How to go about making your first hire as a small Indie Hacker?
Short version: Where do you find freelance marketers that can work on their own without many instructions for $1-2k/month?
Long version:
My project is sitting at $4k MRR which I built up through SEO traffic over the past 3.5 years. I know I could be growing a lot quicker if I put more effort into marketing. I don't though because I only enjoy the thinking about it part, not the actual implementation. I prefer coding, of which there's lots to do anyways [0]. I'm sure many of you can relate to that :)
Now I'm trying to solve this problem by hiring a freelancer for the marketing. This wasn't an option to me previously without having a few $k per month of consistent revenue.
I've previously hired a couple of freelancers for specific tasks (translating the website). I know I can find cheap freelancers that charge just a few dollars per hour, but in my experience you barely save any time with them since they need very clear instructions for every step. I'm however looking for someone who can work independently without me needing to tell them what exactly to do.
Does anyone have any suggestions on where I could find someone that can do marketing on their own but is still affordable for an IndieHacker? I guess I could spend $1-2k per month to hire them at least part-time.
I was thinking Upwork, but that might be too expensive. I also checked out onlinejobs.ph which has lots of cheap freelancers but I suspect they won't have the skills to work independently.
[0] My project is https://webtoapp.design where I turn websites into apps. It's a relatively big project to maintain as one engineer. So there's always feature requests, bug fixes etc. to work on.
I’ve been in the same situation. Upwork was fine for task work, but when I needed someone more independent I had better luck with Noxx. It’s not full of random bids, they actually connect you with pre-screened people, which saved me time.
Hey Aulig,
Honestly at your revenue size I'd forget it.
You'll be wasting your money on bottom of the barrel talent.
It might not be something you enjoy, but hey we can't love everything about work. Suck it up for now and reconsider when you have the revenue to hire a decent caliber.
Best
Chris
Fair enough, thanks for your honest feedback Chris. At what hourly rate do you think I could find decent talent?
Very difficult to give you a specific hourly rate - it depends on your country/industry etc.
All I can say for sure is that you'd be better off investing that money in either learning an effective way to do marketing yourself or investing in ads/SEO.
Ask your network -- do you have any indie hacking / business owner friends? Reach out and see who they are using to complete the same type of job. This is probably the best way to find someone though depending on your network size you might not find the right person.
Hire on Upwork (or other freelancing site) -- I've had a lot of success with Upwork. Sure there is some low quality talent but that will be the case anywhere. Set a reasonable budget for what you want. Not rock bottom prices. Schedule a call with the top 3 applicants. Hire the one you like best for a very small project. If they do well hire them for a bigger project. I've worked with 10+ people off Upwork some for a short time others I'm going on 4 years working together.
Thanks, appreciate your input! I'll probably go with Upwork, yea :) I'll see if I get decent applications.
I had greatly inspired by this article and this one was awesome. Thanks to you for giving such information!
Hi Aulig,
My personal opinion as a leader who has been recruiting people for various companies and projects:
Cheap talent doesn't always bring acceptable results.
I know that you're on a limited budget, but try to find the sweet spot when hiring people for various projects.
I think a good place for that could be a LinkedIn, making a post about it, searching or contacting people directly on LinkedIn, or asking your friends for referrals.
I've had the best results with talents from EU countries which i've hired in a mid-level budget, not too high, not too cheap.
Hope that helps.
Hey Aulig,
that's such an interesting question that you pose here. And as your fellow indie hacker, I can totally relate to what you said about marketing:
My experience with marketing people is: In the beginning, they will ask you all kinds of necessary questions to get up to speed with your business model:
It helps if you setup a structure beforehand so that you have the answers totally clear before the marketing person comes in.
My own product, 2Quiet2Market, could help you here. I made it to help indie hackers (and other introverts) get their marketing sorted, and to sustain it with minimal effort, as a habit.
It works like this:
You can setup the initial marketing model alone, and later invite the marketing person you hire so they can login and continue to work on it as well.
Would that help you? If so, sign up at 2Quiet2Market.com
Here's to your success!
Matthias
Founder, 2Quiet2Market
P.S.: Happy to help, should you get stuck.
Hi Matthias,
looks really cool, I'll give it a try. I especially like your "Now what?" button - not as intrusive as a product tour that people just quickly click through, but still there if you need help.
Cool, Aulig, welcome to the club!