SquishyNarwhal
SquishyNarwhal
27mo

Why doesn't Indie Hacking Scale?

Indie Hacking sounds fun but it's better to start as a side project rather than something to go all in.

Only 15% reach $1,000 MRR Only 7% reach $5,000 MRR Only 5% reach $10,000 MRR Only 3% reach $20,000 MRR

Would love to understand why can't they scale?

https://scrapingfish.com/blog/indie-hackers-revenue

27mo ago
SqueakyMuffin
SqueakyMuffin
27mo

You gotta be good at Tech AND business.

SquishyNarwhal
SquishyNarwhal

Are you an indie developer who has built a revenue generating product?

If yes what's the MRR?

SqueakyMuffin
SqueakyMuffin
27mo

No. But if I do, I better be good at business, otherwise I doubt it'll scale.

SillyJellybean
SillyJellybean

Because you need people to run a biz at scale. Can't automate everything, it will lose human touch.

Need a social media person who knows trends, content and ads.

A good finance guy for budgeting, payments and accounting.

HR who can hire people and manage paperwork.

Customer support for obvious reasons. More engineers as you grow bigger.

And so on.

We aren't strictly SaaS but we grew from 3 generalists to a team of 8-9 people in 4 years (mostly part timers). AVG MRR 2500 USD roughly atm.

SquishyNarwhal
SquishyNarwhal

Thank you for taking the time out to explain in detail.

Is customer retention a bigger issue or acquisition? How are marketing leads managed? Are the customers purely self-checkout or is there a sales cycle? How big a role does customer referral plays?

SillyJellybean
SillyJellybean

Retention bigger issue than acquisition, luckily we have good retention rates. Acquisition can be solved easily with product, content and ads.

Leads used to be managed by founders, now we are delegating to new hires.

Both.

Very big. Best retention and acquisitions happen because of word of mouth.

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