🗞 What's New: Is being a solo founder worth it?

The solo founder life can be amazing, but it also comes with risks:

• As indie hackers, one of the major decisions is whether to go solo or partner up with a cofounder (or several). Whichever you choose, remember that being a founder doesn't mean that you are alone. You can always lean into community!
• Are you running a fully bootstrapped, remote startup? If so, this short guide can help you streamline operations and maximize your impact. Hint: Decentralize management to reduce employee churn.
• Founder Justin Ferriman built a software company up to 40 employees, then sold it in a 7 figure acquisition, all without knowing how to code. Below, he shares what you need to grow a successful software business, and how to find good technical people.

Want to share something with over 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

🛣 Is Going it Alone Worth the Risk?

by Jacob H.

This ManyChat article outlines some of the drawbacks of being a solo founder:

If you're a solo founder, do you think it's worth it? Or is it better to work with a cofounder?

The potential for joint ventures

Andrew Kamphey says that the article is a nice overview, but it misses some useful options for solo founders:

The key risk is financial. The article goes into that, particularly as it pertains to healthcare. But cashflow for a solo founder doesn't have to be singular.

It's not just about diversifying revenue across business models and products; it's also about connecting with profit-minded partners. There are tons of options for affiliate and referral programs, and influencer marketing can be a great tool to leverage.

There are also profit-sharing options. You can bring in partners who are on the level of a cofounder, and instead of giving them equity, consider working on a profit-share agreement. It can be small, focused, and specific.

Seeking out bundling of products for short promotions also helps find potential partners. I did this a couple of times and enjoyed it. Three of us who had newsletter courses bundled together all of our courses into one $99 offer. The timeline was clear: One week. The distribution path was clear: Send an email to existing customers and post on Twitter. We made over $1K apiece for about a week's work. Each of us got a third of the sale, each of us got all the customers, and the customers got a huge discount.

Even if we are the only person working on our business, we are not alone. I think working with joint ventures helps everyone.

Don't overstate the risks

Rohit Ninan has spoken to dozens of solo founders, and 90% of the time, they say the risks are worth it:

The financial risk is often overstated since you can start an online business with little to no overhead cost. Oftentimes, solo founders will still work their full-time job, which can support them and give them the safety net that they need.

A lot of the risks (legal, social stigma, cash flow, competition, etc.) are not necessarily relevant to people who are working by themselves and solving niche problems.

Find the right people

Praveen says that a major part of the reward comes from meeting the right people:

I've learned two major things about being a solo founder:

1. The single most significant barrier for me is keeping my energy up and creating accountability.

2. If your product has the potential to shift market economics, there is only so far you can go alone because of the emotional and mental stress. Spend some time finding the right people to take on this journey.

Ark Szklar agrees:

Knowing what I know now about traditional jobs, markets, companies, and people in general, the first thing I would have done after college was to start indie hacking on the side as I worked full-time.

Indie hacking solo is easier, but you can always take advantage of the option to hook up with likeminded individuals, or even to form a small team or studio. The first benefit would be to start learning by doing as early as possible, so that your runway is long.

The second benefit would be to cultivate the frugal, humble, free, resilient mindset that is needed to succeed!

Some people work best alone

Toni says that he works better as a solo founder:

I work better alone since no one is taking my attention or diverting my focus. I quit my job so that I didn't have to report to anyone else...why would I willingly bring on someone else who might be disappointed with me taking time off?

It can get lonely, but that's what friends and significant others are for!

Are you going it solo? Share your experience below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

👀 Studies show that TikTok search results are riddled with misinformation.

🏗 Here's why Ethereum's big merge can also be called its "demolition phase."

🚫 Europe plans to ban goods made by forced labor.

🌳 Global cannabis sales are expected to hit $57B by 2026.

😘 These emojis could make or break your next relationship.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

👩‍🏫 Seven Lessons for Bootstrapped Remote Startups

by Tom Hunt

Fame, my B2B podcast production agency, hit $100K+ MRR in September. If you're running a totally bootstrapped, remote business like I am, these seven startup lessons may be helpful to you!

1. Teflon for tasks

Andrew Wilkinson once said in a podcast interview that his secret to success is that, when it comes to certain tasks, he's like Teflon: They slip off of him.

My goal is to be completely removed from daily operations, which will free up my time to focus on things like process innovation and talent development.

2. Creating managers

Employee churn is a silent killer. You lose morale, client relationships, and process knowledge with each lost employee.

One way to prevent employee churn is to decentralize management. In other words, those you are managing need to become managers themselves, and you need to train them.

Here’s what I’ve found to be the managerial secret: Understand what your employees want and give it to them. For example, if a new team member needs flexibility for the purposes of fulfilling family responsibilities, allow this! As long as their work is getting done, it's a win-win situation. Or, if a new team member wants to learn something in another part of the business, allow this. As long as the request is reasonable and feasible, why not?

In short, make the deal so good that they won't want to leave.

3. Create demand

Capturing demand can only get you so far. To take it to the next level, you need to create demand.

Create and distribute content that educates ideal customers about the problems solved by your product or service.

4. Be clear on job roles and needs

Every business is a collection of processes. Processes need to be created, implemented, and improved upon.

Typically, process creators are more expensive to employ than process implementors. For example, creating an outbound sales process for a Series A B2B SaaS is a hard task, and will need to be created by someone who has experience. However, once the process has been created, you can then hire someone cheaper to implement it.

For each role you hire, understand exactly what you need, and assess your candidates appropriately.

5. Nonessential costs

At Fame, we still don’t pay for Slack, Trello, or Freshdesk, despite nearly every team member using them every day.

Why? Because doing so would mean that, in some way, that cost would need to be passed on to our wonderful clients. Passing on a cost to clients is serious business, especially if it's for something that doesn't directly increase their happiness.

Choices like this enable us to increase the brand value of our service, which is the difference between what a client pays and what they get.

This goodwill seems to find its way back to us in the form of inbound demand that we attribute to our customers referring others directly.

6. Don’t ruin the momentum

As a founder, you need to ensure that the business keeps going in the proper direction, and you need to make this crystal clear to your team and your clients.

You also need to keep growing at all costs, which may mean reducing profitability in the short run. Changing direction, or a decrease in growth, confuses and demoralizes, which could lead to the dreaded employee churn.

7. A culture of documentation

Working procedures are only as valuable as their “last updated” date.

If someone stumbles when moving through a process, updating the documentation will save time and frustration for every future execution.

This compounds up to the point where you and your team execute significantly faster and cheaper than your competitors!

What's been your top business learning? Share in the comments below!

Discuss this story.

🚀 The Spector Report

by Josh Spector

I'm sharing growth tips for creative founders! Here's this week's:

Don’t sell more, sell different.

Even if people love what you create, it’s unlikely that they’ll pay for more of it. It’s more likely that they’ll pay for a different, but related, creation.

Most creators who sell subscriptions offer more, not different. That’s why most fail.

Subscribe to Josh's For The Interested newsletter or I Want To Know podcast for more.

💰 Justin Ferriman Grew and Sold a Successful Software Business

by Justin Ferriman

Hi indie hackers! I'm Justin Ferriman, and I built a software business to 40 employees, then sold it. And, I don't know how to code! I'm now working on GapScout, a tool that helps you easily identify profitable gaps in your market.

I have experience at just about every part of the software company lifecycle. From launch, to security scares, YoY revenue growth, hiring, inbound marketing strategies, and selling using investment bankers, AMA!

What do you need to grow a software business?

You need the ability to think outward and not just pick away at your own software all the time. Marketing and brand positioning are too often overlooked. I was constantly looking into my market to get ideas and see what the people wanted. I did this mainly by looking into reviews.

Start content marketing and never stop (blogging, YouTube, podcast, etc.), and supplement with paid ads when the time is right. I did both, and never stopped on that end. As a smaller business, you will always be more nimble in your marketing capabilities. Take advantage of that. Interview customers about their success with your product, and distribute that content to your other customers.

If you're able to create a community, even better. People buy into communities. My software company had a Facebook Group of ~25K people. This was huge for the business because people would stick with the software because they had the community, whereas competitors did not. I'm not saying it has to be a Facebook Group, though (I actually despise them!).

How did you get your initial clients?

I got initial clients through content marketing and word-of-mouth because our support was excellent, which made people really happy. That's an important takeaway: People will care less about flaws in your software if your support is responsive and friendly. The blog ended up having thousands of posts, so that pulled in a lot of people. Paid ads did too, but those came later. Sponsorships did a little, and having a presence on YouTube helped as well.

Our affiliate program was pretty lucrative for a while. At one point, 7% of all sales were referrals from affiliates. I wanted that number to stay below 10% though, because keeping it lower meant having more control over customer acquisition.

How did you come up with the company roadmap?

The roadmap was a combination of intuition and keeping tabs on commonly requested tasks. I had a suggestion board where people could submit and vote on desired features, and that was pretty helpful in years 1-3. I eventually knocked out all of the low-hanging fruit. The requests got more complex (or just weird) over time, so I had to be selective on what made the most sense. Eventually, I scrapped that submission board because it was just too chaotic.

How did you hire good technical people?

Trial and error, and luck. What I valued the most was good communication. I would look for software products that had mild success and check out the support response from the dev. If s/he was responsive and friendly, I would offer a test project. Roughly 50% would take me up on it. Then, I'd offer them a contract position if they were good. My thinking was that they needed extra income since their product wasn't quite at the level they wanted yet. It worked well.

Regarding luck, as both my network and brand grew, I was able to get access to devs who were looking for something new. I hired an agency to do some small project work, and their own contract dev left. I reached out to offer him a job at that time, and he jumped on board as the lead dev, working his way up to CTO.

I think people overlook the networking part. That's how you find talent. Even now, I just tap my network and always get quality recommendations.

How long did the sale take?

The sale took nearly a year. I hired investment bankers, and they handled most of the heavy lifting. The rough timeline was as follows:

• Three months preparing financials and data.
• Two months sending out a one-page prospectus to get interest from 500 investment firms. Those that responded got a full 40 page brochure on the company.
• One month giving management presentations to really interested parties.
• One month receiving offers from those parties.
• 45 days due diligence with a selected buyer, but they backed out at the last minute for internal reasons.
• 45 days due diligence with the new buyer, then closed.

The process went on from October 2020 through September 2021. It was incredibly difficult to run the business while going through this process at the same time.

What are your top lessons learned?

1. Don't hire someone to help them out. I hired the spouse of one of my employees, and that did not go well at all.

2. Hire before you are ready. I waited far too long to get out of the day-to-day activities. Once I got out of them, I could think creatively and network more effectively.

3. Put in work to create a positive team environment, even in a remote team setting. I enjoyed employee loyalty for a long time because of the fun, hardworking culture. Treat people like people and give them freedom over their time.

4. Stay the course. Be vision-focused and believe in it. Tell people why you are the best and deliver on that promise. You have to push, push, push to stay competitive and relevant. Initially, my company was new and sexy. When it survived past five years, it was old news, so I had to work hard to keep it fresh!

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 Jacob H., Priyanka Vazirani, Tom Hunt, Josh Spector, and Justin Ferriman for contributing posts. —Channing