Today I’m talking with Flo Schirmer about "sweaty startups", a term for old-fashioned, low-risk businesses that are often service based and unsexy. I’m talking window cleaning, car washing, self-storage, house moving and more. We’re going to discuss if you can do this as a side hustle, if you should do this over a regular software business, and what you need to do to get started with some ideas along the way.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:38 What is a sweaty startup?
• 03:18 From window cleaning to home security
• 04:37 How to start a sweaty startup
• 06:41 Growth for a sweaty startup
• 07:26 Sweaty startup vs software - what is best for indie hackers?
• 08:45 Injecting a tech edge into old fashioned businesses
• 11:34 Examples of successful sweaty startup brands
• 13:58 Two free sweaty startup ideas
• 15:57 Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book - $100m Leads
• Podcast - My First Million
• Indie Hacker - Alex Hormozi

My links

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Indie Bites YouTube
• Join the membership
• Personal Website
• 2 Hour Podcast Course

Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Marie Martens is the co-founder of Tally, a form builder she started with her partner Filip, now used by half a million people and are over $150k MRR. Marie was on the pod 3 years ago when they’d scaled to 16,000 users and $8k MRR in 1 year. In that episode we discussed the origin story, getting their first 100 users and how they’d grown so quickly. Today, we’re going to be finding out how they’ve built such a robust business over the past 3 years and 15x’d their revenue.

Listen to Marie's first episode:
https://indiebites.com/43

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 02:09 From small lifestyle business to larger sustainable business
• 04:50 Retaining the fun in the business
• 06:02 Struggles in hiring a remote team
• 07:32 Building an in-person team in Belgium vs remote
• 08:17 Running a startup as a parent
• 10:06 How Tally has grown to $150k MRR
• 13:07 The pros and cons of building in public
• 15:08 Growing the product while keeping it simple
• 15:49 The future of Tally
• 16:43 Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book - First Round Capital
• Podcast - Lenny's Podcast
• Indie Hacker - Olly Meakings

My links

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Indie Bites YouTube
• Join the membership
• Personal Website
• 2 Hour Podcast Course

Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Tom Fishburne is the founder of Marketoonist, a bootstrapped marketing cartoon business he started in 2010. He started drawing and sharing cartoons in 2002, and it took him 8 years to make the leap, despite having a successful career in marketing. 15 years later, Tom is still going strong, with the business making money from cartoon licensing, speaking gigs, brand deals, his book and more.

Listen to the extended version of the show here: https://indiebites.com/membership/

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Intro
• 01:23 - Moving to Czech Republic out of college
• 02:16 - From Czech Republic to MBA
• 03:19 - Starting cartooning
• 04:03 - Tom's first client
• 04:37 - Imposter syndrome
• 05:20 - Pricing too low
• 06:01 - Making the leap to full time
• 07:08 - The terrifying moment of taking the leap
• 08:08 - How Tom executed on his plan as a full time cartoonist?
• 09:20 - Marketoonist revenue breakdown
• 10:45 - Why Tom still does client work
• 12:45 - Dealing with sh*tty clients
• 13:55- Dealing with AI and competition
• 15:55 - Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book - Orbiting the Giant Hairball
• Podcast - Fly On The Wall
• Indie Hacker - David Hieatt

My links

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Indie Bites YouTube
• Join the membership
• Personal Website
• 2 Hour Podcast Course

Sponsor - EmailOctopus 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Jack Ellis is the co-founder of Fathom Analytics, a simple, privacy focused analytics tool launched in 2019. I last spoke to Jack on the podcast in 2021, where he talked about the inception and growth of Fathom, taking on a massive incumbent and why Jack loves working with a co-founder. In December 2024, Jack acquired his co-founder’s share in the business, making him the sole owner (i think). Today, we’re going to talk about why he made this unique move and what’s next for Fathom.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:20 Jack finds out about EmailOctopus
• 02:34 Why Jack acquired Fathom
• 05:03 How can Jack afford this?
• 05:28 Why did they not get an external buyer?
• 07:17 Back to being a solo founder
• 08:19 Innovating the the crowded analytics space
• 11:09 Fathom's marketing and growth in 2025
• 12:34 How is Jack having fun?
• 13:14 Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book - Dopamine Nation
• Podcast - Huberman Lab
• Indie Hacker - Ruben Gamez

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 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Sam Shore is the co-founder of Typeshare, a writing platform made to create and publish text across the internet. Typeshare has made over $1m in revenue since it was started in 2021, with over 80,000 user, currently $34k MRR I’m speaking to Sam to find out how he started Typeshare as the first of 12 startups he was planning to build, and what made this stick.

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:10 Sam's entrepreneurial background
• 02:03 Failed past projects
• 03:31 12 startups in 12 months
• 04:16 The idea for Typeshare
• 05:38 Getting traction with Typeshare
• 06:50 Getting to $15k MRR in 1 year with infuential partnerships
• 09:52 How is Sam making sure he has fun with the business
• 12:18 How to get better at writing online
• 14:09 Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book - Poor Charlie’s Almanack
• Podcast - Rework
• Indie Hacker - Dmytro Krasun

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 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

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 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Today I’m not actually joined by an indie hacker, but by someone who can help a lot of indies out there. Josh Peleg is the Head of Biz Dev and Mergers and Acquisitions at BlueThrone. Essentially, he knows all about how to sell a business from the buyer's side.

In this episode we’re going to learn from Josh exactly what you need to know about selling your indie product. How you find an acquirer, what does the process look like and how you can get a deal over the line.

I’ve spoken to some indie hackers who have gone through exits, such as Rob Walling, Ramy Khuffash, Tibo Louis Lucas and more, but not so much from the other side. Let’s find out what it takes.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:56 What is BlueThrone
• 02:13 How to find a potential acquirer
• 04:41 How to set up your business to be sold
• 06:33 Acquirer red flags
• 08:31 Acquirer green flags
• 10:04 The type of exits and what to choose
• 13:48 Recommendations

Reccos

• Book - The Master and The Margarita
• Podcast - 20VC

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 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Arvid Kahl is returning to the podcast for the third time. In 2019, he’d just sold Feedback Panda for a life changing amount of money and then wrote the book Zero to Sold. In 2023, he was in full-on creator mode with The Bootstrapped Founder and had just released The Embedded Entrepreneur. Now, he’s still producing the content but is also spending time on his SaaS Podscan, which is an extremely ambitious tool that transcribes every podcast and let’s you track mentions of your brand.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:27 Arvid's life as a SaaS founder
• 02:48 Are people still building in public
• 03:54 No longer being a solo founder
• 05:24 Raising from Calm Fund
• 09:17 Keeping The Bootstrapped Founder running
• 12:10 Wins for 2024
• 13:36 Parting advice
• 15:08 Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book - A Court of Thorns and Roses
• Podcast - The Economics of Everyday Things
• Indie Hacker - Tyler Tringas

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 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Recently I’ve been reviewing my catalogue of previous guests and have been intrigued to see where they are now, so expect to see a few more returning guests over the next few weeks.

Today is a chap who was last on the podcast 3 years ago, and is still ever present in the indie community. Pete Codes is writes the High Signal newsletter, sharing all the best indie hacking news every week. He’s making his main living through Ghostwriting for Twitter, Bluesky and LinkedIn, but he’s still launching new projects and keeping his previous projects live.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:25 How Pete stays up to date with indie hacking news
• 03:21 Twitter, Bluesky or LinkedIn
• 04:36 Is building in public dead?
• 07:30 Who is still building in public
• 09:40 Big news stories of 2024 / who has been successful
• 12:06 Pete's plan for his newsletter, High Signal
• 12:48 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 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.

Tiago Ferreira is the co-founder of Podsqueeze, an AI podcast tool that helps automate your podcast content. The tool, that helps you create show notes, newsletters, social posts and more, is currently doing $16k MRR and growing. You might also know Tiago from his podcast Wannabe Entrepreneur, where he’s interviewed impressive founders including Pieter Levels.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Intro
• 120 - Tiago Ferreira
• 01:06 - Tiago's background
• 02:25 - Lessons from failures
• 03:40 - Starting Podsqueeze - solving your own problem
• 05:53 - How Podsqueeze had a successful launch
• 06:40 - How to have a successful launch
• 08:10 - Growth tactics for Podsqueeze - SEO
• 13:03 - Future plans and exit
• 14:28 - Recommendations

Recommendations

• Book: SaaS Playbook by Rob Walling
• Podcast: Startups for the Rest of Us
• Indie Hacker: Elston Baretto

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 🐙

EmailOctopus is an independently owned email marketing platform, built to support other small growing businesses. With a focus on affordability and ease of use, EmailOctopus contains all of the features you need to reach and grow your audience. You can start today, with their industry leading free plan where you can contact up to 2,500 subscribers without paying a penny.