Indie Bites

Monica Lent is a founder running 3 profitable indie businesses after leaving her full time job 2 years ago. She runs Affilimate, a SaaS product which allows you to manage and track affiliate commissions, the Blogging for Devs newsletter and paid community for developers looking to grow an audience and finally, Not a Nomad, a travel blog that accounted for almost 50% of Monica’s revenue last year, as she grew her portfolio of projects from $30k to over $100k.What we covered in this episode:How Monica splits time between her projectsIs it detrimental having split attention?Delegating and outsourcing as an indie hackerHow content and SEO ties her projects togetherBenefits of a VAStarting a blog that makes thousandsHaving a travel blog during covidStarting a community for developersHow to start your own successful blogThe downsides of sharing revenue numbersIs Monica having fun?RecommendationsBook: Founding SalesPodcast: Tropical MBAIndie Hacker: Josh HoFollow MonicaTwitter2021 Retro on personal siteSEO CourseFollow 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 - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/awt.

Pierre De Wulf is the co-founder of ScrapingBee a web scraping API that grew to $1M ARR in 2 years. Before starting ScrapingBee, Pierre and his co-founder Kevin had quit their jobs to follow the indie dream. 9 months later, their product PricingBot couldn’t generate the traction they were hoping for so they sold the business and pivoted to ScrapingBee.What we covered in this episode:Pierre's background; inspiration from his fatherRunning a business within World of WarcraftMeeting his co-founder, KevinStarting a project for his girlfriendLeaving his job to work on something for 9 monthsKnowing when to stop and move onStarting and selling PricingBotHow to sell a failed companyUsing SEO as a marketing channelHow to write SEO content effectivelyStarting ScrapingBeeHow ScrapingBee grew so quicklyTaking TinySeed fundingRecommendationsBook: Hello StartupPodcast: My First MillionIndie Hacker: Matt WensingFollow PierreTwitterPersonal 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 - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/awt.

Damon Chen, who is the founder of Testimonial, a product that collects video testimonials that he launched back in December 2020, and has grown it to $13k MRR since then. Damon quit his stable job of 8 years at Cisco to pursue his dream of building a better life for himself as an indie hacker. This didn’t come easily for Damon, as he launched several products which made 0 revenue before hitting big with Testimonial. He’s also built some other fantastic products, such as embed.so and channel.so, as well as acquiring Supportman off fellow Indie Hacker Noah Bragg.What we covered in this episode:Damon's failed startup attemptsWhy he builds for funQuitting his job and pivoting to TestimonialUsing code from other projectsHow he went from 0 to 3k in 3 daysDamon's approach to validationGrowth tactics used to get to $13k MRRHaving other projects for fun (Embed and Channel)Acquiring SupportmanGrowing his Twitter to 30kRecommendationsBook: Getting AcquiredPodcast: My First MillionIndie Hacker: Pieter LevelsFollow DamonTwitterDamon's blogFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CourseSponsor - PodQueueThis podcast is brought to you by PodQueue. Don't you hate when you find something you just want to bookmark and listen to later as a podcast, but there's no easy way to do it? Try PodQueue, and you can save audio from anywhere around the web and easily listen to it later in the podcast app you already use. PodQueue works with links from YouTube, Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, NPR, the BBC, and more! There’s a 15-day free trial, and it’s just $5 per month afterwards, with no credit card required at signup. Use promo code “INDIEBITES” at signup to get an extra month free!👉 Try it here

Dominic Monn is the founder of MentorCruise, a marketplace that connect mentors and mentees in Tech, which is currently doing $15k in monthly revenue and processed over $1m through the platform. Previously, Domm was a Machine Learning engineer at Doist, a job that he left in Feb '22 to pursue MentorCruise full time.What we covered in this episode:Why Dom left his full-time job at DoistHow going full-time has impacted MentorCruiseWhat Dom’s day-to-day looks likeNot feeling guilty about unproductive hobbiesHow Dom’s discovered mentorship through UdacityTaking 5 months to build an MVPWhy validation wouldn’t work for MentorCruiseHow it took 3 months to get his first paying customerWhy he decided to push through regardlessHow persistence pays offWhy building a business is like building a muscleHow programmatic SEO worksRecommendationsBook: Built to SellPodcast: My First MillionIndie Hacker: Julian CanlasFollow DomTwitterHire him as a mentorPersonal siteFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CourseSponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/awt.

Today I’m joined by Spencer Fry, founder of Podia, a platform helping creators make a living online through selling courses, digital downloads, webinars and more. 7 years in, they have a 35 person team and have an awesome product for creators. But this isn’t Spencer’s first rodeo, bootstrapping and exiting 3 businesses between 2003 and 2014, notably Carbonmade and TypeFrag. What’s interesting about Spencer is that he's actually raised funding for Podia, and I wanted to find out why a seasoned bootstrapper like Spencer went down this route, and if it’s a an option that more indie hackers should consider.👉 50 minute version of this conversation.What we covered in this episode:Why Spencer raised funding for PodiaWhy you should look at funding as a toolBeer ≠ funding3 interesting predictions on the creator economySpencer’s article with those predictionsBonus: Spencer’s famous vodka pasta dishOpportunities to build in the creator economyWhy entrepreneurs are different gravySolo founder vs co-founderRecommendationsBook: Ben Horowitz Book 1 / Book 2Podcast: Axios Today / All In PodIndie Hacker / entrepreneur: Tobi LutkeFollow SpencerTwitterPersonal BlogFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CourseSponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/awt.

Dagobert Renouf is the founder of Logoloy, a logo and brand design service that he started with his wife, doing around $3k in monthly revenue. This is an awesome story. Dago started building Logoloy in September 2018, then completely failed the launch after building for almost 2 years. It wasn't until May 21 that Dago realised he actually needed to find a marketing channel that worked for him -which was Twitter. Dago went for 15 years chasing money, but then realised that wasn’t the course to happiness. So after a turbulent few years, he’s now in a place of fulfilment, with plenty of the journey to go.👉 Extended episode here.What we covered in this episode:Making his first internet money in high schoolGetting a cease and desist at 15 years oldThe dangers of being focused on moneyFinding the idea for LogologyTaking 1.5 years to launch his startupHaving a failed launch after 1.5 years of buildingMarketing when you don’t want to do marketingDiscovering a distribution channel that works - TwitterGrowing to $3k per monthRecommendationsBook: Zero to One by Peter ThielPodcast: Wannabe EntreprenuerIndie Hacker: Tony DihnFollow DagoTwitterLogologyFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CourseSponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/awt.

Jim Raptis, an indie hacker from Greece who is working full-time on his portfolio of projects, including BrandBird and Magic Pattern, which are both doing $1,500 MRR. If you’ve seen those cool screenshots on Twitter with the nice drop shadow and gradient background, those are made with Brand Bird. What we covered in this episodeQuitting running a funded startup for indie hackingEarning that first dollarLearning design as an engineerLaunching a product with less than 300 followersChoosing to do a portfolio of small betsSplitting time between multiple projectsHow Jim went grew from 300 to 9k Twitter followersWhat do to do when things aren’t going so wellRecommendationsBook: Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin MaresPodcast: Flow StateIndie Hacker: Peter LevelsFollow JimTwitterPersonal SiteFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CourseSponsor - TestimonialTestimonial allows you to easily collect testimonials from your customers and automatically embeds them on your landing page.You might have seen a wall of love with a bunch of supportive Tweets and videos on various products you’ve signed up for. That wall is created using Damon Chen’s product Testimonial. All you have to do is sign up, paste the nice things people have said about you and it will generate a beautiful set of testimonials that you can easily embed on your site or share online.Head to Testimonial.to o to create your Twitter wall of love for free. If you want to sign up for a paid plan, get a whopping 25% off for 12 months with the code “INDIEBITES” at checkout.

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.👉 Join the Indie Feast membership here.What we covered in this episode:How TERRA is goingHandmade business vs SaaS business. Which is better?Solving her own problem with TERRA to build InventoraSpreadsheet to SaaSAsking Jeremy (Dianna’s partner) to build the productGrowing without paying for adsLeveraging existing relationshipsChoosing to raise a small funding roundWhy raise money if you’re an indie hacker?Spending $25,000 on a domainTactics for growing to $5k MRRHiring a videographer to make a documentaryRecommendationsBooks: The Innovation Stack, The Gardeners AlmanackPodcasts: Acquired, The Product BossIndie Hackers: Elon Musk, Jon YongfookFollow Dianna & JeremyDianna's TwitterJeremy's TwitterInventora InstagramTERRA InstagramFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CourseSponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/awt.

Sahil Lavingia is the founder of Gumroad, the platform that allows creators to sell products online. The beating heart of the creator economy. You'll likely have heard Sahil's story about his failure to build a billion dollar company with an article that went viral, but let me summarise for those that haven't.Sahil founded Gumroad in 2011, aiming to build the next unicorn, leaving Pinterest where he was employee #2. He raised $1.1m from angels, then $7m more in 2012. Things started growing, then they didn't. Sahil laid off 75% of the company to keep the product alive, moved to Provo, Utah to figure where to take Gumroad from that point. Almost a decade later Gumroad is growing quicker than ever, making millions in revenue and helping creators make a living online.Sahil has just launched his book, The Minimalist Entrepreneur, where he shares a decade of learnings on how to build a profitable, sustainable business and how entrepreneurs can do more with less to make more impact on the world.👉 I'm giving away 5 copies of Sahil's book on Twitter, enter here.What we covered on this episode:Sahil’s approach to fundingBootstrapping vs VCWhy Gumroad runs so differently to most companiesWhy longevity has helped GumroadSahil’s book: The Minimalist EntrepreneurBuilding a project in a weekend: Verification LettersLivestream of building Verification LettersThe framework for starting a businessWhy you should start and then learnBarriers people have to starting their businessFear of failureImportance of writingRecommendationsBook: Predictably Irrational by Dan ArielyPodcast: All-In PodcastIndie Hacker: NavalFollow SahilTwitterWebsiteFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CourseSponsor - ilo AnalyticsSahil has 280k followers on Twitter and he sure knows the tweets that will engage his audience. If you too want to get a deeper understanding of what engages your followers on Twitter, you should check out ilo Analytics.ilo helps you easily see which kind of tweets get more impressions, likes, profile clicks and more so you can get grow your Twitter audience. ilo's has beautiful graphs for the most important metrics for both tweets and threads will be sure to help you build your following.Head to ilo.so or hit the link in the show notes and use the code INDIEBITES to get 25% off your ilo subscription for life.

Brett Williams is the founder of Designjoy, a one-man productised design service that is doing over $130k MRR, charging clients up to $5k a month for unlimited design. You indeed hear that right, Brett is running a million dollar business solo with over 40 clients.What we covered in this episode:$50k per year with a Tumblr blogDropping out of college and getting a regular jobHow Brett started DesignjoyBeing inspired by Design PickleLaunching DesignjoyTaking 3 years to get to $10k MRRNon-traditional marketing and growth methodsLaunching Scribbles, a side projectWhat does into a good landing page?Different routes to successWaiting till $80k to quit his jobShould entrepreneurs be more risk-adverse?How run a successful 1-man productised service?RecommendationsBook: Company of OnePodcast: The Dave Ramsey ShowIndie Hacker: SuhailFollow BrettTwitterInstagramFollow Me👉 Listen to my new podcast, No More Mondays.TwitterIndie Bites TwitterPersonal WebsiteBuy A Wallet2 Hour Podcast CourseSponsor - AhrefsThank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/awt.