This is the blueprint I've followed to build my own business/income in ~4 years. This is how I learned to make websites + apps, learned SEO, learned how to write well, and how to grow my SaaS product.

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My blueprint for transitioning from employment to entrepreneurship

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If you're looking to have more control over your life, finances, and future, keep reading. This is for you.

First, I'll talk about why someone would want to transition from employment to entrepreneurship.

Employment is fine. It works for the majority of people as a way to generate sustainable income and live a decent life.

Entrepreneurship isn't for everyone. If you don't desire it above most things, you won't stick with it long enough to succeed.

The first thing most people bring up when talking about employment vs. entrepreneurship is risk.

People assume it's risky to start a business, and that a traditional paycheck is a safer option for providing for your family.

There are many risks pursuing entrepreneurship, but there is no risk in *starting* a business.

You can start a business while still being employed. Then, if it fails you're not totally destroyed. You can try again.

Many see failing as a risk, but it's just part of the journey.

Another month flew by. Here's your @closettools September stats!

MRR: $13475.49 (+6.90%)
Organic: 4633 (+7.47%)
Trials: 237 (+21.54%)
New Customers: 146 (+5.0%)

If you're just getting started Indie-hacking, this thread is for you.

I'll tell you how to get here.

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Market 💹

The market you chose is the most important facet of your Indiehacker journey. It doesn't have to be the best market, it just has to be right for the thing you want to build.

Pick a market that is growing, has needs that are paid for, and has demand for your product.

Product 👚

Start with your MVP and iterate slowly and intentionally. Introduce features at a good clip, but don't sacrifice quality.

Do your testing. Ship excellence. Write your documentation. Design with the user in mind.

Your customers will trust you.

Ideas 💡

It's true, ideas are worth nothing. Execution is all that matters.

However, your product idea(s) should solve problems.

It should make your customers more money, save them time, or both.

Make things that give them more of what they care about.

Patience 🧘‍♂️

It has taken me 3 years to learn the skills I needed to make this product (business). And another 1.5 years to get the product to the revenue it's at now.

This is a long-term game. Build valuable skills. Put your head down and execute.

How to build an audience using a content flywheel

(how people like @SahilBloom, @JamesClear and @jackbutcher build massive attention & audiences)

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This model is used widely, but is often overlooked because it takes time (years), effort, and focus.

It's not "sexy". It's hard.

The great thing about building an audience using a content flywheel is that you can learn everything as you go.

Here's the steps:

1. Write concise, valuable content on very specific topics.

2. Publish those pieces natively on a platform.

3. Bundle the specific topics into larger "pillar" content.

4. Promote pillar content to capture & convert attention.

5. Engage w/ audience throughout.

6. Repeat.

Here's what happens:

The smaller pieces of content demonstrate expertise, knowledge, and clarity. Fans promote them.

The pillars demonstrate vision, authority, and value beyond the knowledge published.

The pillars attract outside traffic and convert traffic to followers/fans.

begins publishing articles on his website convering specific topics related to habits, productivity, etc.

He then bundles those articles into pillar content that attracts massive SEO traffic.

He then converts that traffic to his email list (which just hit 1 MM).

Getting started with SEO 101:

If you to start getting some organic traffic from Google, but don't know where to start, here's how I recommend getting started.

I'll outline:

- On Site SEO
- Basic KW Research
- Longtail Traffic
- Content Approach

Let's go 👇

SEO is about trust.

Everything stems from trust.

If Google trusts your site, it will promote you to searchers.

If people trust your title(s), they'll click your links.

If people trust the content they are reading, they'll share & give backlinks.

Trust signaling is the goal.

How do you signal trust to Google?

- Fast page loads.
- Great user experience.
- Natural, human generated content.
- Bot readable content.
- Good schema structure.
- Long page dwell times.

Basically, providing great content and a great experience gives you a leg-up.

In search results, Google keeps track of these signals:

1. CTR (Click Through Rate) - When people see your titles, do they click them?

2. Bounce Rate - Do people immediately leave after clicking the link?

3. Page Dwell Time + Scroll Distance - Do people read your content?

Here's what you want:

High CTR
Low Bounce Rate
High Dwell + Scroll

✅ People are attracted to your titles.

✅ They actually make it to your fast-loading site.

✅ They stick around and read the content.

Check these boxes and you'll have a great foundation.

SEO helped me generate over $350k in the last three years (over $200k in 2020 alone).

Indiehackers that focus on SEO tend to have more success than those who don't.

I'll break down what makes it so valuable.

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1. Demonstrated Demand 🗣

If people are searching for a solution to the problem they have, there's demand for a product that solves that problem.

There's no guessing. You can see the search volume for different markets to determine its size.

People want what you're selling.

2. Search Intent 🔍

SEO is so different from social media, simply because the people typing in keywords are warmer leads.

If you're on FB and see a promotion, it's mildly annoying. If you're on Google, you're looking for that thing anyways.

They're ready to buy something.

3. Ownership 👑

You hear it all the time - people say to write on your own blog, host your own email list, etc.

SEO allows you to do just that. It drives traffic to the most valuable assets you have. You don't need other platforms.

You can do whatever you want on your website.

4. Traffic Value 💰

I pay ~$2.5k/month for 3k clicks using Google search ads.

I also get an average of 250 clicks/day through SEO, working out to be 10500 clicks/month.

That's ~$8750 in free traffic every month.

A couple months ago, I got an email out of the blue from someone I had never met or heard about.

Today, that person co-hosted a webinar with me that had over 470+ registered and 130+ live

👇 Quick lesson on how to successfully pitch partnerships and co-marketing opportunities

How did he get in contact with me?

He sent a cold email, but not just any email. It was clearly personal, relevant, and conversational.

Lesson: Notice the language he used and how he tied it back to previous webinars.

Not only was it well written, but I could also easily judge if he'd be a good fit based on the article he wrote and linked to.

It's SUPER well-written and proved that he knew what he was talking about.

Lesson: Make your "ask" as easy as possible to consider.

There were three things that made the webinar a big success:

1. Tyler sent the webinar to his email list and did a lot of promotion.

2. He prepared ahead of time and put a lot of work into the deck, even incorporating some Baremetrics assets and references.

3. He had fun

Super appreciate all the work @TylerHakes put into today's "SEO for SaaS"

If you missed it, here's the recording:

Lots of startups get stuck
before they get to Product-Market-Fit.

What would be the reasons?

Here are some, I see on a daily basis. They are related to issues with founders or market (in no particular order):

1) Founders haven't studied or trained on basic things of startups: idea validation, market validation, customer value-proposition, team-building, product building, basic finance, and total money required to do few iterations.
A: Work for a startup for a few years and learn.

2) Founders are solving a problem that they face in their daily life at home or work and start solving for themselves before checking whether there are others who care about the same problem. After building the product, they realize the market issue.
A: Idea validation failure

3) Too headstrong and think every potential customer can't imagine the value unless they experience the product. Hence, start building the product.
A: If you are deep and know you are at the same league as in Steve Jobs, this makes sense

4) Founders talk to few friends and colleagues and start building a product. After building the product, they realize there is no high demand for the product.
A: Spend month(s) on the problem and not on the solution.

Some wed night thoughts on investor “value add”:

1) At the end of the day, money is a commodity. That mere fact should make every vc shudder.

It is amazing how many ppl (incl myself) clamor to get into a commodity business!

2) As such, to differentiate, different investors provide other things beyond money. Sometimes it’s community. Sometimes hiring help. Sometimes expertise or sector-focused networks. Etc

3) And some VCs are truly value add! For example, if I had an edtech co, I would hands down raise from @jwdanner - he has been there as an entrepreneur, built schools, and invested in so many hit edtech companies.

4) But at the end of the day, regardless of who invested in you, it’s the founders + team who are doing all the work.

5) when I think about what I’ve done for my own founders, it’s ranged from doing intros (mostly to other investors) to cust acq advice to feedback etc

But the reality is - all of my founders would’ve figured out how to get that intro or that piece of advice w out me