32
29 Comments

Build multiple projects and use them for cross-promotion — Rob Hope of One Page Love

@robhope of One Page Love has a long list of current (and sunsetted) projects, and he's making over $100K per year from them. I caught up with him to find out how he manages to juggle so much.

If you take away one thing, it should probably be the 18-minute nap at 3pm, followed by an espresso. Sounds like a good way to make the most of an afternoon. 😃


On scratching multiple itches

Rob: A lot of the time I'm scratching my own itch.

For example, I built caseconverter.com in 2008 (now sold) to help clean up my clients' poorly formatted Word Docs of content. One Page Love was created to help collect references to One Page websites, after I couldn't find any good references to them online.

Another reason I might start a project is to learn something new. It feels amazing diving into the unknown. Like the products above, AudioNotes was built to help send faster Landing Page feedback to One Page Love users, but also green-lit it because I had never built a macOS menu bar app before.

I also totally suffer from shiny object syndrome. I'm bad. I'll see a slight gap or a poorly curated popular site, and I'll lose hours on domain searches while daydreaming of what I could cook up.

Right now, my main project is One Page Love, which allowed me to ultimately quit freelance about 4yrs ago. I'm also working on Email Love, UX Love (launching soon), Yo! podcast, and my ebook Landing page Hot Tips. I also have dozens of ideas that I no longer work on — some sold, but most failed (forward).

Also, because of earnings increasing over the past couple of years, I was forced into VAT land here in South Africa. So I decided to wrap all my side-projects into one parent brand called Love Curated that is now a Pty Ltd. I am CEO and 100% shareholder, which doesn't mean much, to be honest.

On growing his projects

Rob: The short of it is I grow these projects by keeping curation high, saving people time. And I keep trying to add value to the network by writing what is special about the content, adding good search tags, and making the site fast.

The more nuanced answer is cross-promotion between sites, tagging people we feature on Twitter, ensuring pages are coded clean (no pop-ups, min-scripts), and cached fast for Google.

Create the sites you'd appreciate visiting.

On schedules

A huge breakthrough this year, due to hiring, is having a publishing schedule in Notion. We now aim to post 1 bit of content on One Page Love a week day.

It's super difficult to shift attention so many times a day. Without a schedule, I can blink and I havent posted on Email Love in 2 weeks.

The ideal goal is to spend about an hour adding content to each site per day. Then the rest is improving the network. These daily content habits really add up.

On the tools he uses to stay organized

Rob: After years of using Trello I'm now all-in on Notion. I have one team account for Love Curated shared with one other person. Then I have another team account with my wife to keep track of home loans, finances, upcoming trips etc. I dig being organized.

Then iA Writer for light lists/writing (sync'd with Dropbox). Clear app (think I bought it 8yrs ago for $5) on the iPhone for shopping and temporary lists.

My desktop icons often act as a to-do list too and I'm always trying to clear those out.

On naps

Rob: I start working around 7am and finish up at 7pm every day. I can honestly say every day at 7am I am frothing at the mouth to start working on my network of sites and side projects. I have had this for 10 years and it hasn't gone away.

I take tons of breaks, of course, to surf and run. I also nap for 18 minutes every day around 3pm.

Why an 18-minute nap? Man, I’ve been trying to perfect this strategy for years. So, 20+ has a longer wake-time and at 30+ you are almost grumpy having to wake up. An 18 minute afternoon nap, followed by an espresso, banks me easy 2+ hours of super productive screen time.

Side projects are never “finished”

Rob:

I am learning to accept that side-projects can never be finished.

There is unlimited optimization and marketing to do. The only true time it's done is when it's sold or the domain expires.

So most evenings I try to shut off, cook, and watch a series with my wife. I rarely work late anymore and it's awesome. I am 39 now and I dig sleeping, ha. At the same time, my wife accepts my chosen path of building online and knows sometimes we need to focus on getting it done. No matter what.

  1. 3

    Such an informative strategy!

    1. 1

      Glad you enjoyed the read Jamie :)

      1. 2

        Your face pops up on my feed too often ;) Good to see things are cracking along well Rob :)

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

  2. 3

    Very cool, love the strategy. Basically an Indiehackers dream

    1. 4

      Cheers Brandon! Spent a long time trying to get into this position. Lots of saying no to good freelance cash, just to try earn $100 more per month on One Page Love.

      1. 1

        That's awesome, Rob. Definitely hard to sacrifice for the long-term, especially when money is available for the taking today. Sounds like it's paying off, congrats on the success!

  3. 2

    Great interview, great guy!

  4. 2

    Will definitely try the 18 min nap. I'm usually sleepy especially after lunch and so I've learnt to eat very light, mostly just fruits or some punch. The nap thing is something else I should try and see if I get more productive.

    I'm curious how many hours, on average, James sleeps every night.

    Also, this article has helped me discover notion and I'm immediately archiving it there.

    1. 1

      Notion was a bit overwhelming for me at first. But after learning a few tips (from Ali Abdaal vids) I started rocking it.

  5. 2

    18 minute nap is interesting. Some research (or sites) claim a 26 minute nap is the best one.

    1. 1

      I did not know that. Guess it depends on the context for work needed after. Like maybe gets you 3-4hrs with 26mins deep nap.

  6. 2

    7 am to 7 pm for 10 years – you're the definition of drive and consistency my friend @robhope

    1. 1

      Thank you my friend! Motivation still high, really hope it doesn't fade.

  7. 2

    I really like these interviews James. Like the great old school indie hackers ones that Courtland used to put together.

    1. 1

      Stoked you enjoyed this Oli (behind the scenes there was a bit more content but this is trimmed down to the most relevant, which is great)

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

  8. 2

    You certainly have time management down to a T.

    1. 1

      Taken years but feel like I'm productive when I'm actually working behind the glowing rectangle :)

  9. 2

    Love the 18 minute nap... but i think i'd need about 10 to get to sleep in the first place, so I'll try for 28.

    How do you find the time to surf when you're running 4+ businesses, though?

    1. 1

      ha yeah, you do take a few minutes to pass out. I try lie flat on my back, white noise machine on quite loud and a pillow over my face (to block out light) with just the mouth out to breath. That knocks me out in 2-3 mins.

      Surfing is definitely less than back in day. I'm mostly surfing when waves are best and running for exercise. A better answer if either aim super early or just before dark. Then you don't have to juggle traffic/conditions too much within a work day.

  10. 2

    @robhope I've been thinking about launching a second project myself... what does that cross-promotion look like? Are you just mentioning your other projects when you write about One Page Love, or are you actively promoting in some way? Any tips? Thanks!

    1. 1

      If you are scratching an itch, learning something new or solving a problem for yourself - I'd definitely launch that second project Jacob. Another factor is if the second product is useful to the same audience as the first, then it's a stronger green light. Email marketing (Email Love) is naturally part of most people creating websites (One Page Love).

      Re: methods - I link from parent site (Love Curated), add links to the main navigations of all sites, blog the launches from the primary site, link to new social account from all acc bios, RT from all acc's (depending on topics), all newsletters mention each other, sometimes I add a ps. in newsletter intro mentioning feature launches on the sister sites, my personal acc bio sometimes only mentions the new site I'm launching...

  11. 1

    Man, I want to scratch that itch. This helps cheers

  12. 1

    It's interesting to see the different motivations behind starting projects, whether it be to solve a personal problem or to learn something new. The idea of setting a publishing schedule to stay organized and productive is also a valuable takeaway. It's refreshing to see that even successful individuals like Rob still prioritize their personal life and make time for activities like cooking and watching TV with their spouse.

  13. 1

    Very enjoyable to read. Thanks James for sharing it.

  14. 0

    Ten Sports Live is Asia’s number one sports channel that provides news related to sports and telecasts live matches. People across the world prefer this channel for watching different live https://kingsmodapk.com/ten-sports-live-download-streaming-app/#Channels_That_Broadcast_The_Live_T20_World_Cup_2022 matches and sports. This is the most outstanding growing channel nowadays in Pakistan. This app is categorized as a top-rated channel around the world. You can watch live streaming of different sports on this live app.

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 29 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 16 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments