I quit my earn out to go back to indiehacking

It hasn’t ever been publicly announced but back in July 2018 I sold my startup Surveybot to a larger SaaS company.

At the time I wasn’t looking to sell as I had only been working on it for 1.5 years. But I got approached one day by email and about 6 weeks later the deal was done.

Looking back I was probably burning out working solo on Surveybot. I had more or less reached the $10K per month milestone but I made some strategic mistakes which I will share in another post.

I got a healthy revenue multiple for Surveybot. The deal was split 50% up front and the final 50% in 3 milestones.

The acquisition was strategic so my role was to lead product for the new strategy we agreed on. In hindsight I was definitely naive going into the role at this company. There were many things I wasn’t really aware of which I put down to not having previous experience in a larger company.

I stayed for 2.5 years and we successfully launched the new product which was what the original strategy was based on. Coming from the startup world and being solo working at this pace was always frustrating for me. I found it hard to get my head around at first. I would ask myself questions like “why is it that we have a huge team of people but can’t execute fast?”. Over time I got used to it but I always had the nagging desire to go back to building my own startup.

In the end I only achieved 1 of the 3 milestones for the final 50% of the acquisition. On paper it wasn’t a good financial decision to leave but I know I will be happier slogging it out as an indiehacker. Being able to go from decision to execution in a short timeframe is incredibly satisfying. I’m really looking forward to having the autonomy of an indiehacker again.

On a more positive note getting out at the time was the best thing for me and the time I have had away from indiehacking has given me great perspective. Not only have I been able to look back on what I have done in the past I also got to watch from the sidelines what everyone has been up to. And it’s crazy to see how fast things are moving. I realize I am in a bubble following everyone on Twitter but it’s awesome / fomo to see all the progress people have been making.

In saying this I definitely glamorized indiehacking and forgot how hard it was to start from scratch with just an idea. My plan is to try out a “few” ideas and see if I can find something that works which I am passionate about. I am tempted to do the “12 startups” challenge but I’m afraid working 1 month on an idea is not enough to really give something a proper go.

To begin with I am releasing my first idea Product fit - https://getproductfit.com
Having worked on Surveybot and seeing the Product/Market fit engine become popular a couple of years ago I always wanted to build a focused product around the Product/Market fit engine.

I plan to spend the next month or so marketing it and seeing how the validation goes. If anyone is interested in trying out the product for their SaaS feel free to get in touch. I am looking for early adopters and will be happy to provide the product for free in exchange for your use and feedback :)

I also plan to keep writing here so feel free to follow if you want to keep up to date on my progress venturing back into indiehacking.