Best of Indie Hacker 𝕏
How I took @uniqueside_io from $0 to $85K Revenue
1. I started being active on Twitter on Dec 2022. I was a nobody here.
2. Started to observe other people, and also started sharing what I was working on.
3. I started with a very simple project and built that in public, it wa...
RIP Designers: Figma AI is Here ✨
Brace yourselves for a flood of bad takes by non-designers.
🔪🧠 Now, everyone with a knife thinks they're a brain surgeon...
It’s inevitable AI will transform ALL computer work.
But here’s the thing: While AI streamlines the grunt ...
If you are developer
And you need to get ramen profitable fast (<6 months)
Don't start with SaaS.
> Launch a one-person agency "MVP as a service"
> Charge $2000-$5000 per project
> Start creating internal products
> Launch them as micro-SaaS
> Add content produ...
“Build something people want”
When building is easy, we should spend significant more time to figure out that “something people want”.
There are multiple approaches to do this:
- Do customer development before building.
Jason Cohen famously interviewed 50 potentia...
1. Show authority
➼ pick one skill
➼ talk about it
➼ document
2. Tell stories
➼ build in public
➼ show personality
➼ yes, tell more stories
3. Have an offer
➼ Do free/cheap work
➼ Stack testimonials
➼ Help everyone
You’re welc...
As a dev that is coming from the corporate world and just getting into indie hacking it's so nice to just build build build and not have to deal with any of the talking heads, red tape, or pointless meetings.
Nothing is slowing me down!
There's no daily stand up, no random "can you ju...
Saas marketing strategy.
Know your competitors marketing strategy, apply it and add something they don't.
Linkedin be like:
My burrito bowl just fell on the floor
Here are 21 lessons I learnt from that experience
People accept that getting a college degree takes 5-10 years.
But want to build an online business empire within 6 months.
Fix your expectations.
Everybody wants 100k MRR
Nobody wants the decade-long grind it takes to get there.
"How much money should I charge for this"
The highest amount you personally are able to get based off your sales ability, case studies, and perceived authority.
Therefore, the best price for YOU is unique to you
How to build a profitable business:
• Take a look at your daily life
• Identify a problem you have
• Create a valuable solution
If it's a problem for you, there are likely 1,000 other people out there looking for a solution.
If you’re not making enough money - you’re simply not working enough.
You can worry about efficiency / scalability / not trading time for money ONCE you develop the work ethic.
Clock in a 70hr-a-week year first, then scale. (hint: it'll help you too)
⭐ Win Your First B2B FinTech or Bank Client ⭐
This is the 1st chapter of your very own B2B acquisition bible. If my previous post was a prelude, here is..
Chapter I: 'Just get your toe in the door'
You’re a new kid (adult) on the block. You focus on B2B tech consulting or SaaS...
Don’t be the idea guy or gal. Be the execution person. It pays a lot more.
Stop shitposting and go build some shit worth posting about!
“It’s just a wrapper”
—said someone who never builds and launches anything.
How to ship an MVP in one week:
- 4x pomodoro timers of 50 min per day
- No social media until 2pm
- Reuse as much code as possible from previous projects
- Github copilot
A key takeaway from starting a business:
things always take more time than you expect.
Last year on this day, 5 months into indie hacking I made $5k.
After 1 whole year of experimenting with 12 projects and nailing down on 1 project (baked design) I’m sitting at $200k savings.
That’s 4090.48% increase!
It would have never been possible working at Meta or a 9-5
Code is a means to an end. Don't be obsessed over it.
AI will eventually write most code that runs in production anyway.
If a piece of code runs in production without any bugs and the code is readable, no one will care if it was written by a human or AI.
many good founders are human LLMs trained on paul graham’s essays
We’ve hit $10K in revenue! 🥳
Celebrate with me because AI Directories hit another milestone. When I started 4 months ago I never thought it would be possible. But today, it's a reality.
Time to continue with good work and help even more people to launch. 🚀 #buildinpublic
Unpopular opinion: From my experience the thing with most Indiehacker businesses is that they are not really a business.
There’s a login page yes, and it does let you log in. But, that’s where it ends.
Onboarding is not existing, there’s nobody responding to your support ticket or it ...
Your richest clients will want to throw money at the problem because the money being thrown is still a lot cheaper than their time
Nobody cared about my work for 6 years (except for you, twitter).
Now I get attention from the people who thought I was doing weird stuff.
They ignored me and now they are suddenly curious.
Losers don't try, they judge.
Winners don't speak, they build.
The 3 stages of career development:
1. I want to be in the meeting
2. I want to run the meeting
3. I want to avoid meetings
⭐️Pikimov ⭐️is a free 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 and 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿, an alternative to After Effects. 🎬 Totally free, no account. Projects are processed locally, not used to train AI models.
Renewed my annual scooter insurance plan
Cost: 84,000 VND/ $3.30
Living in Saigon frees me from the shackles of car ownership
Getting around is easy
- Scooter for short trips
- Cheap ride shares
Costs
- Gas: $10/ month
- Ride shares: $60/ mo...
It took me over 3 years and 25 built products to reach $10,000 in revenue per month.
Learn git and move on
This Twitter conversation is stupid
3 design rules to make beautiful landing pages.
🫸 1024px max width
↔️ 16px horizontal padding
↕️ 80+% of the viewport height per section
Do you want free, confident and unsolicited advice about how you can build a great business, physique and romantic relationship?
- Just hang out with someone who has done none of these things.
Schedule 4 hours for deep work first thing in the morning.
Then take a break and go for a run.
Come back and take calls.
And then escape to nature.
This rhythm will change the trajectory of your life.
Work on something:
- hard to build
- no platform risk
- can charge $99/mo
- you’re good at it
- tweet about what you’re doing
And you have a recipe for $10k MRR and beyond 🚀
Normal SaaS API: generate an API token here, then hit this endpoint with these params. Here is an example cURL. Done!
AWS API: No no no, there is no HTTP endpoint, go here and download the SDK, pick your programming language, lookup the service name from the SDK docs, lookup the command from th...
One of the first things I did when we moved was turn the garage into a home gym.
Squat rack, bench, weights, treadmill, bike, stretching area.
Sauna + cold plunge.
Especially with young kids, being able to hop into the garage for a 30m workout is a *massive* unlock.
The tech stack I'm using to build my $500K business (and the reason why):
Web app:
- JavaScript using NextJS, ReactJS
- TailwindCSS, RadixUI for UI
- Deploy on Vercel
Database:
- MySQL
- Deploy on AWS RDS
macOS apps:
- Swift, AppKit
That's all....
🚀 I'm shipping a mini-project today!
An AI powered BS detector!
Give it a tweet, a link, paste an image or some text, and it will tell you if it's true or 💩
Here's some examples 👇
the most successful founders I know are always pissed off about something
Oh, this is a smart tool: learning more about your customers' geographical distribution can help you make meaningful marketing, sales, and customer development decisions.
I love tools with laser focus. This is one of 'em.
Not affiliated, just inspired!
https://www.producthunt...
🔎 I made a free tool that can evaluate all your job applicants
✨ http://ApplicantAI.com/GPT
- 📑 Upload resumes
- ✅ Score each applicant on how well they will match your job
- 👍 Strengths and 👎 Weaknesses
- ⚙️ See years of experience, email, phone, links
- 📄 Save re...
there is no such thing as bad code or good code. there is only code that makes money, and code that doesn't make money
I still remember a year ago.
Everyone told me AI headshots were a hype.
"You are wasting your time"
"It will all go to zero"
"AI will never look real"
Yet, I kept on grinding. Working 80h weeks improving every little detailed.
At times it almost con...
For people who consider certain types of businesses beneath them:
(i see this a lot in my comments)
If a business creates products that provide value and people are happy to pay for them, then what's wrong with that?
If you don't like it, you don't have to pay for it.
...
"Tailwind is the worst thing that happened to CSS"
People post this and you know their CSS looks like:
position: absolute;
top: 14%;
left: 3% !important;
When I sold my first startup, I was still doing freelance work 2 days a week.
There’s absolutely no need to mess up your personal finances and lifestyle to build your dream.
Having stable income while building a risky business gives you that needed stability.
Two days less ...
I've been using tRPC in production for a year+ now
it's great, it's simple, it feels like GraphQL but only "the good parts", quick to ship new features without breaking things
if you haven't already check it out and give it a try
Underrated landing page tip:
Use dark mode more.
Statistically, people use dark mode more often on Social Media.
They are used to it.
Make your website familiar.
3 steps to becoming a software developer in 2024!
Step 1-
Learn HTML
Step 2-
Learn CSS!
Step 3-
Learn:
JavaScript
Typescript
SQL
Java
Spring framework
AWS
Terraform
Docker
Kubernetes
Build lots of projects
Network non...