🗞 What's New: Staying motivated with your side project

Losing motivation to work on your side project?

• Try getting whatever you have in front of people. There's no better source of motivation and accountability than having real users.
• If you're looking to sell your project, this list can help you find the right platform for your niche!
• Four months. A $75K acquisition. Zach Zorn leveraged a well-crafted affiliate program, and giveaways, to increase revenue quickly.

Want your product seen by over 75,000 founders and businesses? Sponsor an issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter. Choose between 3 affordable tiers that can fit almost any budget.

by Morgot

These tips can help you stay motivated to keep working on your side project!

Start with why

It's crucial to have a strong "Why?" when working on your side project.

Take a moment to sit in an empty room. Consider why you want to build this, and reflect on the reasons behind your desire to create something on your own.

Be intentional

To successfully complete your project, you must take it seriously. Treat it with respect. This is essential if you aim to turn it into your main source of income.

This means that, even if you can only devote four hours a week to it, those four hours should be scheduled and used effectively. Don't push them out for other work.

Break it down into manageable chunks

Put a date on your tasks, but be sure that the dates are actually achievable. If not, this could backfire and make you less motivated.

Get it in front of people

Talking to users is not just about gathering feedback for your product and understanding their needs. It’s also about motivation.

There's no better source of motivation than having people actually use your product.

Track your progress

Tracking your goals allows you to see how far you've come, and how close you are to reaching your next milestone. This can be a great motivator to keep going.

Journal

Building solo products is hard and stressful. At times, you may feel overwhelmed with all the tasks you need to complete to build a successful product. Journaling can help you manage anxiety and reduce stress.

Start with two simple questions: What did I accomplish today? What did I struggle with today? Set aside a few minutes every day to write.

Don't beat yourself up

We are all human, and it's okay to make mistakes. Take a break for a day or two if you need to, but don't stay away for too long.

Find an accountability partner or community

An accountability partner will help you stay on track while you work towards achieving your goals. They can help you ship your project and stay motivated. You can be accountable without a partner by building in public, but that's not for everyone.

I have encountered this problem, so I decided to create a platform and community that will help you stay motivated, and keep you from abandoning your project!

Discuss this story.

This issue is sponsored by QuickListing

Back in November 2023, Mathis Vella faced a challenge with his AI startup. He was counting on Product Hunt for promotion, but things didn’t go as planned.

He soon figured out that he was missing a simple, yet effective, way to get noticed: Getting listed in directories.

That’s why he came up with QuickListing.

QuickListing simplifies the process of increasing online presence. It’s an automated tool that submits your startup to over 150 directories with just one entry.

It’s ideal for founders who need to maximize exposure, but have limited time and resources. QuickListing efficiently handles the directory submission process, ensuring your startup gains visibility and SEO benefits without the need for manual, repetitive tasks.

by Pete Codes

If you are wanting to sell your startup, but aren't sure where to do that, here are some options!

Flippa

Flippa is a marketplace where you can sell anything from blogs to SaaS to e-commerce businesses.

For deals under $50K, Flippa charges 10% commission. The more your website sells for, the more this commission decreases. You also have to pay to post your website, and there are a variety of packages and prices.

Acquire

This is a relatively new marketplace. Sellers pay 4% of the sale price if you are successful in selling; you don't have to pay to list. You are required to add data, like your revenue and profit for the last 12 months.

There is a free escrow service to hold funds while they are transferred. Acquire also has nondisclosure agreements available.

Empire Flippers

Empire Flippers has processed $450M worth of website deals. Most of the public deals are e-commerce, Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) businesses. You can sell a SaaS here, but at the time of writing, there were only three SaaS businesses for sale on the public listings section.

Quiet Light Listings

This is a brokerage that gives you a free valuation of your website. Quiet Light claims that 85% of websites listed on their platform sell in under 90 days.

Microns

This is a fairly new marketplace for startups, especially smaller deals for bootstrappers.

There is zero commission for buying or selling websites on Microns. Buyers can access the information for all the websites for sale by paying $299.

Tiny Acquisitions

This is a marketplace for buying and selling projects for less than $100K. It's a good place if you're looking to sell a project that is making a relatively small amount of money.

You can also list pre-revenue startups for sale, which many other sites discourage.

Duuce

Duuce is a marketplace that focuses only on buying and selling newsletters. It has a free newsletter valuation tool.

Buy Sell Startups

This is a zero commission marketplace where you can sell your websites for free.

Buyers can pay $199 per year to get access to more startups for sale. Unlike most other options on this list, buyers and sellers are connected by email outside of the platform. This could be advantageous if you want to keep a record of your conversations.

Borderline

This is a fairly new marketplace for selling pre-revenue websites, or those that have made a lower amount of revenue.

A nice feature of Borderline is that it shows you what programming languages the founder used to make the website. This way, you can avoid wasting time looking at a website to buy if it's not using a language or framework that you like.

Private communities

Some founders may choose to seek out buyers for their projects in private communities. For example, I sold a remote job board to a member of the Indie London Slack community in 2022. There are lots of small communities for founders (i.e. Ramen Club, WIP, and Makerlog) on platforms like Discord, Telegram, and Slack.

Check out this original post here!

Discuss this story.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🍎 Apple's problematic seven day app-to-web attribution window.

💸 $50K up for grabs for tech startups! Apply to NEXT50K. #ad

📝 How product scoring can boost your marketing campaigns.

🚀 Reddit launches a new ad tips site for small businesses.

🗣 25 helpful customer feedback tools.

🧳 Meet the company that sells your lost airplane luggage.

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

by Marc Andre

Since graduating college in 2016, Zach Zorn has worked as a yacht broker, website flipper, blogger, Amazon seller, and online business broker.

The background

While still in college, Zach worked as a drone photographer. He decided that he didn’t want to go the corporate route, so he approached the yacht brokerage he was filming for, and asked if he could start in an entry-level sales position.

Zach got that chance as a yacht broker, and over the past eight years, he's brokered $40M+ in sales. He started his own yacht brokerage in 2023.

Zach has also been working on several online businesses. His primary site is Money Nomad, where he covers topics related to entrepreneurship and making money. The site also hosts a marketplace where Zach helps other founders sell their websites and online businesses.

A four month flip

Zach had some experience working on mobile apps and websites through a few jobs during high school and college. His real world education continued when he launched his first Amazon FBA business in the summer of 2016, shortly after graduating college.

While running his FBA business, Zach was introduced to affiliate marketing, and knew he wanted to give it a shot. Rather than starting a website from scratch, he decided to buy an existing site using money he'd saved from his high school and college jobs.

In 2017, Zach purchased a technology review website on Empire Flippers for $49K. The site published reviews of drones, cameras, 3D printers, and other tech-focused products. Zach found quick success by improving the site's revenue, without increasing traffic. One of the biggest changes he made involved replacing AdSense units with banner ads sold directly to manufacturers. Zach contacted the companies his site was already promoting as an affiliate to see if they'd want to buy a banner ad to increase their exposure on the site. Several of them took him up on this offer.

Zach also collaborated with one advertiser to run sponsored giveaways on his site. The advertiser provided the products that were given away, and visitors could enter their email addresses to have a chance at winning the prizes. Zach charged the advertiser a flat fee for the giveaway promotion, and the advertiser collected all of the email addresses.

This new approach nearly doubled the site's revenue, and Zach ended up selling the site about four months after buying it. When he decided to sell, Zach returned to Empire Flippers to list the site. He received three offers the first day it was listed, and ultimately sold it for $75K.

Buying existing products

Although Zach has started some of his own sites from scratch, he prefers the strategic advantages of buying an existing website or business. You can start making money right away with an existing product!

Discuss this story.

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Morgot, Darko, Pete Codes, and Marc Andre for contributing posts. —Channing