Indie Bites

How Justin Duke is building Buttondown into the perfect bootstrapped business


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Justin Duke is the founder of Buttondown, a simple email tool he launched in 2017. Justin was last on the podcast 2 years ago when he’d hit $15k MRR and just left his role at Stripe to focus on Buttondown. I was struck by Justin’s well thought through approach to building. He makes calculated risks and shares a lot of his learnings on his blog, Applied Cartography (which is an essential read for any indie hackers).

This episode I catch up with Justin to hear how he’s grown the team to 8 people and his approach to building a company he loves. This is a cut down version of an hour long catch up I had with Justin available on the Indie Bites membership which is available at indiebites.com/membership, where we discuss his personal blog, how he structures his time as a new parent and we go deeper into hiring high agency unicorns.

Timestamps

  • 00:00 - Intro
  • 01:58 - Buttondown growth
  • 03:40 - How to build a company you don't hate
  • 07:16 - Marketing and positioning Buttondown
  • 11:17 - Buttondown's unique home page approach
  • 13:45 - Building a business you enjoy
  • 15:32 - Recommendations

My links

  • Twitter
  • Indie Bites Twitter
  • Indie Bites YouTube
  • Join the membership
  • Personal Website
  • 2 Hour Podcast Course
  • PodPanda (hire me to edit your podcast)
  • This Indie Life Podcast

Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙

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Indie BitesBy James McKinven

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