What's New: The passive aggressive marketing of Beehiiv vs Kit
(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
Here's what you'll find in this issue:
- The longstanding beef between Beehiiv and Kit came to a head this week, when each company tried to out-"Mean Girl" the other on X.
- OpenAI's DevDay was full of new tools, including a voice chat API and prompt caching. But founders definitely noticed what was missing.
- $25K MRR with a link-in-bio page platform. Charlie Clark has carved out a niche in a crowded market by taking small, calculated risks.
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Beehiiv, Kit, and the most passive aggressive marketing competition ever 🥊
Yesterday, the email marketing company ConvertKit rebranded to "Kit." It was the culmination of 10 months of work, so the Kit staff was understandably quite excited.
But as they were celebrating their triumph, a competitor was in the video lab cooking up a response. That competitor was beehiiv. And their response was nothing short of savage.
Here are the shots that were fired, and what indie hackers can learn about marketing from them.
In the news 📰
👓 College students used Meta's smart glasses to dox people in real time.
📧 Black Friday email marketing myths, debunked.
💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.
🎧 Would you listen to an AI-generated podcast?
👀 "Product Hunt isn't dying, it's becoming gentrified."
🖼️ Has the gavel come down on fine art auction houses?
OpenAI launches real time voice chat API, and more 🚀
OpenAI launched several tools at its annual DevDay on Tuesday, including a voice chat API and image fine-tuning. But there were also a couple of highly anticipated features that it failed to launch, including a full version of its o1 model.
DevDay comes hot on the heels of a major reshuffle at OpenAI, following the departure of three senior executives last week.
With big events like this, it's hard to find the signal in the noise that's relevant for founders. But we got your back:
SaaS Watch 👀
SaaS Watch is a roundup of all the latest micro-SaaS acquisition opportunities. Here are the top three for this week!
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Platform that turns documents into interactive information hubs: $2.5K asking price.
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AI tool for transforming selfies into professional headshots: $35 per month, 100-1K users, $7.5K asking price.
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Boilerplate generator for fast SaaS/AI app development: $0 per month, 10-100 users, $50K asking price.
Solo founder carved a $25K MRR niche out of a saturated market 💰
Charlie Clark built "Liinks" in an established, competitive market. He didn't out-innovate the competition; he just focused on keeping costs low, and providing a stellar experience.
Shortly after quitting his job and launching Liinks, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. So, Charlie got a job, worked on Liinks on the side, then quit his job (again) back in August.
He decided to kick freemium to the curb, and experimentation helped him hit the sweet spot with his pricing.
This short story changed his life, and helped shaped his philosophy as a founder.
Courtland's tweet pick 🐦
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Katie Hignett, Darko Gjorgjievski, Stephen Flanders, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing
