🗞 What's New: Does it matter which currency you accept for your SaaS?

Setting up payment options for your customers can be a hurdle:

• If you're facing issues with accepting various currencies, the tips below can help. Hint: Cultural expectations around money factor into this heavily. Knowing your target market helps here!
• Are you a non-technical founder, or a technical founder who doesn't have enough time to code? Founders weigh in below on outsourcing product development.
• Founder John Doherty is running Credo, which has hit $45,000 in monthly revenue, along with his side project, EditorNinja, which has hit $4,500 in monthly revenue. Below, he shares his advice on the right time to start a second business, and how to stabilize your first one beforehand.

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

💳 Accepting Payments in Various Currencies

by Piyush Dinde

In some countries, there are many regulations around how payments can be accepted in the form of foreign currency. I'm based out of India, and it seems that I'm unable to circumvent that. This is causing a delay in launching the product.

Has anyone else faced this issue? Would love to hear from other founders about accepting payments in a local currency!

Display your rates

Ben Sibley says that the currency wouldn't stop him from purchasing as a consumer, under one condition:

If I really wanted the product and saw a local currency at checkout, it would make me pause. I'd Google the conversion rate, but I think I'd still go forward with the purchase. I would recommend displaying what the conversion rate looks like to users so that they don't have to go the extra mile to look it up. That could help diffuse any concern.

This is also a very common challenge for a startup, so don't feel as if you're alone in dealing with it. Launch and promote your product, and once it's out there, start accepting other currencies when you can. You will probably see a lift in your conversion rates!

Know your market

Denrac says that it comes down to understanding your market:

Different market, different habits.

From my experience, cultural ideas around money are important, too. Customers from one country may tend to pay using only payment methods in which they have complete trust. They may be extremely cautious about who they are giving their credit card details to for purchases. Then, customers from another country may not be as firm about the currency, and may prioritize the product instead.

You could have a legit business doing great all over the globe, but if you are not providing the country's preferred payment option and currency, you can forget about entering certain markets.

Understand which markets are most important for your business, research the consumer behavior around how they spend money, and adjust accordingly.

Status check

Md Saif recommends confirming your Stripe registration:

If you are struggling to accept purchases in certain currencies, examine your registration status. From what I know, you cannot accept payment in a foreign currency if you are registered as an individual with Stripe. To accept foreign currency, you need to be a registered business.

I think the best way forward would be to get yourself registered as a sole proprietor. This greatly reduces the roadblocks. Later, you can register as a limited liability company or something else, whatever is the best fit for you.

Have you encountered any issues in setting up your payments? Let's chat below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

💀 MrBeast thinks that TikTok is on track to die soon. Do you agree?

🤖 AI is probably using your images, and it's not easy to opt out.

💰 Here's why Coca-Cola is a top Warren Buffett stock.

🐕 New scientific evidence explains why your dog can tell when you're stressed.

🚨 Social media challenges pose dangers to even the most well-adjusted kids, research says.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

📲 Outsourcing Product Development

by Larry Abbott

I have a small startup, and I don't have any connections. How do founders find help with product development in the early stages?

The overview

Generatedcode provides a quick guide:

1. Define the size and scope of your project, and the size of the company that you want to work with. These all need to be well-matched. Giving something too big to a small, young company carries the risk of it possibly not being able to deliver. Going to a mammoth company may mean that you will be low priority. You don't want to be a company's biggest client, nor its smallest.
2. Define the market location that you're looking for. Outsourcing too far and too cheap might end up being cumbersome due to communication issues. Use geographic arbitrage, but do not overuse it!
3. Go to Apollo or LinkedIn to find companies, then get quotes from them. Carefully review their portfolios.
4. Reach out to previous clients to inquire about their experiences. This is one of the most important steps!

Never trust the portfolio section of a beautiful website just because it's a beautiful website. Verify everything.

Validate pre-MVP

MobileMarket recommends trying to validate your idea without an actual minimum viable product (MVP), if possible:

Once you are clear on what you want to make, talk to some technical people. You can do this in general terms if you're not comfortable sharing the actual idea.

Look for your team in tech markets like Guru, Freelancer, Toptal, etc., or find specialist dev companies. Try giving out small projects first to see if you like how they work with you.

If you have several teams that you like, ask them to make something that would help you decide if they can deliver what you want. Your tech partner can review the code and provide feedback to help you decide on the design and tech stack.

If you're a techie, but don't want to code it yourself, these tips can work for you, too!

Don't outsource

Donald Ng advises against outsourcing product development in any way:

As an experienced software developer with past experience in dealing with outsourcing to companies, it was always a one-way ticket to a disastrous outcome.

Your best bet is to find a partner or CTO that you can trust, and give them stake in the business to work on the product.

Rentaflop agrees:

As an experienced software engineer, my first piece of advice is to not outsource your product. An outside consultant's goals won't always be aligned with yours, plus what will you do when they're gone and you urgently need to make changes? The other thing is that you're giving your product to a part-time contractor to build, and in general, it isn't a great idea to let anyone who is part-time, or not fully committed, to touch the core business of your company.

I recommend finding a technical cofounder who can build this with you, or perhaps you could consider learning to code.

Exercise caution

Justin Sleep says that caution is key:

It depends heavily on the project. Is it something complex and long-term that requires quite a bit of company-specific knowledge? If so, it might be worth going through the process of hiring a full-time employee, relying on traditional vetting methods.

If it's a reasonably small or compartmentalized project, you'd realistically be fine hiring a top rated freelancer. There's still a chance that you'll get burned, though. Word-of-mouth is king for a reason. When you hire an unknown, you rely on external metrics of trust, and any metric will inevitably become gamified and exploited.

Franco Montenegro says to look for freelancers, but be careful:

Look for freelancers, since you are a small business. Companies will charge you way more just because, and there is no guarantee of anything. Interview a few freelancers and trust your gut feeling. Do you smell BS? Run away. Even when you find someone who seems trustworthy, only allow them to work with a very small part of the app to start.

What are your thoughts on outsourcing development? Share below!

Discuss this story.

🧠 Harry's Growth Tip

from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry

Why sell vanilla when you can sell “fading summer sunlight?!”

Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.

🛠 John Doherty is Running Two Profitable Businesses

by James Fleischmann

Is there ever a convenient time to start a business? Or a second business, for that matter?

Founder John Doherty doesn't think so:

John's main business is currently at $45K MRR, and now he's building another one. He sat down with Indie Hackers to discuss timing as a founder, and juggling more than one business. Read on for more!

Why start a new project when your first one is still doing so well?

It's been fun to get my hands dirty on something that doesn't have technical debt. Quite honestly, I was feeling super unmotivated, and wanted something new to sink my teeth into.

I started Credo in 2013, and went full-time on it seven years ago. It's a marketplace that helps brands find the right digital marketing or development agency to grow their businesses. It currently averages about $45K MRR.

I started EditorNinja in 2020. I needed an editor myself, and I knew that a lot of them were out of work because we were early in the pandemic. I figured I could help them make some money. What I didn't realize was how much work Credo was going to need at that point to stabilize it in order to make it through the pandemic relatively unscathed.

EditorNinja started growing in late 2021, so I've been putting more time into it. It's at about $4.5K MRR.

How does your side project benefit from your main project?

My businesses mainly grow through SEO and content marketing, mostly blogging and creating pages around the main services that we offer. I distribute content and tell the world about what we do by being a guest on various podcasts. We also run Google Ads, which has been profitable for both brands.

In addition, we have a weekly agency email where we often promote EditorNinja. So far, EditorNinja has benefited from Credo, but not vice versa.

How do you juggle two businesses?

Running multiple companies all comes down to time and energy management. Focus on the one that brings in the most revenue until you have a team mostly running that business, then you can put more time into another one.

It is easier to run multiple companies when they both serve the same customer. We serve digital agencies at both companies. Pick one customer, and build multiple things for them.

My Mondays are mostly dedicated to internal Credo stuff. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are for external calls for either Credo or EditorNinja. Thursdays are mostly for EditorNinja, and Fridays (if I work them) vary, depending on what the week held for me up until that point.

I would say that I spend 60% of my time on Credo, 30% of my time on EditorNinja, and 10% on other projects. If I'm working in the evening, I'm mainly working on EditorNinja, simply because there are more things that need doing there.

Why is it difficult to build businesses at different stages?

I like that my days are varied. I get to work on both managerial level things in one business, and get deep in the weeds in the other.

But that's also the hardest part. My day is varied, and there is a lot to do! I find the discrepancy between running a larger business and a smaller one to be mentally challenging. I can't expect out of the smaller brand what I expect out of the bigger one around growth, team, maturity of offer, customers, and so on.

Is it sustainable to run two businesses at once?

It's not easy to do. It requires a lot of focus on each business when you're working on them.

At this point, I can continue running both indefinitely, but should either EditorNinja or Credo grow faster, doing this wouldn't be sustainable long-term. Starting a second business has been all about reclaiming my energy, and my zest for shipping new things. But it's also to see if I'd want to work on this specific business in a more full-time capacity in the future.

When is the right time to start another business?

Think hard about it, and make sure you are not doing it simply because you're bored, or because you're in the middle of something big and it feels hard. You don't want to be distracted, as this could starve both businesses of growth. It's better to push through that hard patch, or figure out how to make your current thing less boring.

Only once you've stabilized that first business and have a team running it, including an operator with strong business operations experience, should you look to start another business. Looking back, I would've cemented having a strong operator and strategist at Credo before working on EditorNinja.

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

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

🏁 Enjoy This Newsletter?

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Piyush Dinde, Priyanka Vazirani, Larry Abbott, Harry Dry, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing