In this episode, Dago talks about reinventing himself on Twitter, dealing with sickness as a founder and he attempts to find 50 shades of grey to wear. I meanwhile ponder just a single thing, is it worth selling my baby? (aka my podcast).

• Watch us on YouTube 📹
• Dago's course 🐦
• Buy a leather wallet from James 💳
• Podcast website 🎙️

Dago updates/reflections

• Wrote tweets for 3 weeks instead of 1
• Got sick so can’t do logology 2 this week
• Finally found my “lifetime” outfit

James updates/reflections

• Did Skiing Trip, got ill, now back to work
• Considering selling Indie Bites
• Figuring out a cash injection and regular income
• Wallet sales seem to directly linked to how much I work

About Dagobert
Previously a money-chasing software engineer, but now building his own startup with his wife, Logology (that's the name of the startup, not his wife). It took them more than two years just to build a product and had to use most of our savings just to survive. They launched it and got almost no sales, pushing him to learn marketing. Last year, after some experiments, he found a marketing channel that worked by using Twitter. Now he has 45k followers and the business is finally going. As of the start of this pod, his business is on $3k p/m, with a goal to reach $5k p/m to avoid dwindling savings and to pay themselves a salary.

• Dagobert's Twitter
• Dago's Twitter Course
• Logology - high quality logos and brands
• Memelogy - the best startup memes

About James
James left his cushty full-time job marketing job in April 2021. Since then, he's been hacking together income from his other podcast, Indie Bites, and podcast editing service, Pod Panda. The podcast does around $1k p/m in sponsor revenue and Pod Panda makes $2k p/m. But with a $4-5k burn every month, he's digging a very deep hole. James' goal is to get to around $10k per month across his products, get myself out of that hole and have fun while doing it. 

• James' Twitter
• Indie Bites - indie founder chats
• 2 Hour Podcast - podcasting course
• Whitstable Craft Co - handmade leather wallets
• PodPanda - podcast editing

In this episode Dago gets himself into debt, only works 19 hours in a week, and enjoys using AI. Will we get the old Dago back, who knows? Meanwhile I manage to publish an episode of Indie Bites with my leather man, increase my prices despite my reservations and am about to hit a big milestone for the month.

• Watch us on YouTube 📹
• Dago's course 🐦
• Buy a leather wallet from James 💳
• Podcast website 🎙️

Dago updates/reflections

• Dug into a.i for Logology
• Logology customer research
• I could literally not do anything else but tweet and we would be good
• Preparing the move: buy a car (aka get into debt)

James updates/reflections

• Indie Bites episode published with my wallet man
• Grateful to Sam and Daniel on twitter who have been very helpful in the DMs
• Grateful to James Sowers for being a wonderful client
• Finally shot and uploaded the new pictures of the wallets
• Raised the prices!
• Met up with a man in person and sold him a wallet
• Approaching 1k in sales for the month
• Plans for TikTok content next week

Dago talks about his impromptu Twitter hiatus and shares some nuggets of wisdom from his course, James is back on his feet after a down period after selling some bi-fold wallets on Twitter and tries to convince Dago why he should exercise.

• Watch us on YouTube 📹
• Dago's course 🐦
• Buy a leather wallet from James 💳
• Podcast website 🎙️

Dago updates/reflections

• Taken a break from tweeting
• Not feeling "in the game"
• Should you put links in your tweets?
• I don't understand why people exercise

James updates/reflections

• Started making and selling bi-fold wallets
• Difference in my mood with money vs without
• Good week for habits - getting up early
• Update on client pod - breaking records
• A few new potential clients

In this episode Dago ponders how AI will affect his logo business and is thinking of moving to another part of the country to help his indie hacking. I have a battle with the UK postal service who decided not to ship wallets to customers and find out how much profit I made on the £5k of leather wallet sales in December.

• Watch us on YouTube 📹
• Dago's course 🐦
• Buy a leather wallet from James 💳

Dago updates/reflections

• product update: A.I logo get me anxious / back in hardcore work mode
• reflecting on the journey: audience first approach is 10x more genius. deeper than “listen to customers”
• meme: 0 paying users from december 16th
• personal: britany move

James updates/reflections

• Royal Mail are taking the fucking piss
• Not making any profit on the £5k
  • the spreadsheet
• price tool from dago

This episode, Dago talks about how much he’s enjoying doing a podcast and his plans for maintaining momentum for his course. I’m also thinking about momentum in the new year after crossing £5k this month in leather wallet sales in the run up to Christmas.

Dago's updates:

• product update: so happy to do this pod
• reflecting on the journey: audience first approach is 10x more genius
• meme: quit software job to build a startup (december 5th) → how lucky we are as founders, can go back to a job anytime
• personal: winter / tired AF now that make money

James' updates:

• The sales keep coming
  • Craft fair and second biggest day of orders
  • Cost breakdown per wallet
• My new machine arrived!
• Updated my twitter profile - scary
• YouTube, TikTok and IG need to happen ASAP.
• First video recording for client done
• England vs France

Sponsor

No sponsor this episode, but if you’re keen to get your product in front of hundreds of indie founders and developers, head to indielife.fm/sponsor.

About Dagobert
Previously a money-chasing software engineer, but now building his own startup with his wife, Logology (that's the name of the startup, not his wife). It took them more than two years just to build a product and had to use most of our savings just to survive. They launched it and got almost no sales, pushing him to learn marketing. Last year, after some experiments, he found a marketing channel that worked by using Twitter. Now he has 45k followers and the business is finally going. As of the start of this pod, his business is on $3k p/m, with a goal to reach $5k p/m to avoid dwindling savings and to pay themselves a salary.

• Dagobert's Twitter
• Dago's Twitter Course
• Logology - high quality logos and brands
• Memelogy - the best startup memes

About James
James left his cushty full-time job marketing job in April 2021. Since then, he's been hacking together income from his other podcast, Indie Bites, and podcast editing service, Pod Panda. The podcast does around $1k p/m in sponsor revenue and Pod Panda makes $2k p/m. But with a $4-5k burn every month, he's digging a very deep hole. James' goal is to get to around $10k per month across his products, get myself out of that hole and have fun while doing it. 

• James' Twitter
• Indie Bites - indie founder chats
• 2 Hour Podcast - podcasting course
• Whitstable Craft Co - handmade leather wallets
• PodPanda - podcast editing

This episode, we reflect on our black friday sales and how Dago made a full-year worth of sales i a weekend, I meanwhile have a found a new lease of life thanks to my the leather wallet business but question the potential for it becoming something I spend more time on, or if it’s just a distraction.

Dago:

• reflecting on the journey: More money 1 month vs 1 year, but the real challenge is to do the same with a product
  • product update: Recording bonus, difficult to switch context. (1 year marketing / 1 year building)
• meme: thanks giving, guilty for late, update people
• personal: first bad rating

James:

• BF/CM sales update
• Lots of excitement for wallets, future plans etc
• Lost a client for PodPanda. Big hit. Reality of bills needing to be paid after the excitement of the past few weeks.
• First client recording with video tomorrow

Sponsor - Statamic

Statamic is a content management system built on Laravel that is designed to make building, managing, and scaling content-driven websites and applications painless and (hopefully) fun.

Statamic is not your typical CMS. Out of the box it runs on flat files, which means there's no database required at all. Content, users, configs, you name – everything is stored in Markdown, YAML, or PHP config files, but can still be managed in the control panel like other platforms.

But it's not JUST a flat file system. Its entire data layer is driver based, and you can switch from dynamic flat file mode to static site generator to MySQL to whatever data platform tickles your fancy and makes you happy.

Start simple. Scale later. Be happy. "INDIE" for 10% off Statamic Pro. Head to https://statamic.com/?ref=indielife.

About Dagobert
Previously a money-chasing software engineer, but now building his own startup with his wife, Logology (that's the name of the startup, not his wife). It took them more than two years just to build a product and had to use most of our savings just to survive. They launched it and got almost no sales, pushing him to learn marketing. Last year, after some experiments, he found a marketing channel that worked by using Twitter. Now he has 45k followers and the business is finally going. As of the start of this pod, his business is on $3k p/m, with a goal to reach $5k p/m to avoid dwindling savings and to pay themselves a salary.

• Dagobert's Twitter
• Logology - high quality logos and brands
• Memelogy - the best startup memes

About James
James left his cushty full-time job marketing job in April 2021. Since then, he's been hacking together income from his other podcast, Indie Bites, and podcast editing service, Pod Panda. The podcast does around $1k p/m in sponsor revenue and Pod Panda makes $2k p/m. But with a $4-5k burn every month, he's digging a very deep hole. James' goal is to get to around $10k per month across his products, get myself out of that hole and have fun while doing it. 

• James' Twitter
• Indie Bites - indie founder chats
• 2 Hour Podcast - podcasting course
• Whitstable Craft Co - handmade leather wallets
• PodPanda - podcast editing

James has had a massive week making £1,600 in a day selling leather wallets, Dago has success with black friday sales and we finally get to the bottom of how you pronounce niche.

Get Dago's course here 👈

What we covered in this episode:

• Dago took some time off
• How to pronounce Niche
• Black friday sales
• Meme of the week
• James’ £1,600 in one day in wallet sales
• How to capitalise on growth
• James' newspaper ad
• New Indie Bites art

Sponsor - Statamic

Statamic is a content management system built on Laravel that is designed to make building, managing, and scaling content-driven websites and applications painless and (hopefully) fun.

Statamic is not your typical CMS. Out of the box it runs on flat files, which means there's no database required at all. Content, users, configs, you name – everything is stored in Markdown, YAML, or PHP config files, but can still be managed in the control panel like other platforms.

But it's not JUST a flat file system. Its entire data layer is driver based, and you can switch from dynamic flat file mode to static site generator to MySQL to whatever data platform tickles your fancy and makes you happy.

Start simple. Scale later. Be happy. "INDIE" for 10% off Statamic Pro. Head to https://statamic.com/?ref=indielife.

About Dagobert
Previously a money-chasing software engineer, but now building his own startup with his wife, Logology (that's the name of the startup, not his wife). It took them more than two years just to build a product and had to use most of our savings just to survive. They launched it and got almost no sales, pushing him to learn marketing. Last year, after some experiments, he found a marketing channel that worked by using Twitter. Now he has 45k followers and the business is finally going. As of the start of this pod, his business is on $3k p/m, with a goal to reach $5k p/m to avoid dwindling savings and to pay themselves a salary.

• Dagobert's Twitter
• Logology - high quality logos and brands
• Memelogy - the best startup memes

About James
James left his cushty full-time job marketing job in April 2021. Since then, he's been hacking together income from his other podcast, Indie Bites, and podcast editing service, Pod Panda. The podcast does around $1k p/m in sponsor revenue and Pod Panda makes $2k p/m. But with a $4-5k burn every month, he's digging a very deep hole. James' goal is to get to around $10k per month across his products, get myself out of that hole and have fun while doing it. 

• James' Twitter
• Indie Bites - indie founder chats
• 2 Hour Podcast - podcasting course
• Whitstable Craft Co - handmade leather wallets
• PodPanda - podcast editing

This episode, Dago talks about how he feels one week on from his course launch and some of the new ideas he has for keeping the momentum. I on the other hand was not having a good day when we recorded this, I was feeling a little down in the dumps and wasn’t even sure if we should record.

But we want to be honest and truthful with this show, to give a real idea of what it’s like to be an indie founder, so decided to record and publish never the less. So you hear me confused talking about doubt, imposter syndrome and what to do when you’re not feeling at your best. I’m grateful to Dago here for being such a supportive co-host and friend.

Get Dago's course here 👈

What we covered in this episode:

• Why Dago is feeling better after the launch
• Dago’s splashing the cash on new tech
• Why he started enjoying more success?
• Setting up for future success and consistent sales
• Sending physical packages to clients
• Twitter being a perfect marketing channel for a Twitter course
• Why Dago is hungry for more success now
• v2 of Logology
• Learning more marketing channels
• James being stuck as “The Podcast Guy”
• Having doubts and imposter syndrome
• James’ ideas for growing Indie Bites
• Why to think long term
• meme: big bird going back to a job
• Dago’s insomnia gone
• Update on James’ work 40 hours challenge

About Dagobert
Previously a money-chasing software engineer, but now building his own startup with his wife, Logology (that's the name of the startup, not his wife). It took them more than two years just to build a product and had to use most of our savings just to survive. They launched it and got almost no sales, pushing him to learn marketing. Last year, after some experiments, he found a marketing channel that worked by using Twitter. Now he has 45k followers and the business is finally going. As of the start of this pod, his business is on $3k p/m, with a goal to reach $5k p/m to avoid dwindling savings and to pay themselves a salary.

• Dagobert's Twitter
• Logology - high quality logos and brands
• Memelogy - the best startup memes

About James
James left his cushty full-time job marketing job in April 2021. Since then, he's been hacking together income from his other podcast, Indie Bites, and podcast editing service, Pod Panda. The podcast does around $1k p/m in sponsor revenue and Pod Panda makes $2k p/m. But with a $4-5k burn every month, he's digging a very deep hole. James' goal is to get to around $10k per month across his products, get myself out of that hole and have fun while doing it. 

• James' Twitter
• Indie Bites - indie founder chats
• 2 Hour Podcast - podcasting course
• Whitstable Craft Co - handmade leather wallets
• PodPanda - podcast editing

This episode Dago talks about how he made $16,000 launching his course and why he’s not feeling amazing about it, I go viral on Twitter and then make a promise I might not be able to keep.

Get Dago's course here 👈

What we covered in this episode:

• Dago's course launch
• Post launch-depression
• Is Dago burnt out?
• Why James is in debt
• How he can get out of it
• Dago has NEVER been in debt
• James' viral tweet
• Why James deleted his viral tweet
• How James can work more than 20 hours a week

Sponsor - Ramen Club

My favourite community has just got a significant upgrade as it rebrands to Ramen Club, the best community to help you get to Ramen Profitability.

Ramen club has 4 remote coworking sessions a week, masterminds, accountability calls, live AMAs, a fractional CFO, in-house VA, discounts and so much more. But most of all, the founder Charlie has done a wonderful job at cultivating a wonderfully friendly and supportive community.

To join the world's most supportive community for bootstrapped founders to reach ramen profitable and beyond, head to ramenclub.so and use code "INDIELIFE" to let Charlie know I sent you and get 50% off your first month.

About Dagobert
Previously a money-chasing software engineer, but now building his own startup with his wife, Logology (that's the name of the startup, not his wife). It took them more than two years just to build a product and had to use most of our savings just to survive. They launched it and got almost no sales, pushing him to learn marketing. Last year, after some experiments, he found a marketing channel that worked by using Twitter. Now he has 45k followers and the business is finally going. As of the start of this pod, his business is on $3k p/m, with a goal to reach $5k p/m to avoid dwindling savings and to pay themselves a salary.

• Dagobert's Twitter
• Logology - high quality logos and brands
• Memelogy - the best startup memes

About James
James left his cushty full-time job marketing job in April 2021. Since then, he's been hacking together income from his other podcast, Indie Bites, and podcast editing service, Pod Panda. The podcast does around $1k p/m in sponsor revenue and Pod Panda makes $2k p/m. But with a $4-5k burn every month, he's digging a very deep hole. James' goal is to get to around $10k per month across his products, get myself out of that hole and have fun while doing it. 

• James' Twitter
• Indie Bites - indie founder chats
• 2 Hour Podcast - podcasting course
• Whitstable Craft Co - handmade leather wallets
• PodPanda - podcast editing

This episode Dago talks about why he had to delay the launch of his course, we both discuss some of the disagreements we’ve had in the past few weeks and I think about how I can grow Indie Bites.

Dago's Twitter course is launched! 🎉 Grab your copy here.

What we covered in this episode:

• Dago updates:
  • Struggling to launch his course
  • Perfectionism and all-nighters
  • Why you can’t launch on the same day as going viral
  • Are deadlines pointless? “Deadlines are not absolute”
  • Meme of the week
  • Disagreeing with a co-founder
• James updates:
  • Sold his motorbike
  • Indie Bites with Michele Hansen published
  • Put a stop to the slippery slope
  • Pondering finding "bigger" guests for Indie Bites

Links

• Pieter Levels AI Tool
• Art of Product Adam Wathan episode
• Dense Discovery

Sponsor - MentorCruise

Indie life is better with a mentor. MentorCruise is your trusted source to find expert mentors & industry professionals to move your career and business ahead. Head to mentorcruise.com and use code INDIELIFE for 20% off an intro session. Thanks for sponsoring, Dom!

About Dagobert
Previously a money-chasing software engineer, but now building his own startup with his wife, Logology (that's the name of the startup, not his wife). It took them more than two years just to build a product and had to use most of our savings just to survive. They launched it and got almost no sales, pushing him to learn marketing. Last year, after some experiments, he found a marketing channel that worked by using Twitter. Now he has 45k followers and the business is finally going. As of the start of this pod, his business is on $3k p/m, with a goal to reach $5k p/m to avoid dwindling savings and to pay themselves a salary.

• Dagobert's Twitter
• Logology - high quality logos and brands
• Memelogy - the best startup memes

About James
James left his cushty full-time job marketing job in April 2021. Since then, he's been hacking together income from his other podcast, Indie Bites, and podcast editing service, Pod Panda. The podcast does around $1k p/m in sponsor revenue and Pod Panda makes $2k p/m. But with a $4-5k burn every month, he's digging a very deep hole. James' goal is to get to around $10k per month across his products, get myself out of that hole and have fun while doing it. 

• James' Twitter
• Indie Bites - indie founder chats
• 2 Hour Podcast - podcasting course
• Whitstable Craft Co - handmade leather wallets
• PodPanda - podcast editing