🗞 What's New: What exactly is an indie hacker?

So what exactly is an indie hacker?

• At its core, indie hacking is the journey to making money independently, sans employer. Below, we're getting back to the basics.
• The pop-up retail industry is making a major comeback, thanks to e-commerce. Founders can hop onto these new opportunities to secure the bag!
• Founder Perry Steward hit 29,000 visitors in monthly, organic traffic. Here's his strategy, including steps to promote your linkworthy content and build backlinks.

Want to share something with nearly 95,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

🧐 What is an Indie Hacker?

by Rudd Niew

Since I started my indie hacking journey, people have asked me exactly what an indie hacker is. Although I’ve referred to myself as an indie hacker for over a year now, the question was surprisingly hard to answer!

The definition

The definition created by Courtland Allen is easy enough:

But does an independent plumber generally identify as an indie hacker? I somehow doubt it. I thought it would be nice to hit the basics of what it means to be an indie hacker.

The basics

Here are eight questions and answers that further explore what an indie hacker actually is:

1. What do indie hackers do?

They try to create a business online. This could be anything from selling onions online to creating a SaaS, PaaS, or even a community.

2. Do you have to be a software engineer, designer, marketer, or digital creator?

Yes and no.

No, because despite the fact that these professions describe a large percentage of indie hacker jobs, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful outside of these industries. Actually, applying indie hacking principles to different industries is probably a great idea.

At the same time, yes, because building and selling digital products will involve a little bit of all these disciplines. After some time, you’ll have experience in all of them.

3. Do indie hackers have full-time jobs?

Many do. It’s entirely possible, and even recommended, to start creating side projects alongside working your day job. Being limited in time means that you’ll have to get creative to validate your idea before quitting the job that is actually sustaining your family.

4. Can indie hackers generate enough income to make a living?

They can! But the harsh truth is that building an online business from scratch is incredibly difficult. Besides talent and hard work, you need some luck to develop a profitable company. Only a fraction of side projects make enough to become ramen profitable. But once you manage to build an online business that scales, it’s possible to make literal millions as an indie hacker.

5. Are indie hackers looking to become VC-funded unicorns?

Unicorns are companies with a valuation of over $1B. To reach valuations as high as these, founders can take venture capital money to rapidly grow their businesses. Often, this is done in the form of seed funding, followed by series A, B, and C funding. This comes at a cost, though. There will be constant pressure to keep growing the company's revenue, impact, and internal team. It’s said that sometimes, when you take outside money, the business valuation becomes your product. And when infinite growth is your goal, you might have to make decisions that hurt your customers.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have bootstrapped companies. Founders who choose to not take any outside money have to generate revenue and profit to sustain themselves. The downside of bootstrapping is that you can’t pump as much money around as VC-funded startups can, which can limit your growth. But the upside is that you keep your independence, and there’s less pressure to grow indefinitely to increase company value. This is often seen as a more sustainable business model for customers.

It’s also possible to start out bootstrapped and take VC money later to support your growth. One well-known example of this is Veed.

6. Is the goal to become rich?

I believe that making money online is only a means to an end. Most founders I know are in this because they want to live a more fulfilling, freedom-driven life. For one person, a freedom-driven life means to become financially independent, but for another, it means to have an empty, meeting-free calendar. This is also reflected in the choices that founders make regarding funding and hiring. If you want to have a life devoid of Zoom meetings, hiring a large team probably isn’t something you should be doing.

Another goal that indie hackers may have is to generate impact. In this case, generating income is not the primary goal of these founders.

7. Do I need a cofounder?

The founder journey is hard, and it can be lonely at times. Having a cofounder to talk to can make a huge difference and (hopefully) improve your product. I’ve worked with amazing founders in the past, which made it more enjoyable to work on the product.

Hard times will always be there because founding a company is difficult. So if you decide to team up with someone, do yourself a favor and make sure that it’s a great match. And if you decide to go solo, you don’t need to do it all alone. There are amazing communities out there to connect with like-minded people!

8. Are there any other noteworthy differences between indie hackers and traditional business founders?

What I personally like about indie hackers is the emphasis on starting small. The traditional mistake is to build a product for years, and only then start selling to users. Most founders understand the urgency of getting early users and shipping their products before they're totally polished...at least in theory!

Indie hackers also generally understand the value of not only having a good business idea, but sharing it. Maybe it’s because there are a lot of software engineers for whom transparency is naturally more important because of the open source community. Or maybe it’s the humility in knowing that no idea is truly unique, and that your success rarely depends on the absence of copycats. In any case, I’m glad to be part of such an open and honest community!

(I would also love for you to check out my first YouTube video, where I try to explain indie hacking in under a minute!

What does indie hacking mean to you? Share in the comments below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

📱 Shein now has more app downloads than Amazon Shopping and Shopify.

🦍 This AI generates Bored Apes that are unique and free.

📺 Netflix is exploring a livestreaming feature.

🚙 Not a single car was sold in Shanghai last month.

💸 Some say that the startup world will soon face an economic reckoning.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

🛍 Return of the Pop-Up Shop

from the Hustle Newsletter by Julia Janks

The Signal: The pop-up retail industry, which generated $50B-$80B annually before the 2020 retail apocalypse, is making a comeback.

The recovery is being driven by an unlikely suspect: E-commerce.

While the last two years have been characterized by a mass migration of brick-and-mortar stores online, in the coming years, we will likely see the reverse.

E-commerce heavyweights like Birchbox, BarkShop, and Leesa have been leveraging temporary retail for a while, and now some new online suspects are jumping on the trend:

• The Inkey List: A skin care company that has grown 600% in four years.
• Parade: An underwear brand popular with Gen Z.
• Pleasing: A nail polish and beauty brand by singer Harry Styles.
• Kylie Cosmetics: Kylie Jenner's makeup brand.

*The Inkey List's pop-up shoppers were able to try the products and test their skincare knowledge through a series of interactive games. (Source: Instagram)

Pop-ups offer the perfect solution for online businesses looking to build brand awareness or a physical presence, without having to over-invest in a permanent space.

The value prop of the physical store is also increasingly shifting from utility- to experience-driven, which opens the door to a new world of pop-up possibilities. These new opportunities are ripe for founders:

1. Provide pop-up services:

While existing tools like We Are Pop Up help retailers get started, there is an opportunity to provide full turnkey pop-up solutions for new e-commerce brands. Your service could include location scouting, concept design, and staffing.

You could scale it down a notch and provide a more pint-size solution, like pop-up pods, booths, or cubes. Take inspiration from the food truck industry and provide a mobile solution using trucks, vans, campers, or even scooters.

*The Kynd Fashion truck based in Sri Lanka (Source: The Morning)

2. Launch your own pop-up:

If you're an e-commerce company looking to expand brand reach, launch a new product, or create buzz on social media, pop-up retail could be a nifty tool to include in your marketing arsenal, especially in light of increasing online advertising costs.

*Source: Revealbot

According to a 2019 survey of 600 retail professionals, 80% of retailers who have opened a pop-up deemed it successful, and ~60% said that they would do it again. The same survey found that most retailers (60%) spent <$10K on pop-up space. Of those, 75% spent <$5K.

*Increased sales are just one potential benefit of temporary retail. (Source: Storefront via Business Insider)

3. Virtual pop-ups:

Like it or not, pop-up shops in the metaverse are a thing now.

Italian fashion brand Hogan recently took part in Decentraland's Fashion Week with a virtual pop-up store, and jewelry label Pandora teamed up with Animal Planet to launch an in-game virtual pop-up called "Pandora Island."

But you don't have to dive head first into the metaverse to participate in the trend.

Virtual pop-up stores gained popularity as an alternative to the real deal during COVID-19 lockdowns, and despite a dip in 2021, interest is picking up again.

*Source: Google Trends

A virtual pop-up shop is essentially anything that creates a unique online shopping experience for your customers, separate from your existing website. This could be an event or a landing page dedicated to a new product line. Some brands that have already experimented with this format include Lancôme, Hoover, and Dunkin'.

Would you build in the pop-up space? Share your thoughts below!

Subscribe to the Hustle Newsletter for more.

👥 10M Users, Zero Funding

by Aytekin Tank

Leadership:

Don’t wait for people to fail.

Once you delegate, check back often and provide consistent feedback. That way, the other person (or team) has the information they need to succeed, and you’re free to focus, knowing that the task is well underway. Give people time and space to find their rhythm, especially in the beginning.

Discuss this story.

🛣 Perry Steward Hit 29K in Monthly Organic Traffic

by Perry Steward

Hey indie hackers! I'm Perry Steward, founder of MADX, a digital content marketing service. We recently hit 29K in monthly organic traffic! This is no quick win story, as content marketing takes time. But the results that we are now seeing for our clients are exponential.

We started our content marketing strategy eight months ago. We managed to double organic traffic from 3K to 6K in three months. We were obviously ecstatic, because this alone is amazing growth! However, we're now seeing super growth, and I wanted to share our strategy here. Hope it helps!

The strategy

1. Keyword research: Research keywords relevant to your business in tools like Ahrefs and Semrush. Aim for low difficulty keywords if you’re just starting out. Also, check out zero volume keywords. Tools get the volumes wrong, and because they report low numbers, other people ignore them.

2. User intent: Understand user intent. The top SERP results give you a good idea of this. Are people expecting to see a listicle, a how-to, or a download? Create your content accordingly.

3. Deeper research: Conduct more research. Create SEO-focused page outlines and structures based on deeper research on the keyword. People Also Ask and Related Searches in Google are also great ways to create these outlines.

4. Research tools: Use tools like MarketMuse or Surfer SEO to understand your competition and what you need to produce to beat them. These tools help you with things like images, word counts, keyword distribution, internal linking, and backlink opportunities.

5. Consistency: Produce content regularly and consistently. We have a monthly content calendar where we schedule content to be published four times a week. You don’t have to publish as much as we do, but consistency is key.

6. Content promotion: Promote your content from day one. You can easily share on free platforms like Reddit, Quora, and Hacker News. Send your content to your email distribution list, and if you have some money, spend a small amount on Facebook or Google ads.

7. Expectations vs. reality: Not everything turns out as expected. Sometimes content can be surprising and yield bigger results than you expected, and sometimes it can go the opposite way. Make sure to add content that’s not performing into a content audit queue for you to review.

Thoughts on targeting lower, but unique, keywords?

I think this involves user intent. There are four main types of intent: Informational, transactional, investigational, and navigational. Something like "APP_NAME pricing" (i.e. Canva pricing) is a navigational intent phrase. The user expects to be taken to the pricing page for Canva.

We found that informational intent content was easier to rank for, but this does have the effect of lower conversions (if that's your goal), so you need to have a killer content upgrade strategy to capture and nurture leads. We do this alongside transactional intent, which has high conversion rates but lower volumes. We just rinse and repeat loads of pages.

Where do you post content?

You want the original content to always be on your website. That doesn't mean that it technically has to be the first place you post it, though. We built our agency website by republishing our old, original Medium content onto our new website, then updating the canonical link on Medium.

Content promotion is still super important, so we have a team searching places like Reddit and Quora to find questions or comments that we can helpfully answer, and provide a link to a new content piece.

How did you grow backlinks?

Backlinks are very important, especially if you are trying to create content in a competitive area. The first thing you should always think about with backlinks is making content that people want to link. This means that your content needs to be of the highest quality, and better than everyone else's. It's really that simple!

The catch is that this takes time, so you need to take steps to promote your linkworthy content. You can try paid ads, cold outreach to people who link to your competitors, leveraging your email lists, etc. I ended up automating a lot of the outreach, and that has helped!

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Rudd Niew, Priyanka Vazirani, Julia Janks, Aytekin Tank, and Perry Steward for contributing posts. —Channing