🗞 What's New: Should founders ask for credit cards upfront?

To ask or not to ask, that is the question:

• When it comes to asking for credit cards upfront, founders seem to be split down the middle. Does it help or harm?
• Have a product idea that you can't stop thinking about, but struggling to make it a reality? These tips, including creating accountability and adding value in targeted communities, can kick things off.
• Founder Sophia O’Neal hit $3,000 in monthly revenue by helping B2B SaaS founders understand branding and marketing. Below, she talks building a portfolio from scratch, branding tips for SaaS, and battling loneliness as a solo founder.

Want to share something with nearly 90,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

💳 Requiring Credit Cards Upfront

by Ryan Doyle

Should you be asking for credit cards upfront? Founders weigh in below!

Asking for credit cards improved the business

Ryan Doyle noticed major results after starting to ask for credit cards upfront:

I've been building Magic Sales Bot for about a year. It changed, pivoted, welcomed about 2.5K users, and reached $1.1K MRR at its peak.

It was always free to sign up. Past a certain usage amount, or after so many days, I'd ask users to choose a paid plan to continue. I thought it would be a great way to make the product perfect. After all, if they want to keep using after the trial, that means I've found product-market fit, right?

But a year on, there was still no growth; users spoke with me only begrudgingly.

Then, last month, a free user told me that they had landed a $70K sales deal the first time they used my product. That led to my decision to CC gate my trials.

A month on, it's the best thing I've done:

Revenue went up 20%. Users started talking to me, even if they weren't converting to paid. I began to understand who my users were, what they wanted from me, and what would make them convert.

I cannot recommend CC gating your free trials enough. It puts everything into neat little compartments. People signing up? Good, they're finding you. Putting a CC down for a trial? Good, you have a compelling value prop. Converting from trial? Good, you delivered on that prop.

My product is now in a better position because I asked for a CC upfront. If you're struggling to get traction, try this for a month. If you're not really getting customers anyway, what do you have to lose?

Maddie Wang agrees:

I used to do free trials, then I switched to monthly plans. I later moved to annual plans for my community, Founders Cafe.

• Before: I had low retention and low engagement because flakers kept joining my community.

• After: I have high retention and high engagement because people with significant skin in the game, the believers, are all in it together.

Gate it!

Free trials can work, but...

Free trials can be a good thing, but only if wielded correctly, says Spiros Kod.

The free trial is a samurai sword: Unless you're a master at using it, you can cut your arm off!

Don't use a free trial until you have value that your users can actually see, to entice them to upgrade. Free trials are part of an acquisition model, not part of pricing!

Cherry-picking valid leads from traction can be a great way to do things. Even so, starting off low in pricing and high in flexibility (free trial and optionality) seem to be the most obvious choices. Users ask for specifics and leverage that freedom, leading to slow growth.

Asking for a credit card upfront is the kiss of death

Nikhil believes that asking for a CC upfront is a SaaS billing dark pattern:

I am glad it works out for some, but many potential users may automatically assume that the company cannot be trusted if it's asking for a CC. Check out this read on SaaS dark patterns!

Mick says that asking for a CC upfront would be the kiss of death for many indie hacker businesses:

There are a couple of things that I believe to be myths:

1. Getting CC details upfront is the best way to validate your product: I very strongly disagree with this. Here's why.

• Product validation: Signups. If people are creating an account, then they appreciate the value proposition you are offering. This is validation.

• Product quality: Conversion to paid. If people switch from trial to paid, then the actual product lives up to the promise.

If people are signing up, your product idea is validated. If they choose to pay, your product is validated. Subtle, but important difference.

2. Asking for a CC leads to better conversion: Again, you need be extremely careful with this type of thinking.

If you start asking for CCs, you might get 10 signups and five of them convert. That's 50% conversion. Amazing, right? If you don't ask for CCs, you might get 100 signups and 12 of them might convert. That's only 12% conversion, but its seven more signups.

Don't confuse conversion rates with the actual number of paying customers.

3. It's the right move for B2B: It's worth remembering that every person at a company who may want to use your product may not have access or permission to use a business card.

This adds a huge layer of friction between the advocate who wants to sign up, and the business leader who now needs to be sold on the idea.

Requiring a CC may block a superfan of your product from being able to sign up because they will more than likely require someone else's approval to use a business card.

Does asking for a credit card upfront help? Share your thoughts below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

🛍 This app wants to create a $400B live e-commerce market in the US.

📵 India has banned 54 apps linked to China, citing security concerns.

👀 Strategists warn that not all Big Tech companies will survive the transition to Web3.

🇹🇷 Goodbye Turkey, hello Türkiye.

❤️‍🩹 Dating app scams swindled Americans out of $547M in 2021.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

🛠 From Idea to MVP

from the Building No-Code Newsletter by Matthew Busel

What happens when you have an idea that you can't stop thinking about, but you're unsure how to make it a reality?

Getting something off the ground can be confusing, but Whalesync knows how to turn an idea into a product with real customers. These steps can help to convert your idea to an MVP and start building momentum!

Create accountability

Join a community that holds you accountable to make progress on the idea. This ensures that the idea won't die slowly from neglect.

Pioneer worked for me. YC Startup School worked for my cofounder, Curtis. ‍

Create a landing page

Throw up a landing page with a signup form to have something that you can share with others. Start collecting emails from interested people.

I like Webflow. Typedream and Carrd are other options. ‍

Add value in targeted communities

Hopefully, you're already a member of the communities that you're interested in. If not, join them. Check out Discord, Slack, Facebook, Reddit, etc.

After joining, give to the community by authentically posting, sharing, and commenting. Share what you're working on to see if others are excited about it as well!

Interview potential users

Identify a very specific group that you want to build for. This could be health tech fanatics, enterprise sales leaders, and so on. Find these people in your network, or the targeted communities, and ask if they have a few minutes for a quick interview. Your goal should be to interview 20 targeted, potential users.

Use principles from The Mom Test to ensure validity in interview results. Record the interviews (check out Grain, Dovetail, or Fireflies) for review afterwards.

After five interviews, start looking for patterns and interesting tidbits.

Find a partner

First, determine whether you actually need a cofounder or a partner. This Indie Hackers piece can help you to sort through that question.

To find a cofounder, you can check the Indie Hackers community, YC Cofounder Match, OnDeck, and DayOne.

Build an MVP

Use the learnings from your user interviews to create a scrappy MVP. The goal of the MVP is to advance your learnings, not to produce a perfect experience.

This could be as simple as a form with some manual work on the other end; do things that don't scale. The second iteration may be a no-code app, but first optimize for speed and learning.

Generate traction

Improve the MVP by updating the landing page, sharing your learnings in communities, interviewing more targeted people, and continuing to iterate.

The best traction is getting paid users. Other traction options include getting into an accelerator and finding an established advisor.

What are your tips for going from idea to MVP? Let's chat!

Discuss this story, or subscribe to the Building No-Code Newsletter for more.

👥 10M Users, Zero Funding

by Aytekin Tank

Getting started:

Get your work in front of real people as early as possible. It’s the best way to see if they’ll use and pay for what you’ve built. The longer you wait, the greater the chance you’re building in the wrong direction. And that can be dangerous.

Release fast, ask questions, and apply the feedback to keep improving. It sounds simple, but it’s amazing how many founders are afraid to take this critical leap.

Discuss this story.

💻 Sophia O’Neal is Killing the SaaS Branding Game

from the Indie Hackers Stories newsletter by Teela Fleischmann

Founder: Sophia O’Neal.

Founded: Ignore No More and Startup Goodness.

MRR: $3K.

Zone of genius: SaaS branding.

Indie Hackers sat down with Sophia O'Neal to learn more about her journey. Below, she talks loneliness, building a portfolio from nothing, the importance of branding, and more!

On business

I started my first company with my sister when I was seven years old. It took several internships and failed startups in college, but I eventually realized that branding and marketing strategy is where I shine. After college, I worked in multiple in-house roles, but in the end, working for someone else lost all of its appeal.

I launched a B2B SaaS branding agency called Ignore No More. We build un-ignorable brands rooted in conversational copy and scalable marketing strategies.

I’m also building a library of step-by-step branding and marketing guides for B2B SaaS founders, starting with a landing page copywriting worksheet. I went full-time with the agency in November, and am committed to launching a new tool every month. By next year, I’d like to turn the most successful tool into a SaaS!

My goal is to build tools that make marketing painless, simple, and successful for tech founders who hate marketing, or for whom English is a second language. I also run a monthly newsletter for my local startup community called Startup Goodness. It is just shy of 80 subscribers, all from word-of-mouth. I launched SG a year ago this month!

I’m committing to really building out the Startup Goodness site, and I’m also working with the larger group to create a hyperlocal version of Y Combinator’s Startup School. I’m heading up the curriculum building part, and we’re hoping to have it ready for August enrollment.

On growing the business

I’m following Ben Issen’s Hyper Freelancer model, so the tools library and my newsletter side project also drive traffic and interest to my agency. I’m also a frequent speaker at local startup incubators and accelerators. This helps me see founder frustrations and confusion with branding and marketing in real-time, and forces me to streamline my processes. If it doesn’t fit into an hour-long workshop, then I probably need to simplify it.

For my agency and tools, I’m working on sticking to a very focused three channel marketing strategy, with Twitter being my main channel.

I tweet about very concrete ways to brand and market an early-stage B2B SaaS. I’ve gotten quite a few leads from Twitter through DM’s, and my landing page worksheet launch was a financial success: All of my conversions came from Twitter.

My other two main channels are Indie Hackers and referrals. In the next two months, I’m going to be focusing on SEO and LinkedIn, using content repurposed from Twitter. I wrote out how I plan to use my tweets for blog content.

On loneliness

Loneliness has proven to be my latest challenge! I’m 95% extrovert, but for most of COVID-19, I was either living with family or going into an office, which really helped mitigate the strongest feelings of isolation.

Now that I work from home, live alone, and am a solo founder, I’m having to be exceptionally purposeful about seeing people through weekly prescheduled activities like rock climbing, run club, and friend hangouts planned weeks ahead of time. Otherwise, I will just miserably chain myself to my laptop.

I have truly come to grips with how unhealthy the “hustle culture” approach is. Putting my phone on Focus Mode during the day, and in the other room at night (whenever possible), is helping too.

On building a portfolio from nothing

When I launched the agency, I couldn’t use most of the work that I’d done in-house for my portfolio. It was all under non-disclosure agreements, or hadn’t been publicly released yet.

So, I offered to build four brands in one week each for free on Indie Hackers, complete with a brand identity, landing page, and three channel marketing strategy. Two of the brands that took me up on the offer ended up being a good fit, but I realized that one week was completely unrealistic for all of those deliverables. Although I hated doing it, I let the founders know that their projects would take longer than expected.

The final products are much higher quality than a rush job would have allowed, and gave me a good estimate on how long projects take from start to finish. Now, I quote closer to 3-4 weeks minimum for a project that size.

Branding advice for indie hackers

Branding is your differentiation framework, and should be part of your positioning. Authentic branding is rooted in relating to customers in the way that they want to be related to, not in saying what the founder wants to say. I think that’s often confused.

A strong brand is a clear definition of your:

• Personality: Who you are.
• Voice: How you speak.
• Visuals: How you look.

This is all rooted in how your product speaks to customers’ core desires or core fears.

Nail them, and your customers will think that you're a mind reader!

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Indie Hackers Stories for more.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

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

🏁 Enjoy This Newsletter?

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

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 Ryan Doyle, Priyanka Vazirani, Matthew Busel, Aytekin Tank, and Teela Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing