🗞 What's New: How to create good content

Creating high-quality content can be make or break for a business:

• This step-by-step guide can help you apply an audience-centric approach to create relevant, valuable content. Use original research where possible.
• Empower your team to execute decision-making by furthering a common goal. Your team should be able to act without you, if needed.
• $7K-$20K per month in revenue. Donato Callahan partnered with influencers on webinars to build buzz for his real estate investment SaaS.

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by Santanu Dasgupta

High-quality content enhances credibility, drives traffic, and boosts overall engagement. Here's a comprehensive thought framework for creating it!

Core components

1. Value and relevance: Address the needs and problems of your audience.

2. Authenticity: Offer unique insights or perspectives.

3. Accuracy and reliability: Ensure that your content is accurate, reliable, and well-researched. Misinformation can damage credibility.

4. Audience-centric approach: Define buyer personas and understand their search intent.

The step-by-step guide

1. Topic research: Identify key topics using tools like Google Trends, Semrush, and Ahrefs to find trending topics and keywords within your niche. Explore diverse sources, tapping into academic journals, industry reports, expert interviews, and podcasts.

2. Deep dive: Read thoroughly, highlight key points, question assumptions, and dig deeper to uncover fundamental truths or new perspectives.

3. Define your unique angle: Find your unique value proposition, and include original research. Whenever possible, gather new data through surveys, interviews, or experiments to add originality and additional value.

4. Create a structured outline: Organize your findings into a coherent structure, with clear headings, subheadings, and logical flow. Identify and place relevant keywords in your outline to enhance search engine visibility.

5. Create engaging, informative content: Craft a compelling introduction, develop the main content, and use visual aids. Ensure readability with short paragraphs, bullet points, headings, and subheadings. Also, maintain a conversational tone.

6. Review, edit, and proofread: If needed, have a colleague or professional editor review your content for feedback and suggestions.

7. Optimize for SEO: Write compelling meta descriptions with primary keywords to enhance clickthrough rates.

8. Publish and promote: Publish your content on platforms where your target audience is most active.

9. Use analytics tools: Monitor engagement, traffic, and conversions.

10. Maintain relevance: Periodically revisit your content to ensure it is up-to-date and fresh.

Wrapping up

Creating good content is a strategic process that involves a deep understanding of both the subject matter and the audience. By applying a thought framework based on core principles, content creators can develop innovative, impactful content.

By adhering to these principles and practices, you can produce high-quality content that stands out in today’s competitive digital landscape, drives engagement, and ultimately, achieves your long-term goals!

Discuss this story.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🍎 The best small updates that Apple didn't mention at WWDC.

🏰 Building a strong brand moat with SEO.

💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.

🤝 A model for converting strangers into customers.

🤩 Implying popularity makes people want your product more.

📱 Getting featured in the App Store.

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

by Martin Baun

The military has many concepts that can be used in software development: The commander's intent captures the commander's and operation's goals, giving the platoon a clear objective to pursue.

Movies depict the wrong leadership lessons

Military movies showcase soldiers who fear their superiors more than any enemy they face. Dissent among the ranks is ruthlessly quelled, and any act of insubordination is promptly and severely punished. This compels them to blindly follow orders, regardless of any detrimental effects.

Managers in software engineering apply this approach, having learned it from the military, or from growing up in an authoritarian household. This management style demotivates many software development teams.

The modern military cultivates a culture of mutual trust from the top down and bottom up. Commanders empower their subordinates to execute decision-making with a common goal. Founders leading a team should consider taking a leaf out of the modern military's handbook.

Intent as a vital part of mission command

A commander's intent is a clear depiction and explanation of the mission goal. The soldiers in the platoon inherit this intent, and adapt the mission strategy when needed to achieve their goal.

Leaders need to offer more than giving orders. Their biggest responsibility is to lead the team, not to control every aspect of the project.

The team achieves more when everyone is empowered to handle their responsibilities. A leader who nurtures and promotes this gets the best out of their team members. There's no metric to quantify this aspect, yet it remains one of the most vital aspects of leadership.

Empowering your team

Empower your team with the confidence to take charge of their tasks and responsibilities as the situation dictates. This guarantees maximum productivity and output, regardless of the shifting scenario or environment. Make sure that team members understand:

• The "Why" for each task: People are far more likely to take pride in their work if they understand the value their work brings to the organization. This also enhances their overall job satisfaction.

• The "What" behind each task: Don't package requests as orders. Make things collaborative to help team members stay on track. Also, be sure to identify whether a team member is very independent, or needs more guidance. This will help you navigate communication.

Engage team members with respect, allowing them to offer guidance on the direction to follow. Show a genuine interest in the overall success of the team and organization. Ask why something is vital for the business, and why doing it produces the best results for the business and client.

Make sure to ask their thoughts on whether it could work!

I collaborated with my developers to create Goleko, a project management tool. You can also check out my blog if you're interested in reading more!

Discuss this story.

🗺️ Growth plan for my new SaaS. Posted by Alexander Isora.

🔎 How to find a good domain name. Posted by Dian.

🤷‍♀️ Managing competition for my easily replicable product. Posted by PLI Writers.

💻 You need to use your own product. Posted by Arian Adeli.

💵 We quadrupled our MRR, thanks to Techstars. Posted by Snow Lee.

🛠️ How SEO tools can help with keyword research. Posted by Smoteria.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

by James Fleischmann

Donato Callahan is a first-time founder bringing in $7K-$20K per month with his real estate investment SaaS.

Talking and failing

I always say you should talk to 10 people with at least 10 years of experience in a field you want to pursue. That way, by the time you start, you'll have at least 100 years of collective wisdom guiding you.

My cofounder and I are both first-time founders with no previous experience in startups, capital raising, or tech. So, we learned by talking to people. Success leaves clues, while failure leaves landmines. Take heed of the map showing where other people have stepped, and blown up.

I worked as a geo-spatial analyst for the US Department of Defense, but I spent a lot of time investing in real estate. I was having trouble finding good properties to invest in, properties that would make me money, with less risk. When you have little money, a mistake in the real estate industry can end you before you start.

I couldn't find a solution, so I built my own: BrightInvestor is a B2B SaaS product that makes real estate investing easier by providing all the data investors need.

I kept my job for two years, while building on the side. I was at my desk from 6 AM-4 PM, then I'd go home to 20 missed calls, 30 texts, and dozens of emails. I'd also have to attend to my real estate investments and BrightInvestor.

If I had known how hard it was going to be, I may not have done it. It's taking way longer than I thought, and has been way more expensive.

But here we are, and I'm better for it!

Nearing $10K MRR

We offer a subscription plan at $99 per month, and we also nominally make money from affiliate kickbacks.

Our MRR ranges from $7K-$9K after our first year, with our biggest month being $20K+. That variation is due to our annual payments, which create a lot of volatility in our revenue.

The month we hit over $20K, we co-hosted an affiliate webinar with a prominent influencer in our space. It brought in over 50 paid signups in a single night.

Our primary growth channels have been expert partnerships and webinars. Beyond that, we've dabbled in Google Ads and social media marketing.

Building the right team

I haven't written a single line of code for BrightInvestor. I came up with the idea and designed the initial mockups, then shifted to project management and sales. That meant I had to find the right people to bring the vision to life.

Now, I have one cofounder and a nine person team of contractors. Finding the right people was hard...I essentially had to date them.

My cofounder and I spent five months initially "dating" before starting our company. Since then, we've prioritized doing cofounder dates every month, where we get in a car, drive around, and share our dreams, goals, and personal problems. Through that, we've become dedicated to each other's success.

After solidifying the cofounder relationship, referrals were key in our hiring process.

The most important thing is to treat your team like people. Know their spouses, their kids, and their struggles, and they'll have ownership over the process like no other!

Discuss this story.

by Tweetmaster Flex

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

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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 Santanu Dasgupta, Darko, Martin Baun, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing