Week 41 - New client, $4800 MRR, 27 new community members
Hello community!
I am a full-time indie hacker, making my dream come true and every week I share what happened behind the scenes so that more people can learn and get inspired through my journey!
Here is the update from last week 🙌
My strategy
I am on a mission to empower fellow makers build products their users will love. For the ones who don't know, I am following the small bets strategy of Daniel Vassalo.
-
Build a community - by writing educational UX content and sharing it with my newsletter community here on IndieHackers and on Twitter - http://indiehackers.com/series/the-human-centered-maker
-
UX freelancing - team-up with others for <20h per week and $4500 min revenue - jimzarkadas.com
-
Micro-SaaS - make usability testing more accessible to small teams and solo founders with thinkoutloud.io.
What's new
Community
- 27 people joined us (21 on twitter, 6 on IndieHackers)
- I joined https://ship30for30.com to learn how to write better and build a writing habit. Writing is hard and I need a community of experts to help and guide me on how to do it right.
- I revampled my Twitter profile to communicate better my mission and provide a clear "join us" call-to-action. Here is the full neuromarketing approach behind it.
UX Freelancing
I sent a proposal to the client that reached out to me the week before, and they said yes! 🥳
I'll also share the proposal I sent them (terms + price) soon!
Big thanks to @YounglingAndCo / Twitter) for our 1-1 session and for helping me focus on value-based pricing!
On top of this, I also:
- reached out to 4 design sprint studios in The Netherlands (e.g. http://prototypefactory.co)
- applied to Toptal
- applied to IxDF (https://www.interaction-design.org)
My goal is to create a steady stream of high-quality UX projects that will not only help me survive ($$$) but also grow my skills.
Micro-SaaS
The last week was the 1st week of our 2-week cool down period with Scott, my co-founder for thinkoutloud.io. We follow the shape up methodology from Basecamp.
We are focused now on updating the new landing page and on planning the next 6 weeks project-cycle.
Our goal is to release our private beta in Q2!
End note
Life as an indie maker is random. The only way to make it is to show up every day and develop back-up plans to survive and stay on-track.
Two weeks ago I was stressed with my income and now I make more revenue than I need to survive. 🤷♂️
Who knows what's gonna happen next week/ month. 😅
The only thing I can control and focus on, is to keep creating value for others and to save/invest money to extend my runway.
That's all for this week!
Keep creating. Keep showing up and we will all make it in the end <3
Nice, Jim! Good job! 👍
@RjYoungling is on IH, too. :)
:)
Thanks guys. Both of you are legit!
Hey Jim. It's great seeing your progress. Way to go!!
Hey man! Long time no see :-D Thank you a lot :)
Hi, I really like your update! I'm documenting my journey too, it's fun (not always haha).
Not sure which UX community you were talking about though...
Followed you on Twitter to be in the now of your updates :)
Hey! Thanks a lot for the positive vibe :) and yes it’s not always fun as you said haha some weeks are really tough.
For the UX community I mean my newsletter here in indiehackers http://indiehackers.com/series/the-human-centered-maker
Wow, this is interesting! I didn't know you can have a newsletter here. How have you created it?
Thank you! They currently allow a small group of indiehackers to create a series from what I've understood, and I had to ask Rossie pitch my newsletter etc - she finally redirected me to Channing and he gave me access to create one :-)
Cool! Thanks for sharing :)
Preach
Haha yes!