What's New: Process goals > outcome goals

(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)

Which goals should you focus on?

• Many founders set outcome goals, like "hit $10K MRR." But how will you get there? Process goals provide actionable, strategic steps.
• AI voice summarization tools help you turn messy thoughts into structured notes. Build quickly, and monetize with an affiliate program.
• $2.2K MRR. Adam Charvat sold his Slack app for an undisclosed amount in the upper 5 figures, after building a strong enterprise tier.

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Process Goals > Outcome Goals ✅

by Jay Tan

Since we were kids, we've been taught to always have goals, to always be ambitious. But what we're taught to have are usually outcome goals, like:

• Hit $10K MRR by the end of the year.
• Get 100K YouTube subscribers.
• Grow 20% YoY.

Outcome goals are fine. It's great to have a general idea of which direction we want to head in. But without the process, outcome goals are just a glorified wishlist.

Focus on process goals

Process goals are the boring, invisible, unsexy daily grind activities. Things like:

• Do four hours of uninterrupted deep work every day.
• Spend one hour of marketing for every two hours spent on product development.
• Ask for a review or testimonial every time you've helped a customer out.
• Learn SEO, paid ads, cold outreach, warm outreach, video marketing, etc.

I find that you need a framework for process goals if you want to succeed in anything, let alone something as challenging and difficult as entrepreneurship.

In fact, if you set the correct process goals, and you successfully complete them over and over again, you don't even need to set outcome goals.

As long as you take care of the input, the output takes care of itself!

Optimize your process goals

If you're the kind to write down your goals, do a self audit to determine if they're actually process or outcome goals.

Even if they're process goals, make sure they are strategic and actionable enough to achieve your intended outcome goals.

We don't need to write things down like "make money" or "lose weight." What we should write down is the "how," because even process goals need to be directly actionable.

If you enjoyed this, consider subscribing to my newsletter, where I send one minute learnings about entrepreneurship each week.

Discuss this story.

In the News 📰

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🤖 Deploy AI chatbots: This OpenAI alternative supports diverse models and large files. #ad

🤝 Three persuasion techniques you should know.

🛠️ Meta launches new AI tools for advertisers.

🔎 Instagram beats TikTok for video-based user acquisition.

📝 Create a content style guide to strengthen branding.

🍎 Apple apologizes for its iPad Crush ad.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

Trend Alert: AI Audio Summarization Tools 🎧

from the Trends.vc newsletter

Problem

Unstructured ideas are hard to revisit, understand, and share with others.

Solution

AI voice summarization tools help you turn messy thoughts into actionable notes.

Players

AI audio summarization tools:

• AudioPen: Create meeting notes, memos, emails, and articles.
• AudioNotes: Turn voice notes into searchable clear text summaries using AI.
• TalkNotes: Let AI transcribe, clean up, and structure your voice notes.
• Podsqueeze: Generate show transcripts, notes, titles, and blog posts from podcast audio.
• Fireflies.ai: Transcribe, summarize, search, and analyze voice conversations.

Build your app

• Build a mobile app to let users summarize calls on the go.

• Build a Chrome extension to let users take voice notes without switching tabs.

• Offer pre-built integrations to help users add your tool to their workflows without code.

Pick your monetization strategy

• Use subscriptions to get predictable revenue.

• Offer a lifetime deal to get early revenue.

• Charge usage-based pricing to help users minimize costs.

Find your first customers

• Build in public to get early users and feedback.

• Offer beta access to get feedback.

• Build on top of ecosystems to lower market risk.

Improve user experience

• Offer product guides to onboard customers faster. Momentum shares how to create call summaries.

• Let users train the model to boost the accuracy of summaries. Speech To Note lets you train the model to understand specific terms.

• Auto-detect languages to boost accuracy.

Boost brand awareness

• Launch on Product Hunt to boost visibility and get traffic.

• Let users share notes to boost virality.

• Use programmatic SEO to address high-intent searches.

Scale your business

• Offer an interactive demo to help prospects experience value faster.

• Build an affiliate program to monetize traffic.

• Use side project marketing to build brand awareness and generate leads.

Haters

“AI audio summarization tools may harm our ability to listen actively.”

To build active listening skills, use AI audio summarization tools to take notes, rather than replace a genuine conversation with your friends, teachers, and colleagues.

“AI voice summarization tools may erode our writing skills.”

If you use such tools, regularly engage in traditional writing to keep the nuances of written language.

“AI audio summarization tools have weak moats.”

This is true for most AI tools. But who says every product must last long? If you can make years of revenue in months, seize the opportunity!

Links

1. Building an AI Audio Summarization Tool in Public.
2. Building a Report on AI Audio Summarization Tools.
3. The Power of Audio Summarization.
4. AI That Summarizes Audio For You.

Become a Trends Pro Member to get the full report on AI Audio Summarization Tools, or get the next free Trends.vc report here.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Trends.vc for more.

Top Posts on Indie Hackers This Week 🌐

🗽 NYC indie hackers meetup this Sunday! Posted by Channing Allen.

⏰ This three minute post got me 4.1K visits. Posted by Nick Kimel.

🤔 Have we become the product? Posted by Yahia Bakour.

📰 How I'm generating a steady stream of newsletter subscribers. Posted by Nick.

🚀 From idea to launch in three days. Posted by Alexandro Martinez.

💡 Why every idea needs validation. Posted by Scott.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

Selling a Slack Tool for Five Figures 💰

by Marc Andre

Each week, FlipMySite publishes an inspiring success story featuring a founder growing and selling an online business.

Adam Charvat didn't intend to start a business. He created Meet for Slack to solve a specific problem his team faced. But Adam's experience with this accidental business demonstrates the value of simplicity!

Do it well

In 2021, Adam worked in IT in London. He used Slack daily to communicate with teammates and colleagues, but Slack's lack of a built-in system for calls and meetings was frustrating. If Adam wanted to jump on a call, he had to get a link from Google Meet or Zoom, and paste it into Slack.

Since no convenient solution was available, Adam decided to create one. He coded Meet for Slack, a Slack App that streamlined the process of creating calls and meetings without the need to get links from other platforms.

Meet for Slack was the right idea at the right time. Also, while it really only does one core thing, it does it extremely well. This is a reminder that relatively small projects can be extremely successful if they meet a solid need.

The launch

Initially, Adam created Meet for Slack just for his team to use. Everyone loved it so much that he decided to offer it to other Slack users. He spent about three months working on the app in the evenings to go from an idea to a fully launched product.

Adam tried using Product Hunt to get exposure for the new app, but gained very little traction. He was offering it for free at the time. He got the app listed in the Slack directory, and stopped paying attention to it for a while.

To Adam's surprise, Meet for Slack got thousands of installs from the Slack directory during that time. Adam realized he was really onto something.

The growth

After a few months of organic growth and thousands of users, Adam decided to turn Meet for Slack into a business. He quit his job to solely focus on running his business, which he says was an incredible accelerator for both his personal and professional life.

Adam added a paywall with three pricing tiers based on team size, with an enterprise subscription for the largest companies. Those who had been using the app for free continued to get free access for several months, but there was an upsell message with every meeting created.

New competition

In fall 2022, a few months after Adam began charging Meet for Slack users, Slack introduced Huddles, its own functionality for calls and meetings. Naturally, Adam was concerned about how Huddles would impact his business.

Meet for Slack was generating ~$1.8K MRR when Huddles was released. By May 2023, it had increased to $2.2K MRR, despite the competition. Most of the enterprise users continued to see the value of Google integration, and this differentiating factor helped the business to continue growing.

The sale

In early 2023, Adam wanted to start a new project, but didn't want to be overwhelmed by juggling both. He decided to sell.

He listed the business on Acquire.com, and received a lot of interest from potential buyers. One stood out.

The initial offer was lower than what Adam was looking for, but communication and negotiation helped both parties reach an agreeable price. Adam sold the business for an upper five figure amount!

Discuss this story.

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The Tweetmaster's Pick 🐦

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Jay Tan, Darko, Dru Riley, and Marc Andre for contributing posts. —Channing