🗞 What's New: Opportunities on TikTok in 2022

Happy New Year from Indie Hackers!

• Over 1,000 TikTok-related apps totaling over 1.3 billion downloads have launched since January 2020. Check out the most popular categories below, as building for TikTok could be your next move!
• Out of 150 emerging trends reported on in 2021, which were hits and which were misses? Read on for the breakdown.
• Founder Mauricio Cuenca recently hit $2,000 in monthly revenue with Newsletterss, his app that makes reading newsletters easy and user-friendly. Here's his trick to getting the most out of his App Store ad spend dollars.

Want to share something with nearly 85,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

🎶 TikTok's Major Ecosystem

from the Indie Economy newsletter by Bobby Burch

TikTok’s wild popularity has created a thriving ecosystem of apps hoping to capitalize on the platform’s lucrative growth. Here's a breakdown of which TikTok-related apps are the most popular!

The TikTok bandwagon

The news: Developers across the globe have launched nearly 1K apps totaling more than 1.3B downloads, all aiming to leverage TikTok’s popularity.

The context: TikTok, which now has more than 1B monthly active users, has experienced growth unlike any other app ever. Propelled by homebound users during pandemic lockdowns, TikTok ended Q1 2020 with the most installs for any app ever in a single quarter. To date, TikTok has attracted 3.3B installs worldwide.

Rise of remoras: Sensor Tower reports that there are more than 900 apps on the App Store or Google Play Store that mention TikTok, and two-thirds of them were launched during, or after, January 2020. Since Q1 2020, developers have launched more than 600 apps aiming to capitalize on TikTok’s popularity.

App categories: 49% of the apps that mention TikTok are helping users download videos to their phones in order to share them on other social media platforms. The second popular category of TikTok-focused apps, representing about 21%, are those that provide analytics on followers, hashtags, and audience growth tools.

Opportunities ahead: The number of new apps orbiting TikTok has slowed in 2021, but more businesses are turning to the platform for distribution efforts. About 44% of marketers plan to spend more on TikTok advertising in 2022.

Other niches: Sensor Tower notes a variety of app subcategories that hope to capitalize on TikTok’s growth. A few of these include video aggregators that scrape popular videos on the platform, and simulators like HypeMe, which allows users to experience the feeling of running a wildly popular TikTok account.

Watch out, Amazon: Indie Hackers recently reported that TikTok is becoming a popular shopping platform for Gen Z. This is bad news for Alibaba, and even worse for Amazon, as it increases seller fees, makes search results pay-to-play, and manipulates search results to promote its own products.

Creator push continues: TikTok recently released a trove of features that aim to help creators monetize their following, and you don’t even have to be famous to use them. Creators love TikTok, ranking it number one over any other platform, including YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

Spotlight on Spotify

TikTok vs. Spotify? The Hustle recently reported that TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is targeting Spotify’s business. It is making moves with its own music streaming service, Resso:

Emerging markets: Spotify may have 381M+ users, but Resso has steadily grown by focusing on emerging markets that Spotify needs, specifically Brazil, Indonesia, and India. For example, Resso grew monthly active users in India by nearly 600% in the year following its launch in August 2020.

Race for Gen Z: About 75% of US TikTok users discover new artists on TikTok. With its 1B+ users, many of which are Gen Z, TikTok hopes that users will look to Resso for music discovery rather than Spotify, which is currently the world’s most popular music streaming service.

How can you capitalize on TikTok's rise in 2022? Let's chat below!

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Indie Economy for more.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

🤔 TikTok is wondering whether casual Instagram is worth the hassle.

💼 From The Great Resignation to The Great Retention.

💘 From bot love to "comvaxability," these are 2022's likeliest dating trends.

🚘 Tesla has recalled nearly half a million vehicles due to safety concerns.

😽 South Korea says that cats caused more than 100 house fires in the past three years.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

🎭 2021 Hits and Misses

from the Hustle Newsletter by Ethan Brooks

This year, Trends has published data-backed research on 150+ emerging trends, plus deep dives on everything from biohacking to sextech.

Some have surpassed our wildest expectations (we'll never get tired of pointing out how right Julia was about NFTs). But others, like sea shanties, may have only been wishful thinking (sorry, Ethan).

It's been a thrill to watch, as many of you have launched successful businesses based on Trends research (for some examples, see here, here, and here). We're looking forward to even more in 2022.

To get your business inspiration flowing, here's a breakdown of our top hits (👍)  and misses (👎) for the year, along with updated opportunities that you should jump on in the year ahead.

BitClout is hot 👍

The "reputational stock market" (BitClout) made waves early this year, and at the time, Steph Smith and I seemed alone in our skepticism.

Our stance: Becoming a publicly traded person is a terrible idea, and so-called creator coins benefit speculators, not creators or their fans.

Since then, the price of the coin has tumbled, and creators are feeling the sting; many of their supporters have lost ~50% of their money. Worse, as predicted, we're moving slowly toward secondary markets where it's possible to effectively "short" someone's reputation. The price of BitClout's coin (now called DeSo) has fallen ~50% since launch:

*Source: CoinMarketCap

This genie isn't going back into the bottle, so creators are going to need access to a new suite of resources, like affordable disgrace insurance, to deal with a world where there's a direct financial incentive to cancel people.

Universities struggle to hold on 👎

Back in April, we wrote about Student Coin, a crypto project that allows universities to mint their own DeFi tokens and NFTs. These could be used to issue everything from loans to diplomas.

The coin's price has risen ~100% YoY, but it's down ~90% from its midyear high, and the growth of its subreddit community has slowed. While this is not a total L, I'm calling it a (temporary) miss since it's lost momentum.

*Source: Subreddit Stats

Still, DeFi is enabling things like self-repaying loans, which would have huge implications for universities. Though this project is simmering, I think the opportunities that we highlighted (crypto consulting for schools and NerdWallet for DeFi loans) remain promising.

Funerals for Fido 👍

One of my midyear predictions was that pet death care would face a revolution similar to that of humans. A quick check-in reveals that TikTok's #petloss hashtag now has 178M+ views (have some tissues ready if you click that), and the r/PetLoss subreddit has continued to grow steadily.

*Source: Subreddit Stats

Google searches for "pet cremation near me" have continued to grow too, and US Jungle Scout data shows that pet memento products are now coining it on Amazon:

• Wind chime: $43K MRR.
• Keychain: $44K MRR.
• Picture frame: $44K MRR.
• Memorial stone: $78K MRR.

There's even a service that offers pet grieving support packages from $9 to $279 per month. (Yes, these are psychologists and vets specializing in pet loss. Believe us, if you've ever lost a pet, there's opportunity here.)

It's still too early to tell if pet estate planning is taking off, but I have a gut feeling that arranging for who cares for your pets after your death, as well as including them in wills, will one day be a big thing.

"You can never have too many (stuffed) frens" - Archie

Faux meat faces a reckoning 👎

On the topic of little critters, while I think alt-proteins will continue to soar, the "faux meat" space is in for a bit of a health reckoning.

Much of this stuff is highly processed and contains sh*tty ingredients, which goes against the biggest reason consumers choose to buy them (health!).

Therefore, I don't think the faux meat space is a strong opportunity for 2022. Instead, I'd be eyeing plant-derived, whole proteins that offer benefits without the crap (we called it for Athletic Greens).

Source: Google Trends

Exclusive health clubs show strong vitals 👍

As we head into winter, I'll be watching data related to exclusive primary care clubs like Parsley Health. After a summer slump, the category's organic search traffic is recovering. While it's still early, signs point to this industry being seasonal, but trending up.

Ahrefs reveals interesting opportunities (aside from launching a club of your own).

For example, one of Parsley's top-ranking keywords is "brain fog," and this article on the subject is the most popular page on its website, landing ~20% more views than its homepage.

Everyone from Joe Rogan to Jocko Willink has launched brain performance supplements, and even the (non-celebrity backed) Neuro Gum generates ~$208K MRR on Amazon with its L-theanine- and caffeine-infused gum and mints, according to Jungle Scout.

Interest is seasonal, but the trend is up and to the right. (Source: Ahrefs)

Mental fitness is getting swole 👍

Speaking of brain fog, we can't end the year without checking in on the emerging realm of mental fitness, one of several trends that we covered in our deep dive on biohacking.

Similar to physical fitness, mental fitness is the next step of the mental health revolution. This one takes a proactive approach to developing our ability to handle adversity.

Digital challenges like 75 Hard push participants to cultivate grit and consistency. Communities like Coa serve as a gym for the mind, with ongoing classes on everything from confidence to leadership.

Trends member and professional adventurer Tommy Caufield even cofounded Dose, a mental fitness club that teaches resilience, focus, collaboration, and creativity through mini lectures from some of the world's leading athletes.

Expect much more in this space in 2022.

*Source: Google Trends

Drip bars take a dive 👎

Earlier this year, I wrote about IV therapy businesses (AKA "drip bars"), which offer either in-clinic or at-home IV treatment for things like hydration, immune support, hangover cures, etc.

After publishing the piece, Google search traffic climbed to an all-time high before falling off a cliff, so I'm calling this one a miss (for now), but it's still the early days.

Ahrefs data shows that Drip Hydration has grown referring domains ~150% (from ~300 to ~750) since our piece published.

The company achieved this by adding rapid, at-home COVID-19 testing to its product bundle, a move which will passively expose thousands of people each month to its IV product options.

*Source: Google Trends

The big unlock: Currently, these businesses rely on networks of registered medical providers to schedule and administer the IV drips. What's needed is a safe, at-home method of self-administration.

Similar to the way diagnostics and embedded glucose monitors have become more user-friendly, anyone who can develop self-administered IV treatments stands to win big.

Which of your 2021 predictions were a hit or miss? Share below!

Subscribe to the Hustle Newsletter for more.

🌐 Best Around the Web: Most Popular Indie Hackers Posts of 2021

👋 After two amazing years of leading the Indie Hackers community, I’m stepping down. AMA! Posted by Rosie Sherry.

💰 Earned over $500K for my first course launch. Posted by Josh Comeau.

📨 Indie Hackers is now an invite-only community. Posted by Channing Allen.

🚀 Relaunch like a pro: 100+ places to launch, relaunch, and list your product. Posted by James Fleischmann.

💵 I sold Pingr. Lessons learned. Posted by Victor Ponamariov.

🥺 Rogue developer wants to extort our startup. What would you do? Posted by Tascha.

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.

💻 Mauricio Cuenca Hit $2K MRR With Newsletterss

from the Growth & Acquisition Channels newsletter by Darko

Mauricio Cuenca launched Newsletterss, an app for reading newsletters that also creates an RSS feed of your inbox and lets you use your favorite reader. Newsletterss recently hit $2K MRR. Read on for more about Mauricio's journey!

What's your background?

I was 19 when my college friend and I cofounded our first business idea. We started off as hosting resellers and continued building websites. Years later, we were selling online applications to modernize and streamline processes for the government of Colombia.

After a good stint with our first company, I decided to pursue my master’s degree abroad, so I moved to Spain. While I was there, I joined a very famous (now defunct) social network as a software engineer.

During those years I met my (now) wife, who was also studying abroad. She decided to return home to the US, and I followed her. Once settled in America, I cofounded my second business project, and it failed less than two years later. It was like Uber for package shipping. However, it was too early. The world was not prepared for that.

What motivated you to get started?

I consume a lot of information on a daily basis, and newsletters make up a considerable percentage of that. I didn’t want to mix my personal emails with breaking news, recipes, or other interesting topics that are not as personal as email. Also, email apps are focused on productivity. I wanted an app that felt nice for consuming content, as opposed to producing it. Because I couldn’t find one that met my needs, I decided to start working on what is known today as Newsletterss.

What went into building the initial product?

I built the initial email processor over a weekend as a prototype, mostly to prove my idea. Most email service providers do a really good job with outbound marketing email, but finding one that offers a good inbound solution has been the most challenging part.

Once I built the prototype, I purchased a website template and put together a landing page and web app. I also hired a web developer contractor who helped me with CSS and layout. I’ve been programming in Go for the past five years, and that’s what I used for the backend; it allows me to be very productive. The initial version of the application had Postgres running on Google Cloud as the data layer, but it was expensive to run a Postgres instance for an application with zero users. I decided to try Google Datastore, and I still use it to this day. It has its downsides, but it allows me to scale the app faster (and at a reasonable cost).

After building a decent web application, I started tinkering with Swift UI to build a native client app. I was super productive at the beginning when laying out the app’s foundation, but once I needed to build more advanced stuff, Swift UI became a roadblock. It took a lot of time to get things done. I pivoted to a more pragmatic approach and gave Flutter a try. After two months, I released the first iOS version of Newsletterss on Valentine’s Day while having dinner with my wife. She was the one who pushed the release button!

How have you attracted users?

I am a terrible marketer! Seriously, awful. But I’ve been trying to get better at it, even though I don’t enjoy it as much as developing.

As many do, I tried launching on Product Hunt. It was a total flop. I’ll give it another try in the future, but the initial experience wasn’t what I expected.

I brought in some early users through the 100 users in 100 days challenge. I ended up in fourth place.

The App Store has been my main source of customer acquisition. Most users come in via Apple Search Ads. I bid more than the recommended amount for keywords that may not be the most relevant for my product. Eventually, the search ads algorithm displays my ads when there’s a shortage in inventory.

The ad spend using this technique has had a positive return throughout most of the year, but I’ve noticed its effectiveness decreasing recently. I attribute this change to multiple factors: The increase in cost after Apple released App Tracking Transparency, and the fact that companies increase their ad spend at the end of the year to remain competitive during the holiday season.

I have also tried interjecting in random Twitter conversations for specific keywords that I follow, and that has brought some users as well. I have a subscription model with a free tier. Free accounts have some limitations, like messages being auto-deleted after a certain time.

If you had to start over, what would you do differently?

Mobile first, skip the web application, and put all my efforts into building the native apps. In hindsight, the web app was a little distracting.

We have not reached the peak era for newsletters yet. Platforms like Substack, Revue, and Facebook Bulletin are just in their beginning stages, and newsletters will only grow from this point forward. All these platforms are solely focused on the creator experience. I want to appease the other side of the equation: The readers.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Growth & Acquisition Channels for more.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

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

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Bobby Burch, Priyanka Vazirani, Ethan Brooks, and Darko for contributing posts. —Channing