrisTwitterPersonal siteFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - Ramen ClubMy favourite community has just got a significant upgrade as it rebrands to Ramen Club, the best community to help you get to Ramen Profitability.Ramen club has 4 remote coworking sessions a week, masterminds, accountability calls, live AMAs, a fractional CFO, in-house VA, discounts and so much more. But most of all, the founder Charlie has done a wonderful job at cultivating a wonderfully friendly and supportive community.To join the world's most supportive community for bootstrapped founders to reach ramen profitable and beyond, head to ramenclub.so and use code "INDIEBITES" to let Charlie know I sent you and get 50% off your first month.

Grey Baker is the co-founder of Dependabot, which is a bot that makes it easy for developers to keep the third party dependencies up to date, which grew to $14k MRR before being acquired by Github in 2019. Grey’s story is a long an interesting one, so there is an extended version of this podcast available on the indie feast membership. But the best bits are here about he started out at McKinsey, before being a pivotal early employee at London FinTech GoCardless, to then cycling around the world and then coming back to accidentally launch Dependabot.👉 Extended version available on the Indie Feast membership here.What we covered in this episodeLanding a gig at consulting firm, McKinseyLearning how to code in 6 monthsJoining VC-backed GoCardless as employee 6Growing GoCardless to 100 employeesWhy Grey left after 4.5 yearsCycling around the worldEating a petrol-ey snickers barStarting Dependabot as a side projectA failed launchDoing things that don't scaleThe growth inflection point - GitHub marketplaceAdvice for bootstrappersRecommendationsBook: The Design of Everyday ThingsPodcast: N/AIndie Hacker: Pete HamiltonFollow GreyTwitterFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CoursePodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)Sponsor - Tiiny HostTiiny Host is the simplest way to host and share your web project online. It's loved by thousands of freelancers, agencies & developers across the world to quickly upload demos, landing pages or websites. Just drag & drop your web files or even a PDF to share it with the world in seconds. 👉 Try it here