Tweets

An epic breakdown of the Self-Publishing Hangout

http://buff.ly/1dObIEJ

#selfpubhang

One of my favorite @sivers videos: Start Now. No funding needed. http://buff.ly/16zV3iQ

"When people use it, and can’t shut up about it, you know you’ve got a great product." Great interview with @jason http://buff.ly/11IhKBY

Oh man, oh man, oh man.

@draplin is the real deal. Maybe the best podcast episode I've ever listened to.

http://buff.ly/12hzLa9

Profitable bootstrapped company takes VC funding.

Drinks VC kool-aid.

Now he can't make payroll.

http://mystartuphas30daystolive.tumblr.com/

Just published something I wrote early this morning:

"This is a web page" http://buff.ly/19VqhWT

I asked @hnshah "What is the most important metric for a startup?"

His answer: "How happy are your customers?"

http://productpeople.tv/2013/05/08/ep25-hiten-shah-part-2/

Bootstrappers can live anywhere http://buff.ly/186ACK3

What @amyhoy taught me about startups http://buff.ly/UgO0GY

Exhibit: reading on a normal website vs reading on @zeldman's new site.

Ok; who put a folder called "Horsies" on my desktop? I'm seriously pissed off right now.

Folks who live in Denmark: how accurate is this documentary on “Danish happiness?”

https://youtu.be/6_HJWiUIxs8?si=ijE8alV7VucAn87e

FTP is 53 years old.

SMTP is 44.

PHP is 30.

RSS is 24. https://twitter.com/WesSouzaArchive/status/1851740158841835636

One thing I think we could spend more time teaching kids in school:

"How to be in healthy relationships (with family, friends, romantic partners, colleagues)."

As @DrStanTatkin says, "Humans are dependent creatures; we need each other. But we're also selfish."

Having the tools…

Just looked up the etymology of phrase “gung-ho.”

It originated from the Chinese phrase "gōng hé" (工合), which literally means "work together" or "work in harmony."

But over time, the meaning has shifted to mean extreme enthusiasm (which is how most of us use it).

“The process of making something that people want is the process of learning, through experiment and error, to be the kind of person who can generate needs, wants, and jobs in other people.” – @danshipper

https://every.to/chain-of-thought/how-to-figure-out-what-people-want

10/ We plan to launch @swagfanhq publicly in the next few weeks.

I want Ferdinand to experience the entire cycle of conceptualizing, building, and shipping a functional SaaS. It will be invaluable to him as a dev and give him a taste of what it's like to be an indie hacker. 😄

3/ Enter Ferdinand, a CompSci grad I met at a hack night. He built an AI bot that synthesized my voice on Discord. Impressive!

Despite his skills, Ferdinand struggled to land his first job. Dozens of interviews, no offers. The classic catch-22: No experience, no job.

@JohnONolan @Ghost Well done! 🙌

💯

“Bootstrapping is playing business on hard mode. You have to be right so much sooner.” https://twitter.com/MattPaulsonSD/status/1835402641532170672

Do you consider yourself more of a generalist or specialist?

💯 if “B2B” encompasses prosumers, creators, part-time freelancers and giant corps with 100,000 employees, it’s not that useful as a category.

Let’s get more specific! https://twitter.com/jontybehr/status/1825205549006213325

First, I think the term "B2B" is too general to be useful.

When we say "B2B," are we equating a solopreneur using Trello to a Fortune 500 company spending $30k/year on Jira?

Are we lumping indie creators spending $10/month with the government agency spending $1 million/year?

Based on 700+ responses, here are the most affordable places in North America to get a house like this:

- Midwest USA: prices range from $250k (Missouri, Illinois) to 400k in Nebraska, Ohio, and South Dakota.

- Southern USA: $350k in Alabama, to ~425k in parts of Kentucky and… https://twitter.com/mijustin/status/1813609077806924050

Using YouTube's new thumbnail A/B testing tool.

Which thumbnail do you think won?

@aarondfrancis @steve_tenuto Also: I just bought the course!

Excited to support you guys on your journey. ❤️

(And maybe I'll have time to learn about SQLite one day??! 😅)

@aarondfrancis @steve_tenuto I think SaaS marketers should be doing this more often:

1. Have people click "get started" and immediately bring them into your app (don't even ask for an email).
2. Only ask for signup info once they've started making some progress. "Sign up to continue."

Who's following me here?

I'm always curious whether it's mostly bootstrapped founders, devs (Laravel, Rails?), VC-funded founders, marketers, creators...

How would you describe yourself?

Checking out the @WilloWorks booth at @gameconcanada

@icebearlabs Coffee breaks are the best.

Btw this is 🧀, not 🥕

This podcast interview with @Starbucks founder @HowardSchultz was so good! https://twitter.com/AcquiredFM/status/1798880553586036898

My desire is that we don’t preclude ourselves from legitimate opportunities because we heard someone say “low-prices are bad.”

Carrd, Beehiv, TailwindUI, @usefathom, @TransistorFM, @ConvertKit all have “low prices” and are successful.

Don’t pigeon-hole your thinking!

@earthlingworks Every market has a ceiling. Every market has a “carrying capacity.”

You can have product-market fit, but the market might be small.

@peakparkr @CatalinJrj @damengchen @levelsio @dannypostmaa @ajlkn @tdinh_me @nathanbarry @Shpigford @arvidkahl @yongfook 💯 @yongfook & @Shpigford are my faves because WE OLD.

@AcquiredFM @ApplePodcasts @djrosent @gilbert @ChartableDotCom Super fun to see a podcast hosted on @TransistorFM climb the charts like this. 📈

This video marks the relaunch of my YouTube channel. It would mean a lot to me if you could watch it and leave a comment! 🙏

@MostlyTechPod @aarondfrancis @ianlandsman “Is MySQL dead?” would be a great YouTube title.

@levelsio Agreed that volume works for short-form content (X, TikTok, Reels).

Not so sure it works for long-form YouTube, podcasts, blog posts, and newsletters.

@thisiskp_ @MicroConf @arvidkahl @coreyhainesco Wish I was there!

Happy AC/DC Mullet Boomer Man, Riding a Bike in the Safeway Parking Lot https://twitter.com/calebsaysthings/status/1202670105748025344

7. Calm Work Environment:

Stress and chaos are replaced with clear work goals, boundaries, and communication.

6. Sustainable Growth:

Calm Companies want to grow but at a sustainable pace. Growth should serve a higher purpose. Ambition is good, but not at the expense of well-being.

4. Fun:

@calebporzio reminded me of this: Calm Companies produce more opportunities for fun.

"What if we ran a retreat?" "What if we went on a team retreat in the mountains?" "What if we put an easter egg on our website that plays a silly song?"

1. Profitable:

Calm Companies have a strong financial engine working with good margins. This foundation enables everything else.

(We can see this at work with companies like @balsamiq, @37signals, @TransistorFM, @Wildbit, etc.)

If you're in tech, and looking for a job, I highly recommend you check out this series by Josh.

You need to position yourself the same way marketers position a product!

Your Twitter profile, resume, emails, and website should answer the question: "Why should we hire you?" https://twitter.com/JoshDoody/status/1765418433011695681

@yazinsai this got me

(I would love auto-categorization!)

@nbashaw I’ve written about this!

I like your framing of “creative tools.” 👍

https://justinjackson.ca/prosumers/

🤔 If I'm going to replace this, is there a simple, functional keyboard you would recommend that isn't Apple?

(Or should I just get another Apple Magic keyboard?) https://twitter.com/mijustin/status/1765158779816186157

@asmartbear Whether it’s a traditional search engine, scanning Reddit, or asking an LLM a question, I think “intent based queries” is still going be a significant acquisition channel.

It's interesting.

I used to log in to Product Hunt at least every week (but rarely do now).

I don't visit Indie Hackers as much as I used to.

My Hacker News usage is also down (used to be daily, but now I visit maybe every month).

I've become way more active on Reddit in the…

Start with an ugly UI. 👏👏👏 https://twitter.com/LaravelPodcast/status/1760665886766113133

@JesseTayRiver @asteriskmgzn Really excellent. Thanks for writing this!

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's a link:
https://link.chtbl.com/pmte-launch

Bought @jackmcdade's course on design. Going through it now... and it is SO well done!

Love the fun interactions/touches he put into the course dashboard.

On the podcast front, @iamjeremyenns and I did a podcast teardown for @witsandweights.

We looked at his podcast branding on @ApplePodcasts and @Spotify and broke down what's working, and how folks can improve their cover art, title, show description, SEO, and episode titles.

🎯 https://twitter.com/AmandaMGoetz/status/1755609499606655319

Example: I was working for a startup, and I noticed that the woman managing the coffee shop next door was just killing it. She was exceptional at managing many different tasks.

We hired her as Head of Customer success, she killed it in that role, and likely doubled her salary.

I’ve see this happen a lot: an individual discovers that their current skills and abilities are worth way more in a different industry or job.

I'd love for more people to hear the whole conversation I had with @jrfarr & @jmckinven on the @lmsqueezy podcast.

You can listen/watch here:
https://lnk.to/B9M1rs

@ianlandsman Yup!

I wrote about it in my annual review (with the kinds of tasks I assign them).

Near the bottom:
https://justinjackson.ca/2023-review/

Video editing is a great task.

Also tasks like: “update the cover art for each episode of my podcast.”

@earthlingworks I have to say, having hung out with you multiple times, nobody does "simple, brief, and with matter-of-fact energy" better than you!

I wish I could emulate how calm and grounded you always seem! 🙏

2023 was a great year.

If you want to know what I’m doing in 2024, please subscribe to my list on @ConvertKit.

👉 https://justinjackson.ca/newsletter/

I’d like to grow it back to 10K subscribers!

I wrote a full blog post on this here as well:

https://transistor.fm/video-or-audio-podcast/

Business to Prosumer is an underrated business model, and it's accelerating.

(Many apps have been categorized as B2B or B2C but are actually B2P).

Today, more people than ever are Prosumers:

- Someone who upgrades to a nice camera and lights so they can make better YouTube…

@Shpigford So much more porn spam replies in threads now.

@5harath Lately I’m loving:

@AcquiredFM
@MostlyTechPod

If you haven’t heard it yet, check out:

“The Missing Crypto Queen”
“Wild Boys”

Btw - Antwerp Old Town is incredible. 😍😍😍

How do you find marketing channels that will work for you, your product, and your category?

1. The better you understand your category, the better you’ll understand which channels will be most effective.

2. Keep trying different channels and approaches until you find a few that…

Our general schedule each day is:

- wake up sometime before 9am
- get together around 10am, have a morning discussion about the company, product, etc
- go for lunch together
- afternoon is more open (personal time, work together, go for a run)
- evenings we go out together and…

Lessons learned:

- don’t settle for mediocre results
- learn to make better bets (because they cost you something)
- momentum has a feeling: people showing up every day to buy what you’re offering

For folks who have tried multiple accounting vendors (Xero, Quickbooks Online, Wave Apps), which is your favorite?

(Specifically, I need a solution that supports USD & CAD currencies, payroll, and connects with my bank accounts + Wise and PayPal.)

It’s true!

What if he decides to call it “Y” next month?

Or “Æ” in 2024?

“CyberX?” “CyberTweet?” https://twitter.com/shawnblanc/status/1689457644288008192

Expanding on this more:

Success in business is often the culmination of your work experiences, life experiences, resources, connections, and skills; all of which accrue over time.

A good market) will attract all sorts of founders. But each person shows up with their mixture of…

@zkahn Maybe Apple Podcasts needs its own version of "Community Notes" 😉

I did a quick review video of @soundtrapstudio.

It's a free, online audio editing tool that's actually really great for podcasting.

Planning on recommending it to @TransistorFM users. 👍

@mettaworldbush Trying to give balanced advice (same advice I’ve been giving for years).

Build something people want (yes!), but count the cost.

As founders, we need to “think in bets.” Not all bets are good bets.

Encouraging folks to be prudent. 👍

@r00k For me, Tuple feels like the "always on intercom system" for @TransistorFM's team.

Jumping on a Tuple call feels instant and seamless (as opposed to Zoom).

We use it for more than just pair programming calls too!

(@jonbuda and I frequently use it for accounting meetings. 😄)

@nbashaw The folks at @podglomerate and @GumballFM are both great. 👍

"Hey Justin Jackson, it's Joe Rogan! Sounds like your podcast energy is on E ⛽ and your biceps could use some love. 💪 Time to ditch the weak human act. Supercharge with Onnit's Alpha Brain for laser-focused podcasting and Herculean strength! 💥 Use 'JUSTINuRweak' for 10% off!" https://twitter.com/Podnews/status/1660950705119657984

@yongfook @delgiudices I’m the same way!

https://justinjackson.ca/wfh

@jasonfried hahahaha. the older I get, the more i enjoy these jokes.

i get energy from my kids' eyerolls

If your kids are into space travel (or you're into space!) this is really fun.

Scroll up, higher and higher, and see what you find at different altitudes. https://twitter.com/nealagarwal/status/1648696437348106244

@threehourcoffee I've got a public "Bootstrappers on Bluesky" list here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tz5ihnzD5t6-o_8SZFn3WFqLS-PVLDYClJnbCcq75Hk/edit?usp=sharing

@threehourcoffee I’m there 👋

Final deadline to sign the #section174 petition is tomorrow:

https://ssballiance.org/

It's wild to look back at these big "frothy" investments into podcasting:

"When it first launched in 2019 with $100 million in backing, Luminary set out to create a premium audio space." – @ashleyrcarman, @business

$100 million?! 🤯

I’m a fan of @FrameworkPuter.

This could be a cool job for a @rails engineer!

https://jobs.lever.co/framework/1d6559b2-ccf9-4391-bded-63034cf0ab22

If you want more background, listen to this episode:

https://twitter.com/buildyoursaas/status/1640500352528297985

Another update: Reddit and Spotify are closing their "Clubhouse-style" live audio apps.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/09/reddit-is-shutting-down-its-clubhouse-clone-reddit-talk/

https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/03/spotify-is-shutting-down-its-live-audio-app-spotify-live/

@dvassallo "We'll see."

This could play out positively for Gumroad in the long run.

However, Baremetrics made a similar move:
- looked good in Month 1
- but the long-term effect on MRR has been negative

With SaaS pricing, you only know once you can see the trend. 📈📉

In his article, @benthompson highlights how ChatGPT has become an "accidental consumer tech company:"

https://stratechery.com/2023/the-accidental-consumer-tech-company-chatgpt-meta-and-product-market-fit-aggregation-and-apis/

Already, founders are seeing increased costs with GPT4 vs GPT3:

https://twitter.com/LewisMenelaws/status/1640365795371802624

One thing indie founders learned from Web 2.0 was to be careful about platform risk:

This is where the platform changes its policies, algorithms, or features, which can negatively impact the startups built on it.

Indie founders used open protocols and open-source tools to level the playing field and give their ideas a chance to succeed.

MailChimp and ConvertKit, for example, harnessed the email protocol without paying a single cent to Gmail or Microsoft for API access or postage fees.

Some of the most thoughtful pieces I've read on AI and technology come from @inevernu's newsletter.

If you care about responsible and ethical tech, you should subscribe:

https://sentiers.media/hard-to-believe+metaverse-not-a-place+slowing-down-ai-no-257/

@noplanstomerge 🤝 @TransistorFM

We need to make this happen @DCoulbourne @calebporzio. 😄

“GPT-4 is not an open AI model.”

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/15/23640180/openai-gpt-4-launch-closed-research-ilya-sutskever-interview

@marckohlbrugge We’re using @userlist for this

@adamwathan ChatGPT saves the day 😄