The Deep Dive: Geert Jan Sloos of PayRequest

Geert never expected his project to take off. Mostly because he was only building it for himself. Yet after a few conversations with interested beta users, Geert realized that what he'd created — a simple service to handle payment links and reminders — had serious commercial value. Thus, PayRequest was born.

After a conversation with Bram (my co-founder), we decided to build a simple service to create payment requests, not knowing that it would grow to a no-code payment platform that serves all markets worldwide.

Overnight, he made the transition from manager of a small, Netherlands-based hosting company, to startup entrepreneur.

But first he had to figure out how to market his brand new startup.

I have enough experience in online marketing, but promoting a startup worldwide was a big challenge for me. I was quite nervous when we finally launched on Product Hunt. Luckily, it was a great success and we got our first clients.

And yet, Geert's biggest challenge wasn't just the usual launch and marketing. He was trying to market in a language he wasn't fully comfortable with — English.

PayRequest is my first worldwide business. It's much harder for an indie hacker from a country where English is not the first language.

Geert knew he had to get comfortable with both business and language skills for PayRequest to find any real success. So he started putting as much work into himself as he did his business.

He began blogging about his company in English and reading English books about entrepreneurship alongside developing a pricing strategy and marketing approach.

Depending on your background, it's always a good idea to invest in yourself. That can be with online courses like learning a programming language, or buying books about entrepreneurship. Find a way to invest in your own progress.

Read on to find out how Geert developed himself and PayRequest to be so successful that he was able reach ramen profitability on nothing but a 1% fee per transaction.