🗞 What's New: Meet the indie hackers killing it on TikTok

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

• Indie hackers are killing it on TikTok, Instagram, and other short-form video platforms.
• ChatGPT can now read code straight from your computer via its desktop app.
• $30K MRR with a business coaching platform: Robin Waite burned out, then bet on himself.

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X has long been the home for indie hackers. It’s where dignitaries like Pieter Levels, Marc Lou, Damon Chen, and Ryan Hoover first burst onto the scene.

But nothing lasts forever. The brightest stars of the new generation of founders are focusing their energy on the social media platforms of the new age.

Platforms where, with enough savvy and brain rot, it's possible for a 19-year-old to earn $50k/mo from a porn-recovery app, a Zoomer who spends 4-8 hours per day on TikTok to scale a Spotify bedroom app to 10 million users in just two weeks, and a designer fresh out of college to earn $20k/mo from a life reset app.

I’m talking about none other than TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

Read the full article →

📌 TikTok is becoming a job board for Gen Z.

💵 Paddle makes payments, taxes, and subscription management easy. #ad

📝 Essential API testing checklist for developers and QA engineers.

📧 These emails get 90%+ response rates.

🔐 Unlocking the power of free email APIs.

🙋 Sam Parr's founder community, Hampton, is transitioning to in-person meetings.

OpenAI's ChatGPT can now read code directly from your computer, using its desktop app.

You can link up the app to your IDE (integrated development environment) or terminal to give the LLM context, which means you won't have to do any copying and pasting.

OpenAI launched a beta version of this capability on Thursday to Plus and Team customers via its desktop app for Mac.

Read the full article →

SaaS Watch is a roundup of all the latest micro-SaaS acquisition opportunities. Here are the top three for this week!

1. iOS app boilerplate: $242 per month, 10-100 customers, $14.5K asking price.
2. Chrome extension for identifying low-authority sites ranking for specific keywords: $1K per month, $7K asking price.
3. B2B app for distributing SQL reports to Slack, email, and Basecamp: $550 per month, 1K-10K users, $25K asking price.

A few years back, Robin Waite burned out and sold his marketing agency. In hindsight, he says he shouldn't have sold it, but he used that modest nest egg to launch a new career: Business coaching.

Now, Fearless Business is bringing in $30K MRR through five different revenue streams.

Read the full article →

So true.

The most important thing to have — as a founder, creator, bodybuilder, writer, WHATEVER — is energy.

Strategy comes second.

—@csallen

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