I've built several SAAS and side-projects those last 5 years πŸ› 

Not all succeed, but I learned a lot πŸ€“

Today I'm not sharing great life lessons and business tips.

Today I'm sharing ten practical tips that will help you save time and money on your #IndieHackers journey.

πŸ‘‡
1/ Finding a business idea in 1min ⏱

Too many times I hear: "I don't know what to build" πŸ€”

1: Go on Capterra.com / g2.com
2: Search for the most successful SAAS out there
3: Read the bad reviews

You now have a business idea

πŸ‘‡ Examples
2/ Testing your idea in 1min ⏱

This is the MVP of MVP

Step 1: subscribe to relevant FB/LI groups

Step 2: find a screenshot of a UI that could be your product

Step 3: Ask "We built this homemade tool that solves X at our company, we considered sharing it, anyone interested?"
3/ Checking how much competition there is for your idea in 1 min ⏱

Check the CPC of related keywords in Ahrefs.


A good proxy for:
- competition-size
- customer value
- buyers intent
4/ Deploying a website in 15 seconds with @Netlify⏱

- no git repo
- no JS
- no build
- no questions asked
🀯
5/ Saving $5k in 10 seconds ⏱

Ok, now you have this awesome idea and a great landing page but you don't have a lot of cash in hand.

Then you need to check this πŸ‘‡

The AWS deals alone are awesome!

github.com/startupdeals/s…
6/ Product research in 1 minute⏱

Write documentation with a clear table of content

Add a section in your TOC for each feature you want to dev.
It can redirect to a "coming soon" Β§ πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

Add HotJar free plan.

Wait a bit ⏱

Work on the red dots

Enjoy! πŸ”₯
7/ Attribution in 5 minutes ⏱

GA makes it very easy to know where do your visitors/users come from.

But when it comes to customers, it is harder.

Here is our very simple attribution system that takes 1 minute⏱to integrate πŸ‘‡
First, store in a cookie UTM tags and referrer.

It's important to set up the domain of the cookie if you use a subdomain for your app.

Here is the snippet we added on every page of our marketing website.

gist.github.com/daolf/e66ec71c…
Then on your signup pages, we added two things:
- hidden fields for the info you want
- snippet that populates those fields with our cookie

Store info in your DB and that's it.

Not perfect, but working πŸ˜‰

code πŸ‘‡gist.github.com/daolf/a93371c4…
8/ Getting users on a call in 2 min ⏱

Offers 10x what your free plan offers to people willing to spend 15 minutes on the phone with you.

You'll get feedback from people who really want to use your product.

credits to @SahinKevin for this one

PS: use calendly.com
9/ Saving 1 hour a day in 3 minutes ⏱

Use Alfred clipboard history (on Mac).



Useful when:
- filling form
- answering support with the same answer
- saving that link you're sharing everywhere

I use it 10 times a day.

alfredapp.com/help/features/…
10/ Knowing when to answer on Reddit and HN in 1 minute ⏱

Set-up your brand and industry keywords on f5bot.com

You'll receive those emails as soon as they appear.

A good way to know when you're getting noticed and what people say about you

Oh, and it's free! πŸ”₯
If you're new to my feed: Hi, I'm Pierre πŸ‘‹

I'm co-building Scrapingbee.com, a web scraping API, in the open.

And I share everything I learn, here on Twitter.

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More from @PierreDeWulf

18 Oct
This time: JavaScript πŸ€–

I wanted to know what were the most recommended JS books ever. πŸ†

So I've compiled more than 800 recommendations from 75 lists and came up with this top 25 most recommended #JavaScipt books of all-time
οΏΌ
THREAD πŸ‘‡
In short, I've compiled articles from Google search results for queries like "Best JavaScript books" and many of its variations

I scraped all pages using @ScrapingBeeand and extracted πŸ“• titles

Then deduplication + normalization + ✍️ cleaning
A link to the detailed methodology will be put at the end of this thread.

% is the % of the time this book was recommended out of 75 lists.

So if % is 20%, one out of five lists about JavaScript book have talked about this book.
Read 10 tweets
7 Jul
Reflecting on 2 years Bootstrapping.

In July 2018 I quit my job and tried to build a profitable SAAS with @kevinsahin.

And we failed, hard: $600 MRR after 1 year.

We tried again and had a bit more luck: $75k ARR within 12m.

Here's what I wish I knew when I began, a thread:
1. This thing takes time

Bootstrapping a SAAS is long, very long.

Of course, you'll hear about fast growth but real overnight successes are very rare.

Most of the time, when you look behind you'll find:
- years of building an audience
- several failed attempts
- consistency
Example 1: look at the @convertkit growth chart, one of the most successful #openstartup projects of all-time.

Monthly revenue stalled between $1k and $3k during the first 18 months.

They are now at $1.9m MRR!
Read 19 tweets
4 Mar
This time: Python 🐍.

I wanted to know what were the most recommended Python books ever πŸ†

So I've compiled more than 2000 recommendations from 130 lists and came up with this top 25 most recommended Python books of all-time πŸ“•

THREAD πŸ‘‡
In short, I've compiled articles from Google search results for queries like "Best python books" and many of its variations

I scraped all pages using @ScrapingBee and extracted πŸ“• titles

Then deduplication + normalization + ✍️ cleaning
A link to the detailed methodology will be put at the end of this thread.

% is the % of the time this book was recommended out of 208 lists.

So if % is 20%, one out of five lists about startups book have talked about this book.
Read 10 tweets
18 Feb
Back at it again.

This time I wanted to know what were the most recommended programming books ever πŸ†

So I've compiled more than 1200 recommendations from 68 lists and came up with this top 25 most recommended programming books of all-timeπŸ“•

THREADπŸ‘‡
In short, I've compiled articles from Google search results for queries like "Best programming books" and many of its variations

I scraped all pages using @ScrapingBee, and, with custom rules for every page, extracted πŸ“• titles

Then deduplication + normalization + ✍ cleaning
A link to the detailed methodology will be put at the end of this thread.

% is the % of the time this book was recommended out of 208 lists.

So if % is 20%, one out of five lists about startups book have talked about this book.
Read 9 tweets
15 Feb
There are countless startup book lists on the internet 🌐

I wanted to know what were the most recommended startup books ever πŸ†

So I've compiled more than 4000 recommendations from 208 lists and came up with with this top 25 most recommended startup books of all-timeπŸ“•

THREAD
In short, I've compiled articles from Google search results for queries like "Best startups books" and many of its variations

I scraped all pages using @ScrapingBee, and, with custom rules for every page, extracted πŸ“• titles

Then deduplication + normalization + manual cleaning
A link to the detailed methodology will be put at the end of this thread.

% is the % of the time this book was recommended out of 208 lists.

So if % is 20%, one out of five lists about startups book have talked about this book.

Ok, let's begin, here the top 25 πŸ€“
Read 8 tweets

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