🗞 What's New: Staying motivated as a founder

How do you stay motivated on your tough days?

• From remembering your "why," to taking on free customers, founders weigh in below on how they jumpstart motivation when feeling down.
• The website design industry is extremely competitive. Avoid these 10 mistakes in order to keep your websites crisp, efficient, and user-friendly!
• Founder Anna Maste grew her newsletter to drive $3,500 in sales each week. Here's her recipe for creating compelling content, and what she plans to do differently next time.

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

🏃‍♀️ How do You Stay Motivated?

by James Marks

It’s hard to stay motivated as a founder. Sometimes, you have to believe when no one else does. And then, there are those times where it’s hard to believe even for you.

I was recently reminded of the difficulty of staying motivated when we launched Trivial, a workflow automation tool. We’d been building for months, and I hit a wall where I was so discouraged that I couldn’t bring myself to type another keystroke. Fellow founders, have you been there?

Taking on customers

Rick Mills says that his biggest motivator when building ServerAuth was taking on customers without charging them. It might sound silly, but it worked very well:

We started off with an entirely free product with no fixed timeframe on when we'd start charging. This worked really well to validate the idea, get feedback, and figure out how people used our product.

We're in the extreme niche area, so we are immediately putting ourselves at a disadvantage. But having ~20 people using and relying on our product for their business was the biggest motivator.

We used that to figure out where we wanted to take things. We didn't introduce a paid plan until we were at a point where we had a solid offering. Within a few days of that, we had a handful of customers convert to paid. Getting your first paying customer is a huge motivator!

Since then, we've grown a fair bit. Every time we get a new customer, it just drives motivation higher and higher.

We follow a slightly different mentality than most bootstrapped startups. We've kept our operations lean so that we're not reliant on onboarding more and more paid customers to survive.

You need to love what you're doing. If building your product is a slog and you're not enjoying it, that won't change. Your motivation won't improve without a serious change in perspective. It cannot all be about money, and if you're not in it to solve a problem, I think you'll always struggle to get anywhere.

We discovered this the hard way. We're two founders who have worked together for close to two decades, and we spent a big chunk of that building what we thought people wanted. But we didn't enjoy the process at all. We were missing the key element of it, which is that it needs to be something that you're passionate about.

Having a support system

For Bill Hinostroza, having a support system is essential.

If you don't have passion for it, you're most likely going to stop doing it. But, of course, even if you love what you do, there are going to be crappy times.

I believe that it's very important to have a support system in place so that when things go badly, you have someone to turn to. You can talk to them, and they will lift you up or guide you on how to resolve the issues.

If you don't have a local support group, I think the next best thing is joining startup communities like Indie Hackers, Hacker News, and SaaS Facebook Groups. Founders of all backgrounds go through very similar things, and we can help each other!

Remember your "why"

Prasad Mahes stays motivated in a few ways:

1. I have a recurring event on my calendar called "Your Why," and in the description of that event is the reason that I do what I do. I read it when I feel down or hopeless.

2. After being in the game for several years, I've realized that something always works out in the end to pull me out of a tough situation. I now believe that I'll genuinely be okay, no matter what happens.

3. I believe in my ability to figure things out. If one thing doesn't work, I know that I can make a quick pivot into something else that'll bring in income (freelancing, etc.), while I focus on improving the main business or project.

4. Taking breaks helps with finding motivation again. Sometimes, it's okay to take a week or two off and come back with a clear mind.

5. I find paid communities where people a few levels higher than me hang out, and ask them for guidance. It can help shortcut a few months or years of trying to figure it out on your own, and it's motivating to see others succeed in the same space as you.

Consider becoming a digital nomad

What really helped Daniel Habib was selling or donating most of his possessions and doing the digital nomad thing:

I was based in LA at the time, facing massive burnout, and not getting anything done. After I started traveling, my motivation came back almost instantly. I started connecting with other digital nomads by staying in co-living spaces, and gained the understanding that I can both work hard and play hard. The two fed off of each other.

Build for yourself

Another highly recommended tip from founders is to build products that you use and need yourself. This can help keep you motivated, as the product is essential in your own life.

The most important thing is to hang in there! There will be peaks and valleys in your indie hacking journey, but showing up every day counts for a lot.

How do you stay motivated? Share your tips in the comments!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

🖼 NFTs will be on Instagram soon.

🤑 Spotify who? Musicians are now making a fortune on Web3.

👓 VR headsets are coming to your car's backseat.

🧐 Social media is a hub for meth users hidden in plain sight.

🍽 Chipotle wants to serve you AI-made tortilla chips.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

💻 10 Web Design Mistakes to Avoid

by Craig Barber

I’ve spent over 40K hours designing websites for some of the biggest brands in the world, including Citi, LG Mobile, Samsung, and PayPal. Below, I’m going to cover the top 10 mistakes that I see designers making right now in the marketplace. Let’s dive in!

1. Using low contrast colors

Using colors without enough contrast is a big no no, especially when it comes to typography. Not only is this bad design, but it makes things really difficult for people, especially those with impaired vision.

You must use high contrast colors for your background and your type. Don’t know if your colors are high contrast enough? Here’s a free tool to help you out!

2. Using too many colors

Some websites have way too many colors in their designs, which creates a bad user experience. Your users get overwhelmed with the colors fighting for their attention, and this directly affects things like click-through and conversion rates.

My advice is to use just three colors: One for your background. One for your typography. One for your accents (things like buttons and your call-to-action).

3. Designing for desktop only

It’s 2022. There’s no excuse for websites that don’t work on mobile. Always make sure that what you’re designing is modular and responsive.

Remember, modular design for the win!

4. Too little tap space on mobile devices

Don’t overlook tap space on mobile. Tap space is the space that someone’s finger needs to tap something on their mobile device, preventing errors.

Make sure that you are designing with enough space between your UI elements. I see this mistake a lot when it comes to navigation menus on mobile devices.

5. Covering up UI elements with widgets

There are a lot of third-party widgets being deployed on websites, including chatbots and cookie consent modals.

Often, these widgets are overlaid on top of important elements, like navigation.

Always test your final designs on mobile to make sure that nothing is overlaid. Your users will thank you for this.

6. Using too many fonts

When you use a bunch of different fonts, it creates more work for your users. They have decipher each different font, creating a cognitive load.

It also looks poor from a design aesthetic standpoint.

I recommend using just one font. For variation, use just one font and different weights.

7. Tiny typography

Occasionally, I’ll come across a site where the typography is just too small. It’s particularly common in things like the website footer. In general, your font sizes should not be lower than 14 pixels.

Be kind to your users. Adhere to accessibility by using large typography, especially when it comes to mobile website design.

Don’t know what’s too small? Here’s a free tool to help you out.

8. Too complicated to use

Occasionally, I come across websites that are so experimental that they're unusable.

I’m talking about things like crazy different navigation, experimental typography, and over-the-top animations.

I get it. As designers, we want to push the envelope a little. But for the sake of your users, leave the crazy stuff for your portfolio!

9. Too much information on the page

Some designers cram way too much information onto the page.

You must let your design breathe. Allow ample space for a limited number of elements within a given space. Less is more!

10. Slow page load speeds

Users are impatient. If your site takes too long to load, people will leave. The average bounce rate is measured in mere seconds.

Avoid heavy video on your home page. Also be mindful of large, high-resolution images that take ages to load.

Lastly, Google ranks page speed as a major factor when it comes to search engine optimization. Also, mobile experience is a top priority for Google.

Ensure that you’re using optimized images. Formats like SVG and WebP can help with reducing page load speed.

Summing up

The website design industry is extremely competitive. Avoid making these mistakes, and you'll be well on your way to that next awesome product design gig!

Want to learn more about website design? Check out my new course.

What are the biggest design mistakes that you've seen? Share below!

Discuss this story.

👥 Audience Defined

from The Steal Club newsletter by Alex Llull

auDience → Do something interesting and share it online.

Subscribe to The Steal Club for more.

💵 Anna Maste's Newsletter Drove $3.5K in Weekly Sales

by Anna Maste

Hi indie hackers! I'm Anna Maste, and last year, I sold Boondockers Welcome (you can read more on that here). Email marketing was a huge driver for the growth that allowed me to reach the exit stage. Here are the details of what we accomplished and how we got there!

What we accomplished

By the time we sold, we had around 25K newsletter subscribers. Our open rates were often 30% or more, and our click-through rates were a whopping 10%. Compare this to the travel industry averages of 20% open rates and 1.4% click-through rates. During peak travel season, we would see over 80 sales coming in directly from each weekly campaign, totaling over $3.5K in revenue:

The best part? It took less than 30 minutes each week to put together a campaign. It was like printing money!

How we got subscribers

There was no magic bullet here. It took us nine years to grow the list that large, although we weren't trying very hard for the first five or six. But here are the details:

• The list was a double opt-in. That means that our subscribers were 100% interested in receiving our updates, but also meant that 40% of leads never confirmed. We could have probably grown faster if we'd optimized our confirmation process. (More on that here!)
• Leads could sign up on our homepage or any of our blog pages. For a while, we had an exit intent pop-up on our main landing page, but disabled it when we migrated to a new email provider. We didn't see a huge hit in our subscription rates. Instead, we just had a small pinned bar at the bottom of our main landing page that would open a subscription form. Blog pages had a sign up panel at the end of the entry. Again, no pop-ups.
• Our product allowed people to create an account to check out the platform for free. We didn't ask on the sign up page if users wanted to receive the newsletter, but devoted an entire page during onboarding to ask whether they wanted to receive weekly updates about new hosts.

The newsletter content

The key to our success when it comes to email marketing was providing quick, scannable content in our weekly newsletters that generated some FOMO. This, in turn, drove sales.

Early on, we experimented with aggregating relevant content from the web, highlighting stories from our members, or talking about updates to our platform. Eventually, we settled on a format that was simple and repetitive, but very easy to produce. Each issue contained:

• A short paragraph or two highlighting our weekly blog post:

• A testimonial from a member:

• A list of all of our new hosts since our last email, complete with a photo and description:

The secret sauce

These lists of new hosts were really the magic. We included only a teaser with a host title, the city and state, and part of the description provided by the host. Of course, we'd also include a photo.

Being able to quickly scroll through this list of new hosts gave subscribers motivation to open the email every week. They knew that they weren't committing to a long read, and between the photos and descriptions of these free camping locations that were available to them if they became members, they were quickly drawn in.

How we cranked out newsletters

Because we did this every week, manually putting together a list of new hosts was not realistic. We created an internal tool that connected to our database, and directly to our marketing email provider (SendInBlue) via its API. From there, all we had to do was enter the date that we'd last generated a newsletter. A list of new hosts would display, allowing us to filter out any that we didn't want, then the data was sent to SendInBlue and populated into our template.

Coding that internal tool probably took a day's worth of work, but it saved us so much time each week, and made it easy to be consistent with our weekly blasts.

Biggest lesson

If I were doing it again now, knowing how many sales the newsletter drove, I would use a tool like SparkLoop to encourage people to share the newsletter with friends.

I would also try to increase the confirmation rates for my double opt-in list using a tool like the one my new company, Subscribe Sense, provides.

But the key is finding the magic content that your readers look forward to each week. Anything that is quick to scan, contains interesting surprises or nuggets, and prompts the reader to click through for more is gold.

Discuss this story.

🐦 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 James Marks, Priyanka Vazirani, Craig Barber, Alex Llull, and Anna Maste for contributing posts. —Channing