Crowdsourcing my way to earnings transparency and $1k in monthly revenue
Hey Everyone, long time podcast listener, new to the actual site.
I run an earnings transparency site for accountants (big4transparency.com) and was inspired in part by indie hacker stories + the my first million podcast to get my start, so here's the story.
Last summer, I was looking to learn no-code tools and figured the best way to do so would be to apply them to a specific project. After trying to find the right thing, I figured I might as well just start with "whatever I could think of" which was making a centralized place for accountants to anonymously share earnings and demographics data to make sure they aren't being underpaid. Some backstory on this, I worked at Deloitte for my co-op experience, found out we were being underpaid relative to the market and made a big enough fuss about it that my whole level had a compensation adjustment, so I really believe in the power of knowing market rates on salary.
Once I got the website running, I started posting about it on Reddit and Fishbowl to get the work out about the website. It was pretty well received and was growing well, but submissions were still trickling in and were in the hundreds. Eventually someone tried accessing it on their work computer and found out the website was blocked, sent me a message explaining it and posted about it on Reddit.
Well from this point on, the website spread like wildfire. Any time I would check the sheet for earnings data, there were dozens of people in it at the same time, and web traffic spiked, bringing in thousands of submissions.
Fast-forward to today, there are 5,600 submissions on the website, and it's slowly but surely becoming the place to go for accounting earnings data. I've had a ton of people message me saying that thanks to the website they were able to negotiate for a higher salary. I've had recruiters at firms tell me they've adjusted their salary bands thanks to data from the site. In the last month I've started to monetize the site, and have made just over $1k in the first month of monetizing. This is mostly done through redirecting traffic to a job board of cool accounting opportunities I would have liked when I was still at a firm, but I expect the newsletter part to start being a larger part of revenue in the future as well. The newsletter has just launched, where I sent out the first sponsored email to just over 1,000 subscribers last week with deeper dives on the data, general updates, and of course a word from a sponsor eager to reach a group of accountants.
Ultimately I should start using the earnings data I've collected on the site to consult with small firms on what their salaries should be, just haven't figured out that last piece yet.
Hey Dominic, great post. It's actually really reassuring. It often feels as though Indie Hacking and working a corporate job are polar opposites. Almost like it's one thing versus the other and no one person could truly be both - if you opt to work in corporate you must be a "sell-out." So, I love that you actually took what you learned in a corporate role - to Indie Hack successfully - by creating a product that improved the corporate life; like a feedback loop. Love it, thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah this would have totally not been possible without my time in Big 4. You get a feel for the pain points of the community which allows you to really solve for them
Oh - a fun note on this I forgot to include. A reason behind wanting to learn no-code tools is that I am not technical (for now maybe), but have always been a tinkerer. When I was younger in highschool / university I made a good amount of cash on the side doing DJ gigs at weddings, parties, university events etc. I launched a Shopify store making pocket squares I barely broke even on. I helped train and manage a door-to-door sales team for a friend's window cleaning business. I dabbled in some web 3 projects of my own.
After all these little side projects, I started consuming great content about business and entrepreneurship, mostly My First Million and Indie Hackers and was truly inspired. I listened to Naval speak about applying leverage to your inputs, and realized there were ways to amplify my outcomes, but I needed to learn some new skills.
I was also really drawn in to the idea of wanting to one day sell something on MicroAcquire. Discovering there was this whole market for what I'll call achievable exits was eye opening to me. A major goal of mine is to have a 6 figure sale on microAcquire before I turn 30. Even if it's $100,000 CAD flat, I think this can be life changing money, and a huge confidence boost that this isn't all just a waste of time or for my own amusement. I've got mountains of these business ideas tucked away in my notes app, so if this isn't the one I'll keep trying until I find it. I'm hoping to launch a second similar scale business this summer to accompany the first success I've had and will shar emy journey on here as I go through it