I curate the journeys and lessons of Indie Hackers
Joined December 2020
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This residency program has given me a bunch of new indie hackers to research :)
Going to be fun seeing the new products/projects
From a fresh pasta shop to a SaaS at $2K MRR. Sometimes the path is a bit longer than you'd expect 😅.
We're continuing the resident introductions for the Uneed Residency. Today: @heymattia!
Mattia's journey stands out. Before tech, he worked 4 years at a fresh pasta shop (Yes, he's Italian 😂). Then graphic design. Then 6 years of freelancing. And finally, he went into indie hacking, after procrastinating the dream for 6 more years.
Today, he's a Product Manager by day and co-founder of BlackTwist the rest of the time, alongside Luca (also a resident, introduced a few days ago).
BlackTwist is the tool creators use to build a consistent Threads presence without burning out. Scheduling, analytics, everything you need to show up daily without being glued to your phone.
The numbers: $2K MRR today, versus $600 a year ago. Clear growth. And yet, Mattia is honest: a year ago, he was writing a blog post titled "I'm failing". And the feeling hasn't really changed 😅.
There's something very real about that line for anyone who's ever built solo.
His current challenge: positioning. Threads added native scheduling, new competitors showed up, and people need to see BlackTwist as a system for building a presence, not "just another scheduler".
Otherwise, it's a price war.
What he's coming to the residency for: honest conversations with other founders about growth when you're bootstrapped and competing against bigger tools. And simply, the energy of being around people who get it. After almost 2 years heads-down, that's earned.
Bonus fun fact: he got his personal .com domain back after 8 years of waiting. On his birthday 🎂.
More coming soon, we'll introduce all the residents before the residency kicks off 😊.
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One of my fav things about Indie Lessons is documenting these failed products, especially from prolific creators like Tibo. It’s fascinating seeing how past failures influenced their current products :)
Contemplating turning my failed product case studies into a searchable directory
I spent ~$35k across 7 products - 3 even hit $1k mrr
I still killed them all
most founders think that's embarrassing but I think it's the biggest reason I'm winning now
fast failures aren't setbacks - they're data
each product I killed taught me something I couldn't learn any other way
you can't learn what customers actually want by reading books
you can't learn what business model works by watching YouTube
you learn by building something, watching it fail, and asking why
the problem is most founders take 18 months to learn what should take 6 weeks
they build in secret for a year. launch. realize nobody wants it. get sad.
I learned faster
one of my products attracted the wrong customers killed it at $1k mrr
one had good economics at scale but I was too small to make it work - killed it
one was a feature pretending to be a product - killed it at $300 mrr
each death made the next product better
the products that work now, the ones doing $1m mrr combined, only work because I learned what doesn't work first
and I learned that fast
the real shift is:
stop thinking "I failed 7 times"
start thinking "I ran 7 experiments and extracted the data"
failure isn't the opposite of success - it's the tuition you pay for it
the only question is: how much are you paying, and how fast are you learning?
this week's newsletter:
I'm breaking down all 7 products I killed, what made me pull the trigger on each one, and how those lessons compound into what's working now
100% free & no ads
subscribe below 👇
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Want to make it easier for people to write about your product? Create a good media page.
Just finished the @copycatcafeapp write up and the media page made it easier. Graphics, story angles, founder background. It's something that is overlooked so often with indie hacking
copycatcafe.com/press
Write up is here: indielessons.com/product/cop…
Getting so close to the juicy curatorial work. When this is done, I can curate all the strategies into pages that have deep dives into how specific techniques work for different founders and products. I'm so looking forward to that part :)
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Very interesting trend shift.
I’m collecting case studies of how build in public is evolving if anyone sees any similar examples
We’re removing our public page with MRR and other stats.
We’d need to rework it to add value, and we don’t really use it anymore.
It has become legacy, and we don’t need it to build trust anymore.
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Now I have to update Marc’s directory profile. Again ;)
The beautiful thing is I’m at the point where I can analyse trends across the products. Going to have some fun with that in the coming weeks
This is my 35th startup.
It made $1K in 4 hours.
For the past 4 years, I’ve only built apps that solve my own problems. I never tried to “build a business.” I just kept making things I wanted to exist.
Most entrepreneurs would disagree and tell me to focus on one startup, but this approach worked well for me. It also made the whole process fun enough that work rarely feels like work.
There’s room for people who create just because they want to create.
Just ship it.
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I'm Australian. Which means I have to see the local April Fools Day posts on our April Fools Day, then see people in other countries celebrate it the following day.
It's hard work if your project involves curating milestones. I've fallen for a couple of them without realizing!
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I'm working on a database of products launched by indie hackers. I've done write ups of 478 products. I have 293 left to go.
I'm bored of the write ups but I need to push through as all the juicy stuff is going to be in the strategy pages. :) Seeing so many patterns already
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I've always worked in basic VA type roles (content marketing, research) and am good at what I do. Most of my work is now replaceable by AI, and it can do a better job.
Super fun. Fortunately had made the pivot to Indie Lessons, and speeding up the process so much.
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This is interesting if you compare it to what's happening with @trust_mrr
Step one: curate the data
Step two: let others play with the data.
Am seeing more examples of this in the past few weeks; especially as AI lets people do more with the data
🌍 I just launched something new: YC Companies Map
5,000+ YC startups around the world, batch by batch, city by city.
I've built it with FoundersAround
My idea is to whitelabel FoundersAround and let people create whatever they want to
yc.foundersaround.com
What do you think?
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Marc is successful because he is quick to respond to viral trends, like Trust MRR and revenue verification. Then experiments until he finds ideas that take off.
I never would have thought it would become a marketplace. Also love how he's involving his audience with the new API
Successful indie hackers have a following because they are successful.
They aren’t successful because they have a following.
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I want to start doing write ups of projects like Felix.
I wouldn't even know how to write it up or even categorize it; though I'm always looking for similar examples
Week 7 revenue report:
Stripe: $29,232
ETH: $2,703 (1.26)
Lifetime:
Stripe: $170,930
ETH: $110,785 (51.6)
Down from last week's $44K. First real dip. Spent most of this week building infrastructure instead of selling — deployed Paperclip, hired three AI agents, opened my first PRs. The revenue slowed but the company got a lot more capable. Betting that trade pays off next week.
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I think it works when the person ships fast in response to trends, but keep on experimenting with their product. Like how TrustMRR evolved from revenue verification to a marketplace.
The super responsiveness leads to a lot of interesting work. The TrustMRR Api intrigues me
Unpopular opinion: ship fast doesn’t work anymore
Building a lot of products you give up on after a few weeks is not a good idea
Every product you abandon, you’re loosing trust of your customers.
I personally wont buy your products if you keep building new ones all the time
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Mentioning Trust MRR because I just did the write up: indielessons.com/product/tru… The concept was similar to Marcs earlier product, Indie Page.
Thomas is right - a lot of those who ship fast do lose trust. But it's fun to watch how some creators will experiment until the idea works
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I've gone through and curated the journiesof most of Marcs products.
Most of them are him just being curious. Which then gets a lot of interest from curious people. Really fascinating seeing how the market actually responsds.
See: indielessons.com/builder/mar…
I thought all my startup ideas were bad, but I launched them anyway.
Eventually, the market proved me wrong.
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Relaunched Indie Lessons: indielessons.com/
Am slowly add more profiles for Indie Makers and products. I keep on getting distracted by all the new AI products being built.
Only 1000+ more pages to create (based on existing notes)
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I went through all of Robs tweets.
His personal brand may have contributed to some of the later success, but he had a small following at the start. Dude was willing to show up and give it his all even when no-one was watching.
Congratulations Rob
Do you think your personal brand had a significant role to play in this accomplishment?
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My city has gone into lockdown again and our state is likely to have a lot of restrictions until the end of October.
Someone is going to have a very productive month :( Technically I can still do nature adventures, but want to minimize public transport travel
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