Hey folksđ
Listen Up! IH newsletter has been running for almost 9 months now.
Iâve researched and written about some of the most successful indie hackers throughout the year.
As 2021 ends, this is a good time to look back on some of the best profiles I could do and what we can learn from each story.
Here Iâve tried to pick the top 21 profiles and highlighted key lessons from their startupâs success story.
Hope this helps you find some interesting ideas, insights, and inspiration for your own journey.
(And to be on this list yourself in 2022đȘ)
Letâs go -
1. AJ of Carrd
- âConstraints are superpowersâ
- Build an audience from multiple projects over time. AJ did that with html5up and pixelarity.
- Initial traction from Twitter and Product Hunt.
- Viral growth after Kim Kardashianâs Tweet.
Read more -
How to reach $1M ARR with a 1-page site builder đ| AJ of Carrd
2. Jon Yongfook of Bannerbear
- Divide your time 50:50 between coding and marketing.
- The 12 startups challenge is a great way to find out your own passion, build the discipline to ship.
- âNiche Downâ means niche down your target market. It doesnât mean niche down the pain point you solve.
- Better documentation and blogs led to more conversions.
- Pivoted the product to ride on the NoCode movement.
Read more -
Living the Indie Hacker Dream | Jon Yongfook
3. Pieter Levels of NomadList
- "Be less scared and just do more things!"
- You don't need a fancy tech stack for a profitable business.
- FB and Google serve the masses, Indie Hackers can serve the niches.
- Making money online is hard, being prolific gives you more shots at it. Pieter did the 12 startups challenge to grow an audience and multiple successful businesses.
Read more -
Digital Nomad to Prolific Indie Hacker | Pieter Levels
4. Sabba of Veed
- âKeep pushing, and make something people search forâ
- A chip on your shoulder can fuel your success. Sabba was rejected from YC twice!
- Veedâs growth channels - Side projects, Content Marketing, SEO and YouTube SEO.
- You can come back from any situation, Sabba and Tim had no jobs and no revenue, but eventually could build a million dollar business.
Read more -
Rock Bottom to Rocket Shipđ | How Veed grew to $5M+ ARR
5. Jay Clouse of Freelancing School
- Take relentless action.
- Progress compounds, even if itâs slow initially.
- Expand the surface area of your luck, and good things will start to happen.
Read more -
Building, Scaling & Selling a Thriving Community | Jay Clouse
6. Li Jin of SideHustleStack
- Start one level below your current skill level.
- Free up your energy and resources to actually gather feedback and gain some momentum. If you start at your peak level, you will stretch yourself too thin.
- Find your personal product market fit. Find the market for your passion, if there isnât one, then create one.
- SideeHustleStack got Viral growth through TikTok.
Read more -
Lessons from Li Jin - The Patron Saint of The Passion Economy
7. Evan Britton of Famous Birthdays
- Focus maniacally on the customer.
- You will need a lot of passion and commitment to get through the initial years. It will take time, blood, sweat, and tears.
- Do one thing but do it well.
- Extensively used internal search to optimize the product.
Read more -
2.3 Billion Pageviews & 9 Years of Customer Focus - Evan Britton | Famous Birthdays
8. James Traf of Super
- Luck favors those who are in motion.
- You donât need a business plan, you need some initiative.
- When you're going viral, make sure to capitalize on the virality.
- Trafâs iOS 13 icons went viral when tech YouTuber MKBHD featured them on his channel. And he made the best use of that virality.
Read more -
Making $100K in 6 days | Story of Traf's "overnight success"đ€
9. Bram Kanstein of NoCodeMVP
- Build the smallest version of your idea first.
- Making it small doesn't mean it's less valuable!
- If you deliver value to your users, they donât care how good/bad your site looks.
- Bramâs project Startupstash has more than 21K upvotes on Product Hunt. He did that by continuously providing value to people on PH for a long time.
Read more -
21K Upvotes on Product Hunt and Lessons on validating your idea without code | Bram Kanstein
10. Sam Parr of The Hustle
- Copywriting is the number one skill you need if you want to make money
- Business is like music - there are a handful of structures and best practices within them, follow and you won't fail.
- Launch something tomorrow, do it fast.
- Sam built a million dollar content business with The Hustle and recently sold it to Hubspot for an undisclosed amount.
Read more -
The Hustle of building a million-dollar content businessâ| Sam Parr
11. Sahil Lavingia of Gumroad
- âEnough is a decision, not an amount.â
- Align selfishness with selflessness, figure out what you can do creates value for the world.
- Build stuff, start small and figure out what you want to build.
Read more -
Aspiring billionaire to profitable indie hacker | Lessons from Sahil Lavingia of Gumroad
- Build relationships and store goodwill
- Take your time before launching on Product Hunt, donât be in a hurry
- Twitter threads are a great distribution channel.
- Find something that you can stick with for a while.
Read more -
Growing from 0 to $20K MRR with Winning Trends | Dru Riley
13. Jordan OâConnor of Closet Tools
- Learn transferrable skills that you can apply in multiple businesses.
- Transferrable skills like web development, SEO, Copywriting.
- Learn them deeply and you can never go wrong.
- Jordan built up closet tools as a niche product, a chrome extension for Poshmark, and took it to $40K+ MRR.
- Initial validation from Reddit, subsequent growth from SEO.
Read more -
How "The Winner" of Indie Hackers built a $38K/Month SaaS business with a "dollar a day" product
14. Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt
- There will always be an opportunity to create a community around something.
- Tech is a way to express yourself, the same way music is a way to express yourself.
- Ryan Hoover was passionate about products, so he started a newsletter around new products back in 2013.
- Eventually, it got acquired by AngelList and today itâs one of the most popular sites in the startup ecosystem.
Read more -
A Community around Products| Lessons from Ryan Hoover of Product Huntđ€
15. Nathan Barry of ConvertKit
- Build in Public for a mission, not for the eyeballs
- Compounding takes time, give it the years it needs.
- Be the guide not the hero in your customer's journey
- "It takes way longer than you think, and it's worth it if you keep going.â
Read more -
0 to 28M ARR While Building In Publicđ | Nathan Barry
16. Andrey Azimov of Sheet2Site
- Start with a simple 1 button app.
- Build multiple projects in 1 year and see what sticks - do a hardcore year like the 12 startups challenge.
- Built his audience through his hardcore year projects, collected emails, launched on PH. Was PH maker of the year.
- Sheet2Site was a site builder, it was doing okay for the initial couple of years, but went viral during Covid.
- Eventually, Andrey had an exit after 3 years.
Read more -
The Hardcore Year approach to $10K MRRđȘ | Andrey Azimov
17. Kyle Gawley of Gravity
- No employees, no investors, no location.
- Find problems that are painful and customers would pay a fee for it.
- Save time or money or both for your users.
- Kyle became an ex-pat indie hacker after he came very close to death working on his venture-backed startup.
Read more -
Escaping Death to find his Destiny đ| Kyle Gawley of Gravity
18. Nadav Keyson of Riverside
- Find your unique edge.
- You can have a network moat or a tech moat or growth as a moat. Riverside had tech and growth as moats in their journey.
- Build a product with word-of-mouth marketing built-in, like a Hallmark greeting card. A podcasting app is the ideal example of it.
- Riverside primarily grows through word of mouth. They got a boost during the pandemic and even a shoutout from Hillary Clinton herself.
Read more -
Indie Hacker on the Unicorn TrackđŠ | Riverside
19. Samy Dindane of Hypefury
- Your MVP doesnât have to be very polished, it doesnât need to take long to build. It just needs users.
- There are no crowded markets, find niches within niches.
- Paying users are the best validation you need.
- User interviews are the best way to get the early product right.
- Indie hackers is a good place to find a co-founder. Thatâs where Samy and Yannick met.
Read more -
Flying past $23K MRR in 2 yearsđŠ
| Hypefury
20. Ben Tossell of Makerpad
- Figure out the path of least resistance, and start building.
- You are the product of your environment, Ben was surrounded by new tech products all day, eventually became a NoCode Maker.
- High quality content sites and communities have great value.
- Often just repositioning an existing product can work well.
- Makerpad was acquired by Zapier from a Tweet!
Read more -
Rising with the no-code movement đââïž| Makerpad
21. Arvid Kahl The Embedded Entrepreneur
- Trust the concept of involuntary reciprocity. Give enough for free to people, help them, make their life easier without asking anything in return.
- 3 pillars of building an audience are - engagement, empowerment, and valuable content.
- Coding is the 4th step in building a business. The first 3 are figuring out who to serve, what to serve them with, and how YOU can actually serve them.
- The idea first approach to building a startup can be reversed, the audience first approach is way more sustainable and feasible.
Read more -
How to build an audience-driven businessđšâđ©âđ§âđŠ | Arvid Kahl - The Embedded Entrepreneur
Hope you find these stories helpful and inspiring in your own journey.
What was your favorite Indie Hacker story of the year?
Comment below or join the discussion on Twitter -
Thank you for readingđ
Every week, I share the most actionable insights and inspiring tips from successful Indie Hackers FOR aspiring Indie Hackers
Ideas + Insights + Inspiration for building profitable internet businessesđȘ
Sign up to Listen Up! IHÂ and join 1600+ spirited Indie Hackers who read this newsletter every week.
Thanks to Seth King for editing all posts
Cheers,
Ayush
Thank you for having me Ayush!
Thanks Samy, your journey is inspirational đ