Indie Hackers

When Chris Savage (@csavage) and his co-founder started their business, they were convinced that they'd be able to sell it within six months. They never would've guessed that 13 years later, not only would they still working on Wistia, but the business would be $17M in debt. In this episode we talk about pivoting from a bad idea to a good one, prioritizing long-term thinking from the very beginning, and how Wistia turned $500k in losses into $6M in profit in a single year.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/110-chris-savage-of-wistia

In the early days of his business HostiFi, it seemed liked the deck was stacked against founder Reilly Chase (@_rchase_). From encountering frustrating roadblocks while he learned to code, to getting banned from forums where his customers hunt out, everything he tried was an uphill struggle. Today, however, just one year after launching, he's pushed through and reached the milestone of $100,000 in ARR as a one-person startup. Reilly came on the podcast to talk about keeping expectations low in the beginning, making it work when you've chosen a small niche, and how to avoid giving up with nothing you're doing seems to be working.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/109-reilly-chase-of-hostifi

Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) describes himself as a midwestern small business owner who discovered the Internet, and his journey from running a hot dog stand to building a media empire seems to prove that. His current business, The Hustle, generates 8 figures in annual revenue from newsletter advertising alone, a feat Sam attributes to great copywriting, relentless experimentation, and the massively underrated power of email. In this episode we talk about how founders can build profitable businesses by resisting the urge to make their tech businesses more complex than they need to be, why it's important to borrow lessons from businesses in other industries, and the art of getting help from others by swallowing your pride and making specific requests.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/108-sam-parr-of-the-hustle

Joe Howard (@josephhhoward) is the founder of WP Buffs, a productized service business in the WordPress space that he bootstrapped from $0 to over $70,000/month in revenue. We had a quick chat about how Joe launched his business and found a paying customer in just a few days, how to make more money by raising your prices, and why it's important to keep things simple as a founder.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/107-quick-chat-with-joe-howard

As the community manager for Product Hunt, Ben Tossell (@bentossell) saw over 80,000 new product launches and met hundreds of inspirational makers. So when learned that he could use a new breed of tools to make his own products without learning to code, it felt like unlocking a new superpower. Many dozens of apps and Ben created Makerpad, where he creates tutorials and collect resources to help others like him become no-code makers. In this episode we talk about how Ben grew Makerpad to over $100,000 in revenue in 6 months with almost no expenses, and why he has no plans to go full time on such a successful side project.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/106-ben-tossell-of-makerpad

Jason Fried (@jasonfried) doesn't intend to be controversial or to change people's minds, but he seems to end up doing both of these regardless. Since launching Basecamp in 2004, he's grown the business to tens of millions of dollars in annual *profit*, and gathered a collection of strong and often counterintuitive beliefs along the way. In this episode we discuss how to take advantage of building an independent company, when to focus on a product and when to let it go, how to learn from the past without fooling telling yourself a false narrative, and the importance of blazing your own path as a founder instead of blindly imitating others.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/105-jason-fried-of-basecamp

Dianna Allen (@diannamallen) is the creator of Budget Meal Planner. In just two months, she's gone from having an idea to getting thousands of signups, articles on Lifehacker, and three #1 milestone posts on Indie Hackers. In this episode Dianna shares the story behind how she came up with her idea, validated it, and got her first users, and we break down what's made it so successful so far. 

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/104-quick-chat-with-dianna-allen

Rather than pursue a traditional career, Hiten Shah (@hnshah) decided to follow the choose-your-own-adventure life of being a founder. Since then he's launched more than 30 products, including five multimillion dollar products and a few spectacular failures as well. In this episode we talk about embracing and reflecting on failure, making better business decisions through research, the importance of sharing and teaching what you've learned, and how to make sure you're working on what matters.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/103-hiten-shah-of-fyi

Pat Walls (@thepatwalls) joined the podcast to talk about quitting his job and going full-time on his bootstrapped business (Starter Story), how he launched a second business (Pigeon) and found his first 10 paying customers in under a month, and his strategies for juggling multiple projects at the same time.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/102-quick-chat-with-pat-walls

Eric Zhang dropped out of school to pursue his startup, got accepted to Y Combinator, and found traction in the open source community. But when he found himself no longer excited to show up to the office, he realized something crucial was missing with his business: a workable business model. In this episode Eric and I discuss his decision to quit his startup and how he ended up helping grow a bootstrapped business to over $100MM in revenue in an industry rife with well-funded competitors.

Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/101-eric-zhang-of-scalable-press