What's New: Successful founders share their biggest f*ckups

(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)

Learn from these founders so you don't make the same mistakes:

• Building in secret, over-focusing on the competition, not optimizing for long-term contracts, and ignoring platform risk can all hurt your business.
• Growing a content-based business? Start (and stay) lean, generate demand before dollars, prioritize content, and make sure your tech stack is scalable.
• Trending on Reddit 26 times led to 16K signups for Vivek Vardhan. Learning Reddit's voice and crafting compelling headlines helped.

Want to grow your business? Try running a promo in the Indie Hackers newsletter to get in front of nearly 70,000 founders. Use code NEW500 for $500 off an intro section ad.

Founders Share Their Biggest Mistakes 🤦‍♀️

by James Fleischmann

We asked successful founders about their biggest fails. Let's learn from their mistakes!

Building in secret

Marc Louvion:

Don't be afraid of people stealing your ideas. The earlier you share them, the faster you know if they're worth your time.

Validate your ideas fast, and move on fast.

Over-focusing on the competition

Jay Tan:

Early in my journey building Zlappo, I was obsessed with stalking my closest competitor, Hypefury. We were both indie hackers who launched around the same time, but somehow they were getting traction faster than me.

So, I subscribed to their email updates and checked their product every day for new features. When they did release new features, I copied them immediately. I even downloaded a list of Hypefury's followers on Twitter, and personally DMed them an offer to try to get them to switch.

All the while, I was neglecting my own paying customers! In business, the battle isn't fought outside, it's fought inside. If you're growing, it's because your house is in order. If you're declining, it's because you're imploding from within. No competitor can decide your fate.

Not talking to customers

Guillaume Moubeche:

In the early days of lemlist, I decided to start billing people on a monthly basis to grow our MRR. We got new signups, but very few sales.

To understand this, we implemented behavioral tracking metrics and looked at the numbers. I hypothesized that our activation rate was low because our platform was too complicated to use. And, based on that assumption alone, I rebuilt the entire platform...without warning our users. It was a disaster.

Communicating with your users is key!

Not validating ideas

Joshua Tiernan:

My biggest mistake was not validating ideas properly. I naively convinced myself that the ideas were going to work, regardless of what the data was telling me.

Kevon Cheung:

I used to build inside my head. What I mean is that I used to imagine what people needed, look up existing solutions to justify my hypothesis, then build a 10% better product. The result? It was insanely difficult to acquire and retain users.

Now, when I make up my mind to build something new, I keep looping in my audience to make sure I'm on the right path.

Not optimizing for long-term contracts

Steven Goh:

My biggest mistake was letting customers become too significant in terms of usage and share of revenue, and not converting them into long-term enterprise contracts.

When they churned, and they did churn, the sudden loss of significant revenue was not a nice pill to swallow.

I learned the importance of a customer success team to help sign regular customers to long-term contracts, which is reducing churn.

Other mistakes

Other mistakes shared by founders include:

• Skipping analytics.

• Over-committing.

• Tech meltdowns.

• Being careless.

• Outsourcing before doing it internally.

• Ignoring platform risk.

Check out the full post here!

Discuss this story.

In the News 📰

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🧵 Threads now has nearly 100M users.

🏛 The UK’s controversial Online Safety Bill becomes law.

🔎 Remarketing vs. retargeting: Here's what you need to know.

💲 Get $100 off an In the News section ad with code MINUS100.

🔗 How to measure success in link building.

🥸 Eliminating imposter syndrome.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

Building a Content-Based Business 📚

from The Hustle newsletter

The Hustle newsletter has a ~$27M valuation. Below, Sam Parr is sharing how they did it.

Here's how you can implement their learnings to grow your content-based business!

Start (and stay) lean

Don't overspend on things you don't need:

• Make sure your tech stack is affordable, scalable, and easy to use.
• Utilize free marketing strategies to drive signups.

When it's time to spend, prioritize talent.

Generate demand before dollars

Do your homework and make sure there is a market for your content. Make your own luck by becoming insanely curious about your target market.

Identify the problems your ideal subscribers are facing by digging into Reddit threads, Facebook Groups, and anywhere else people spill their guts online about your topic.

Then, find a niche by identifying gaps that aren't being addressed:

• Make blogging count with strong, original SEO content to attract an audience you can convert into subscribers.

• Get people talking about your content by tapping into your network.

• Paid ads work when you've established a healthy domain.

Prioritize content

Invest in the best talent you can find. Look for writers who are creative, ravenously curious, undiscovered, and not intimidated by high standards.

Find them in other publications or on social media, and reach out to recruit them to your team.

Make bank

Patience, grasshopper. It took The Hustle almost a year of hard work to generate revenue. Initially, Sam drove revenue by selling affiliate ads himself, and only hired a salesperson when revenue covered expenses.

They waited until the newsletter had 1M subscribers to launch a paid membership model. Meanwhile, they focused on delivering content that won them legions of fans.

Subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.

Harry's Growth Tip 🧠

from the Marketing Examples newsletter

Social proof that sells is short, sweet, and full of specifics:

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

Trending on Reddit Led to 16K Signups 🌟

by Vivek Vardhan

Four months after launching my SaaS, I trended on Reddit 26 times, resulting in 16K+ signups for the project.

The background

I've been an active Reddit user for over a decade. My initial interactions on the platform often led to me picking fights with internet strangers, and getting banned frequently. However, this experience turned out to be valuable, as it helped me understand the nature and voice of the platform.

Reddit, like all other platforms, has its own unique voice and way of communicating. Many learn this the hard way after being downvoted into oblivion.

The goal

Our primary objective was to harness the vast Reddit audience to channel traffic to our website, ultimately driving signups for our products. While the most straightforward approach was to encourage email signups on the landing page, the effectiveness of this strategy depended on specific use cases.

The methods

1. Understanding Reddit's voice: A crucial aspect of Reddit marketing is grasping the platform's unique voice and dynamics. Reddit has its own culture and etiquette, and ignoring this can lead to negative sentiment that hinders the algorithmic push your content needs to trend.

2. Thorough research: Before diving in, I searched related keywords, products, and services that had previously trended. This provided insights into what works and what doesn't. I also explored the comment sections.

3. Crafting the perfect headline: Crafting a compelling headline is crucial to capture users' attention. I kept my headlines simple and relevant to the subreddit I was targeting.

4. Starting small: I initiated my journey by testing the waters in niche subreddits, including local city subreddits and interest-based groups. These smaller communities allowed me to validate my approach before targeting larger audiences. The goal was always to identify which combinations of words garnered the most attention.

5. Managing multiple IDs: To maximize my reach and avoid overexposure, I managed over 10 Reddit accounts. Using multiple accounts must be done ethically and within Reddit's guidelines. To be perfectly honest, many of my accounts were banned due to misuse.

Results and competition

My efforts paid off significantly, but as success attracted attention, competitors began adopting similar strategies, making the method less effective. Consequently, it's crucial to continuously adapt and innovate to stay ahead of the competition.

Certain trends on Reddit can be repeated every six months if executed effectively. Staying informed about changing trends and community preferences is essential for long-term success.

If you're interested in collaborating, or have any questions, please feel free to connect on LinkedIn!

Discuss this story.

The Tweetmaster's Pick 🐦

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

Enjoy This Newsletter? 🏁

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to James Fleischmann, Darko, Susie Ippolito, Harry Dry, and Vivek Vardhan for contributing posts. —Channing