🗞 What's New: How to get back to work after an extended break

It can be difficult to get back to work after an extended break:

• If you've stopped working on your SaaS, regardless of the reason, you may be struggling to get back into the groove. Use these tips to kickstart your workflow! Hint: Start by lowering the stakes.
• Planning to launch (or re-launch) on Product Hunt? The lessons below can help you plan your biggest launch yet.
• Founder Alohe went from being on the verge of quitting to hitting over $400 in revenue in 3 weeks with CopyUI, his user interface builder. Here's how a fellow indie hacker helped him bounce back, and what's next for the product.

This issue is sponsored by MentorCruise! Because starting and growing a company is hard, and it sucks trying to figure out everything on your own. MentorCruise can pair you with an experienced startup advisor who will come up with a winning playbook for your specific challenges. Click here to learn more!

Want to advertise your brand to 120,000 indie hackers in a future issue of the newsletter? Shoot me an email. —Channing

💼 Returning to Work After an Extended Break

by Amy Hoy

I spent three years not working on my SaaS, Noko time tracking, three years not being involved with Stacking the Bricks and 30x500, and three years unable to read articles and stay up-to-date. I was unable to chat with my fellow indie hackers, customers, and students, do webinars or podcasts, or even write.

Here's how I've been jumping back into the saddle!

The diagnosis

I had this neat little (waves hands sarcastically) thing where my cerebrospinal fluid was leaking from my spine which is, as you might expect, bad for the brain, and extremely debilitating. But, although it is extremely debilitating, it is very vague, symptom-wise. It took two years to get a diagnosis. I had surgery, then spent another full year on the recovery rollercoaster.

The one year anniversary of my blood patch procedure was March 21, and my brain is only just getting back to almost normal.

Effectively, I spent three years in a concussive state, unable to work or even think about work. I had to figure out how to get back to it!

The return

Today, Alex and I launched the first thing new thing we've completed together since 2019. Launch FTW is a 12 week roadmap and nine-part email course to jumpstart your product empire. This is our best free resource ever! It's a visual, action-packed roadmap for launching a tiny, but profitable, product. It includes the nine-part email course to help you implement it. And, it's free!

I know I'm not the only one who struggles to get back into things, as your energy, ability, or time and focus can change. Here are four techniques that I've used to get going again:

1. Lower the stakes: I tried to jump right back into writing for work, and failed. So, I decided to take away the weight of all the expectations of work, money, and creating value. I set up a zero stakes blog, and just had fun with it. Writing about random, pointless, fun things (photography) really helped me.

2. Inputs > outputs: I'd often find myself getting stuck, trying harder and harder to juice my brain for something, spinning my wheels in the mud. The problem was that I was used to having resources like data, information, experience, facts, etc., things that I simply did not have anymore. Metaphorically, I needed to get out of the car and put something under my wheels for traction. I found that doing Sales Safari, reading, listening, and talking has brought this back.

3. Come at it sideways: When I'd sit down to write or design, nothing would happen. So, I learned to change my angle of attack. I'd back into the work before my brain could notice what was happening and trigger resistance. Instead of writing, I'd make myself voice notes and use auto transcription. Instead of design, I'd start making a list of things I hated about the thing that I wanted to replace with my design. I've written up lists of questions instead of making decisions, made minimalist slides instead of paragraphs and wireframes, and phoned a friend to talk it out. Basically, anything that disrupted the normal workflow (which triggered anxiety) helped me get back into things.

4. Do something else entirely: I fell in love with photography again. I don't think I'd be writing now if I hadn't picked up my photography hobby when I was much sicker. I could've felt guilty for spending time and money on something "frivolous," but I gave myself something that did exercise my brain and creative muscles, and made me happy.

Work isn't everything, and being able to work (or not) is not a moral value. If we can't accept our absolute limits in any given moment, we can't get better.

If I hadn't been willing to admit what I truly could not do, I wouldn't have found these workarounds that made me able to do it again. I also wouldn't have anything positive to look back on from the time I could not work at all, and no solace to draw from that, to power me emotionally.

So, there's actually a fifth technique here: Radical acceptance.

If you're struggling like I was, and still am, I hope this helps. And, if you've been through anything similar (regardless of severity), I would love to hear what has helped you!

How have you jumped back in the saddle? Share your experience below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko

📲 Instagram has shared how brands can make the best use of DMs.

🤔 Ask these four questions before building with generative AI.

💸 Ad-supported media engagement is slipping, as consumers cut back.

🎥 Facebook has added video display elements to Marketplace listings.

🤖 AI-generated viral videos are already here.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

🚀 Launching on Product Hunt

by Tonike KH

I launched Knowledgehunt, a free platform that curates the best startup content on the web, on Product Hunt on March 29. I chose the most active day, Wednesday, and ended up as number eight. I had close to zero prior audience.

Here are my specific learnings from the process!

Use LinkedIn to land pre-launch followers

I had no social media presence before the launch. I tried many different methods of cold outreach to notify people about it, and LinkedIn worked the best.

Use the "Connect" function, which lets you send text messages that are under 300 characters long. You don't need a Premium account to do this. Start doing it as early as possible, because LinkedIn has a maximum amount of connects that you can send per week.

Reach out to people who are active on Product Hunt

Go to Product Hunt launches and look at the profiles of users who interacted with other similar launches. You're looking for comments and likes. Typically, you will find the user's LinkedIn or Twitter in their profile. Reach out to them! Many people are eager to learn about products similar to the ones they have supported in the past.

Another good option is to go to Product Hunt's LinkedIn page and reach out to people who like Product Hunt posts.

The first two hours are crucial

Product Hunt recently made changes. The home page is randomized for the first two hours, and no number of upvotes are visible. After two hours, they appear.

If you are in the top four places after the first two hours, your chances of getting rapid upvotes significantly increases. Make sure to spam your launch to every single platform and person you know within that time period. Aim to get ~100 upvotes.

You need luck

No one knows who is launching when except for the Product Hunt team. If you are lucky, you won't have big players launching on the same day as you are. Competing against a team of a dozen people is very hard as a solo founder.

Start early

Create your product launch page as early as possible. You can make changes to it as needed.

I was hesitant to create my page until I got all of my materials ready, but I should have done it earlier. I did not know that you could make changes to your product page, including changing the launch date. Having it up early helps you to get more pre-launch followers!

On launch day and the day after, I got ~800 website visits. Almost 300 visitors became registered users! We also got tons of great feedback that we can integrate onto our landing page.

We are still getting traffic from our launch because Knowledgehunt was mentioned in a few tweets and LinkedIn posts, and some companies featured us.

Main takeaway

Embrace the process and enjoy it. Don't stress yourself out! There are some conditions you cannot control. If your product is good and you prepare well, you will get the attention that will create a great boost for your company.

What did you learn from launching on Product Hunt? Share below!

Discuss this story.

🧠 Harry's Growth Tip

from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry

The power of contrast:

1. What you oppose: “Advertisers.”
2. What you stand for: “People.”

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

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.

💰 Alohe Hit $400 in Revenue in Three Weeks

by Alohe

Hey everyone! I'm Alohe, and I wanted to share a little bit about the journey of CopyUI, my user interface builder. It took me almost five months to take CopyUI from $0 to $400+ in revenue. Yeah, those aren't big numbers. But as this is my first indie hacking endeavor, I think this was a success! I almost gave up on it multiple times, but I kept going!

Here's how.

Growing, growing....gone?

The only growth strategy that I had in mind was using Twitter and Reddit. I discovered #buildinpublic, and it seemed like a good way to reach developers looking for good UI. So, I started building in public. After a few weeks, I started interacting with people and pitching CopyUI to them, which only had a couple of components at the time. Some saw the potential very early on.

After working on a few components and sharing them on Twitter, I got a couple of signups, but the real kicker came on the day that I launched the pricing plan. That day, I got two signups:

False start

I shared this post on Reddit, and it kind of blew up. That brought in hundreds of new users, but none of them paid. However, I received a lot of valuable feedback and ideas.

After that, I got one paid user, then radio silence for about two months. That's when I almost threw in the towel. To make matters even worse, I was having some personal issues, and continuing to work on this just didn't make sense financially.

The turnaround

I decided to stop working on it and take on freelance projects instead. But then, almost two months later, a new customer popped up out of the blue!

I couldn't believe it, so I got to work adding more value for the users. After that, I optimized the landing page, added 20+ components, and started posting more on Twitter. CopyUI started getting more sales, growing each week.

Once again, out of the blue, a fellow indie hacker named Peter Mick checked out CopyUI, and became a paid user. He also tweeted about the product, which caused the sudden spike in revenue.

This was on a Saturday, and by the end of the weekend, we added six paid customers, $150 in revenue, and 22 new users.

It didn't stop there! It just kept growing. Users started signing up, and by the end of the month, CopyUI had:

• $280 in revenue (+858%).
• 10 paid customers.
• 79 signups (+380%).

Now, CopyUI is growing steadily after the price increased from $29.99 to $69, getting one to two paid customers per week. Let's see where this baby goes!

What's to come?

I will be adding a lot more components and templates. We've been talking about it for a while, and we're hoping that this will send our revenue through the roof. Most users are excited about the components!

Thanks for reading!

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 Amy Hoy, Darko, Tonike KH, Harry Dry, and Alohe for contributing posts. —Channing