🗞 What's New: Making a living from open source projects

Many people believe that it's impossible to make a living from an open source project:

• Landing a few sponsorships, and making the repo available only to sponsors, can help you leverage exclusivity and curiosity to make revenue.
• In crafting your marketing strategy, don't always overlook TikTok. It can provide massive short-term returns.
• $30K MRR over the course of 6 years through a blog. Tom Blake uses display ads, an affiliate program, and a YouTube channel to diversify revenue.

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 Simon Hamp

Making a living from open source is hard. Like many things, you have to invest time upfront into creating something worthwhile.

Sponsorships with benefits

There are a few examples of folks doing this really well. One that sticks out in my mind is from a few years ago, when Caleb Porzio (inventor of Laravel Livewire) released a package called Sushi as sponsorware. He wrote about the experience later, sharing his process. This was enabled by GitHub Sponsors' ability to make a private repo accessible only to sponsors.

What I liked about this was that he tested the waters before making the package available, by sharing a brief video of how it worked. That way, folks could immediately see the value. Then, when it came time, they were clearly more than happy to part with their cash to get exclusive access to this powerful new thing.

Sideline benefits

Another model is to offer sideline benefits. GitHub Sponsors suggests this when creating tiers, but you're not limited to doing this just via GitHub Sponsors!

Basically, it comes down to giving your sponsors more than access to the code, or the heartwarming feeling of knowing they are doing the right thing. If you can give them something that they can get real, tangible benefits from right away, that's a huge incentive.

It could be as simple as:

• A shoutout on social media.
• A mention in a newsletter.
• A personalized gift.
• Exclusive access to content or a community, i.e. a video course or a private Discord.

If you can make it something that folks will see real value in, but doesn't require a huge investment on your part, it could be just the ticket to unlock more sponsorships. That gets you closer to making your open source work earn you a living!

Discuss this story.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

📱 Instagram now lets you opt out of read receipts for DMs.

🐶 Auto AI your dog and cat into 21+ 4K characters. #ad

💪 The power of comparison pages in SaaS.

💻 Google will start enforcing DMARC on February 1.

📝 Elevate your next go-to-market strategy with these templates.

😵‍💫 Zoom meetings are about to get weirder.

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

by Azhar

Many founders are only focused on optimizing for SEO, which is great, but it takes years to generate traffic. Don't ignore TikTok! It offers the potential for major traffic with just a single 30 second video.

TikTok vs. Instagram

Despite TikTok having slightly fewer monthly active users than Instagram (82.3M compared to Instagram's 118.4M), users spend significantly more time on TikTok on average.

Currently, Instagram excels in generating ad revenue per adult user per hour spent, which is around six times more than TikTok.

TikTok vs. search engines

Let's delve into search behavior. A survey revealed that almost 51% of Gen Z prefers using TikTok over Google for search.

Using video format as a search engine isn't a new concept. For a long time, people have used YouTube for how-to videos.

What others are doing on TikTok

Many traditional shops sell through TikTok, but there are very few TikTok videos promoting or discussing SaaS. Instead, there's an abundance of SaaS-related blogs. That's why I believe that TikTok is a new playground that all founders should explore and engage with.

Musts and must nots on TikTok

Must:

• Have good lighting, camera, and mic.
• Have an engaging video hook; TikTok users have a short attention span.
• If a video works, replicate it across multiple accounts for more traffic.
• Respond to comments.

Must not:

• Directly promote any external videos or links. I've been shadowbanned permanently because of this.
• Avoid responding to comments using videos. Opt for simpler interactions.
• Avoid being too complex. TikTok users have short attention spans, and prefer straightforward content.

I believe that TikTok is a better investment than SEO, and I hope this post sheds light on this perspective. If you found it enlightening, check out our email news, where we share organic marketing tips!

Discuss this story.

by Rob Hope

Strengthen your landing page with these design, development, and conversion tips!

Reinvest your profits back into your landing page.

Once your landing page is converting, and you’re pleased with your solo optimization efforts, outsource.

Copywriting first. Imagery next. Commission a photoshoot of your product or service in action.

Subscribe to Rob's One Page Love newsletter for his favorite UI, design, and development finds.

by Marc Andre

In just over five years, Tom Blake grew This Online World to reach $75K MRR at its peak. After reaching new heights, the site experienced a significant drop in traffic due to a Google update. Despite the setback, This Online World still brings in ~$30K MRR, and Tom is exploring new channels and strategies to grow the business.

The background

I started This Online World in 2018 while I was still in college. At the time, I was getting my undergrad in psychology, and money was a bit tight. So, I decided to start trying out side hustles: I did dropshipping, freelance writing, online surveys, and phone farming to make some cash.

I quickly realized that there was a lot of inaccurate information online about these hustles, or straight up dishonest content. So, I started This Online World as a place to document my online income journey.

This was my first real blog, and I was pretty new to SEO and web development. My only related experience was a failed Amazon affiliate site I'd run a few months prior. But I got an internship at a digital marketing agency in my second year, and I began to learn more about online publishing. I quietly worked on my blog alongside my internship and courses.

This Online World only made $1.7K in its first year. But the next year, it made about $7K. Then, it made $22K. The big break came in my fourth year when my blog got into Mediavine, and I really got into the swing of SEO and content production. I earned $92K that year, and 2022 was the breakout year when I finally went full-time.

The revenue

Most of my income comes from Mediavine display ads and affiliate income. It used to mostly be a display ads website, but I have worked hard to diversify, with more affiliate partnerships and better CRO efforts.

Affiliate income is now the majority of my income, which is nice to see. I promote a lot of survey sites, investing platforms, gig apps, and side hustle opportunities.

Sponsorship income is a new stream this year, and This Online World should earn about $15K in sponsored post and content placement income.

I’m also finally putting more effort into the YouTube channel, publishing 8-10 videos a month now. This has helped me reach $100+ in AdSense revenue in the last few days, so I’m hoping for a stronger year in 2024 for the channel.

Advice for indie hackers

Be very calculated in how you reinvest into a business.

I’ve been intentional in keeping This Online World running as a high-margin business, but this isn’t the only style for content sites. Some sites pump out 10x the content we do, run paid ads, and have larger teams. But their margins are squeezed, so they can’t pivot easily in the face of updates or industry changes.

There’s nothing wrong with these differences, but founders should know the sandbox they’re playing in.

If I had to start from scratch, I’d likely begin with YouTube, then create a content blog to support the channel, or to funnel video traffic into. It would be a similar combination to what I have now, just more video-driven. The viral potential of YouTube is really appealing!

If you enjoyed this interview, check some of the others at Founder Reports.

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

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

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 Simon Hamp, Darko, Azhar, Rob Hope, and Marc Andre for contributing posts. —Channing