Hello, I'm Courtland Allen.

I created Indie Hackers.

What is Indie Hackers?

Indie Hackers is a place where the founders of profitable businesses and side projects can share their stories transparently, and where entrepreneurs can come to read and learn from those examples.

It's also a community where individual "indie hackers" come together to share their experiences, give and receive feedback, and rely on each other for support.

I created Indie Hackers in August of 2016. In April of 2017 it was acquired by Stripe, and my brother, Channing, joined as a co-founder.

In March of 2023 we spun Indie Hackers back out as an independent business, with Stripe as a seed investor.

What makes someone an indie hacker?

You're an indie hacker if you've set out to make money independently. That means you're generating revenue directly from your customers, not indirectly through an employer. Other than that, there are no requirements!

Indie hackers are often solo founders, software engineers, and bootstrapped, but it's totally okay if you have cofounders, can't code, and have raised money.

What's the plan for Indie Hackers?

With the exception of Indie Hackers' stint at Stripe, I've never worked a full-time job. Entrepreneurship is where my heart lies, and I want to do whatever I can to help others achieve their dreams of financial independence.

My goal is for Indie Hackers to be a source of inspiration, education, and community for early founders and aspiring entrepreneurs on a global scale.

Taking the plunge and starting your own business is hard as hell, but it's also tremendously fulfilling to work on your own terms! 馃

How do I appear in an interview, in the newsletter, or on the podcast?

If you're the founder of a revenue-generating tech product or service, we'd be happy to interview you! If you think you're a good fit, send me an email.

As for the newsletter, we compile the top interviews, posts, and articles for the week in each issue, as determined by what the community is upvoting.

What's the best way to contact you?

If you're looking for help, feedback, or guidance with something personal, I encourage you to submit a post instead of contacting me. You're likely to get some great replies from experienced entrepreneurs. If you email me directly, I'll just end up pointing you back to the site, anyway. 馃榿

For anything else, tweet @csallen or email [email protected].

Can you implement feature XYZ?

Possibly! I recommend making a post describing what you want, and asking others to upvote it if they agree. I'll probably jump in, too!

Additionally, feel free to email me with your suggestions, and I'll be happy to talk them over with you in private.

How was Indie Hackers built?

On the front end, Indie Hackers is an Ember.js app. I do all the design. The community forum is custom-built.

On the back-end, I'm using Ember FastBoot for server-side rendering. It runs on a Node/Express server hosted by Render. We've also got a bunch of cron jobs and background tasks hosted on Render.

I'm using Firebase for the database and for user authentication.

Most pages are cached via Cloudflare.