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> The thing is, we don’t know In the first paragraph: At the moment, my total revenue across all products is about $45K/month at ~90% profit.

Aurornis 3y ago
Right! Did you notice the phrase “at the moment”? A snapshot in time that makes the narrative sound optimal. No mention of how it reached that point. No mention of what advertising routes were tried in the past. Another trick I’ve seen is for solopreneurs to create a “HoldCo” that holds their individual businesses, then to find creative ways to spend marketing dollars out of the parent company so they can keep it off the books of their individual businesses. You have to look for this when someone has a large personal brand presence that markets the app. For example, how much is he spending to grow his Twitter and newsletter following, which isn’t counted as an expense out of the individual businesses but is a huge (perhaps the largest?) driver of leads for them. From evaluating potential small business acquisitions I quickly learned that operators are very good at juicing their profitability numbers as they prepare for a potential sale, for example. You’d often see great stories of customer growth and high profit numbers, only to discover that the profitability was a recent change after they turned off the growth tools. You might also discover that their customer acquisition costs were hidden away in one of the owner’s other ventures. For example, a roofing company that looks great until you realize their entire customer base comes from “referrals” from the owner’s other company which installs solar panels on people’s roofs. Again, it’s possible that this is pure, organic, word-of-mouth growth all the way to $45K MRR, but I’ve seen enough of these stories to know that word of mouth and a moderate Twitter following generally isn’t enough to do it. All I’m saying is to keep an eye open for what you’re not being told in these stories. When someone is part indie hacker and part social media influencer, everything they write is designed to consider you a potential customer, potential follower, or potential acquirer of their business (as with his previous sale). That doesn’t mean that their information is unhelpful, it just means that you’re getting a partial sales pitch with everything you read. Keep that in mind.
- keiferski 3y ago
  Yeah I'm pretty sure you didn't read the article and are just being cynical. > No mention of how it reached that point. No mention of what advertising routes were tried in the past. From the post: I knew that posting the app to websites and forums on the internet and hoping for a traffic spike wouldn’t work in the long term. I can’t get lucky forever. So, I started to look for a long-term distribution channel. I tried Google paid ads, wrote SEO articles, looked for sponsorships on newsletter/YouTube channels, and tons of other things. There were some small results, but in the end, I didn’t see a way that could give me traffic for the long-term without continuous effort. (Except for SEO, but SEO is extremely slow to see the results). This is when I think about Twitter and the #buildinpublic community.
- debo_ 3y ago
  He has several other articles about his journey. Perhaps look in his newsletter back issues?
- kyawzazaw 3y ago
  Have you checked the twitter too? A lot of details are out in the open.

Aurornis 3y ago

Right! Did you notice the phrase “at the moment”? A snapshot in time that makes the narrative sound optimal. No mention of how it reached that point. No mention of what advertising routes were tried in the past. Another trick I’ve seen is for solopreneurs to create a “HoldCo” that holds their individual businesses, then to find creative ways to spend marketing dollars out of the parent company so they can keep it off the books of their individual businesses. You have to look for this when someone has a large personal brand presence that markets the app. For example, how much is he spending to grow his Twitter and newsletter following, which isn’t counted as an expense out of the individual businesses but is a huge (perhaps the largest?) driver of leads for them. From evaluating potential small business acquisitions I quickly learned that operators are very good at juicing their profitability numbers as they prepare for a potential sale, for example. You’d often see great stories of customer growth and high profit numbers, only to discover that the profitability was a recent change after they turned off the growth tools. You might also discover that their customer acquisition costs were hidden away in one of the owner’s other ventures. For example, a roofing company that looks great until you realize their entire customer base comes from “referrals” from the owner’s other company which installs solar panels on people’s roofs. Again, it’s possible that this is pure, organic, word-of-mouth growth all the way to $45K MRR, but I’ve seen enough of these stories to know that word of mouth and a moderate Twitter following generally isn’t enough to do it. All I’m saying is to keep an eye open for what you’re not being told in these stories. When someone is part indie hacker and part social media influencer, everything they write is designed to consider you a potential customer, potential follower, or potential acquirer of their business (as with his previous sale). That doesn’t mean that their information is unhelpful, it just means that you’re getting a partial sales pitch with everything you read. Keep that in mind.

keiferski 3y ago
Yeah I'm pretty sure you didn't read the article and are just being cynical. > No mention of how it reached that point. No mention of what advertising routes were tried in the past. From the post: I knew that posting the app to websites and forums on the internet and hoping for a traffic spike wouldn’t work in the long term. I can’t get lucky forever. So, I started to look for a long-term distribution channel. I tried Google paid ads, wrote SEO articles, looked for sponsorships on newsletter/YouTube channels, and tons of other things. There were some small results, but in the end, I didn’t see a way that could give me traffic for the long-term without continuous effort. (Except for SEO, but SEO is extremely slow to see the results). This is when I think about Twitter and the #buildinpublic community.
debo_ 3y ago
He has several other articles about his journey. Perhaps look in his newsletter back issues?
kyawzazaw 3y ago
Have you checked the twitter too? A lot of details are out in the open.