Playbooks Featured

The Solo Founder Playbook

Most startups fail, but all founders succeed(in the long run!) Building a startup is hard. 90% of them don’t find success, but the lessons that founders learn in the process of starting up are valuable. These lessons often lead them to start other profitable businesses and do high-impact

Key Lessons Featured

3 examples of How Founders leveraged their network to build profitable businesses 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦

A powerful network or an engaged audience is vital for success as an Indie Hacker. Otherwise, it can be hard to get eyeballs and feedback on your project. Especially in the early days. A network helps you understand the problems of the users and build the right product from the

Key Lessons

7 Best Business Newsletters to read in 2022 [For Free!]

If you're like most founders, indie hackers, solopreneurs you're always on the lookout for new resources to help you grow your business. And what better way to stay ahead of the curve than by reading newsletters? In this blog post, I'll share 7 business

7 Online businesses you can start from home [2022] (With Examples)

So, you're thinking about starting a business. Congratulations! The best thing you can do for your career is to be in control of your own destiny. But where do you start? With so many online businesses to choose from, it can be hard to decide which one is

Key Lessons Featured

7 Habits of Highly Effective Indie Hackers

There's no one-size-fits-all answer for success as an indie hacker, everyone is on their unique journey. Yet some common patterns emerge that help founders succeed with their startups. Over the last 11 months, I’ve deeply analyzed 30+ indie hackers and their startups. This is the documentation of

Creator Economy

11 Creator economy startups to watch out for in 2022

Over the last 9 months, I've profiled many startups in this newsletter. Quite a few of them serve the creator economy. The creator economy is a term used to describe the rising trend of creators and influencers making a living through their creative work. On platforms such as

Creator Economy Featured

How to capture the creator economy | Podia 🎨

“Faster iterations coupled with perseverance is the best route to have a successful product -- not sleek designs or scalable code.” 👆 That’s Spencer Fry’s number 1 insight after running multiple successful startups over the last 19 years. Spencer [https://twitter.com/spencerfry] is the founder of Podia [https:

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Key Lessons Featured

Key Lessons from Podia’s Success 🧑‍🏫

Hello 👋 This is a “key lessons” report for Listen Up Pro subscribers. We are diving deep into how the course platform "Podia" has achieved success in the crowded space of the creator economy. To read the story of how founder Spencer Fry built Podia, you can read it

Creator Economy Featured

How to reach $4.2M ARR while pursuing a mission | Ghost👻

“Ghost is being made for love, not for profit.” 👆That’s a line from John O’Nolan’s intro video for Ghost’s Kickstarter campaign from back in 2013. John is the founder of Ghost.org [http://Ghost.org] a publishing platform for independent writers and creators to make money

75+ Insights from successful bootstrapped startup stories

Hey👋 I have profiled more than 30 indie hacker stories for this newsletter over the last 10 months or so. Over time I have collected the best lessons we all can learn from these founders, and how can we apply these lessons to our own businesses. No matter where you

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No-Code Featured

How a NoCode form builder reached $8500 MRR in a crowded market📃 | Tally

“Be patient, don’t be afraid of doing the drudge work, and be ready to pivot when you need to.” 👆 That’s Marie Martens’ advice to aspiring Indie Hackers. Marie is the co-founder of Tally.so. Tally is a No-Code tool to build simple online forms to collect feedback, information

meta Featured

21 Key Lessons from 21 Indie Hackers (Listen Up IH Wrapped)📈

This newsletter has been running for almost 9 months now. I’ve researched and written about some of the most successful indie hackers throughout the year. As 2021 ends, this is a good time to look back on some of the best profiles I could do and what we can

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No-Code Featured

How to reach $1M ARR with a 1-page site builder 📈| AJ of Carrd

"Constraints are superpowers" 👆That's the number 1 lesson we can all learn from AJ, the founder of Carrd. AJ is a pseudonymous startup founder who bootstrapped the single-page site builder Carrd to more than $1M ARR in 5 years. Before Carrd, AJ had seen success with

Startup Books Featured

How to build an audience-driven business👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 | Arvid Kahl - The Embedded Entrepreneur

"Just give and help and support." 👆 That's Arvid Kahl's message to fellow Indie Hackers. Arvid [https://twitter.com/arvidkahl] is the founder of the phenomenal bootstrapped founder blog [https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/] and podcast. And author of best-selling books like Zero to Sold and The

No-Code

What is the No-Code Movement and why it matters?

"No-Code" or "Low-Code" is a term used to describe the tools and platforms that let anyone build software products without having to do software programming themselves. People who don't know how to code can build software by simple drag and drop mechanism. This is

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SaaS Featured

$8,000 in revenue without even a product 💸| Tuple

"Be useful on the internet" 👆 That's Ben Orenstein's advice for aspiring indie hackers. Ben is the founder of Tuple - a remote pair programming app for macOS. Ben, Joel and Spencer co-founded Tuple back in 2018 as a replacement for a popular app called

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Content Business Featured

Building A Winning Bundle🏆 | Every

"The magic of writing is that it can make readers feel less alone in the world. The magic of a writer collective is, perhaps, that it can make writers feel less alone in the world." 👆 That's how Nathan Baschez and Dan Shipper think about their startup

SaaS Featured

Freelancer's path to building a SaaS with $10K MRR 🏡| Agent Nest

"Tell yourself - I can do this and I WILL do this. Just focus on your business, focus on what you care about." 👆 That's Molly Wolchansky's advice to Indie Hackers who want to get to $10K MRR with their business. Molly [https://www.indiehackers.

No-Code

Rising with the No-Code Movement 🏄‍♂️| Makerpad

"Code or No-Code, figure out the path of least resistance and start building" 👆 That's Ben Tossell's advice for Indie Hackers Ben [https://twitter.com/bentossell] is the Founder and CEO of Makerpad [https://www.makerpad.co/]. Makerpad is a content + community + course platform that

Creator Economy Featured

Indie Hacker on the Unicorn Track🦄 | Riverside

Listen Up IH - Episode 28 "I want to build a billion dollar company" That's Nadav Keyson's [https://twitter.com/nadavkeyson] audacious vision for his startup Riverside.fm [http://Riverside.fm] Riverside [https://riverside.fm/] is a tool to record studio-quality podcasts/interviews from

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Creator Economy Featured

Flying past $23K MRR in 2 years🦅 | Hypefury

Listen Up! IH - Episode 27 "Keep your ears and eyes open, because there are opportunities everywhere." 👆 That's Samy Dindane's advice for aspiring Indie Hackers. Samy is the co-founder of Hypefury. Hypefury is a Twitter growth tool that lets you schedule Tweets, Threads, Retweet

Lifestyle Business Featured

Escaping Death to find his Destiny 🌟| Kyle Gawley of Gravity

Listen Up IH - Episode 26 I have no employees, no investors, no funding, no fixed location. Just me and my laptop, building what I love while traveling the world 👆 That's a quote from one of Kyle Gawley's blogs. Kyle [https://twitter.com/kylegawley] is the

Digital Nomads Featured

The Hardcore Year approach to $10K MRR💪 | Andrey Azimov

Listen Up! IH - Episode 25 "Just start a simple one-button app, whatever your idea is." 👆 That's Andrey Azimov's advice to aspiring Indie Hackers. Andrey [https://twitter.com/AndreyAzimov] is the the founder of Sheet2Site.com [http://sheet2site.com/], Chart2Site.com [http://chart2site.com/

Creator Economy Featured

Rock Bottom To Rocket Ship🚀 | How Veed Grew To $5M+ ARR

Listen Up! IH – Episode 24 “Keep pushing, and make something people search for” That’s Sabba Keynejad’s message to Indie Hackers. Sabba [https://twitter.com/sab8a] is the Co-founder of Veed.io [http://veed.io/] – a browser-based video editing tool. Sabba and his co-founder Tim grew the company from

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Community Featured

Kindness and Community | Rosie Sherry👼

Listen Up IH - Episode 23 “It’s really, really simple. I’m kind to people and I think about people first.” That’s how Rosie Sherry gets people to care deeply about the work she does. Rosie Sherry is the founder of RosieLand, Community Lead at Orbit and former