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Back in August I launched https://IndieHackers.com https://IndieHackers.com, a site where the founders of profitable online businesses share their stories and r

by csallen 10y ago

Back in August I launched https://IndieHackers.com https://IndieHackers.com, a site where the founders of profitable online businesses share their stories and revenue transparently. I actually got the idea after reading lots of threads like this one on HN :D Indie Hackers is my full-time job now. Is it "successful"? I think so! I've done over 90 interviews, and they've been read over one million times in the past 5 months, largely by you guys! I also made $2239 in December and hope to grow revenue another 50% in January. (As I do every month, I just blogged about that here: https://IndieHackers.com/blog https://IndieHackers.com/blog) I'm working on a podcast as well that I'm really excited about, as I've found it's a bit easier to get famous founders to agree to that format and to speak transparently about behind the scenes details.

countryqt30 10y ago
IndieHackers is one of my favorite platforms! I've read most stories and do business with some of the founders there successfully after reading about them on your platform. THANK YOU! You are not making only yourself wealthy, but many more so. I really appreciate your site.
- csallen 10y ago
  Thank you! I love having incentives aligned where me doing my job better helps everyone both myself and everyone else :D
kd22 10y ago
I love what you have done ! It's a great resource for inspiration and to see how people are creating awesome things..Keep it up :)
the_wheel 10y ago
Really excited about an Indie Hackers podcast. Started listening to Side Hustle School the other day.
instakill 10y ago
Loving your drive for this site Courtland. Very inspiring.
wastedhours 10y ago
Love IH, only a few newsletters that get kept and read as reference in my inbox (the others being SaaS Weekly by Hiten Shah, OfficeSnapshots and The Hustle), and it's only been a few months but already one of my most anticipated emails each week. Hope the hockey stick goes up, and like a lot of people here, hope to be on those pages soon :)
- csallen 10y ago
  Awesome! Love The Hustle and Office Snapshots, will check out SaaS Weekly. Been meaning to interview Stephen from OS since back in August, we were on Product Hunt on the same day :D
Swizec 10y ago
How can you afford to be full-time on $2239/month? O.o
- csallen 10y ago
  I saved up money contracting before I took the plunge. This definitely wouldn't have been possible otherwise! But also, if you don't have a family, serious debt, or health issues, it's pretty easy to be resourceful and live cheaply, even in an expensive city like San Francisco.
  - Swizec 10y ago
    Ah that makes sense! You sound better at living affordably than I am ... doing very similarly with the sidehustle and still pretty far from going full time.
  - Cerium 10y ago
    Sounds like your good with money. Wealth has offense and defense, earning a lot is helpful, but spending less than you earn is key.
- zazpowered 10y ago
  A lot of people are full time on $0 a month
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- chirau 10y ago
  One year I decided I wanted to save as much as I could. I went for the greater part of the year on under 2k per month. Saved a ton load of money, like 80% of my take home earnings.
  - Cerium 10y ago
    Live like that for 10 years and you can retire like that for the rest of your life.
dgrigg 10y ago
IndieHackers is a brilliant idea. Being able to learn from other people's successes and failures and seeing that most startups are not unicorns is a great help.
- csallen 10y ago
  Hey Derrick! Glad to have Pageproofer on the site :D
  - dgrigg 10y ago
    thanks, it was great to take the time to work through the interview process. Great to review where PageProofer has come from and think about where it's going.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tomek_zemla 10y ago
Indie Hackers is great. Two comments/requests. It would be great to have some business and entrepreneurship books reviewed by the community. Some are worth reading, but many are not and Amazon type reviews are not reliable indicator or hype vs. value. Another great feature would be to have a small follow up with some of the showcased businesses. Especially the ones that just got started. Great work and good luck!
- csallen 10y ago
  1. Been thinking about doing book reviews on the blog actually. Any tips/ideas for crowdsourcing it and getting the community involved? Maybe I'll try using the forum for that. 2. Will try to do updates every few months or so in the future, don't want the interviews to get stale!
  - kinkora 10y ago
    hey courtland, another big fan of indiehackers here. keep up the good work! Consider this suggestion as my form of paying it forward. ;) Don't do book reviews and the value of your site is in the data. What you should do is, for every interview, add a question in the form of "what books do you read" or "what do you recommend people should read?". Then for every book listed, add an amazon affiliate link (don't forget to be transparent about this - honesty is the best policy!) so that it provides some revenue and diversifies your income. Now here is the kicker -> Add every suggested book as a data point and collate it all into a table(s) as a separate page on indiehackers! You can use all sort of filters such as number of times suggested, genre based on founder types, etc. For the sort of audience you have, there will be very interested in the number of times a book has been suggested rather than the book review itself. Hope that helps. If you need a sounding board and perhaps a hand, my email is in my profile.
    - tomek_zemla 10y ago
      Agreed. This is a good outline for integrating books smoothly into the site. Moreover, this could be expanded to other types of products like useful (actually used) tools/resources: hosting companies, billing automation systems, analytics software, etc. Many of these will also have affiliate link programs and/or can be approached for paid sponsorship deals. Considering the site's growing traffic it could bring significant money while serving relevant ads.
punknight 10y ago
I look forward to a podcast like this to fill the void that the old "startup" episodes filled.
rewrew 10y ago
Heya -- I just tried Subscribing but I haven't gotten the confirmation e-mail. Been about 10 minutes. Looks like it's handled by mailchimp so probably their issue but wanted to let you know.
donmatito 10y ago
I always found indieHackers interesting, but I had not realized you had a blog. Kudos to you for the transparency, honesty, and opportunity for all of us to learn!
metakermit 10y ago
I can also recommend http://www.productpeople.tv/ http://www.productpeople.tv/ and the related community as a good place where product builders hang out and share experiences.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ck_one 10y ago
I enjoy reading articles on your website. Just curious, how do you know whether the numbers of your guests are correct or faked?
elt0n 10y ago
I love IndieHackers!
axrd 10y ago
Love Indie Hackers! I've learned a ton from the founders that you've interviewed. Definitely encourage you to build out the podcast since it will provide even more value to your audience. Best of luck!
jeshan25 10y ago
Great work man with IT! I'm on your email list and watching what you're up to regularly :) What I would like to see in your future written interviews or podcast (a podcast would be great; I'll subscribe immediately!), is more emphasis on how they got the right customers and how they grew their customer base.
mquentin 10y ago
Man I love your website - so inspiring !

by csallen 10y ago

countryqt30 10y ago

IndieHackers is one of my favorite platforms! I've read most stories and do business with some of the founders there successfully after reading about them on your platform. THANK YOU! You are not making only yourself wealthy, but many more so. I really appreciate your site.

csallen 10y ago
Thank you! I love having incentives aligned where me doing my job better helps everyone both myself and everyone else :D

kd22 10y ago

I love what you have done ! It's a great resource for inspiration and to see how people are creating awesome things..Keep it up :)

the_wheel 10y ago

Really excited about an Indie Hackers podcast. Started listening to Side Hustle School the other day.

instakill 10y ago

Loving your drive for this site Courtland. Very inspiring.

wastedhours 10y ago

Love IH, only a few newsletters that get kept and read as reference in my inbox (the others being SaaS Weekly by Hiten Shah, OfficeSnapshots and The Hustle), and it's only been a few months but already one of my most anticipated emails each week. Hope the hockey stick goes up, and like a lot of people here, hope to be on those pages soon :)

csallen 10y ago
Awesome! Love The Hustle and Office Snapshots, will check out SaaS Weekly. Been meaning to interview Stephen from OS since back in August, we were on Product Hunt on the same day :D

Swizec 10y ago

How can you afford to be full-time on $2239/month? O.o

csallen 10y ago
I saved up money contracting before I took the plunge. This definitely wouldn't have been possible otherwise! But also, if you don't have a family, serious debt, or health issues, it's pretty easy to be resourceful and live cheaply, even in an expensive city like San Francisco.
- Swizec 10y ago
  Ah that makes sense! You sound better at living affordably than I am ... doing very similarly with the sidehustle and still pretty far from going full time.
- Cerium 10y ago
  Sounds like your good with money. Wealth has offense and defense, earning a lot is helpful, but spending less than you earn is key.
zazpowered 10y ago
A lot of people are full time on $0 a month
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
chirau 10y ago
One year I decided I wanted to save as much as I could. I went for the greater part of the year on under 2k per month. Saved a ton load of money, like 80% of my take home earnings.
- Cerium 10y ago
  Live like that for 10 years and you can retire like that for the rest of your life.

dgrigg 10y ago

IndieHackers is a brilliant idea. Being able to learn from other people's successes and failures and seeing that most startups are not unicorns is a great help.

csallen 10y ago
Hey Derrick! Glad to have Pageproofer on the site :D
- dgrigg 10y ago
  thanks, it was great to take the time to work through the interview process. Great to review where PageProofer has come from and think about where it's going.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tomek_zemla 10y ago

Indie Hackers is great. Two comments/requests. It would be great to have some business and entrepreneurship books reviewed by the community. Some are worth reading, but many are not and Amazon type reviews are not reliable indicator or hype vs. value. Another great feature would be to have a small follow up with some of the showcased businesses. Especially the ones that just got started. Great work and good luck!

csallen 10y ago
1. Been thinking about doing book reviews on the blog actually. Any tips/ideas for crowdsourcing it and getting the community involved? Maybe I'll try using the forum for that. 2. Will try to do updates every few months or so in the future, don't want the interviews to get stale!
- kinkora 10y ago
  hey courtland, another big fan of indiehackers here. keep up the good work! Consider this suggestion as my form of paying it forward. ;) Don't do book reviews and the value of your site is in the data. What you should do is, for every interview, add a question in the form of "what books do you read" or "what do you recommend people should read?". Then for every book listed, add an amazon affiliate link (don't forget to be transparent about this - honesty is the best policy!) so that it provides some revenue and diversifies your income. Now here is the kicker -> Add every suggested book as a data point and collate it all into a table(s) as a separate page on indiehackers! You can use all sort of filters such as number of times suggested, genre based on founder types, etc. For the sort of audience you have, there will be very interested in the number of times a book has been suggested rather than the book review itself. Hope that helps. If you need a sounding board and perhaps a hand, my email is in my profile.
  - tomek_zemla 10y ago
    Agreed. This is a good outline for integrating books smoothly into the site. Moreover, this could be expanded to other types of products like useful (actually used) tools/resources: hosting companies, billing automation systems, analytics software, etc. Many of these will also have affiliate link programs and/or can be approached for paid sponsorship deals. Considering the site's growing traffic it could bring significant money while serving relevant ads.

punknight 10y ago

I look forward to a podcast like this to fill the void that the old "startup" episodes filled.

rewrew 10y ago

Heya -- I just tried Subscribing but I haven't gotten the confirmation e-mail. Been about 10 minutes. Looks like it's handled by mailchimp so probably their issue but wanted to let you know.

donmatito 10y ago

I always found indieHackers interesting, but I had not realized you had a blog. Kudos to you for the transparency, honesty, and opportunity for all of us to learn!

metakermit 10y ago

I can also recommend http://www.productpeople.tv/ http://www.productpeople.tv/ and the related community as a good place where product builders hang out and share experiences.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ck_one 10y ago

I enjoy reading articles on your website. Just curious, how do you know whether the numbers of your guests are correct or faked?

elt0n 10y ago

I love IndieHackers!

axrd 10y ago

Love Indie Hackers! I've learned a ton from the founders that you've interviewed. Definitely encourage you to build out the podcast since it will provide even more value to your audience. Best of luck!

jeshan25 10y ago

Great work man with IT! I'm on your email list and watching what you're up to regularly :) What I would like to see in your future written interviews or podcast (a podcast would be great; I'll subscribe immediately!), is more emphasis on how they got the right customers and how they grew their customer base.

mquentin 10y ago

Man I love your website - so inspiring !