🗞 What's New: Pitch your idea to win $5,000

It's been a while since I've really gotten my hands dirty, but here goes nothing:

• I'm judging a pitch competition! Enter today for a chance to win $5,000 towards growing your idea.
• Yellow bricks vs lego bricks: My mental model for how to learn more things from more people.
• This founder went from zero to $1M ARR in 36 days by publicly trolling Big Tech.

Want your product seen by over 130,000 founders and businesses? Sponsor an issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter. Choose between 2 affordable tiers that can fit almost any budget.

I've got an exciting opportunity to share: I'm judging The Hustle's Big Break pitch competition, and I'd love to see indie hackers well-represented among the entries.

Here's the deal: Record a 60-second video pitching your business idea, and you could win $5,000 to bring it to life.

As someone who's reviewed thousands of startup ideas and founder stories over the years, I'm especially excited to see:

• Ideas with clear paths to profitability (not just growth)
• Concepts that solve real problems you've experienced
• Businesses that can be bootstrapped and built independently

The beauty of this competition is its simplicity — no lengthy business plans or complex financial models are required. Just you, your idea, and your enthusiasm.

How to enter:

1. Record a 60-second video pitch
2. Include your business name, description, revenue model, and tagline
3. Submit at thehustle.co/bigbreak by April 4th

The winner gets $5,000 cash plus exposure to millions of readers across both The Hustle and Indie Hackers communities.

I genuinely hope to see many of you enter. This community is filled with brilliant ideas — now's your chance to get one funded.

—Channing

This issue is sponsored by FastPixel

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We could go on and on about the tech behind it, the insane performance gains, and why you’ll never look at caching the same way again… but honestly? You just need to try it.

So, go ahead — give it a shot. We’re here 24/7 for complaints, compliments, and questionable suggestions.

Some people treat advice like a yellow brick road — follow it step-by-step, or risk getting nowhere. Others treat it like a box of Legos — picking, choosing, and remixing ideas to fit their needs.

I call this latter group Lego Brick Thinkers, and I think they have an uncanny ability to learn from anyone, even the most eccentric figures. Whether we're talking David Goggins’ masochistic endurance training or Bryan Johnson’s extreme anti-aging regimen.

I did a writeup breaking down the difference between Yellow Brick and Lego Brick thinking. I also shared a surprising way I applied this mindset in my own life after reading “Addiction by Design,” a book about how casinos manipulate player behavior.

Read the full article →

All I can say is I've always been the "solutions guy" in relationships, and it's never worked out well for me. 🙃

—Channing

Columbia sophomore Roy Lee built Interview Coder — an invisible AI assistant that helps candidates cheat on technical interviews — in just 4 days.

Then he did something even more audacious: he tested it live during interviews at Meta, Capital One, and TikTok, and shared the results publicly.

The ensuing controversy (and potential expulsion from college) generated 50M+ views and catapulted his product to $110K MRR with 95% margins.

Read the full article →

Here's today's Indie Mini: a daily crossword puzzle that quizzes you on all things tech, economics, and business.

Play today's puzzle →

Did you like today's stories? Did they suck? Which ones?

We're constantly changing things up to make this newsletter more useful, so let us know what you think by replying directly to this email. We read every reply!

Special thanks to Yushavel Calderon for the graphic design, and to Michal Kankowski, James Fleischmann, and Courtland Allen for contributing posts.

—Channing