🗞 What's New: ShipFast's drama started with a bug

Here's what you'll find in this issue:

• A security bug discovery led to a boilerplate debate. Now, some of the most well-known indie hackers are duking it out on X.
• There's a major new update for Claude AI. We've got the details on what it's capable of.
• $15K MRR with native AI apps. Daniel Nguyen has updated and improved his software over 100 times in the last 1.5 years.

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Marc Lou is always one of the most discussed indie hackers on X. He’s frequently praised… and, frequently criticized.

Now he's at the center of an explosive controversy that has drawn the entire indie hacking community into a debate over product quality, security practices, and the ethics of public bug reporting.

And it all began with a tweet from a fellow indie hacker.

Here are the top products that launched on Indie Hackers yesterday:

1. 🥇 ZenMic: AI podcast generator.

2. 🥈 Askone.ai: Your AI-powered assistant for seamless web browsing.

3. 🥉 BlackheathPoint: Cybersecurity-as-a-Service for startups and scaleups.

Anthropic has dropped a major update for its AI model, Claude. It's no longer just passive software that answers your questions and writes your code; Claude can now use a computer.

This is the first time a company has released an AI model with these kinds of abilities to the public.

It can click, take screenshots, type, and a whole lot more.

🛩️ Celebrity jet-tracking accounts have vanished from Threads and Instagram.

🤖 Marketers can make data-backed decisions using AI reporting.

🎁 Three actionable steps to optimize your holiday campaign at every stage of the funnel.

🧳 Two reports predict a major shift in travel behavior in 2025.

🥪 The economics of free lunch.

Daniel Nguyen almost gave up on indie hacking after three of his projects failed to take off.

Then, he struck gold with Bolt AI, a native AI client for Mac OS. With support from the indie hacking community, he grew his product into a thriving SaaS.

A tweet from Pieter Levels was a game changer for his business.

Sure, beggars can't be choosers: in the early stages of your business you should probably accept any customer willing to pay you money.

But you'll know you've crossed a milestone when the headache of working with fussy customers stops being worth the tradeoff. —@channingallen

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Stephen Flanders, Katie Hignett, Darko Gjorgjievski, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing