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It passed the House! Now what?

Feb 1st — The tax deal that includes a retroactive fix for domestic R&D expensing through 2025 passed the House! Now what?

Indie Bites

Building and monetizing an audience as a software engineer - Randall Kanna Franson

Jan 24th — Today I’m joined by Randall Kanna Franson. Randall is a senior software engineer who has written 3 books, including one published by O’Reilly and a self published one which made over $70k. She also created a course called Hack the Tech interview which made $20k in the first 24 hours and $50k in the first month. All of this has been through Randall’s efforts to share her learnings from almost a decade being a software engineer and growing her twitter audience to over 50,000 followers. She’s also dabbled in SaaS products, notably launching and growing CodeTutor which she sold after the birth of her first child. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:43 Randall's background 03:33 Coding bootcamp to senior software engineer 05:05 Getting a book published with O'Reilly 06:37 Going hard on side projects in 2020 08:01 Audience building and writing another book 10:04 Randall's course 11:42 Randalls advice to early stage entreprenuers 13:13 Why Randall hasn't started a successful SaaS 15:47 Recommendations Recommendations Book - The Dip Podcast - Software Social Indie Hacker - Kyle Gawley My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Can you really scale a No Code SaaS? - Kieran Ball, NoCodeLife

Jan 11th — Kieran Ball is the founder of NoCodeLife, a selection of case studies of those making successful businesses using NoCode. Kieran also has courses on how to become a NoCode SaaS founder, specifically using the Bubble platform. I wanted to get Kieran on the pod to discuss and challenge the NoCode movement and if you can actually create a scalable product using the tools available, or if NoCode serves a different purpose. Timestamps 00:00 108 - Kieran Ball 02:07 Failing to learn how to code 03:05 How Kieran discovered no code 04:28 Are no code apps hacky? 05:52 Who has been successful building no code tools? 06:57 No code for MVPs or for actual startups 09:28 Keiran's own blog, No Code Life 10:19 Improving your marketing skillset 12:49 Kieran's future with no code 15:48 Recommendations Recommendations Book - The SaaS playbook Podcast - The Bootstrapped Founder Indie Hacker - Hazel Lim @byhazelim My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

B2C vs B2B SaaS as an indie hacker - Val Sopi, Blogstatic

Jan 3rd — Today I’m joined by Val Sopi, the founder of Blogstatic, a lightweight blogging platform built to take on the likes of Ghost. Currently Val is sitting around $1k a month, but with a low-priced annual plans approach, he’s relying on new sign ups and plan upgrades instead of recurring subscriptions. So he’s at a crossroads of needing to pour fuel on the fire to grow his low-cost blogging platform, or attempt to build a B2B SaaS, which he believes is a much more sustainable option for an indie founder. Val has been hardened by business successes and failures, so I love his pragmatic approach to the decisions he’s making. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:39 Val's background - web design shop to failed SaaS 04:10 Learning to code and starting Claritask 04:53 Selling Claritask 05:52 Launching Blogstatic 06:42 Taking a loan to bet on himself 07:40 The crossroads of stagnating growth 08:39 Being a low cost alternative in a competitive market 12:30 Why Val won't take VC 14:06 Why Val is trying B2B instead of B2C 15:45 Recommendations Recommendations Book: The Inner Game of Tennis Podcast: Startups for the Rest of Us Indie Hacker: Joe Ashville My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

How VEED bootstrapped to $7m ARR - Sabba Keynejad, VEED.io (2020)

Dec 27th — Today I'm revisiting one of my favourite episodes, from 2020, with Sabba Keynejad, co-founder and CEO of VEED.io , an online video editing platform. When I interviewed Sabba, VEED were at around $2m ARR, fully bootstrapped. Since this interview, they’ve gone on to bootstrap to about $7m ARR before raising a whopping $35m series A from Sequoi a. And when I first met Sabba, years before this interview, VEED was just a small product that wasn't generating any revenue. This episode is special to me because I’ve followed VEED’s journey from the start and it’s been inspiring to see. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 02:46 VEED origins 03:24 Differentiation 03:58 Picking a market 04:48 Hiring and learning new skills 06:16 Inflection points in growth 07:07 Quitting your job 07:45 Why you should find a cofounder 08:41 Getting the first users 09:47 Free vs paid 11:16 Growth tactics 12:04 Advice to other founders 13:01 Recommendations Recommendations Favourite indie hacker is Josh Pigford Best book for indie hackers; Traction Favourite podcast; How I Built This My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Lemon Squeezy CTO on why he still makes side projects - Gilbert Pellegrom

Dec 20th — Gilbert Pellegrom, is co-founder and CTO of Lemon Squeezy , a platform for selling software and digital products online. Previously Gilbert created the Nivo Slider all in 2010, which grew to millions of users before selling it. He then went on to work with Orman Clark at ThemeZilla and Dunked, who he’s teamed up with again to build Lemon Squeezy. What’s interesting about Gilbert is that despite being the CTO of a rapidly scaling startup, he’s still making and shipping side projects, which we’ll talk about more on this episode. If you want to hear more about Lemon Squeezy, I actually co-host their podcast called Make Lemonade , where I speak with their CEO JR Farr about the behind the scenes of building a bootstrapped company making millions. Sign up to the Indie Bites membership for $60 a year to access the full conversation with Gilbert. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 03:57 Working with Orman Clark at Themezilla and Dunked 06:11 Delicious Brains 06:40 Starting Lemon Squeezy 07:52 Why Gilbert makes side projects 10:36 Should you charge money for your side projects 12:58 Selling side projects 14:59 Recommendations Recommendations Book - Atomic Habits Podcast - Yo! Indie Hacker - Marcel Pociot My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Scaling and exiting a $65k MRR with meal planning app - Jeffrey Bunn, Mealime & Clearful

Dec 13th — Today I’m joined by Jeffrey Bunn , who is the co-founder of Clearful , a digital journal app he built with his wife, Maria. Previously they co-founded Mealime, a meal planning app which grew to a whopping $65k MRR before they exited in 2018. In this episode we cover the story of founding both apps, how they utilised the app stores for growth and why they started a B2C app in a crowded market. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:30 Starting Mealime 07:07 Pivot to mobile and reducing prices 08:36 Mealime Growth 09:46 Private Equity Exit 10:38 Life post-exit and learning to code 12:24 Starting Clearful 13:31 Clearful growth through the app store 14:50 Runway and future Recommendations Book - Range by David Epstein Podcast - Conversations with Tyler Indie Hacker - Maria Golikova , Sebastian Röhl My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

The slow and steady path to growth - Michael Christofides

Dec 6th — Today I’m joined by Michael Christofides, who is the founder of PgMustard, a product which helps people speed up Postgres queries. Michael started out working for a Devtools company as a product manager and went on to run customer success at London based unicorn, GoCardless. Now, Michael might not be as well known and successful as other popular indie hackers, but he works on his own terms and has been committed to his project for years. In this episode I want to unpack why Michael stays committed to his product despite slow growth, his unique approach to the indie lifestyle and where he wants to go in future. Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 02:18 - Michael's early career 03:09 - The PGMustard idea 04:28 - Building for a market rather than scratching your own itch 06:23 - Launching PGMustard 08:15 - Going full time on PGMustard 09:47 - Leaving well paid jobs at $0 MRR 11:28 - Intentional slow growth 15:43 - Recommendations Recommendations Book - Small Giants Podcast - Panic Podcast Indie Hacker - Michael Koper My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Software Social

Side Projects as Insurance Policies

Dec 5th — Michele chats with Kevin Griffin about how she sees side projects not only as a way to earn extra money but as insurance policies against losing your job or other unexpected life events. Subscribe to Multithreaded Income !

Indie Bites

Arvid Kahl on side projects, hobbies and making money as a founder

Nov 29th — Arvid Kahl runs The Bootstrapped Founder , a podcast, newsletter and educational resource to help founders grow successful bootstrapped businesses. He’s also written two books, Zero to Sold and The Embedded Entreprenuer . Arvid is a returning guest, having previously been on the show almost 3 years ago, to talk about his exit from FeedbackPanda, which he grew to $55k MRR with his partner, Danielle. In this episode we talk about life as a creator and solopreneur, how Arvid is scratching his SaaS itch and how people can leave their jobs to work on their side projects. 👉 Get the full 55 minute conversation here. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:45 Turning hobbies into business 02:51 Structuring how you spend your time 05:14 Revenue for The Bootstrapped Founder 07:13 Why do consulting when you have runway 08:30 Scratching the coding itch 12:07 How to make a side project a main project 15:52 Recommendations Recommendations <em>(Prev. the mom test, IH pod and Sergio Mattei)</em> Book: The SaaS Playbook Podcast: The Greatest Generation Indie Hacker: Tony Dihn My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Quitting his job and taking a £20k loan to go full time indie - Harvey Carpenter, Growform

Nov 22nd — Harvey Carpenter is the founder of Growform , a form builder which is now around 7K MRR. It's a mixture of enterprise and some other clients, and he's tackling a product in a market that is extremely competitive and crowded, but he's trying to carve out his own little slice of that market. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:21 Harvey's life before Growform 01:35 Side projects as a 17 yr old 04:10 Getting a law degree 05:04 The idea for Growform 06:42 Benefits of picking a niche 09:12 Growth tactics 10:06 Quitting his job and taking a loan 13:16 Future goals 13:48 Taking recreation seriously Recommendations Book: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together Podcast: Diary of a CEO Indie Hacker: Jack Bridger My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Software Social

ADHD + Entrepreneurship: A Conversation with Jesse J. Anderson, aka ADHD Jesse

Nov 21st — Michele chats with Jesse J. Anderson, aka ADHD Jesse, about finding out one has ADHD as an adult, entrepreneurship as people with ADHD, parenting an ADHD child, and more. Get Jesse's book "Extra Focus: The Quick-Start Guide to Adult ADHD" and join his newsletter: https://adhdjesse.com/ + Recommended book on parenting kids with ADHD: ADD Superparenting

Indie Bites

How to get to ramen profitability - Charlie Ward, Ramen Club

Nov 15th — Today is a special episode, because it marks 100 episodes of Indie Bites. And to mark the occasion, I’m bringing back my guest from episode 1 , Charlie Ward, founder of Ramen Club to talk about how he’s grown to community into the core of the London indie scene while scaling to £7k MRR in the process. Charlie has also been a long time supporter of the show, having sponsored well over 30 episodes and taking a bet on me early on. Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 01:40 - The impact Ramen Club has on other founders 03:08 - Rebranding to Ramen Club 04:56 - Advice for community building 06:27 - Advice to founders on ideas and growth 11:10 - Why you should be doing user research 14:35 - Recommendations Recommendations Book: $100m Offers Podcast: Lex Fridman Indie Hacker: Elston Baretto Other links Get Together book Continuous Discovery Habits book Rosieland Charlie's Twitter Ramen Club Podcast My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Bootstrapping EmailOctopus to $3m+ ARR - Jonathan Bull & Tom Evans

Nov 8th — Today I’m joined by Tom Evans and Jonathan Bull from EmailOctopus, an email platform who have bootstrapped to over $3m ARR since they were founded in 2014. They’ve been battling in a crowded and competitive market, with some huge funded companies to contend with, but they’ve made it work in an indie way. In this episode we talk about how they lost 99% of their users overnight, why they’ve chosen to compete on price rather than in a niche and their reasoning behind staying bootstrapped for so long. Get the extended episode here: https://indiebites.com/membership 00:00 Intro 01:24 EmailOctopus Background 02:57 How long did EmailOctopus take to build? 03:09 Launching for free 05:45 Tom joining EmailOctopus 07:11 Growth 07:48 Building in a crowded market 08:55 Differentiating on price 11:30 Raising vs bootstrapping 12:58 Changing goals as a bootstrapper 15:07 Fulfilling the side project urge Recommendations Book: ReWork , Four Thousand Weeks Podcast: The Rest is Politics , Indie Bites Indie Hacker: Pieter Levels , Jeffrey Bunn Guest Links Jonathan's Twitter Tom's Twitter Blog post about their growth My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Building a financial engine for your indie business - Justin Jackson

Nov 1st — In this episode I have a returning guest, someone who is a keystone of the bootstrapping community, it’s Justin Jackson, co-founder of Transistor, MegaMaker and more. Today we have an unstructured but very useful chat about building a financial engine for your business. This is a topic that has come up countless times in my indie journey and I think it’s something that a lot of indie businesses don’t address as early and seriously as they should. There a ton of actionable tips in this conversation about how to manage your finances, building a solid, profitable business and what to do when things aren’t going well. Get the extended episode here: https://indiebites.com/membership Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:45 James shocked by tax 02:31 Profit first 06:51 Building a financial engine 09:40 Things falling apart with depression 11:00 Desperation affects creativity 11:49 How to build your financial engine Recommendations (from prev ep) Book: Life Profitability Podcast: Software Social Indie Hacker: Derek Sivers Follow Justin Twitter Blog My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny</em>

Indie Bites

Rob Walling on multiple projects, why building an audience is dumb and other SaaS wisdom

Oct 13th — Rob Walling is an absolute legend in the bootstrapping and indie scene. He’s a veteran entrepreneur with his most notable exit being Drip in 2016. Rob also founded MicroConf , started TinySeed and is the host of the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast, which has over 680 episodes having started in 2010. It doesn’t stop there for Rob, he’s also written 4 books, Start Small Stay Small, Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding, The Entrepreneurs Guide to Keeping Your Shit Together and most recently, The SaaS Playbook . Get the hour long episode here: https://indiebites.com/membership Timestamps 00:00 Intro / Sponsor 02:03 Why Rob wouldn't do SaaS again 03:43 What would an alternative reality look like for Rob 05:46 Founder retreats 07:40 Building an audience first approach is dumb for SaaS 10:29 Building a network 12:38 Portfolio of projects 15:26 Recommendations Recommendations Book: Founding Sales , Deploy Empathy Podcast: Comic Lab Indie Hacker: Ruben Gamez Follow Rob Twitter Website My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Growing an audience, making difficult decisions and launching screencasting.com - Aaron Francis

Oct 5th — Aaron Francis is currently an Educator at Planet Scale, but you would have seen him all around the internet doing courses, YouTube videos, podcasts and more. Notably he was a founding member of the Hammerstone team, which he’s recently left, to focus his energy on doing something he loves. Most recently, Aaron has launched Screencasting.com , a course teaching you how to make better screencasts. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:25 Aaron's Background 02:10 Learning Software Engineering through books 03:24 Audience Building 05:51 Benefits of each content medium 08:07 Making time for everything 09:27 Having a full time job 10:23 Leaving Hammerstone 12:36 Launching Screencasting.com 14:33 How has the launch gone? 15:25 Recommendations Recommendations Book - Any textbook in your field Podcast - No Plans to Merge Indie Hacker - Jordan O’Connor My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

$20k MRR with Airtable app using YouTube and SEO for growth - Andy Cloke, Data Fetcher

Sep 28th — Today I’m joined by a returning guest, Andy Cloke, who runs Data Fetcher. Data Fetcher is an API plugin for Airtable that he’s grown to 20k MRR. In our previous episode Andy was only at around £3k MRR, so in this conversation we talk about what he’s done to grow so rapidly, including investing in new marketing channels such as YouTube. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:58 Growing to 20k MRR 04:51 Building a machine 06:01 YouTube Strategy 09:09 Launching another product 11:38 Hiring and reinvesting into the business 13:07 Future of Data Fetcher Recommendations Book: Psychology of Money Podcast: Acquired Indie Hacker: Curtis Herbert Follow Andy Twitter My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Making $200k a year teaching Google Sheets - Andrew Kamphey

Sep 21st — Today I’m joined by Andrew Kamphey, who is the founder of Better Sheets , a platform of tools and tutorials to get better at using Google Sheets, that has done well over $200k in revenue since he launched in 2020. He started out working as a tech on cruise ships, before moving to LA to work in the film industry, which is where he gained all of his Google Sheets prowess. From here he’s had a meandering life journey, working while travelling South East Asia, starting and selling an influencer newsletter, writing a book about charging and even launching a SaaS. Andrew has had his finger in piece of the indie hacking pie and has now settled on being the Google Sheets guy. At least for now. Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 02:08 - Failing to go full time 04:13 - Selling Influence Weekly 06:26 - Starting BetterSheets 09:32 - Turning Better Sheets into a full time income 11:53 - Reluctancy to become the "Google Sheets Guy" 13:37 - Recommendations Recommendations Book: Lying for Money Podcast: The Deep Life Indie Hacker: Jon Yongfook , Danny Postma , James &amp; Danielle Follow Andrew Twitter My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Software Social

Can the R&D Tax Credit Offset the Section 174 Changes?

Sep 2023 — The R&amp;D Tax Credit still exists, and it might be able to help you offset the Section 174 changes. Michele talks to R&amp;D Tax Credit expert Jonathan Cardella of Strike Tax Advisory to learn more. Learn more: What is the R&amp;D Tax Credit? IRS R&amp;D Tax Credit rules Please note: This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not tax advice. Talk to your tax preparer for advice about your specific situation.

Indie Bites

Bootstrapping Ticket Tailor to £6m ARR, selling and repurchasing the company, losing motivation and more - Jonny White

Sep 2023 — Jonny White is the founder of Ticket Tailor , a platform for selling tickets online doing over £6m ARR and growing. Jonny founded Ticket Tailor in 2011, grew it to £2k MRR and then sold it to a company called TimeOut a short while later. After a few stagnant years at TimeOut, Jonny then bought the company back to make the lifestyle business he’d always wanted. After hitting all his goals, Jonny made the decision to build out a team and bootstrap the company to profitability and beyond. Now with a team of 20+ people, Jonny has a whole new set of challenges he’s dealing with, which we dig into in this episode. Get the hour long episode here: https://indiebites.com/membership Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:51 - Jonny's background 02:48 - The idea for Ticket Tailor 04:39 - Getting those first few customers 05:14 - Reaching £2k MRR and considering fundraising 06:34 - Selling the company 08:00 - Buying back Ticket Tailor 09:17 - Post buy back 11:13 - Hiring a team / going beyond a lifestyle biz 12:12 - COVID 13:59 - Losing motivation post-covid 15:45 - Recommendations Recommendations Book: Donut Economics Podcast: Missing Cryptoqueen Indie Hacker: Pietro Saccamani Follow Jonny Twitter My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Carving a new life path with a newsletter about Workspaces - Ryan Gilbert, Workspaces

Aug 2023 — Ryan Gilbert is the creator of the Workspaces newsletter, which showcases the best workspaces in tech and beyond. He grew it to 6,000 subscribers and $2k per month with sponsors + affiliates, before being acquired by Loops (Founder Chris Frantz was on episode 61 ) and going on to be their first employee. In this episode we talk about how simplicity has been so important for growth of the newsletter, how he makes it appealing for guests to share and his reasoning for selling at such an early stage. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:26 Life before Workspaces 03:37 Did you have any side projects before workspaces? 04:47 Growth of the Workspaces newsletter 06:40 How long did each edition take? 07:45 The best workspaces 08:25 Monetizing the newsletter 10:22 Selling the newsletter 13:08 Imposter syndrome 13:57 Recommendations Recommendations Book - The Creative Act by Rick Rubin Podcast - Creator Science Indie Hacker - Brett Williams Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Taking on Bit.ly bootstrapped - Tim Leland, T.LY

Jul 2023 — Tim Leland is the founder of T.LY , a link shortener with almost half a million users that he recently quit his job to pursue full time. Tim started out building chrome extensions, including a weather extension that grew to 200k users at it’s peak. He then capitalised on Google closing down their link URL shortener and tried to build his own competitor, which is where T.LY was born. Tim has gone for the high volume, low price option for his product, which often isn’t recommended as a good route for Indie Hackers, but Tim has made it work. 00:00 Intro 05:15 Building a portfolio of extensions 07:45 Starting T.LY 10:06 Being the low price option 11:49 Getting users for T.LY 12:51 Quitting his job 15:13 Reccos Recommendations Book - Atomic Habits Podcast - My First Million Indie Hacker - Rob Walling Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

Working towards life-changing outcomes as an indie hacker - Colleen Schnettler, HelloQuery

Jul 2023 — In this episode I’m joined by Colleen Schnettler, which a lot of you would have heard from through her Software Social podcast she co-hosts with Michele Hansen. Colleen has been on quite the journey over the past few years, going from years of contracting to launching her first product, Simple File Upload , then getting a large contracting gig with Hammerstone, landing a separate full-time job to then quit 3 weeks later to rejoin that Hammerstone as a co-founder. Now Colleen is working on a product called HelloQuery , a reporting tool for SQL queries which has been accepted into a recent TinySeed batch. What we covered: 00:00 Intro 02:03 Why start the Software Social podcast? 02:59 Why start building products 04:04 Colleen's first product: Simple File Upload 05:07 Why they stopped the podcast 06:37 Joining Hammerstone 08:50 Being a solo founder 10:16 Hello Query 11:47 Closing down a successful product 13:50 Reccos Reccomendations Book: The Mom Test Podcast: Boostrapped Web Indie Hacker: Corey Haines Follow Colleen Twitter My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Hackers

#283 – Making $8k/mo Targeting $100M/yr with Lukas and Liz Hermann of StageTimer.io

Jun 2023 — Lukas (@_lhermann) and Liz Hermann (@lizmhermann) talk having ambition as an indie hacker, scratching other people's itches, having kids or spouses to help run your empire, making $8k/month from a simple idea, and charting a course to $100M/yr with (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

Indie Bites

Gamifying products, shipping quickly and knowing when to quit - Marc Louvion

Jun 2023 — Marc Louvion is an indie hacker with many many products. His tagline on his website is relatable for all “ I was fired everywhere so I had to work for myself (even Tai Lopez fired me...)”. If you go to Marc’s Indie Page you can see all his projects, including Habits Garden, Gamify List, Visualise Habit, Make Landing &amp; more. Marc is living in Bali and on his way to $5k MRR across his projects. You might have seen Marc on Twitter with his hilarious launch videos and candid build in public updates. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:32 Marc's indie hacker journey 03:07 Moving to Bali 03:39 Starting a glove business 05:52 Gamification 07:41 Challenges with gamification 08:29 Knowing when to quit a product 10:32 Portfolio of projects vs single focus 11:46 Marc's day to day 12:53 Building an AI product 14:00 Creative launch videos 15:14 Reccos Recommendations Book: Why We Sleep Podcast: Indie Hackers Indie Hacker: Danny Postma Follow Marc Twitter Explore Marc's products My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Hackers

#282 – Media vs Tech, Twitter Monsters, and Making Millions From Content with Steph Smith of a16z

Jun 2023 — Steph Smith (@stephsmithio) talks making millions in content subscriptions, working at a16z, putting the AI genie back in the bottle, thread boys on Twitter, educational vs entertainment podcasts, and media companies that monetize aspiring entrepreneurs with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).

Indie Bites

Is indie hacking having an identity crisis? - Dominic Monn, MentorCruise

Jun 2023 — In this episode I’m bringing back a previous guest, Dom Monn, who is the founder of MentorCruise, which he’s now working full time on with a small team. I brought Dom back on to discuss something that has been on my mind, and has come up in twitter conversations recently which Dom has been involved in. Is indie hacking having an identity crisis? Is the indie label and mentality limiting success and holding many founders back? I think it could be and so we discuss why this might be happening and what we can do about it. Jason's tweet which inspired this conversation Mike's response Dom's response Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:56 Indie hacker identity crisis 03:42 How indie hacking has changed 06:32 Why the indie label can be a limiter 08:20 Accepting slow growth instead of fixing it 10:33 Should we set bigger goals? 12:10 We still love the indie hacker community 13:50 Recommendations Recommendations Book - Sprint Podcast - This Indie Life Indie Hacker - Ramen Club Follow Dom Twitter Hire him as a mentor Personal site My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Bites

How to find and validate your ideas - Bram Kanstein, Startup Stash / No Code MVP

May 2023 — Today I’m joined by Bram Kanstein, who you might know from Startup Stash, which is the most upvoted product ever on Product Hunt. Bram also started the No Code MVP a course, which shows you how to launch an MVP without code. In this episode we focus a lot on how indie hackers can find ideas and launch them the right way. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 03:18 Startup Stash 05:56 No Code MVP 09:47 Finding ideas 12:22 Idea validation 15:00 Recommendations Recommendations Book - Untethered Soul by Michael Singer Podcast(s) - Joe Rogan , HIBT , MFM Indie Hacker - Danny Postma Follow Bram Twitter My links Twitter Indie Bites Twitter Indie Bites YouTube Join the membership Personal Website 2 Hour Podcast Course PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast) This Indie Life Podcast Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙 <em>EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can </em> <em>start today</em> <em>, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.</em>

Indie Hackers

#281 – Seth Godin on Indie Hacking, Doing Hard Things, and Finding Significance in a Changing World

May 2023 — Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog) talks indie hacking, finding new business ideas, meaningful jobs vs mechanized jobs, dealing with internet trolls, his secrets to productivity, freelancing vs bootstrapping, writing 9000 blog posts in 20 years, and finding significance in a changing world with Courtland (@csallen) and Channing (@ChanningAllen).