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.

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).

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.

THREAD 🔥👇

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.

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.

THREAD

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.

👇Thread.

Published a new essay: The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics – 80 slide deck included!

This was a deck that I created on my (longish) interview process with @a16z. It was a long path, starting with meeting folks at the firm 10 years ago. But the purpose of the deck was to explain how I would use my superpower in an investing context

Here's what I explain in the deck. As investors (whether angel or VC) we're often confronted with an up-and-to-the-right graph. Is it going to go up? Or down?

One solution to forecast these growth curves is the Growth Accounting Framework, where you add up New+Reactivated and subtract churned users. In each time period that gives you the difference in monthly actives.

The problem with this is that it's a lagging metric, not a leading one. We need to go one level deeper and look at the underlying loops that drive these numbers, to understand the quality.

~ Thread ~

On this lovely Black Friday…

I wanted to breakdown a quick, profitable mindset shift for any and all trying to make money online.

What’s that?

→ How to turn your problems/hardships into cold, hard cash

¡Vámonos!

Here’s the mindset:

→ Every problem you have in life can be converted into cold hard cash on the Internet

Because you are NOT unique.

If you have a problem, there’s thousands of others out there who are having similar issues.

Solve your problem.

Solve their problem.

Make cash.

That’s the equation.

But enough of the got damn fluff, let’s take a look at specific examples:

#1.

I wanted to learn how to speak better Spanish.

I’d been traveling for years, but never took the time to study.

Something that doesn’t get talked about enough is how much money do you need to become an Indiehacker?

Well here’s what my own finances looked like when I went all-in…

A thread 1/n

2/n

Kudos to @jrleonr for sharing a vulnerable post on IH.

Personally I don’t think $12,000 is enough financial cushion to go all-in, start an idea from scratch and get to ramen-profitability. It’s just too short of a

3/n

Here’s how much money I saved up over years of corporate work in order to take the plunge and go indie: $200,000

For context, I’m 40, single and had worked my way into quite senior positions by the tail end of my employment.

4/n

$200,000 was enough cushion for me to work on my own projects for years without drastically changing my lifestyle too much. In retrospect, I think I gave myself too much of a cushion. I basically played around for a year before getting really serious...

5/n

...but on the other hand, trying to stretch too small amount a money to the point where it drastically downgrades your lifestyle, affects the people you love and creates a constant atmosphere of anxiety is also counter-productive.

Startup life can be summed up in three steps:

1. Find problem
2. Fix problem
3. Go back to step 1

Works for every thing you need to do in a startup.

Growth is determined by a combination of how fast you can go through the steps successfully and how long you can keep at it.

Finding the right problem to solve starts with understanding your customers.

Nobody says I wish I talked to less customers.

There aren’t any hacks or shortcuts to this.

Go talk to your customers.

Fixing problems in a startup isn’t usually straightforward.

You don’t have time, money or people to throw at the problem.

You have to go deep, dig for the details and think very creatively about solutions.

Then experiment like there is no tomorrow.

You can’t grow a startup without a fundamental understanding of how to problem solve really fast.

This skill comes from practicing jumping into the unknown.

You don’t usually get time to prepare for what’s coming next.

You’ll have to learn how to figure it out along the way.

Startup people have to become comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty and the unknown.

This is why I say, nobody knows what they are doing.

We’re all just jumping from problem to problem expecting to figure things out.

Hopefully our past helps us not crash and burn.

“Every time you write a new code, you should do so reluctantly, under duress, because you completely exhausted all your other options.” - Jeff Atwood @codinghorror

Hence the growing popularity of the no-code software.

A quick thread 👇

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NO-CODE IS EATING THE WORLD

The concept isn't new (remember Microsoft FrontPage?) but the capabilities that the no-code and low-code tools offer today change the way individuals and businesses approach building digital products.

WHY IT'S INTERESTING? 👇

2/

No-code tools let you build things without writing code. Websites, mobile apps, online stores – all that (and a lot more!) can be built without any prior coding experience.

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Even though the “no-code” label is often an oversell (many platforms are "just" low-code and still require some low programming effort), the capabilities offered are game-changing, especially at the first stages of product development.

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Key no-code platforms:

•@Shopify: e-commerce
•@canva: design
•@airtable: databases
•@webflow: web development
•@zapier: process automation
•@bubble: mobile app development