Make Lemonade

Today we’re joined by Tibo Louis-Lucas, who is most well known for starting Tweet Hunter and Taplio in 2021, before selling the company in 2022 for 8 figures. Since then, Tibo has gone on to acquire an AI video creation tool, Typeframes, which he spun Revid.ai, and Feather.so, a Notion blogging platform.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:17 Leaving Lempire and starting from scratch
• 03:00 Learning from failures
• 05:29 Growing MRR with influencers
• 13:38 How Tibo felt selling Tweet Hunter
• 18:55 Why Tibo will never sell a project again
• 25:14 Feeling paralysis after selling your startup
• 27:36 How Tibo has approached acquiring products
• 29:28 Have Tibo's acquisitions been a success?
• 34:15 Why Tibo acquired another project for $250,000
• 36:01 Did Tibo waste $250,000 on buying Feather?

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on X @lmsqueezy.

Today we’re doing a a behind the scenes episode with JR. We haven’t looked at what’s going on since December, so it’s about time I posed some questions to JR about everything from features to growth and more.

Links

• John O'Nolan episode: https://youtu.be/QXwiTZiO46g
• Simon Pittman episode: https://youtu.be/L11ii1qKD5o
• Rob Walling episode: https://youtu.be/M_JbjtIYUh0
• JR's features tweet: https://x.com/jrfarr/status/1791819342784655760
• Product links feature: https://x.com/lmsqueezy/status/1801252160941797848

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Intro
• 00:50 - Guess that guest quote
• 06:02 - Reflecting on 1 year since rejecting venture capital
• 07:57 - Marketing for Lemon Squeezy
• 11:07 - JR embracing the hat-free life
• 12:26 - New features launched
• 14:26 - Do people still want or need merchant of record?
• 18:38 - Lemon Squeezy JavaScript SDK package going gangbusters
• 21:25 - Update on feature requests
• 28:38 - Trends for sellers JR is seeing
• 30:06 - Was Lemon Squeezy easier to build than Mojo?
• 34:56 - JR's dream non-founder guest
• 38:08 - Why JR hates soccer
• 41:43 - How is life for the CEO of Lemon Squeezy

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on X @lmsqueezy.

Today we're joined by one of the most successful sellers on Lemon Squeezy, Adam Pietrasiak. Adam is the founder of Screen Studio, a beautiful tool for creating and editing screen recordings that he started at the end of 2022 and now has thousands of paying users. In this episode we talk about how Adam made $30k in his first month, his approach to creating a well-polished product, and why he's not planning to take VC funding any time soon.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:47 Adam's background
• 02:23 Learning from past failures
• 05:20 Life building from Poland
• 07:46 Screen Studio founding story
• 10:25 Building without validating
• 12:44 Building in a very competitive market
• 18:44 Being a designer developer
• 19:53 Making $30,000 in the first month
• 25:18 Discovering marketing and growth channels
• 27:50 Adam setting up a powerful affiliate programme
• 34:23 How Adam designs in code
• 37:10 VC funding or bootstrapping
• 39:42 Monthly recurring vs single license pricing

John O’Nolan is the founder of Ghost, an independent publishing platform. John sees Ghost as an experiment in doing the opposite of what every other tech company does. They haven’t raised VC, instead setting Ghost up as a non-profit that can never be bought or sold. The core product is open source, with a simple SaaS model to fund future development. John is opinionated and outspoken but with many views that are hard to argue, so I can’t wait to dive into some of those today.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:48 From music to software
• 01:50 The benefits of anonymity
• 06:44 Launching Ghost as a non-profit
• 14:26 Why launch on Kickstarter
• 19:12 Is the longevity of blogging susprising?
• 22:25 What companies is venture capital right for?
• 23:40 Should more companies follow the non profit model?
• 25:50 John's approach to making great products
• 27:45 How John views competition
• 29:41 How do they ship at Ghost
• 36:38 The fediverse and ActivityPub
• 42:15 John's favourite newsletters
• 43:41 John's hobbies

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.

Justin is the co-founder of Transistor.fm, a podcast hosting platform that hosts over 27,000 podcasts. Justin has bootstrapped the business since 2018 and has used it to build a better life for himself and his employees.

Justin was on the pod back in January and we ended feeling like there was left with lots more to discuss, particularly Justin’s thoughts on building a Calm Company and what he plans to do with his life and money.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:40 Having the #1 podcast in the world on Transistor
• 04:24 Why Acquired is such a top class podcast
• 08:22 Justin's financial engine metaphor
• 16:44 Why the market is so important
• 18:30 Calm companies
• 27:41 How much the market impacts success
• 32:03 Justin's family business experiment
• 41:07 How Justin approaches investing

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.

Simon is the founder of Better Creating, a business he started in 2020 geared towards simplifying productivity and finding the best ideas tools and tech to help people create the life they want. His YouTube channel has over 130,000 subscribers, where he makes tutorials, tech reviews and more. Simon is another creator who has gone deep on Notion, building a second brain and many other systems that he sells as templates. Today we’re going to find out what it’s like being a full-time creator and why the Notion ecosystem is booming still in 2024.

Links

• Better Creating YouTube Channel
• Simon’s Notion Templates
• The Generalist Co
• How to make your first 5 hires podcast

James Recommendations

• Shoe Dog
• Podcastage
• Hamilton

JR Recommendations

• Charlie Munger handbook
• Hard Thing About Hard Things
• Erik Anders Lang (Adventures in Golf)
• Cirque Du Soleil

Simon Recommendations

• Thinking, Fast and Slow
• Anything You Want (James has some spare copies of this. DM him if you’d like a copy for free)
• Into the Woods
• Scott Yu-Jan
• Sleep No More

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:15 From theatre director to content creator
• 05:47 Choosing to make content not based on his career
• 07:36 Staying consistent creating content as a side project
• 12:47 Making money with small audiences
• 22:38 Keeping up a production schedule
• 24:53 The Notion template business
• 27:07 Are Notion templates a waste of time?
• 31:38 Is the template space too crowded?
• 34:53 Platform risk building on top of Notion
• 38:54 Coming up with template ideas
• 41:58 How to price Notion templates
• 45:27 Building a team
• 54:41 Book, YouTube and Theatre recommendations

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.

On the 6th March 2024, Aaron Francis was part of layoffs at Planet Scale, where he was an educator. Since then, Aaron has had a hard decision to make: find another job, or take the leap to full-time entrepreneur. Now the job offers came in thick and fast for Aaron, with almost 600,000 people seeing his layoff tweet, but after documenting his thoughts on his own podcast, Mostly Technical, Aaron announced what he was doing next. He launched his own content studio, Tryhard Studios.

Links: 

• Follow Aaron on Twitter
• Aaron's Tuple Page
• Tryhard Studios

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:28 What it's like being laid off
• 02:05 Building a studio in an apartment
• 04:24 Why PlanetScale laid off people
• 05:06 The reaction to being laid off
• 07:26 How to increase your chance of getting a new job
• 09:12 Side projects as layoff insurance
• 12:29 Do side projects make you more hireable?
• 15:09 Aaron's existing money making side projects
• 18:24 Deciding to go all in and not find another job
• 23:11 Aaron's new thing, Tryhard Studios
• 28:01 Why the name "Tryhard Studios"
• 30:15 The business model
• 32:08 Dealing with the course promotion treadmill
• 33:29 What things haven't gone so well
• 34:53 Building a pipeline of new work
• 37:13 Preparing for burnout

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.

Jack McDade is the creator of Statamic, a content management system for Laravel. He’s just launched his new course, Radical Design, which teaches people Jack’s unique approach to design and building products. And when unique approach, I mean it. All you have to do it scroll through Jack’s sites, his personal, Statamic, the Radical Design landing page to be immediately entertained by the little nuggets of flair dropped in throughout. In a world of boring landing pages and everyone doing the same thing, it’s nice to have a bit of Jack out in the world.

Follow Jack:

• Twitter
• YouTube
• Statamic
• Personal website
• Radical Design

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 02:12 JR's question to Jack
• 03:00 Starting Statamic
• 04:03 Statamic growth over the years
• 07:04 Jack's approach to the product
• 10:03 What does Jack's day look like
• 11:20 When to hire as a CEO
• 15:22 Launching a course 4 years after annoucning it
• 21:49 What is Radical Design and why make a course
• 26:23 The secret sauce for Radical Design
• 30:26 Embracing AI as a designer
• 36:06 How did the launch of the course go
• 38:59 Where do future sales come from after launching?
• 45:57 Dabbling in fun projects

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.

Today we're joined by Sara Loretta, who is the 10th US Certified Notion Consultant and Founder of SYSTMS™, an operations agency for agencies and small startups. She previously owned a design studio, 99 & Saint Claire, and spent nearly a decade before that in the nonprofit sector working in business development.

Follow Sara:

• Website
• YouTube
• Twitter

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:43 How Sara Discovered Lemon Squeezy
• 02:4 1From Non Profits to Notion Consultant - Sara's journey
• 08:31 Having the confidence to career pivot
• 15:37 The Notion Ecosystem
• 18:58 Notion consultant program
• 23:49 Why Sara hasn't gone all in on Notion templates
• 27:24 Launching the Productized AF bundle
• 29:05 Getting confidence charging for large retainers
• 31:09 What systems Sara builds for clients
• 33:32 Running an agency as a solopreneur
• 36:31 The future for Sara
• 38:21 Sara's schedule and embracing siestas

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.

Today we’re back with an episode of our Project 100k series, which is all about my journey as a creator going from 0-$100k selling through Lemon Squeezy. I’ve been a podcast producer for years but would like to stop trading my time for money and find a way to build an asset that makes me money while I sleep. In this episode we give our first update on the progress I’ve made on the name, positioning, course outline and distribution.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:08 James being stuck on Guernsey
• 02:42 Deciding on the course name
• 08:41 Delivery and pricing
• 11:27 Pricing of cohort vs self paced
• 17:00 Competitor research
• 24:37 Monetization through affiliates
• 26:25 Curriculum Continued
• 31:36 Workshops
• 35:28 Marketing
• 41:01 Wrap up

As always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. 

If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.