Marie shared her journey of entrepreneurship, building a successful bootstrapped business, and finding balance as a co-founder and parent.

Here's a snapshot of the wisdom she shared 👇🏾

Startup Insights

• “Freedom” isn’t guaranteed: Starting a business often means working harder than ever before.

• Small teams, big impact: Keeping the team lean helps reduce costs and improve efficiency.

• Ask for advice: Seeking input from others can provide fresh perspectives and solutions.

Product Development

• Simplicity wins: Easy-to-use products improve user experience and reduce the need for support.

• Your product is your marketing: A great product can promote itself.

• Relatability matters: Solving a problem you deeply understand leads to better solutions.

Growth Strategies

• Free users are gold: Happy free-tier users can become powerful advocates.

• Transparency builds trust: Sharing the journey openly helps build a strong brand identity.

• Building in public works: Sharing progress and milestones engages your audience and fosters loyalty.

Co-Founder Dynamics

• Balance is everything: Marie and her co-founder (and husband) treat Tally as their “third baby,” alongside parenting responsibilities.

Sound Bites

• "Simplicity is key."

• "Tally is like a third baby for us."

• "Don't stop building, find your users."

Watch the Full Episode!

Check out the full conversation for an in-depth look at Marie’s approach to building Tally, lessons from bootstrapping, and practical advice for anyone growing and scaling a business. 🚀

👉🏾 Watch now on YouTube!

Sponsor

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Send invoice on Hagfish

From navigating the highs and lows of a VC-backed startup to acquiring an $800k product(that almost failed), John shares the pivotal moments and insights that shaped his entrepreneurial journey.

A Shift in Perspective

John started in the high-stakes world of venture capital, where the pressure to scale quickly often outweighed the importance of long-term sustainability.

After experiencing firsthand how most startups fail, he pivoted to bootstrapping—a world where persistence, skill development, and community building took center stage.

The Indie Hacker Reality

John offered an unfiltered critique of the IndieHacker culture, which often glamorizes quick exits and overnight success.

He highlighted how many in the community aren’t true entrepreneurs, but hobbyists looking for shortcuts.

Real success, he stressed, comes from building trust, solving genuine problems, and focusing on sustainable growth.

For example, John’s emphasis on SEO wasn’t just a strategy—it was a daily discipline. He explained how building organic traffic sources is the backbone of any business.

While tools like AI can assist, they can’t replace the human effort needed to truly connect with an audience.

Why You Shouldn’t Quit Your Job Yet

One of John’s strongest pieces of advice? Don’t quit your job too early. Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint.

A stable income allows founders to experiment, fail, and iterate without the pressure of financial instability.

Lessons for Founders

• Solve real problems: Products that meet genuine needs are more valuable than those chasing trends.

• Build trust: Community and user feedback are critical to long-term success.

• Focus on the process: Replicating someone’s success won’t work; it’s the process that matters.

• Invest in SEO: Building organic traffic is slow but essential for sustainable growth.

• Keep your day job: It’s your safety net while building something meaningful.

Some Memorable Quotes from John

• “Do not quit your job to become an indie hacker”

• “You have to build organic sources of traffic.”

• “Do not expect the journey to be quick.”

Want to Learn More?

• Video: Watch John Rush on BBoJS #6

• Tools & Processes: Explore John’s recommendations

• Connect with John: X, Website.

Sponsor

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From a small startup idea to a platform educating over 1.5 million developers, Per Borgen's journey with Scrimba is a story of innovation in tech education.

Scrimba has redefined how people learn to code, focusing on interactive and project-based teaching that keeps users engaged and makes learning fun.

Watch on YouTube

Scrimba's Journey: From Experiment to Essential Platform

Scrimba wasn’t built in a day. Per and his team started with a simple goal: to make online coding education more effective.

They quickly realised that traditional video tutorials weren’t enough, leading them to develop Scrimba’s unique interactive video format. This shift empowered learners to code directly within the video, turning passive watching into active learning.

Along the way, Scrimba faced challenges, including a complete rewrite of the platform (V2) to boost performance.

The key to their success? Constant user feedback, community engagement, and a dedication to project-based learning.

Building a Profitable EdTech Business

Per’s strategy for Scrimba has always focused on sustainability. Unlike many startups, Scrimba didn’t rely heavily on venture capital. Instead, they prioritized revenue and user satisfaction. Highlights from Scrimba’s business journey include:

• Project-based Learning: The heart of Scrimba’s curriculum, helping learners build practical skills.

• Imba Language: A fast, elegant programming language powering the platform.

• Y Combinator Support: A crucial boost, although Scrimba has raised less than most peers.

• Profit-First Mindset: Focus on profitability over quick funding.

Insights on the Future of Learning Platforms

Per offered valuable thoughts on the future of online learning:

1. AI Integration: Exploring how AI can personalize and improve learning experiences.

2. Backend Support: Expanding to full-stack development, making Scrimba a one-stop shop.

3. Community Engagement: Building strong relationships with learners through social media and feedback loops.

What Makes Scrimba Different?

"I don’t just teach coding, I make coding accessible for everyone," Per shared during the conversation. Here are some of the standout features:

• Interactive Format: Code and learn simultaneously, a first in the industry.

• Personalization: Focus on user projects to boost engagement and motivation.

• Community-Driven Approach: Strong emphasis on feedback and user needs.

Key Takeaways for Aspiring EdTech Founders

1. Innovate Where It Matters: Scrimba’s success is rooted in transforming the video format.

2. Listen to Your Users: Feedback has been instrumental in shaping the platform.

3. Bootstrap with a Purpose: Focus on revenue early, and avoid funding for the sake of it.

4. Be Prepared for a Long Journey: Scrimba’s path to success has been anything but quick.

Resources Worth Exploring

For those who want to dive deeper into Scrimba’s story:

• Watch the Full Interview on YouTube

• Check out Scrimba’s latest courses and explore their interactive format.

• Follow Per Borgen's journey on LinkedIn and X for insights on tech education.

• Where Does Indie Hacking Ideas come from?

• How Viable is Your MVP?

K.O.O’s Note

The Scrimba story is truly inspiring, embodying the entrepreneurial ethos of "scratch your own itch." Perhaps you, too, can attract 1.5 million users or more by addressing an itch you've identified.

From struggling with basic programming to building a million-dollar education business, Kent C. Dodds shares his journey of becoming one of the most influential educators in the JavaScript ecosystem. His story proves that with dedication and the right approach, developers can create significant impact beyond writing code.

Watch on YouTube

The Journey: From PayPal to EdTech Entrepreneur

Kent's path wasn't always clear. Starting as a developer who initially struggled with programming concepts, he found his breakthrough moment with JavaScript. This discovery eventually led him to leave a cushy $150K job at PayPal to pursue his passion for teaching.

What many don't know is that Kent's transition wasn't an overnight success. It took years of:

• Building a reputation in the JavaScript community

• Creating free content that showcased his teaching style

• Developing relationships with companies for workshops

• Gradually building his Twitter following (now over 271k)

The Business of JavaScript Education

Some fascinating numbers from Kent's journey:

• Initial workshop rates: $1,500/day

• Current course business: Seven figures annually

• Time to first $1M in course sales: Less than 18 months

But it wasn't just about the money. Kent emphasizes three core pillars:

1. Building a strong community

2. Focusing on student success stories

3. Continuously improving content based on feedback

Insights on Modern JavaScript Development

Kent shared valuable perspectives on the evolving landscape:

1. The AI Revolution: Embracing tools like GitHub Copilot while focusing on teaching fundamental concepts

2. Community-First Approach: Building in public and sharing knowledge freely

3. Sustainable Business Models: Creating high-quality, evergreen content

The Education Ecosystem

Kent's success highlights a shift in the JavaScript education landscape:

Traditional Learning

• University courses

• Bootcamps

• Technical books

Kent's Approach

• Interactive and self-paced online courses and workshops

• Community-driven learning

• Project-based teaching

• Personalized learning paths

What Sets Kent Apart?

His unique selling points:

1. Deep understanding of JavaScript fundamentals

2. Ability to explain complex concepts simply

3. Building a supportive community around his courses

Key Takeaways for Aspiring Entrepreneur-Developers

1. Find Your Niche: Kent found his in teaching JavaScript and React

2. Build in Public: Share your learning journey

3. Focus on Relationships: "Be the kind of person people want to work with"

4. Patience is Key: "Building something that lasts takes a really long time"

What's Next for Kent?

Current focuses:

• Evolving courses with new JavaScript features

• Exploring AI integration in education

• Building and supporting his community

• Potentially expanding into new teaching mediums

Resources Worth Checking Out

For those inspired by Kent's journey:

• EpicReact v2 launch

• EpicWeb

• Kent's blog for free content and insights

• Kent on X

Kelvin’s Note

Kent's journey from PayPal engineer to educational entrepreneur reminds us that success in the JavaScript ecosystem isn't just about technical skills. It's about finding your passion, sharing knowledge, and building meaningful relationships in the community.

What's your take on Kent's journey? Hit reply and let me know!

The single most common mistake indie hackers make is building stuff nobody wants. - John O’Nolan

In this conversation, John O'Nolan, co-founder of Ghost, shares his journey from aspiring musician to tech entrepreneur.

He discusses his early experiences with WordPress, the evolution of Ghost as a focused publishing platform, and the challenges faced while using Node.js.

John also delves into the philosophy behind Ghost's non-profit model, emphasizing the importance of user-centric product decisions over profit-driven motives.

John O'Nolan discusses the value of freedom in work, the ideal business model for indie hackers, and the challenges of remote work.

He emphasizes the importance of creating enjoyable and life-affirming products that engage users.

The discussion also covers the differences between bootstrapping and VC funding, the future of long-form content, and insights into the tech stack used in Ghost.

O'Nolan shares recommendations for movies, books, and podcasts, and concludes with advice for aspiring builders on understanding user needs and focusing on what people truly want.

Takeaways

• John transitioned from music to tech after realizing his limitations as a musician.

• He started building websites for bands, which led to a career in web development.

• Contributing to WordPress helped him gain credibility and higher freelance rates.

• Ghost was born out of a desire to refocus on publishing, away from WordPress's broad scope.

• The decision to use Node.js for Ghost was both a blessing and a curse.

• John emphasizes the importance of a beginner's mindset in entrepreneurship.

• Non-profit models allow for long-term thinking without the pressure of acquisitions.

• The independence of Ghost allows for user-focused product decisions.

• John believes in making a good salary while working on what he loves.

• He values the unique challenges and opportunities presented by open-source development.

• The freedom from pursuing a mythical startup exit is invaluable.

• Open source projects should prioritize user trust and independence.

• An ideal business model allows for personal lifestyle choices without VC pressure.

• Remote work presents unique challenges that require adaptation.

• Creating enjoyable and life-affirming products is essential for engagement.

• Understanding user needs is crucial for successful product development.

• Long-form content still has a place despite the rise of short-form video.

• Bootstrapping is a viable option for many software companies.

• The tech stack of a project can evolve over time, often becoming a patchwork.

• Side projects can be a great way to explore new ideas and interests.

Watch on YouTube

This week, we're diving into an inspiring story that proves the power of side projects and persistent vision. Meet Kamran Ahmed, the mastermind behind Roadmap.sh, a platform that's revolutionising how developers navigate their learning journeys.

Takeaways

• Roadmap.sh is a platform that provides learning paths for different skills and technologies, helping beginners and intermediate developers navigate their learning journey.

• The platform offers free content and resources, making learning accessible to everyone.

• Kamran started roadmap.sh as a side project to help students and developers find their career path, but it has grown into a successful business.

• The decision to transition roadmap.sh into a business was prompted by the need to provide more features and support for the growing community.

• The platform aims to be the go-to resource for learning, providing comprehensive roadmaps, courses, and projects for various roles and skills. Roadmap.sh offers curated learning roadmaps for developers, with a focus on making learning accessible and generating revenue.

• The team behind Roadmap.sh is lean, consisting of two full-time members and one part-time member.

• The tech stack includes Astro, Node.js, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, and is deployed on AWS with CloudFront for fast page loading.

• The design of Roadmap.sh has gone through several iterations, with the founder continuously improving and experimenting with the design. Having a good eye for design is important for indie hackers and developers.

• Building side projects is a great way to learn and gain experience

• Persistence and consistency are key to success.

• Roadmap aims to integrate AI to make the user experience even better.

• Kamran’s top movies: Pursuit of Happyness, Source Code, and Dark Matter.

• Kamran’s top books: Designing Data-Intensive Applications, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams.

• Kamran’s top podcasts: Masters of Scale and Syntax FM

Watch on YouTube

Follow Kamran on Twitter: @kamrify. Check out Roadmap.sh

Happy building!

Hey indie hacker, it’s been a while I wrote to you and that’s because I have been busy working on Hagfish which just launched today 🥳.

If you send up to 5 invoices per month, you should go try out Hagfish with a 60% off any plan with this discount code GYMDG3NQ.

P.S: The discount code can only be used in March, 2024.

Alright, let’s dive into today’s issue…

I often come across variations of the below question:

I think the above question comes from a place of overly emphasising building the product and having less emphasis on marketing, sales, and, distributions.

Let’s be honest, the best product is not the one with the best engineering, its the one with the best engineering that you know about.

Marketing matters a lot for big companies, but it's even more crucial for indie hackers like you.

People want shortcuts to decide what and who to buy from. So, good marketing helps you stand out and attracts customers, which is super important for indie hackers that want to succeed.

One of those shortcuts comes from a place of trusting the person building the product.

So here is what you should do when starting out indie hacking with 0 following 👇🏾

Get a following 🤷🏾‍♂️

Perhaps it’s not the solution you hoped for but the idea is quite simple: get a following.

If you can't get someone to like your post or follow you on social media, how can you convince them to swipe their credit card?

To quote Ben Orenstein of Tuple in his Laracon US 2023 talk:

As I have mentioned a couple of times on the internet; programming is not the most important skill when it comes to indie hacking.

Your most important skill is the ability to solve problems and make money from that solution.

You see, getting a following is signal to how good your marketing(persuasion) chops are.

Marketing often receives criticism, but in my view, if you've created something that you know people need, you have a moral obligation to inform them of how your creation solves their problems. That's what marketing means for the indie hacker.

Think of your social media posts as offering something valuable for free—whether it's an idea, a tip, or something else. If you can't effectively 'sell' this free offering and still gain followers, it might be challenging to convince anyone to spend money on your products or services later on.

The game is give, give, give… then ask.

I recall the earnest beginnings of my indie hacking journey, steadily growing my Twitter(X) following from 500+ to now 18,000+ within just a year.

My strategy revolved around consistently delivering value without immediately asking for anything in return.

What I've discovered is that many rush to sell without first earning social currency through giving value in their posts.

When cultivating your audience, resist the urge to push sales too soon. Instead, focus on building trust by consistently providing value and authentically engaging with your audience.

Remember, authenticity and relatability are key to fostering lasting connections.

Be consistent

I can’t stress this enough because most people quit three feat from gold.

Before you quit on growing your audience and blaming the “algorithm”, take the Rockefeller test as coined by Ben Wilson 👇🏾

If you have clarity on your goals and you know this is what you really want, ask yourself "Have I failed about twice as much as any reasonable person could possibly expect?"

Only then think about doing something different.

Marketing is part of your journey

Remember, mastering the art of marketing yourself and your product is an integral part of your indie hacking journey.

Don't overlook it; instead, embrace it as a crucial aspect of the process.

Learn from those you admire who have excelled in this.

Take proactive steps, experiment with different approaches, analyse the outcomes, and adapt as needed if you're not achieving your desired results within a reasonable timeframe.

Happy indie hacking!

WTF is an MVP?

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product and here is how Wikipedia defines it:

A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development

As an indie hacker, until you launch a version of your product your customers can use a.k.a MVP, you are mostly just guessing.

And no, an MVP is not a Figma design 👀. It is a minimum and viable version of your product that you put in the hands of your users and see what they think about it. An MVP also allow you get feedback that will aid your iteration, pivot, or otherwise.

Without an MVP, all you have is an idea with no evidence that it’s something people really need or will pay for. In fact, the sooner you have something out there, the quicker you will know if folks will pay for it or not.

Just ship it?

So as we have established earlier, it’s important to ship quickly, but there is a downside to the current "just ship it" culture: it may lead to underwhelming MVPs that fail to deliver even the basic features that your product is advertised to have.

As I develop the MVP for Hagfish, I keep pondering on what truly defines a great MVP. Where does one draw the line between something minimal but useful and something that's just not usable at all?

And I am not the only one thinking this way, JR Farr, CEO & Co-founder of Lemon Squeezy had this to say about the current state of MVPs 👇🏾

Take for example Hagfish, if after launching the MVP, you can’t create an invoice even though Hagfish promises a better modern invoicing management experience, would you call that a great MVP? Absolutely not!

Or folks can effortlessly register and log in to Hagfish, but the process of creating an invoice involves a painful and seemingly worsened experience compared to your previous methods. Does that still qualify as a great MVP? The answer still remains no!

You are probably getting where I’m going with this but let’s see what Pieter Levels has to say about the subject matter:

Colourful language there Pieter, but I think you get the point - Users have to be able to use your MVP!

Viable viable viable

What does the world viable mean? It means capable of working successfully.

To the perfectionist, this doesn’t mean your product should be free of bugs 🐞(there will always be bug). What this means is that your users can do the stuff they came to the product for successfully.

Just enough features to be usable

I hate to break it to you, but user authentication (login, sign up, etc.) is not part of your MVP; it's just baseline requirements.

In fact, getting things like user authentication out of the way is one of the reasons I built The Boring JavaScript Stack to aid indie hackers to focus one what matters as you build out your MVP and iterate on your products.

When I say features, I mean the value you said the users of your product will have; your MVP should be able to enable that in some form.

For instance, imagine your product is a to-do list app (bear with me). Basics like adding, deleting, and marking tasks as completed are the essentials. The MVP's unique value lies in features such as prioritizing tasks, setting due dates, or organizing tasks into categories. These features deliver the promised value to users and should be present, in some form, in your MVPs.

You might be thinking, “But Kelvin, isn't the ability to add, delete, and mark tasks as completed what makes a to-do list 😭?” Yes, you are right, but I can do that on the iPhone’s Reminder app. So if that's what you're offering, I might as well just use that app, no 👀?

Bugs 🐞 are fine

As mentioned earlier, it's acceptable to have bugs when shipping your MVP, but they shouldn't be so impactful that they hinder users from carrying out operations.

When releasing your MVPs, ensure you have a mechanism to gather feedback from early users and swiftly address issues. Nothing is more frustrating than critical bugs going unaddressed, causing significant inconvenience for users.

Your MVP should be SLC

I heard the acronym SLC from JR Farr for the first time and it really resonated with me. In fact, it gave a name to how I’ve thought about building products be it MVPs and beyond.

SLC is a termed coined by Jason Cohen, Founder at WP Engine and it stands for Simple Loveable, and, Complete.

I really like the idea of an SLC and I don’t think you have to substitute the acronym MVP for a newer one SLC(please not another acronym 😅). However the mindset is what’s important and what you have to think about as you build your products.

Understand: even though the essence of an MVP is to foster learning, it would be a disservice to your users to ship something that is not both simple to use and loveable. Without this simplicity and an element of love, it won’t be complete enough for them to eagerly anticipate and embrace future iterations of the product.

So build your MVPs with an SLC mindset.

Further reading

• Your customers hate MVPs. Make a SLC instead.

• How we ship at Lemon Squeezy

• The Build chapter of Make

I once put out this post on Twitter/X 👇🏾

However, I do know that money(or the lack of it) 💰 is usually a big factor in our choices in life and even more when you decide to be an indie hacker.

Let’s face it, indie hackers are in the business of providing value and solving problems for folks to get paid for the value given(as business has been for eons).

For most of us, we’ve been inspired by the indie hacking greats like Peter Levels, Taylor Otwell, Adam Wathan, etc to want to make a living outside a 9 - 5 job or being VC funded.

But how does one fund their indie hacking journey? How do you still take care of life’s needs and expenses as you hack your way to that juicy MRR/ARR? Let’s talk about a couple of ways indie hackers can do just that.

Get a job

At a point, you may need to have a jobs that will allow you work on your indie hacking ideas on the side while having the “safety net” of a salary.

I know, I know, you don’t like a 9 - 5(me neither), you want to build and work on your own terms but there are levels and stages to actually being ready financially to become an indie hacker.

Getting a job provides a “safety net” to take care of your bills as you hack on your ideas on the side(the side hustle).

Also, I don’t mean get any job just because of the money, to make it fun, chose a job - if you have that luxury - to work on things you can enjoy and grow in.

Most indie hackers I know, at a point were employees and from their employ they were able to learn a lot and save a lot to leave their 9 - 5 and make their side thing their main thing.

For example, Taylor Otwell once worked at UserScape, Adam Wathan and Caleb Porzio both worked at Tighten, just to name a few.

One thing I want to draw your attention to is this: being able to save while you have your 9 - 5.

On the topic of savings, this will be am important habit you should develop no matter how you chose to fund your indie hacking journey.

Freelancing

Now this is a classic way to fund your indie hacking journey in the early days. When freelancing you take a skill you are good at(web development, graphics design, etc) and exchange giving service with said skills for money.

With freelancing you are actually solving problems for people but you are doing it by exchanging your time for money and you are working as an individual/contractor.

With enough skill and ability to convince folks to take a chance on you, you can start earning money from freelance gigs while you work on your indie hacking ideas on the side and make it profitable.

Development agency

Dev agencies like freelancing provide software development services to their clientele in exchange for money. But unlike freelancing, you assemble a team and have a registered business that act as a vehicle for you to carry out your agency services.

Since you have a team you’d be able to cater for more clients and earn more from services rendered. Two agencies I admire are:

• Spatie and,

• Tighten.

In fact, Caleb Porzio once worked at Tighten before venturing out into the wild wild world of indie hacking on projects like Livewire and Alpine

I’ve also seen a couple of ideas come out from development agencies for example 37Signals, the makers of Basecamp was once a dev shop and they built Basecamp to solve their own product management problem.

One-time purchase educational resources

I know SaaS is sort of the gold standard for indie hackers but do you know you can still fund your journey to making that SaaS by creating education resources that are purchased one-time?

I’m talking about courses and ebooks. Here is an example, Adam Wathan sold a couple of ebooks before creating Tailwind CSS and Tailwind Labs to work on Tailwind UI:

• Refactoring Collections

• Refactoring UI

For this to work, you need to have shown trusted expertise in the subject matter you want to create educational resources on.

You know what that means right? It means you have the skill and experience and you’ve shown enough people enough of both for them to trust you to buy your educational resources.

I know indie hackers(you can also call them indie educators) who don’t sell SaaS subscriptions but what they do is create educational resources, here are a few:

• Josh Comeau

• Wes Bos

• Scott Tolinski

Derisk yourself

Let’s face it, creating a product that will completely replace the need for a 9 - 5 job as an indie hacker takes time, luck, and patience. I’ve seen folks being frustrated because the time might be longer than they expected.

When you employ any of the various ways mentioned above to get funds to bootstrap your indie hacking journey, you derisk yourself so you can make better choices as you don’t have to worry about rent and the other financial obligations you have.

I’m not saying it’s easy but hey you are an indie hacker and that speaks volume that you don’t want to do what’s easy.

I hate to be the one to tell you but, the basic economics of supply and demand also applies here in the indie hacking world on our digital products.

Understand: It is not enough to have an excellent idea, you’d also need to build what people want or need(I will always go for need, more on this later!).

As we have established in a previous issue, indie hackers build for profit and it’s a whole new ball game when it comes to creating what folks will find valuable enough for them to pull out their credit card and subscribe for a monthly or yearly usage of your SaaS.

You see, when you are writing code as an employee in a company, you get paid whether the code contributes to the bottom line of making money or not. However in indie hacking, you write code with making money in mind from day one.

Why will I pay for your stuff?

There are a couple of factors that will make folks pay for your stuff.

• Do they find what you’ve built valuable?

• Even if they do, can they afford to pay for it?

• How long will they be able to continue paying for it?

Think about it, how many times have you paid for a subscription to a service and canceled it later down the line when you are strapped for cash or you have other priority expenses?(don’t worry I do it too!)

I often see folks who just started indie hacking sort of plead for usage of their products. To me that’s quite interesting as I don’t think I’ve ever used any product out of pity for the creator.

I know I have written before about scratching your own itch but there is a fine line between building something that solves just your problem and building something that solves your problem and is also valuable to others that they’d pay for it too.

Taylor Otwell and Forge

You all know I’ll always cite real world indie hackers and one of my favourite has always been Taylor Otwell, the creator of Laravel. Let’s take a look at how he built what folks needed and not want with Forge.

After Taylor Otwell had phenomenal success with Laravel, he noticed that for him, deploying a Laravel application was sort of a pain because he had to do a lot of stuff on managing and configuring web servers manually.

Being entrepreneurial, he thought to build a web app to make deploying Laravel applications easy and that’s how Forge was born.

Taylor launched Forge with little expectations for usage. In fact, he predicted he will make $500/month from Forge but little did he know how wrong he was because he built a solution to a need.

Folks building with Laravel needed to easily deploy their applications and manage servers and what better way to do that than to use the same tool the creator of Laravel uses to deploy and manage servers himself.

Forge went on to replace Taylor’s salary and then some.

Adam Wathan and Tailwind UI

Adam is another one of my favourite indie hackers. He made a beautiful utility-first CSS framework called Tailwind CSS which blew up and got world-wide adoption(I should know because I use it myself)

Even though Tailwind CSS gave folks the building blocks to build amazing UI without the hassle of maintaining a CSS file, some users of Tailwind needed pre-made components and website templates based on Tailwind CSS that they could just copy-paste and speed up building their projects.

Turns out this was a brilliant idea and they were quite a number of folks who needed this. Tailwind UI has made over $1,000,000 in its life time so far.

Wants change, needs hardly do

I can go on and on but I think you get the idea from those two examples. It’s good to build what people want but what’s great is building what they need.

Building wants can get people excited, heck you’d get the likes and shares but in the long run folks will only pay for what they need.

So as an indie hacker that should be your focus; building what your users won’t see as a want but a need to solve the problems they care about.

To put another way, chose to build must-have instead of nice-to-have.

Understand: if I want your product today and not need it, I can as well don’t want it tomorrow but it’s hard to change needs.

If you are new to indie hacking, a question that might be on top of your mind is “What ideas do I work on?”

As always, we are going to cite real world indie hackers and how they got their ideas but first, let’s see what Pieter Levels - an indie hacking legend - have to say about where ideas come from 👇🏾

With his usual tough love 😅, Pieter is hinting on what I’ve believed for years and it’s how I approach doing indie hacking and this is…

Scratch your own itch

To “scratch your own itch” means to create solutions for problems you already have.

In my opinion, scratching your own itch is a very sure way to get ideas to work on as an indie hacker.

When you scratch your own itch, you are user 0 - the first user - of your product.

You are not building a product that is a solution in search of a problem, rather you are solving a pain in your life.

Remember the saying “have a taste of your own medicine”? When you scratch your itch, you use the solution you want others to use.

I honestly can’t trust an indie hacker who don’t use the product they are building.

Kitze and the Browser for web developers

I think I’ve known Kitze for almost 5 years now and I really love the way he does indie hacking.

When Kitze got tired of switching between devices in Chrome when testing out the responsiveness of the websites he was working, he built “just a react component that loops through iframe” to help him with that.

Above you see the crude version 0.0.1 of what later became Sizzy - The Browser for web developers.

I have been using Sizzy for a while now and I will not build and test websites any other way.

I know for a fact that Kitze was able to iterate on Sizzy because he was solving a problem he had.

The folks at 37Signals and Basecamp

I’ve been a big fan of Davin Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried, the co-owners of 37Signals, the company building Basecamp - a project management platform.

Here is what Jason, said about why they built Basecamp 👇🏾

People often ask me why we built Basecamp. They’ve never seen anything like it before, so they’re curious where the idea came from.

I wish I could credit a spark of genius, or some deep insight. But I can’t. Truth is, we built Basecamp out of desperate necessity. We needed it bad. Without it, we were embarrassing ourselves.

Way back when, we used to be a design firm. As we grew, we kept taking on more and more projects. We thought we could handle it, while still providing the same level of service, but we couldn’t. We were fooling ourselves. Sound familiar?

Understand: often times a “spark of genius” or “deep insight” is overrated and simply executing on an idea birthed on the premise of scratching your own itch can literally be the foundation of a thriving profitable business.

Make something that already exists better

Another place ideas come from is making something that already exists better. You’ve probably seen products based solely on this idea and of course with a combo of the makers scratching their own itch.

Let’s look at a couple of products that was created with this idea.

The folks at 37Signals and Hey

Hey is 37Signals’ take on emails and I love it. They took on email services like Gmail, Outlook, etc that already existed and made it better.

It turns out a lot of people like it so much - myself included - that they stopped using “free” alternatives like Gmail and started paying for Hey. Yes, Hey is that good.

Matthew Rathbone and Beekeeper Studio

There already existed more than a handful of SQL clients when Matthew after being frustrated with what already existed decided to build Beekeeper Studio - a SQL editor I have come to love and use when I’m interacting with both production and local databases.

Here is what Matthew had to say about why he built Beekeeper Studio:

I'm not a DBA or a server administrator, but I build software for a living, so I have to interact with databases on a daily basis.

I got frustrated that there wasn't a straightforward and approachable cross-platform SQL client I could use. Sure there are lots of java-powered tools aimed at power-users with a million buttons and tabs, but they're not pleasant to use. I loved Sequel Pro on MacOS, but that's no good when working on Linux, or with SQLite, Postgres, or SQL Server.

So in 2019 I started working on Beekeeper Studio. It took almost a year of (skant) evening and weekend time to launch the first version in early 2020.

You can see that Matthew wanted a cross-platform SQL client that didn’t look as if it was made for DBAs or server administrator, in other words, he wanted to make what already existed better.

It turns out that he wasn’t all that unique in his taste for a better SQL client and even this author wanted a client that’s also simple and looked as if it was made for developers too.

The Browser Company and Arc

I’m pretty sure at this point you might think the world doesn’t need another web browser because there is no shortage of them. From Google’s Chrome to Microsoft’s Edge and every other browser in between.

However, the good folks at The Browser Company didn’t think so. In fact, they thought they could make a better browser and as I write this issue in the Arc browser they made, I dare to think they were right.

Arc is a new take on what a web browser should be and its something unlike any browser you’ve used in the past.

I think it was even too novel I hated it the first time I used it but after a while, it’s now my default browser and I love the experience.

More reading, listening, or watching…

• Watch How to Build a Startup Without Funding by Pieter Levels talk by Pieter Levels.

• Where we came from - the story of why Basecamp was created by 37Signals

• About Beekeeper Studio by Matthew Rathbone

• 7 podcasts you should listen to as an indie hacker

• How Pieter Levels Makes $2.7M/Year With 0 Employees

As I think more about it, Indie Hackers are sort of the outliers and radicals of the business world.

I do know a few folks doing indie hacking, and you may know them too, they may be the ones that built your favourite mobile app on the App Store, or your favourite web application that save you a lot of time or provide a service that makes your life easier.

Independent Hacking

The word Indie in Indie Hacking is short for Independent. So Indie Hacking is Independent Hacking but what exactly does that even mean?

Indie(Independent) Hacking is an independent entrepreneurial pursuit.

It’s you for the most part seeing a problem and assembling everything you need in order to solve that problem and build a business out of the solution by yourself(you can also assemble a team but you often start solo or with a co-founder).

I like the way Rameerez puts it 👇🏾

You see, most businesses follow the conventional route of raising funds from venture capital(VCs) right from the start, resulting in ownership not being entirely in the hands of the entrepreneur.

In Indie Hacking however, you - the entrepreneur - take the road less travelled by starting off hacking on a cool idea you have(often to scratch your own itch) an own 100% of the business.

Indie Hackers mostly start out with the mindset that they don’t need any permission to build stuff that people will pay for and use.

The way I think about Indie Hacking is that you mostly see a need(whether its yours or others) and then you provide a solution and distribute that solution to folks that need it.

Indie Hacking is for profit 💰

This is one thing I love about Indie Hacking. Unlike VC-backed business that focus more on growth and scale, Indie Hacking focuses on profits and revenue.

Since the product is mostly financed by the indie hacker, become profitable is really very important so the product is ideally optimised for profits for Day 1.

Indie Hackers amongst us

So let’s learn more about Indie Hacking by highlighting some indie hackers I know personally and what they are building.

This is not an exhaustive list as there are a ton of Indie Hackers out there.

Taylor Otwell

I’ve been a fan of Taylor Otwell for as long as I can remember. How he does Indie Hacking is really quite inspirational. In my opinion, he is one of the most successful Indie Hacker out there.

After building Laravel - a popular PHP framework for building full-stack web applications, he proceeded to start Laravel LLC, a company, which provides SaaS(Software as a Service) products for Laravel developers.

Such products include 👇🏾

• Laravel Forge

• Laravel Nova

• Laravel Vapor

• Laravel Envoyer

Note that these are all paid 🤑 products that have been reported to make a lot of dollar bills yearly.

Nadia Odunayo

Nadia is the founder and CEO of TheStoryGraph - An app for you to track your reading and choose your next book. She is also the only developer working on the project with millions of users.

I had the pleasure of interviewing her in a Space, you should check it out as she shared amazing tips about Indie Hacking.

Adam Wathan

I’m a big fan of Adam Wathan(if you haven’t noticed 😅). I really like his indie hacking journey and it’s a bit similar to that of Taylor, he built a business on an Open Source project - Tailwind CSS - a utility-first CSS framework(suck it Tailwind haters 😁).

Adam then proceed to create Tailwind Labs, a company that now offers Tailwind UI which is a paid component library based on Tailwind CSS.

Hassan El Mghari

You probably already know Hassan from the first BBoJS Podcast. Hassan currently works at Vercel as a senior developer advocate but that didn’t stop him from building a ton of projects(mostly powered by AI). Hassan has built 👇🏾

• RoomGPT

• Restorephotos

• AI Commits

• and more…

Wilson Wilson

I think I recently found out about Wilson and the product he is building with his co-founder -. The product is Senja - a product which is making collecting testimonials easy.

I always love seeing the tweets like this one about their project and how much they are making in MRR 💰

Paul Jarvis & Jack Ellis

When I heard about the project that Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis were building to compete with Google Analytics, I was really quite amazed and it also reinforces the idea that the internet is permissionless and you can build literally anything on it.

The product by this co-founders is called Fathom Analytics - The Google Analytics alternative without compromise. I use Fathom Analytics and I love it!

Marcel Pociot

Marcel and the team at BeyondCode are a group of Indie Hackers that make amazing developer tools. What Marcel cooks has always inspired me, in fact, Tinkerwell inspired Guppy. Here are a couple of their amazing products 👇🏾

• Tinkerwell

• What The Diff

• Helo

Kelvin Omereshone

Of course this author(channelling my inner Lady Whistledown 😁) is also an indie hacker, I founded The Sailscasts Company which is a vehicle for all the indie hacking ideas and projects I have built and have plans of building. These projects are

• Sailscasts

• Guppy

• Hagfish 🔜

More reading, listening, or watching…

• I strongly recommend you read this article - What is an Indie Hacker?, it’s quite a good one that leans greatly into the radical nature of Indie Hackers.

• Taylor Otwell: the business of Laravel in 2022

Take Action 💪🏾

I advice you, dear reader if you are an indie hacker at heart that you study the indie hackers mentioned here. Learn their stories and their processes and glean as much as possible.

Happy indie hacking.

Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Google, Overcast, and YouTube.

Hassan El Mghari is a Senior Developer Advocate at Vercel and a full-stack software engineer.

He founded UltraShock Gaming, a game marketing startup with a community of 500,000 members on Steam, and ran it for 4 years before selling it.

He worked at Fig as a Developer Advocate at the beginning of his career. Hassan has built several AI projects and is passionate about startups in the developer tools space and building interesting side projects. In today's episode, we explore:

• How to make money as an online game marketer

• How Hassan Transitioned from Electrical Engineering to Coding

• The importance of learning in public

• How to become an entrepreneur

• How to build an online community

• The power of consistency and repetition

• How to do a full-time job and build side projects

• and many more…

Where to find Hassan El Mghari:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nutlope

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nutlope/

• Github: https://github.com/Nutlope
  

Where to find Kelvin:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dominus_Kelvin

• Github: https://github.com/DominusKelvin

• The Boring Javascript Stack: https://github.com/sailscastshq/boring-stack

• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kelvinomereshone

In this episode we cover:

00:00 Introduction

00:39 About Hassan El Mghari

01:37 Hassan’s developer journey before Vercel

06:30 How Hassan became an online game marketer on steam

09:00 How Hassan built his online gaming community to 50,000 members in 6 months and 500,000 members in one year

14:16 The Power of Consistency

16:23 How much Hassan made as an online game marketer.

18:25 How Hassan got his first Developer Advocate job

22:45 Hassan’s experience working at Fig

26:35 How Hassan became a Senior  Developer Advocate at Vercel

32:50 Hassan’s mindset and approach while working at Vercel and building side projects

37:51 How Hassan completed two AI (Artificial Intelligence) side projects in 2 weeks

43:20 The inspiration behind Hassan’s AI projects

49:19 About RoomGPT

1:00:03 Will AI models get cheaper?

1:01:23 What tech stack should Indie Hackers use?

1:04:02 Hassan’s advice to newbie builders

1:05:45 Hassan’s book recommendation

1:06:56 Hassan’s favourite TV shows

1:08:30 Final words from Hassan

1:08:53 How to connect with Hassan and view his projects

References:

Fig: https://fig.io/

Vercel: https://vercel.com/

NextJS: https://nextjs.org/

Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/

Alt Text Generator: https://github.com/Nutlope/alt-text-generator

Restore photos: https://github.com/Nutlope/restorePhotos,

https://www.restorephotos.io/

RoomGPT: https://github.com/Nutlope/roomGPT, https://www.roomgpt.io/

Peter Levels: https://twitter.com/levelsio

Replicate: https://replicate.com/

Stable Diffusion: https://stability.ai/stablediffusion

Control Net: https://stablediffusionweb.com/ControlNet

Atomic Habits :