Indie Bites

Baird is a 4x SaaS founder based in Charleston, SC. His background is in sales, marketing, and support. He bootstrapped and grew two SaaS companies to over $1M in ARR. When he isn't working on Churnkey's sales and marketing, he is on the water with his wife and daughter.

What we covered in this episode:

• The big challenges faced when bootstrapping
• Did Baird always want to bootstrap
• Why leave a job to start a company
• Did he ever get funding from utalk
• How did Waave come about?
• How to avoid quitting when times get tough
• Getting early customers in for Waave
• What was different when they launched Zubtitle (108k MRR)
• Why they started a new business completely
• Why churn is such a difficult problem to solve
• Is it harder or easier to do B2C vs B2B
• How to manage context switching
• How to make time to run 3 huge businesses at once

Recommendations

• Book: Range by David Epstien
• Podcast: Indie Hackers
• Indie Hacker: Nathan Barry

Follow Baird

• Twitter
• Churnkey

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Sponsor - Upvoty

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Blake Emal is the CMO at Copy.ai, but it's not been a traditional route into that role. 8 years ago Blake was living in the South of France and when he moved back to the US, he had no idea what he wanted to do. As he spoke French, he landed a gig in the French team of an SEO firm. This was his first foray into marketing and he didn't intend to stay in marketing.

Fast forward 7 years of working for agencies, freelancing and in-house, he stumbled across a little tool called Copy.ai. He was quite happy in his current role, but sent the Copy.ai founder a DM on Twitter, asking if he needed any help with marketing. After a few back and forths and a grand total of 3 Zoom calls, Blake became CMO at Copy.ai.

In this episode we cover:

• What is copy.ai and how does it work?
• What does being a CMO in public mean?
• Where should founders start with marketing
• Why you should just "put a camera in front of you" when building
• Why is building in public so effective?
• Who is building in public well?
• How to get good at Twitter?
• Who is doing Twitter well?
• Are threads dead?
• Why do marketers ruin everything?

Recommendations

• Book: Lord of the Flies
• Podcast: Creator Lab
• Indie Hacker: Bereket

Follow Blake

• Twitter
• Luma

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Sponsor

Thank you to Dan Rowden for sponsoring this episode with his product, ilo which helps you easily see which kind of tweets get more impressions, likes, profile clicks and more so you can get grow your Twitter audience. Use the code "INDIEBITES27" for 25% off your plan for life.

Sign up here.

Listen to the full conversation here on Stefan's podcast.

This is about 17 minutes of a recording with my friend Stefan on his Founder Hot Seat podcast, which is a show that explores the real challenges that founders have in their business and how to overcome them.

I've had a ton of messages from people after listening to my previous bonus episode where I explained some of the challenges I've had with mental health over the past few months, and this episode was super helpful for me to navigate some of those challenges and set a path forward.

From Stefan

This episode is a twist on the normal format. James has publicly shared the challenges he's been going through with his mental health.

We explore the journey James has been on over the past year, including when things began to change, what that felt like on a day-to-day basis, how James has worked on his recovery and how he plans to move forward.

Follow Stefan

• Twitter
• Talk To Stefan

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Justin Jackson is the co-founder of Transistor.fm, a successful bootstrapped podcast hosting company. The journey building Transistor were documented on the Build Your SaaS podcast, which is a must listen. Justin is the founder of the MegaMaker community which he started in 2013, so if you're part of the maker sphere - you'll probably have heard of him.

In this episode we cover:

• What is Transistor and why did they start it
• Why work in podcast hosting? Was it not already a solved problem?
• How did they get the first few customers?
• What's next for Transistor?
• What's it like having "made it" as an indie hacker?
• What challenges does Justin run into?
• Should you just get a job at a tech company or run your bootstrapped co?
• Why bootstrapping is not a level playing field
• When you should quit your job
• Addressing mental health as an entreprenuer

Recommendations

• Book: Life Profitability
• Podcast: Software Social
• Indie Hacker: Derek Sivers

Follow Justin

• Twitter
• Blog

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Sponsor

Thank you to Dan Rowden for sponsoring this episode with his product, ilo which helps you easily see which kind of tweets get more impressions, likes, profile clicks and more so you can get grow your Twitter audience. Use the code "INDIEBITES27" for 25% off your plan for life.

Sign up here.

Ben Stokes a full stack developer and entrepreneur based in Bristol in the UK, who's started an ice cream business and cookie dough business amongst other things. Ben, like many indie hackers, has a bunch of small side project ideas, but not enough time to do them. So he started Tiny Projects. Tiny Projects documents his progress with these small ideas, launching 6 projects since May last year, including One Item Store, which he sold, and his most recent, Mailoji, which has just crossed $10k in revenue.

Sponsor

Thank you to today's sponsor, VEED.io, who are hiring developers, designers, product people and more. So if you're looking to join a growing bootstrapper-friendly business, reach out to their CEO, Sabba ([email protected]), or take a look at their published roles here.

Get ad-free and extended conversations of the podcast with Indie Feast membership, for just £4 a month.

What we covered in this episode:

• Why Ben started an ice cream business
• Buying an ice cream machine for £700 after a few pints
• Growing a cookie dough business to £13k a month
• Why Ben started Tiny Projects
• The six projects he's worked on
• How to sell a project for $5,000, that only made $2
• Selling $10k of emoji domain names
• How to go viral on hacker news

Recommendations

• Book: Shoe Dog
• Podcast: Product Journey
• Indie Hacker: Alex West

Follow Ben

• Twitter
• Tiny Projects

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

I've never really understood mental health, or those who have had these challenges in the past. So when I've had my own challenges, I've struggled to comprehend what has been happening to me. This episode is hopefully an interesting insight into how I've been feeling over the past few months to hopefully help others who might be going through a similar thing.

Here's some things I talk about:

• Where I've been
• Overworking
• What went wrong
• Why I didn't notice a problem
• Why family and friends are so important
• The supportive indie hacker community
• YouTube videos are hard
• Burnout / depression are real shitty
• My future plans
• How I'm going to get out of this mess

I mentioned in the pod I'd been making videos about my motorbike, here's a few links if you'd like to watch:

• Here's the YouTube channel, Monkeying Around
• The video I spent 5 hours on
• Most recent video

and here's how to contact / support me:

• Twitter
• Email - [email protected]
• Indie Feast Membership

Today I'm joined by Danny Miranda, who is the host of The Danny Miranda podcast, which has rapidly grown to over 50,000 downloads in less than 6 months. He publishes 3x a week and has had some awesome guests including Harry Dry, Gary Vee and David Perell. Danny is a walking case study of shooting your shot, making your own luck and having laser focus on one single thing.

But this episode isn't going to be about podcasting specifically, we're going to talk about how consistency, compounding and execution can lead to you making progress in your personal projects or entrepreneurial ventures. I think you'll be inspired by Danny's story.

What we covered:

• Who is Danny Miranda?
• Why Danny started out dropshipping? and what stopped him from pursuing that?
• How did the podcast come about?
• Why podcasting isn't that saturated
• Why Danny committed to 100 episodes when he started
• The unintended benefits of podcasts?
• Why laser focus and consistency is the key to Danny's growth
• How Danny switched from a starter to a finisher
• How to stop context switching
• Why accountability is the key to motivation
• Short term vs long term thinking
• Why the 75 hard program had so much of an impact on Danny
• Danny's plan to make money with the pod!

Recommendations

• Book: Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It
• Podcast: Modern Wisdom
• Indie Hacker: Steph Smith

Follow Danny

• Twitter
• Website
• Podcast

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to this episode's sponsor, Churnkey

It can be a huge challenge to keep churn down when your SaaS product starts to see traction. The founders of Churnkey know exactly how much of a challenge this can be, having collectively grown three SaaS companies to over $4m in ARR.

They realized that they were thinking about cancellations all wrong. A relationship with a customer doesn’t stop with the “Cancel” button. So they built Churnkey, which reduces churn by up to 42% with custom cancellation flows. For every customer who clicks “Cancel,” Churnkey offers up dynamic offers that encourage customers to stay subscribed.

Just connect Stripe and plug in a small bit of code. In minutes, you’ll be reducing churn by immediately unlocking subscription pauses, dynamic offers, and cancellation insights. 

See how much revenue Churnkey can recover for you. Visit churnkey.co to start your free trial.

Derrick Reimer is the founder of SavvyCal, a new approach to calendar scheduling and has grown to multiple thousands MRR since he launched it earlier in 2020. Derrick also co-founded Drip with Rob Walling in 2012, which was acquired by Leadpages in 2016. You might have heard Derrick on the Art of Product podcast with Tuple co-founder Ben Orenstein where they document their journey building their products.

Get ad-free and extended conversations of the podcast with Indie Feast membership, for just £4 a month.

What we covered in this episode:

• What is SavvyCal?
• What problem is it trying to solve?
• Why go into such a crowded market?
• A nice market or crowded one?
• The advantage of being a solo founder or small team vs larger competition
• How long did Derrick build before launching the MVP?
• How much growth has come from pre-existing audience?
• What goes into a good Product Hunt launch?
• When should Indie Hackers bring marketing support on?
• What marketing tactics can you employ?
• How does TinySeed funding work?
• Should other founders look for this type of funding?
• Art of Product podcast

Recommendations

• Book: The Mom Test
• Podcast: Software Social

Follow Derrick

• Twitter
• Website
• SavvyCal

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to this episode's sponsor, Churnkey

It can be a huge challenge to keep churn down when your SaaS product starts to see traction. The founders of Churnkey know exactly how much of a challenge this can be, having collectively grown three SaaS companies to over $4m in ARR.

They realized that they were thinking about cancellations all wrong. A relationship with a customer doesn’t stop with the “Cancel” button. So they built Churnkey, which reduces churn by up to 42% with custom cancellation flows. For every customer who clicks “Cancel,” Churnkey offers up dynamic offers that encourage customers to stay subscribed.

Just connect Stripe and plug in a small bit of code. In minutes, you’ll be reducing churn by immediately unlocking subscription pauses, dynamic offers, and cancellation insights. 

See how much revenue Churnkey can recover for you. Visit churnkey.co to start your free trial.

Natalie Nagele is the co-founder of Wildbit, the company behind Postmark, Beanstalk, People-First Jobs and more. Wildbit has just turned 20 years old, so Natalie knows exactly what it takes to grow and scale successful bootstrapped businesses. What makes Natalie so interesting to me is that she’s in the group of seriously successful indie hackers (over 100k customers, around for 20 years, pretty large team etc.) and they’re still indie very much living by their own rules.

What we covered in this episode:

• What would you tell yourself 20 years ago before starting Wildbit?
• How do you find work that you enjoy and fulfils you?
• How much time should you spend on hobbies vs your business?
• At what point is a hobby a business and vice versa?
• How to get into deep work
  • Cal Newport, Deep Work
• How many hours you can actually work in a day
• How much should you work on your business?
• Why you need to take time to step back and think
• How much is Natalie working now?
• How do you fit work in with the stuff you enjoy?
• Work life balance

Recommendations

• Book: Anti-fragile
• Podcast: 99% Invisible
• Indie Hacker: Chris Savage + Brendan Schwartz

Follow Natalie

• Twitter
• Wildbit

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to this episode's sponsor, Churnkey

It can be a huge challenge to keep churn down when your SaaS product starts to see traction. The founders of Churnkey know exactly how much of a challenge this can be, having collectively grown three SaaS companies to over $4m in ARR.

They realized that they were thinking about cancellations all wrong. A relationship with a customer doesn’t stop with the “Cancel” button. So they built Churnkey, which reduces churn by up to 42% with custom cancellation flows. For every customer who clicks “Cancel,” Churnkey offers up dynamic offers that encourage customers to stay subscribed.

Just connect Stripe and plug in a small bit of code. In minutes, you’ll be reducing churn by immediately unlocking subscription pauses, dynamic offers, and cancellation insights. 

See how much revenue Churnkey can recover for you. Visit churnkey.co to start your free trial.

Elston Baretto is the founder of Tiiny.host and is in a similar position to most indie hackers - working on his side-project alongside a full time job, but has had a career packed with learnings that we're going to talk through in this episode. Elston started out his career at JP Morgan, having reluctantly accepted a graduate job he planned to stay at for 6 months. 4 years later, he was still at the conglomerate bank, but he wasn't satisfied staying there for the rest of his career.

While at JP Morgan, Elston launched a few side-projects, some of which still make revenue today, but decided to leave to chase the startup dream. Fast forward a year and the startup dream was over, a company with 14 employees but little traction - sound familiar?

Elston went back to work full-time while he figured things out. In January 2020, he launched Tiiny.host, a super simple way to host your projects. After launching, he made $1,000 in just 3 days using lifetime deals and is now chugging away nicely as a side project.

What we covered in this episode:

• What is Tiiny Host and why did Elston start it
• How he made lifetime deals work for his launch
• Why Elston has put marketing first for Tiiny Host
• Setting goals for your indie hacker business
• How Tiiny Host got 150 sites a day being created from free SEO pages
• How has he made marketing fun
• Doing side-project marketing
• Elston's plans to go full-time

Recommendations

• Book: Traction
• Podcast: Tim Ferris Show
• Indie Hacker: Sabba Kenyejad

Follow Elston

• Twitter
• Tiiny Host

Follow Me

• Twitter
• Indie Bites Twitter
• Personal Website
• Buy A Wallet

Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.

‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’

‘Absolutely love this community.’

These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.

We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.

Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.