The Indie Hackers Podcast: Tips for Growing Your Online Business

#071 – Bootstrapping to $1 Million in Two Years as a Non-Technical Founder with Christy Laurence of Plann

When Christy Laurence started designing her mobile app, she knew nothing about building tech products or launching startups. In fact, she didn't even know that fundraising an option. Driven by her optimistic nature and love of learning, she traded web agencies for development time in exchange for her marketing skills to get an app built from scratch, and went on to make impactful connections with dozens of influencers who helped her spread the word. Plann generated over $10,000 in sales in its first week, and today is at an impressive 650,000 downloads with growth showing no signs of stopping.

#070 – Pivoting from Hard Times to Profitability with Christine Spang of Nylas

After her co-founder left the company, Christine Spang (@spang) found herself in a difficult position: deciding what to do with a product that wasn't selling as much as she'd hoped, juggling several different projects competing for her team's time and attention, and rebuilding the team's morale to get the company moving again and foster a great culture. Learn how she overcame the odds to turn Nylas API into a profitable product with over 200 paying customers.

#069 – How to Use Patience and Empathy to Reach Millions with Ben Halpern of Dev.to

When Ben Halpern (@bendhalpern) decided to start another business, he set a very unusual expectation: He gave himself 10 years to succeed. In this episode, we discuss how Ben's patient approach and obsession with understanding things from his users' point of view helped him grow as massive following on Twitter and parlay that into fast-growing online community for developers.

#068 – Finding Success as a First-Time Founder with Mathilde Collin of Front

When Mathilde Collin (@collinmathilde) started her first company, she knew she wanted to create a great place to work and to improve the lives of her customers. The product was just an implementation detail. Learn how she picked up the skills she needed to succeed, and built a 100-person company with over 3600 happy, paying customers.

#067 – Creating a Massive Community and Making It Profitable with Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt

Ryan Hoover (@rrhoover) has always been a product person. In a few short years, Ryan built an audience of tech enthusiasts from scratch and grew it into the massive and impactful community known as Product Hunt. Today, he's working to bring Product Hunt to profitability after selling the company to AngelList. We also talk a bit about the maker and entrepreneur communities in general, and the similarities and differences between Product Hunt and Indie Hackers.

#066 – Building a Tech Business Outside of the Tech Industry with Brian Jagger of Casting Calls America

When Brian Jagger (@briansjagger) became a casting director, spending hours copying and pasting and editing file names, he knew there had to be a better way. Learn how Brian and his cofounders took advantage of years of learnings from past failures to build a successful business in the film industry and spread to new markets one city at a time.

#065 – From Blogging to Growing an Agency to $85,000 a Month with Nat Eliason of Growth Machine

Nat Eliason (@NatEliason) knows exactly what he's good at. He puts SEO-focused content marketing at the center of every business he builds. When friends started asking for help growing their own businesses through search-optimized content, it was just the validation he needed to start Growth Machine. In this episode, Nat talks about how he hit profitability immediately and grew revenue to $85,000/month in under a year.

#064 – The Path from Minimum Viable Product to $50M a Year with Des Traynor of Intercom

As Intercom's Chief Strategy Officer, Des Traynor (@DesTraynor) knows a thing or two about building a successful company. Over the past 7 years, he's worn almost every hat there is to wear. In this interview, Des explains how Intercom got to where it is today and what he's learned along the way, from marketing, to product development and feature prioritization, to hiring, sales, and developing an effective vision that people can believe in.

#063 – Turning Small Ideas into a $35,000 a Month Business with Katie Keith of Barn2 Media

Katie Keith (@Barn2Media) sees small ideas as big opportunities. In this episode, she explains how she and her husband left their full-time jobs to go into business on their own, how they found an endless stream of client work, and how they transitioned into building WordPress plugins that generate a sustainable stream of income and allow them to live their lives more freely.

#062 – Getting a Brand New SaaS Business Off the Ground with Mike Taber of Bluetick

Mike Taber (@SingleFounder) dives deep into the steps he took to develop a viable idea for a company, validate it with actual customers, secure thousands of dollars worth of sales before writing any code, build a product from scratch, and get it into the hands of his first customers.

#061 – How to Bootstrap Your Way to $250,000,000/year with JT Marino of Tuft & Needle

JT Marino (@johnmarino) made the unusual journey from software engineer to mattress tycoon, and he did it without raising a dime from investors. In this episode, JT provides mountains of actionable advice about how to bootstrap a business through every stage, from pre-launch product validation up through hundreds of millions in revenue. Learn how Tuft & Needle convinced their first customers to buy mattresses from a brand they'd never heard of, hired top performers on a limited budget, navigated a risky relationship with Amazon, competed with the venture-funded clones they inspired, and much, much more.

#060 – The Psychological Challenges of Being a Founder with Dr. Sherry Walling of Zen Founder

Psychologist and founder Dr. Sherry Walling (@zenfounder) might know more than anyone about the psychology of being a founder. In this episode she talks about the relationship between trauma and entrepreneurship; how to deal with stress and loneliness as a founder; the best methods for staying motivated through rough patches; and how she's building her own online business into something that allows her to do what she loves without trading dollars for hours.

#059 – From Laid Off to Generating $25,000 in Monthly Revenue with John Doherty of Credo

When John Doherty (@dohertyjf) got laid off from his job, his gut told him not to go out and get another regular job. In this episode, John talks about how he built up a name for himself in the SEO world, used his reputation to land lucrative consulting deals, and self-funded the creation of a product that generates nearly $300,000 per year.

#058 – Building the Company You Actually Want to Work at with Joel Gascoigne of Buffer

When Joel Gascoigne (@joelgascoigne) started Buffer, he had no intention of doing things "the way they've always been done." Learn how he helped lead the way by running a remote team, by being transparency about revenue and salaries, and how grew his business from $0 to $18M in revenue and 70 employees along the way.

#057 – Wearing All the Hats as a Founder with Saron Yitbarek of CodeNewbie

Saron Yitbarek (@saronyitbarek) runs three podcasts, gives dozens of talks every year, runs a blog, a weekly Twitter chat, a conference, an online resource for teaching people to code, among other things. In this episode, Saron explains how she parlays her advantages in one arena to move into another, discusses her tips for being inhumanly productive, and discusses the psychological breakthrough that taught her when to say no to adding more work to her plate.

#056 – Following Your Passion to Build an Impactful Business with Quincy Larson of freeCodeCamp

Quincy Larson (@ossia) explains how he's built freeCodeCamp into a community that helps millions of people learn to code every month by engaging in storytelling, encouraging open-source contributions, and focusing on accessibility to people across every income bracket worldwide.

#055 – Blazing New Trails with a Small Team with Claire Lew of Know Your Company

From the very beginning, nothing has been ordinary about Claire Lew's (@cjlew23) company, its business model, or the way she came to lead it. Learn how Know Your Company has generated millions in revenue with a tiny team, how Claire has met with over 500 CEOs and business leaders, and what she's learned about creating a successful company.

#054 – Getting Help from the Community to Build a Profitable Game with Vicky Hsu of Habitica

When Vicky Hsu (@caffeinatedvee) began volunteering her time to help with HabitRPG as part of its community, she never imagined that she would one day end up as its CEO. In this interview, I talk to Vicky about how that transition came to pass, how she manages a thriving community to help build her profitable business, and the lessons she's learned along the way.

#053 – The Path to Improving as a Founder and Generating Millions in Revenue with Steli Efti of Close.io

Steli Efti (@steli) has always had something to prove. After starting numerous successful businesses in Germany as a young entrepreneur, he moved to Silicon Valley to try his hand at the startup game, and was met with years of unexpected hardship and failure. Learn how Steli improved his psychology, habits, and skills as a founder; developed better relationships with the people he worked with; and went on to build a massively profitable SaaS business that helps sales teams sell more.

#052 – Creating a Popular Product and Selling It to Governments with Tiffany and Danny of Remix

When the founders of Remix released a side project that unexpectedly went viral, they put their heads together and decided to turn it into a startup. Co-founders Tiffany Chu and Danny Whalen share how they were able to build instantly popular software, the mistakes they made and lessons they learned selling it to the governments who needed it, and how they grew from 4 founders and no customers to a 55-person team serving 275 cities and transit agencies across the world.

#051 – Finding Your Way as a Founder with Rand Fishkin of Moz and SparkToro

When Rand Fishkin (@randfish) was $500,000 in debt, he decided to save his company and the relationships within his family by… starting a blog. He went on to grow a massive audience and transform his services business into Moz, an SEO and marketing company the helped grow to $47M in annual revenue. Learn how persistence, a deep-rooted understanding of marketing, and genuine values that he refused to compromise on helped Rand find his way as a founder.

#050 – Creating a New Product Category with Katelyn Gleason of Eligible

Katelyn Gleason (@katgleason) has been never satisfied with working for somebody else, and she's never been afraid to break into a new field and aim straight for the top. Today, she's the founder and CEO of Eligible, a rapidly-growing business in the difficult and highly-regulated healthcare and insurance industries. Learn how she used the knowledge she gained as a salesperson to develop a category-defining product, and how she goes about learning whatever is necessary for overcoming the next obstacle in her path.

#049 – Everything You Need to Know About Business with Josh Kaufman of The Personal MBA

Josh Kaufman (@joshkaufman) has read a lot of business books. He also happens to be the author of The Personal MBA, easily one of the best business books in existence. In it, he lays out the fundamental concepts that are core to every successful business, and in this episode, we talk about how he became the kind of person who was able to write this book.

#048 – Publishing Wildly Successful Content Online with David Smooke of Hacker Noon

David Smooke (@DavidSmooke) has been working with content since he got a job as a teenager at the local newspaper. In this episode we discuss the progression of his career from employee to contractor to the owner of multiple online publications, and we learn how he bootstrapped Hacker Noon and the @ami network to over 600k subscribers and 10M monthly pageviews.

#047 – The Value of Being Interesting and Persistent with Joel Runyon of Impossible

Joel Runyon (@joelrunyon) didn't start out with a whole lot. He couldn't get a job. He had no business skills. He didn't know how to code. In fact, all he had was long list of things he thought he couldn't do. In this episode, Joel talks about how he was able to pull himself up by the bootstraps and create multiple successful businesses by doing the things he was most interested in, being persistent and doubling down on the things that stuck, and literally attempting to accomplish the impossible.

#046 – Building a Life-Changing Business with Austen Allred of Lambda School

Austen Allred (@austenallred) was in debt after watching his company implode. Learn how he used his entrepreneurial experience to turn things around, and then went on to create Lambda School — a successful business that changes people's lives for the better. He dives into the details behind how to align your business' success with your customers' happiness, how to decide whether or not to raise money, the future of education, and the lessons he's learned from Charlie Munger and Jeff Bezos.

#045 – Turning a Vision Into a Massively Profitable Business with Max Lytvyn of Grammarly

Isn't having a vision just fluff? Doesn't every business need to start with the practical realities first? Max Lytvyn doesn't think so. In this episode he tells the story behind how he and his cofounder started with nothing but a vision, and used that to bootstrap Grammarly into a massively profitable business with hundreds of employees.

#044 – From Fledgling Founder to 7-Figure Deals with Stephanie Hurlburt of Binomial

Stephanie Hurlburt (@sehurlburt) shares the story of how she went from being an employee to being half of a 2-person startup that sells software to gaming companies, and all the steps in between. Learn how she quit her job, met her cofounder, landed lucrative contracting gigs, built a product, learned about sales, and stayed sane while doing it.

#043 – Confronting Your Fears and Taking a Leap with Pieter Levels of Nomad List

Starting an online business is scary. You're putting yourself out there and risking failure in front of thousands or even millions of people. Learn how Pieter Levels has not only faced his fears, but used them as motivation while building an empire of profitable businesses that cater to digital nomads.

#042 – Bootstrapping in a Crowded Market with Gareth and Jonathan Bull

There's some stiff competition in the email marketing space, but that didn't stop brothers Gareth and Jonathan Bull. Learn how they overcame some significant business and interpersonal challenges to build EmailOctopus into a profitable, bootstrapped business.

#041 – An Optimistic Nihilist's Take on Building a $2M Business with Vincent Woo

Even as a programmer, Vincent Woo never loved school or working at big companies. But he was enthusiastic in growing his side project, CoderPad, into a $2M business. Get his take on startups, luck, and why advice is bullshit.

#040 – Learning How to Be a Successful Founder with Spenser Skates

Spenser Skates, the CEO of Amplitude, took a very deliberate approach to becoming a founder and left as little to chance as possible. Learn about the steps he took to prepare himself, and how he went on to build a multi-million dollar analytics business with 100 employees.

#039 – Success Ten Years in the Making with Amir Salihefendic of Doist

When he wrote the first lines of code in his dorm room for his personal to-do list app, Todoist, Amir had no idea that it would eventually become one of the most popular apps of all time. Learn about his winding path to building a successful company, and how he got there by doing things he loved.

#038 – When Your Side Project Blows Up with Dawson Whitfield of Logojoy

What would you do if your side project made $30,000 in its first month? This is the exact situation that Dawson Whitfield found himself in after a long history of launching projects that didn't make it very far. The conventional wisdom is that it takes years to build a successful business, but in this episode we discuss why that wasn't the case with Dawson's business Logojoy.

#037 – The Story of WorkFlowy: From $0 to $800,000 a Year with Jesse Patel

Jesse Patel and his cofounder Mike built a product good enough to attract 20k new users/month with no marketing. But it's not all roses. Co-founder disputes, competitors and clones, money problems, and real-life responsibilities have kept them on their toes. Jesse doesn't shy away from describing any of the ups and downs that come with building a rocketship product.

#036 – From Two Failed Startups to $10,000,000 in Revenue with David Darmanin

When he started Hotjar two and a half years ago, David Darmanin never expected it to grow so quickly. In this episode, we explore how David's past failures, learnings, and jobs as a marketer contributed to the incredible success of his business today.

#035 – "Definitely Not Trying to Fit In" with Tobias van Schneider

How do you get people to notice what you're doing and sign up in droves? If Tobias van Schneider is any indication, the last thing you should do is try to fit in. Learn how his history of counterintuitive decisions, going against the grain, and having zero expectations has led to a string of successful products, and some pretty spectacular failures as well.

#034 – Making $125,000 a Month as a Solo Founder with Mike Carson of Park.io

After a lifetime of hacking, Mike Carson hit on a very big opportunity selling .io domain names. Learn about the forces that made his massive success possible, the threats that almost killed his business, and how his life has changed.

#033 – Finding Your Next Idea with Philippe Lehoux of MissiveApp.com

Ever since he launched a profitable website as a teenager, Philippe Lehoux has had an uncanny ability to find something bigger and better to work on. Learn how a lifetime of experience as an entrepreneur has given him the confidence to move on from a business that brings in over $50,000/month.

#032 – Before and After Product-Market Fit with Peter and Calvin from Segment

Why is it so difficult to recognize product-market fit before you find it? And how do you find it, anyway? Learn about the struggles the team behind Segment faced, and how everything changed after they built a product that people wanted.

#031 – How Kevin McArdle Quit His Job and Bought 28 Businesses in Two Years

Most aspiring entrepreneurs assume they have to start from scratch. But when Kevin McArdle left his job at 38 with a wife, a mortgage, and 4 kids, he wanted to get a head start. Learn how Kevin and his partners at SureSwift Capital bought almost 30 companies in two years, and how they're helping to change founders' lives through 6- and 7-figure exits.

#030 – Pivoting Your Way to Three Million Users with Vivek Ravisankar

The founder of HackerRank tells the story of how he and his cofounder went from multiple failed businesses as brand new founders working from India to the creators of one of the most influential websites for programmers and tech companies.

#029 – How to Win by Refusing to Quit with Tracy Osborn of Hello Web Design

Tracy Osborn once asked herself, "Should I learn how to code, or quit my startup?" You can guess which answer she chose, time and time again. Learn how relentless perseverance over time can help build a successful business.

#028 – How Wes Bos Teaches 100,000 Programmers as a One-Man Operation

What goes into creating a collection of online courses that reaches hundreds of thousand of people? Wes Bos explains everything from how he's built an audience and grown his massive email list, to his work habits and schedule, and a step-by-step walkthrough of how he created and launched his most popular course.

#027 – The Do's and Don'ts of Selling Your Company with Thomas Smale

Few people have seen as many companies bought and sold online as Thomas Smale has. Hear the founder of FE International explain how he started his M&A firm and share the lessons he's learned about selling your business for as much as possible.

#026 – Building a Mission-Driven Company with Reuben Pressman of Presence

Reuben Pressman has succeeded at doing some very difficult things as an entrepreneur, and building a mission-driven company is just the tip of the iceberg.

#025 – Becoming the Internet's Most Prolific Maker with Mubashar Iqbal

In 2016, Mubashar Iqbal was named as Product Hunt's Maker of the Year for launching more products and better products than anyone else. In this episodes, Mubs shares his thoughts on what allows him to be uniquely prolific.

#024 – From Side Projects to Serial Entrepreneur with Moritz Dausinger

Moritz Dausinger started off like so many of us, releasing and then abandoning project after project. But when he launched Mailparser, something changed. Listen to the story of how he built, grew, and sold a profitable business as a solo founder.

#023 – Building Habit-Forming Products with Nir Eyal, the Author of "Hooked"

Why do some products become habits? What keeps people coming back to apps like Facebook and Pinterest every day? Nir Eyal breaks down the step-by-step process any product can use to to become a habit, and we also dive into the ethical implications of this new super power.

#022 – Going Full-Time on Your Side Project with Dave DeSandro of Metafizzy

Not everybody gets to work for the internet, floating from project to project and doing creative work that they love, but Dave DeSandro does just that. Learn how he's made a career for himself by building and designing widgets that tens of thousands of other developers have used on their websites.

#021 – Starting a Mission-Driven Company with Rachel Carpenter of Intrinio

The early team behind Intrinio got off to a very challenging start. In this episode, Rachel explains how being dedicated to their mission helped them stay scrappy and persevere through the hard times.

#020 – Building a Million Dollar Mailing List with Scott of Scott's Cheap Flights

Learn how Scott Keyes grew his mailing list from 300 to 600,000 subscribers and $4M in revenue in two years.

#019 – Solving Your Own Problem with Todd Garland of BuySellAds

Todd Garland went from being a blogger who published ads on his website to creating one of the leading advertising platforms on the web. Here's his story.

#018 – Finding Your First Paying Customers with Wade Foster of Zapier

How did a company that nobody'd ever heard of find hundreds of beta users, and even convince them to pay for access? Wade Foster tells the story behind user acquisition at Zapier.

#017 – How to Grow Your Business with Julian Shapiro of Bell Curve

Growth consultant Julian Shapiro joins me for an extra long episode in which he shares a wealth of knowledge and stories about how to make your numbers go up and to the right.

#016 – Building a $1 Million Business Solo with Mike Perham of Sidekiq

Learn how Mike Perham turned his open-source side project into a business, quit his job, and grew revenue to $80,000/mo without making a single hire.

#015 – Data-Driven Marketing and Sales with Alex MacCaw of Clearbit

Alex MacCaw started Clearbit.com as a solo founder, and he's since grown it to millions of dollars in annual profit. Learn the marketing and sales techniques he's used to reach over 1000 customers.

#014 – Delivering More Value and Charging More Money with Brennan Dunn of DoubleYourFreelancing.com

Brennan Dunn has earned $20k/week as a freelancer, grown an agency to millions in revenue, started and sold a SaaS product, and makes over $100k/mo from his online courses. Learn how he thinks about business.

#013 – How to Overcome the Biggest Challenges to Your Online Business with Patrick McKenzie

Patrick McKenzie divulges his wisdom around how to develop promising business ideas, find your first customers, convince smart people to work with you, generate more revenue, and stay happy while doing it.

#012 – Traveling, Learning to Code, and Bootstrapping to $25k/mo with Tyler Tringas of Storemapper

Tyler Tringas talks about the difference between good and bad ideas, launching new products in days not months, finding your first customers one at a time, hiring effectively, and more.

#011 – How Ryan Bednar Went from SEO Consulting to Building an SEO Product That Makes $80,000/mo

Turning your skillset into a product that solves customers' problems is one of the best ways to start a business. Learn how Ryan Bedndar came up with an idea, iterated on his product, and found his first customers.

#010 – Growing Your Social Media Presence and Building an Audience with Laura Roeder of MeetEdgar

The point of marketing is to draw new people in to your business every day, but how exactly do you go about doing that? Laura Roeder, who bootstrapped her business to $4M/year, explains how to build an audience.

#009 – Breaking Into Bootstrapping Your Own SaaS Business with Clifford Oravec of Tamboo

Thinking about becoming an indie hacker? Learn how to start, what skills you need, and the biggest pitfalls to avoid in this discussion I had with Clifford Oravec, author of The Epic Guide to Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup.

#008 – Growing a $600,000/mo Business by Starting with Direct Sales with Nathan Barry of ConvertKit

Learn how Nathan Barry grew his business by teaching what he knew, taking advantage of big competitors, showing up every day for two years, and treating direct sales as the answer to everything. Brought to you by Vettery.

#007 – Building an Open-Source Publishing Platform That Makes $63,000/mo with John O'Nolan of Ghost

John O'Nolan explains how he used his industry experience to come up with a simple idea, built a landing page that converted 30,000 email subscribers, and raised $300,000 on Kickstarter. Brought to you by SparkPost.

#006 – Launching Your Product and Finding Customers Immediately with Josh Pigford of Baremetrics

Josh Pigford went from having an idea to having paying customers in eight days. Less than six months later he was making $14,000/month. In this episode, you'll learn exactly how he did it. Brought to you by SparkPost.

#005 – How the VC Business Model Co-Opts Entrepreneurs' Visions with Bryce Roberts of Indie.vc

Why is the VC narrative so dominant? Bryce Roberts, partner at Indie.vc, talks about why it's important to focus on generating revenue from the beginning. Brought to you by DixonAndMoe.com.

#004 – Succeeding in a Crowded Market by Building a Niche Business with Garrett Dimon of Sifter

How do you cut through the noise and stand out among the competition so you can start landing your first customers? Garrett Dimon, the creator of Sifter, explains how he did it. Brought to you by SparkPost.

#003 – Bootstrapping a SaaS Business to $30,000,000/year with David Hauser of Grasshopper

David Hauser explains how prioritizing selling early on, talking to customers, and rigorously testing marketing channels helped him bootstrap to $30M/year. Brought to you by DixonAndMoe.com.

#002 – Fueling Growth with SEO and Content Marketing with Chris Chen of Instapainting

Learn how Instapainting founder Chris Chen used a combination of SEO and content marketing to grow his business to $32k/month in sales.

#001 – Building an Audience and Being Scrappy with Jason Grishkoff of SubmitHub

Jason Grishkoff, the founder of SubmitHub, proves that being scrappy and doing things that don't scale (like sending 1000 emails) can lead to explosive growth.