The Power of Backlinks and SEO for Website Traffic The Benefits of Working in a 9-to-5 Job

[00:00:00] Today I welcome Philipp on the show, so thanks for accepting my invitation.

[00:00:05] Thanks, I'm very excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me, really looking forward.

[00:00:10] Yes, I think we're gonna enjoy this podcast.

[00:00:13] So, Philipp, if you had three minutes to present yourself as an indie maker, how you will do that?

[00:00:18] I'm taking notes.

[00:00:20] Okay, let me try to do that.

[00:00:23] I'm from Switzerland, maybe you'll hear it from my voice.

[00:00:26] I don't have the perfect English accent.

[00:00:30] I'm a father of two teenage kids.

[00:00:33] I'm married and I'm above the average age of indie hackers with 46 years old.

[00:00:42] That's maybe a bit standing out.

[00:00:45] I've started computer science.

[00:00:48] That's how I started my career with programming and then moved professionally into product management.

[00:00:54] That's what I am now and I'm a full-time employed.

[00:00:59] So, I'm a site builder.

[00:01:01] I'm not like indie hacker for full time.

[00:01:05] So, I have my normal product manager job and started two startups since.

[00:01:14] The first one is Shared Flat Search in Switzerland.

[00:01:21] That's something I wanted to do within my employer and that didn't give me the room.

[00:01:26] So, they allowed me to do it on the weekend.

[00:01:31] And of course, it was B2C.

[00:01:33] Of course, it's easier for me to start and I knew the material a bit.

[00:01:37] So, I tried this and then figured out there is no money in this.

[00:01:43] So, it was a success but I couldn't make any money.

[00:01:46] And then while building this, I found out about backlinks, about SEOs and backlinks.

[00:01:53] And found out that I know something other people can benefit from and created a product for that,

[00:01:59] which I launched in January, which is called SEO Kickstarter.

[00:02:05] That's two or three minutes. Not sure if I did it in time.

[00:02:09] No, no, I think it's good.

[00:02:12] We have good stuff. I'm curious about your past.

[00:02:17] When did you start the first time to do indie makers things?

[00:02:22] Not so long ago or before you tried it as well?

[00:02:25] I think it was two years ago.

[00:02:28] I started my Shared Flat platform and I did it on my own.

[00:02:36] Then I looked into community and then I found out about Twitter and about the great community.

[00:02:42] And then I was hooked ever since.

[00:02:47] Okay, so that's an interesting part because I've seen many indie makers who say they're younger than you

[00:02:53] because they totally refuse to go to a normal job and just try to indie-acre

[00:02:58] or just take a job or to feed themselves until they manage to do the indie-maker project working for themselves.

[00:03:05] But you didn't do that. So what makes you do this move now and not finish 9-5 lives

[00:03:13] because that's what you have done most right now?

[00:03:16] It's a good question. Maybe I need to answer it for myself.

[00:03:20] Take your time.

[00:03:24] No, I got somehow hooked. I read some books.

[00:03:30] What was the book called?

[00:03:32] The Move.

[00:03:33] The famous book about startups.

[00:03:37] The Lean Startup.

[00:03:39] The Lean Startup, I think.

[00:03:42] Where I got hooked and then...

[00:03:46] Ah no, then I listened to... Do you know the podcast How I Built This?

[00:03:51] This got me going.

[00:03:52] Okay, no, I don't know that one.

[00:03:56] It covers the famous startups.

[00:04:01] Airbnb and all these.

[00:04:04] They're really, really famous ones.

[00:04:06] How they built this and only of course are successful.

[00:04:09] And then I listened to a few of those and thought,

[00:04:11] okay, these are normal people. I can try this as well.

[00:04:15] And then I first tried it with my employer, right?

[00:04:20] Because that would have been the easier part.

[00:04:23] And then I saw, no, there's no way.

[00:04:28] And it was good that there was no way.

[00:04:30] I think startups need to be separate.

[00:04:33] You cannot... I mean, you can see like Google tries to do startups.

[00:04:36] It just always fails. The big corporates don't know how to do startups.

[00:04:41] Yeah, that's difficult for them to understand.

[00:04:43] And I think it needs to be separate.

[00:04:46] It cannot be part of the corporate at all.

[00:04:50] And then that's how I started.

[00:04:54] Unless they decided to kind of put money on it and do it on your own.

[00:04:59] That's the only model I've seen working.

[00:05:01] It's like, okay, we have this envelope for our employee who wants to do startups.

[00:05:05] They can do it like two days a week.

[00:05:07] And this, that's the only things I've seen the most efficient.

[00:05:12] Because the company gives you like six months a year with this money.

[00:05:16] You do whatever you want.

[00:05:16] And if at the end it's good, it's good.

[00:05:18] Otherwise it's bad, but they try to invest on you.

[00:05:21] No.

[00:05:22] And if it's good, they win a project that can help them.

[00:05:26] But otherwise like doing in the company is like very, very hard.

[00:05:31] They think.

[00:05:32] Now there are these innovation labs and all these.

[00:05:35] It's just...

[00:05:35] Yeah.

[00:05:36] I've never seen it to work.

[00:05:38] So it was good to have a straight no from the company.

[00:05:41] So I needed to do it on the weekend.

[00:05:43] Yeah.

[00:05:44] And which is now the biggest challenge, right?

[00:05:46] I mean just have the morning evening and the weekend to do site building.

[00:05:51] Yeah.

[00:05:52] But when do you have time to do that?

[00:05:54] When you have kids?

[00:05:55] Like how do you do that?

[00:05:56] So the kids are teenagers.

[00:05:58] That's probably also for me a timing wise back to your question.

[00:06:02] Why only now?

[00:06:03] I think with kids it...

[00:06:07] I couldn't do before when they are small.

[00:06:09] They also want to do something with me.

[00:06:11] And then if they ask like daddy, can we go somewhere?

[00:06:14] And you say no, I don't have time.

[00:06:16] I'm doing my stuff.

[00:06:17] It just doesn't work.

[00:06:18] No, no.

[00:06:19] And now...

[00:06:21] And the wife is like...

[00:06:24] And the wife as well.

[00:06:25] But now usually it's all the way around.

[00:06:28] I said like there's good weather on the weekend.

[00:06:31] Should we do something together?

[00:06:33] And the kids say no, I have friends.

[00:06:35] Why would I do something with you?

[00:06:37] Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:38] So suddenly there was this kind of time on the weekend.

[00:06:42] And the first few months of this I just did things which triggered me for my 9 to 5 job.

[00:06:51] Which like I didn't have time during the week and I thought I tinker around.

[00:06:56] And even for some Christmas holidays I just like created something for the company.

[00:07:01] And then I thought, but this is stupid.

[00:07:04] This is so...

[00:07:06] I mean our company has investors.

[00:07:09] So it's not even like my boss profits from the...

[00:07:11] At least the boss could profit.

[00:07:13] But it's just like investors who don't know me anyway.

[00:07:16] Why would I give my weekend for them?

[00:07:18] So it's stupid.

[00:07:19] So let me try to find another thing which is just for me.

[00:07:22] Yeah, way better.

[00:07:24] Okay, yeah that makes sense.

[00:07:26] So the first project you started was the Shareflat project.

[00:07:31] And by Shareflat you mean like people who want to do like living together for a few months, right?

[00:07:38] I mean there's basically as a student you cannot afford your own apartment.

[00:07:44] So you go together and then you have like a three room apartment and then everyone is one room.

[00:07:49] And you have a share kitchen.

[00:07:51] Just to have less spending.

[00:07:55] But definitely a difficult business model if the main purpose of the person is to spend less.

[00:07:59] You cannot ask them to pay more.

[00:08:01] I didn't think much when I started this.

[00:08:08] I was just seeing...

[00:08:09] I was just seeing in Switzerland there is the biggest shareflat site is socks.

[00:08:16] It's just like...

[00:08:17] I mean and in my opinion of socks, right?

[00:08:20] It just looked bad.

[00:08:21] There were not good search options.

[00:08:23] I just look it from a design point of view and like a usability point of view.

[00:08:27] It just sucked this way.

[00:08:28] And I thought I can do better than them.

[00:08:31] And I didn't think much about like how much money I will work.

[00:08:34] I just wanted to do it and I knew how to do it.

[00:08:38] Then I wrote crawlers basically.

[00:08:41] I mean for marketplace you need to...

[00:08:44] For two-sided marketplace always hard if you start with the web page and say there's zero listings.

[00:08:50] Nobody will use it, right?

[00:08:52] They're like what?

[00:08:53] Exactly.

[00:08:54] So I wrote crawlers for all the different marketplace in Switzerland

[00:08:57] and then I had the biggest one and then I could say

[00:09:00] look this is the biggest you should use mine.

[00:09:02] And that's great.

[00:09:03] It was great, yeah?

[00:09:05] Like most of people are like yeah

[00:09:07] I want to make my idea and make money with it with the first try.

[00:09:12] And most of people are like yeah I just need the good idea.

[00:09:15] And the problem is like no you don't need a fucking good idea.

[00:09:19] A good idea is like useless.

[00:09:21] What you need is to be good at doing it and find the real problem.

[00:09:25] And so most of people like forgot how bad they are to build a business.

[00:09:30] They're like oh it's easy I just do it.

[00:09:33] No the main difficulty is be the right person to build a business.

[00:09:37] So don't fear doing like something you find this is useful

[00:09:41] but there are no business model or whatever.

[00:09:43] Because as you have done, like you have discovered the business of backlink

[00:09:47] by doing this first business.

[00:09:48] And this is perfect when you find things that you are very good at

[00:09:53] and you understand the market and they are market for it.

[00:09:57] I totally agree.

[00:09:59] And on Twitter there are people who say don't do a B2C, only do B2P.

[00:10:05] And I disagree.

[00:10:06] I think the first, I would say the first start off of everyone is a B2C

[00:10:12] because it's just a thing you can think of.

[00:10:16] I'm working in a real estate company so I was thinking about real estate all the time.

[00:10:22] So I knew the area of shared flats and how this works

[00:10:27] and this was very close to me.

[00:10:29] And then you got rolling and I learned so much.

[00:10:35] I did not just learn about backlinks, I learned about design, about hosting.

[00:10:43] It basically, I mean the thing was, and then I also built mobile apps.

[00:10:50] I did things just to learn.

[00:10:52] For me it was just secondary if it was successful or not.

[00:10:56] I just wanted to learn can I create something which is then also used?

[00:11:01] Can I drive traffic to it?

[00:11:04] Can I deploy something on the app store?

[00:11:05] How hard is it?

[00:11:07] Will they not allow me?

[00:11:09] Will they allow me?

[00:11:09] You built native apps for Android and iOS?

[00:11:14] Flutter, yes.

[00:11:15] I did a Flutter course.

[00:11:18] This was in hindsight not a good investment because I could never use it again

[00:11:22] and it's quite a different thing than doing web.

[00:11:25] But still I just wanted to do it and see how it feels

[00:11:28] and hopefully will not do it again because I don't really like it.

[00:11:33] I had an app out and it's still downloadable on both app stores.

[00:11:39] That's great.

[00:11:41] I think that's the point sometimes.

[00:11:44] Do you connect the dot always later?

[00:11:47] You connect the dot afterwards.

[00:11:49] So right now maybe you still don't connect the dot of doing mobile

[00:11:53] and it looks like useless but you don't know how many years it will be.

[00:11:57] For me, I started by doing mobile apps.

[00:12:01] In my life as an employee, as a freelancer, I did mobile apps.

[00:12:07] Then I totally stopped for years, like for a few years

[00:12:11] and now what I am doing, I'm selling things for mobile apps

[00:12:15] and I came back to the source after so long

[00:12:19] and I was the same as yours.

[00:12:20] This is shit.

[00:12:21] I don't want to do mobile apps because it's so hard.

[00:12:24] Then later on I realized, oh but I know something

[00:12:29] which is very hard and not many people know.

[00:12:33] So this is viable.

[00:12:35] You do native apps or you do react native?

[00:12:39] No, no, I do capacitor apps.

[00:12:42] There are JavaScript, HTML, CSS apps with native capabilities

[00:12:46] and what I'm selling with CapGo, my main business

[00:12:51] is a plugin you put in this kind of apps to do live update faster

[00:12:55] so you don't need to push to Apple and Google,

[00:12:57] hey I made a new update.

[00:12:58] You directly push to your users and it's allowed by the rules of Apple and Google.

[00:13:03] So I'm selling that to many apps

[00:13:05] and I'm selling also service around, plugins around,

[00:13:09] like I have a world ecosystem around Capacitor,

[00:13:12] the biggest or the second biggest depending on the time in the world

[00:13:16] and so that's what I'm providing.

[00:13:20] That was my first job, first company, first startup,

[00:13:25] I did a mobile app, not in Capacitor because it didn't exist at the time.

[00:13:28] It was like Intel something at the time

[00:13:31] or Fungap something Intel whatever,

[00:13:35] forgot the name but it was the same kind of technology

[00:13:37] we evolve over time and which is where it is right now.

[00:13:41] And then you experienced the pain of updates

[00:13:42] of pushing out updates and then you thought of let's make this better

[00:13:47] to not go through the app store every time.

[00:13:50] Yeah exactly, the thing is everyone who do mobile app experience is pain

[00:13:55] and when it's the most strong is you push an update

[00:13:59] you think the update is great

[00:14:01] and then all your users start to go to support

[00:14:04] and annoy everyone because your app is broken for them.

[00:14:07] And then everyone screams at you

[00:14:09] and you're like yeah I want to push an update

[00:14:10] but Apple is like not responding so we're waiting

[00:14:13] and you wait for 5 days or 10 days until Apple tell you

[00:14:17] ah the button here, the color is not respecting accessibility.

[00:14:21] You're like I didn't touch this fucking button for like a month

[00:14:24] leave me alone, let me fix my bug.

[00:14:28] Exactly, all the people are waiting to be fucking fixed

[00:14:31] and we're like sorry just Apple is fucking with us.

[00:14:36] I heard this so many times

[00:14:37] Yeah, and then you're caught in this update loop

[00:14:42] stuck and then maybe if you're lucky

[00:14:45] some people at Apple you can call and to expedite

[00:14:48] but if you're not lucky you just wait.

[00:14:50] Yeah if your app is big yes otherwise they don't get you on the phone

[00:14:54] but yeah I got this and one in my first job

[00:14:58] we got a very very huge problem like that

[00:15:01] not because of the color of the button

[00:15:03] but because Apple watched the logs of the app

[00:15:06] and found out we were like kind of saving files

[00:15:09] log files in the app so if you keep the app for an hour or two

[00:15:13] it was like some log files saved and using memory of the phone

[00:15:17] and they tell me why are you doing that

[00:15:20] and I had no fucking clue because I was doing like not native

[00:15:23] you know I was doing like a hybrid app

[00:15:25] so plugging whatever was doing that and I had no clue

[00:15:29] and I was like I don't know and no one knew in the team

[00:15:32] and it took us like a month to finally find out

[00:15:35] and one plugin was broken and having problems and making logs

[00:15:39] because the guy decided to oh when it's better to debug with logs

[00:15:43] write on a file and so yeah it took us eternity

[00:15:47] and since then I was frustrated and I didn't want to go mobile again

[00:15:51] so when I left the company I stopped doing mobile

[00:15:53] and I was like not anymore ever

[00:15:55] and one time later on I created the mobile app for myself

[00:16:00] because like I had a friend we were like doing a bit of CrossFit

[00:16:03] and he was like ah there are no good timer for CrossFit

[00:16:05] and we were thinking to do a startup studio to help people

[00:16:08] like start themselves so it was like oh let's do a tiny demo app

[00:16:14] CrossFit Timer like super simple like we do it in a week

[00:16:16] and we just like have that to show to people

[00:16:20] when we want to sell our services to start a startup

[00:16:22] and we did this app and it started to have many users

[00:16:25] like I don't know now he has like 400 pay users I think

[00:16:31] but before when he was free it was like 2 or 3,000 users per month

[00:16:35] and so that's how we started to have app again

[00:16:39] and I started to have this problem again

[00:16:40] and I wanted to fix that

[00:16:42] couldn't find a solution the only solution was paid

[00:16:44] and super expensive by Ionic

[00:16:46] like they do like service for big corporates

[00:16:49] so the minimum price is like 2,000 a month something like that

[00:16:53] now it's lower but at the time it was something like that

[00:16:56] and I was super frustrated

[00:16:58] find a GitHub issue where people were complaining about it

[00:17:02] basically I complained as well

[00:17:04] and the CEO of the company at the time he said

[00:17:07] yes sorry we are not really interested in helping SMB

[00:17:10] because like right now the way our company is built

[00:17:14] is around service for big corporates

[00:17:16] so we cannot serve like tiny people

[00:17:18] we're gonna lose money

[00:17:19] and I was like okay can I do it

[00:17:21] and the guy was like yeah of course

[00:17:23] please help us because I don't want to have people complain every day

[00:17:28] and so I created the company

[00:17:30] because the CEO of the only business who was doing it

[00:17:33] told me yes you can do it

[00:17:36] he asked for a competitor

[00:17:39] yes

[00:17:40] but that's crazy

[00:17:41] and then the company kinda hates me at one point

[00:17:45] of course now the guy got successful

[00:17:48] but he was there mistake

[00:17:51] I was like I asked for a price

[00:17:53] first I said let us pay like 50 a month and we're good

[00:17:57] you know and 50 a month was huge for app was making 0 euro

[00:18:01] but I was like at least something

[00:18:03] and now I am making people pay 50 euro a month

[00:18:06] but it's perfect you found the market gap

[00:18:09] there was a high priced offer

[00:18:12] and you saw that there is for the lower price

[00:18:15] there's a gap and then jumped in

[00:18:17] because you were a user

[00:18:20] scratching your own itch

[00:18:21] oh yes he was a big itch

[00:18:24] and when I managed to do that I was like super happy

[00:18:27] not because I didn't even think I was doing a business at the beginning

[00:18:30] I just did an open source plugin

[00:18:32] and I released it on the Github issue

[00:18:36] where I say I made that and blah blah blah

[00:18:38] and people were like super amazed

[00:18:40] and some of them say ok but I don't understand

[00:18:42] like why do we have to host or serve the update

[00:18:45] why do we have to do everything on our own

[00:18:47] can we pay somewhere and then you do it for us

[00:18:49] I was like ok give me a bit of time

[00:18:53] I managed to do the impossible and learn

[00:18:55] Swift and Android and managed to do something work

[00:18:58] so now I will do the sass part which is easier

[00:19:01] but yeah that's how CapGo born

[00:19:03] and now it's a business you know

[00:19:06] he came from a pain and from something related

[00:19:09] and the first app was B2C as well

[00:19:12] we didn't work much

[00:19:14] it's similar to China

[00:19:16] it's very similar to China actually

[00:19:18] yeah it's supernatural you know

[00:19:21] like sometimes I have tried to invent

[00:19:23] so many ideas and stuff

[00:19:25] no it's stupid

[00:19:25] and yeah and I've lost so much time

[00:19:28] and hours but I've learned a lot for sure

[00:19:30] as you were saying

[00:19:31] but I've lost my time because I was hoping for something

[00:19:36] instead of like doing it in a natural way

[00:19:39] you know there are many problems in this world

[00:19:40] where people complain about and you can help them

[00:19:43] just like explore community, explore things

[00:19:46] try things out

[00:19:47] be curious and you will find them for sure

[00:19:50] like so many of them

[00:19:52] like if you just look at youtuber people

[00:19:55] like if you watch youtube video

[00:19:57] you see people complaining about something at one point

[00:19:59] or something not working

[00:20:01] it's just there

[00:20:02] it's not hard

[00:20:03] it's not there

[00:20:04] you just need to listen

[00:20:08] okay so we've talked a bit about me

[00:20:10] and my story now we can go back about you

[00:20:14] I like this

[00:20:16] I would like to know

[00:20:18] I think the first time I really tell the story

[00:20:20] fully and I wanted to record it in a video

[00:20:22] like this week

[00:20:23] this week

[00:20:24] because I made a blog article on CapGo

[00:20:27] you can watch the on CapGo.app

[00:20:30] it's like the name of the article

[00:20:32] is from Github issue to business

[00:20:34] I think I will do a video about it

[00:20:35] because there are so many details about it

[00:20:37] like the story

[00:20:38] it's an amazing story

[00:20:42] I think I would be interested to dig into some bits as well now

[00:20:47] yeah and there are many details I skipped

[00:20:53] so coming back to you

[00:20:55] so the first project didn't work out

[00:20:57] but you told me you learned something in it

[00:21:00] can you explain like how did you

[00:21:02] understood the problem of the backlinks

[00:21:05] and how did it like got created

[00:21:07] so I

[00:21:10] released

[00:21:12] this chat flat up

[00:21:14] I think

[00:21:15] August 1st

[00:21:17] that's when I opened my twitter account

[00:21:20] and then

[00:21:21] I installed

[00:21:23] some

[00:21:26] web tracking

[00:21:27] and there was just zero traffic on it

[00:21:30] really just

[00:21:32] really just zero traffic

[00:21:33] maybe I just go to some reddit forums

[00:21:37] and post something

[00:21:38] and then I thought

[00:21:40] now but

[00:21:42] it doesn't work

[00:21:44] how can I attract really traffic

[00:21:47] and then I looked into SEO of course

[00:21:49] I mean I didn't

[00:21:51] I didn't want to spend

[00:21:54] ad money on it

[00:21:55] for me it was clear that the ads

[00:21:59] was not there and then there's also no like

[00:22:02] Twitter is also the wrong audience

[00:22:04] social media doesn't really work

[00:22:07] so for me it was clear that SEO needs to be

[00:22:09] and then I just read on AAH refs

[00:22:13] they have a good beginners guide for SEO

[00:22:16] which I can recommend to everyone

[00:22:20] it's just

[00:22:21] it's quite short

[00:22:23] but it's a very good overview

[00:22:25] and then they recommend some basic things

[00:22:27] like you need to do each one tax on every site

[00:22:31] basically in-page SEO stuff

[00:22:34] correct so which I corrected

[00:22:36] so I corrected all they have this free

[00:22:38] checker for your website

[00:22:40] and then it just says

[00:22:41] you have these 10 errors

[00:22:43] and these 5 warnings

[00:22:44] and I just solved all of them

[00:22:46] that already took me like

[00:22:47] 3 weeks or so

[00:22:50] it was not so easy

[00:22:50] some of them are hard sometimes

[00:22:53] some of them are really really hard

[00:22:56] all of your pages need to be reachable by a crawler

[00:23:02] it's a search site

[00:23:04] I have thousands of listings

[00:23:08] and how okay you need to create a browse access for that

[00:23:12] okay well that's quite something

[00:23:14] I still don't manage to do it properly

[00:23:17] I never done a website with so much user generated content

[00:23:23] so I have just my blog and stuff

[00:23:24] so I basically have a big sit-map

[00:23:28] and a big footer with the maximum stuff link possible there

[00:23:32] and I still don't understand some page

[00:23:35] they need 2 clicks to be joined

[00:23:38] and a crawler is like nope

[00:23:40] it's like okay

[00:23:42] exactly and AH refs complained

[00:23:45] and said

[00:23:48] I have a sitemap

[00:23:49] I put all my URLs in the sitemap

[00:23:52] that must be it

[00:23:53] no no and then I consulted also an ASU expert

[00:23:56] he said look you just need to do that

[00:23:58] you cannot just provide the sitemap

[00:24:00] you need to do also the browse access

[00:24:02] but this thing was easy

[00:24:04] and probably not so interesting

[00:24:06] then what they talked about as well are backlinks

[00:24:10] and then they said look one way to build backlinks

[00:24:14] is just to do a cold email outreach

[00:24:17] and I thought that's interesting

[00:24:19] I never did that

[00:24:20] and it was way out of my comfort zone

[00:24:22] I'm more like an introvert person

[00:24:24] I don't really like emailing people

[00:24:27] but just that needs doing

[00:24:31] I mean that's the only way I can grow this site

[00:24:34] so we searched

[00:24:37] yeah

[00:24:37] how did you search for that

[00:24:39] like I'm very interested

[00:24:40] because something I don't do

[00:24:42] so like do like a crash course

[00:24:44] how do you find the people to ask for backlink

[00:24:48] backlink

[00:24:48] and that's also in AUA-TREF's basic course

[00:24:53] all the things I learned

[00:24:54] it's just out there on the internet

[00:24:56] I sometimes think about myself

[00:24:59] I'm a frauder or so

[00:25:03] because all the information is out there

[00:25:08] I did not invent of all of these things

[00:25:10] but that doesn't matter I guess

[00:25:11] anyway

[00:25:12] I just went to my main competitor

[00:25:17] and looked where they have the backlinks from

[00:25:19] they are here since like 20 years

[00:25:24] that's why they are the biggest

[00:25:25] because they were early in the game

[00:25:27] maybe even at 25

[00:25:29] and their website still looks like a 90s website

[00:25:33] you can tell

[00:25:35] same website since the year

[00:25:36] yeah they are the biggest

[00:25:38] and why should they change

[00:25:39] they are the biggest right

[00:25:41] so I looked where they have their backlinks from

[00:25:44] and then I used SEMrush for that

[00:25:47] and then SEMrush gives some scoring

[00:25:49] which is the strongest backlink in the weakest

[00:25:53] and then I looked at the top 100 backlinks

[00:25:57] and then I sorted by the weakest first

[00:26:00] because I knew my first message will be bad

[00:26:03] I never did that

[00:26:04] I mean how should I write this

[00:26:06] I will be failing and once I come to the better ones

[00:26:09] my messaging has improved

[00:26:13] and then I just

[00:26:14] I looked up the website

[00:26:17] okay what website is it, where is the link

[00:26:19] and then I went there

[00:26:21] searched for an email address

[00:26:22] that was usually the hardest part

[00:26:23] it was to search for the email address

[00:26:26] understood what kind of website they are

[00:26:28] and then crafted an email message

[00:26:31] and then my pitch was

[00:26:33] usually it was universities

[00:26:35] like I have the biggest shared flat website in Switzerland

[00:26:38] these are biggest than the one you linked

[00:26:41] so maybe it's for your students

[00:26:43] it's actually beneficial

[00:26:45] if you can link to a website

[00:26:46] which is even bigger than the ones you linked

[00:26:49] and it was a free offer

[00:26:50] so people were usually

[00:26:51] and I think the success rate was 20%

[00:26:54] so 20% of all the emails I sent out

[00:26:56] I really got a backlink

[00:26:57] which is insane

[00:26:59] if you have a B2B product

[00:27:01] that 20% is not reachable at all

[00:27:03] I think the good conversions are like

[00:27:05] if you have like 5% it's already above average

[00:27:08] so 20% is insanely good

[00:27:11] but part of it was

[00:27:13] certainly that

[00:27:15] it was a free offer

[00:27:17] and I think part of it I also did some things right

[00:27:19] I think I had a good

[00:27:22] tone of voice

[00:27:23] I didn't use AI

[00:27:24] I think there was not too much AI back then anyway

[00:27:26] so I hand grabbed every email

[00:27:29] and then there were some small thing

[00:27:34] it's Swiss

[00:27:35] there is sometimes bureaucracy

[00:27:36] and I didn't hear back for them for like 2 or 3 weeks

[00:27:39] and then they said

[00:27:41] look we actually had a meeting

[00:27:43] where this was on our agenda

[00:27:45] if we should give you a backlink or not

[00:27:47] and then they just cast it in the big meeting

[00:27:49] should we give the guy a backlink

[00:27:51] and they say

[00:27:52] okay it's a good thing

[00:27:54] let's give the guy a backlink

[00:27:56] which was

[00:27:57] I thought like

[00:27:58] this is a bit insane

[00:27:59] do you spend meetings for this?

[00:28:01] I'm not sure

[00:28:01] but do you offer something in exchange

[00:28:05] like you do also backlink?

[00:28:07] no, nothing

[00:28:08] what the fuck

[00:28:10] so it was just curious

[00:28:12] it works out

[00:28:13] and it's

[00:28:15] you know with

[00:28:16] marketing

[00:28:17] it's usually hard

[00:28:19] because you don't know

[00:28:20] if all you invest is just waste

[00:28:24] I invested hours for crafting

[00:28:27] like every site

[00:28:29] is like

[00:28:30] half an hour to an hour to craft this email

[00:28:33] it's a lot of work

[00:28:35] and it could be in the worst case

[00:28:36] I spend days without any outcome

[00:28:40] I can imagine

[00:28:41] but the outcome was so good

[00:28:43] that over the course of half a year

[00:28:46] my site climbed to the first page of Google

[00:28:49] and I'm now

[00:28:50] on rank 2

[00:28:53] just behind my main competitor

[00:28:55] it's my site

[00:28:57] so it's worked very well

[00:29:00] okay

[00:29:00] and how many backlinks do you have right now?

[00:29:03] do you have

[00:29:05] numbers or something?

[00:29:07] I don't know

[00:29:08] I think I gained

[00:29:09] it was not so many I gained

[00:29:12] like between 20 and 40 backlinks from

[00:29:15] but I think it's also from

[00:29:17] from the niche

[00:29:19] so I think the niche backlinks

[00:29:21] count more than the channel backlinks

[00:29:24] I think that Google understood

[00:29:27] like it's kind of in this university area

[00:29:31] also had some backlinks from other real estate sites

[00:29:34] so it was kind of

[00:29:37] it's thematically close to my offer

[00:29:41] okay

[00:29:42] that's good to know

[00:29:44] I will definitely try that more

[00:29:46] because for me I don't know

[00:29:47] when everyone talk about backlinks

[00:29:49] I'm thinking I need 2,000 backlinks

[00:29:52] to have some impact

[00:29:53] it's like 40

[00:29:54] I can at least work for that

[00:29:57] I don't think it needs too many

[00:29:59] some of the backlinks you get automatically

[00:30:02] by spam sites

[00:30:04] but there are some domain sites

[00:30:07] which just rank the 10

[00:30:09] latest domains

[00:30:10] and then you get these kind of backlinks

[00:30:14] but the good ones

[00:30:15] I don't think you need too many to rank

[00:30:19] and then

[00:30:20] I thought that

[00:30:23] everyone is doing that

[00:30:25] everyone is doing cold email outreach

[00:30:26] because I read it on Ahrefs

[00:30:29] beginners guide

[00:30:31] that's kind of normal thing

[00:30:32] and then I met other Indie makers

[00:30:34] in Zurich

[00:30:36] where I live

[00:30:37] I met them for lunch

[00:30:39] and then we talked about

[00:30:40] what are you doing

[00:30:41] what do you doing

[00:30:43] I'm doing backlinks

[00:30:44] and I got backlinks

[00:30:45] and I was like

[00:30:46] oh wow how do you do that

[00:30:48] like the same reaction as you

[00:30:49] like the reaction you get

[00:30:53] you just like

[00:30:53] I never did that

[00:30:54] is it hard

[00:30:57] and then I thought

[00:30:58] okay but it's interesting

[00:30:59] I think I discovered something

[00:31:02] which is kind of

[00:31:03] not out of the ordinary

[00:31:05] and let me see

[00:31:06] maybe this would be interesting to other

[00:31:09] builders as well

[00:31:10] okay

[00:31:11] so what's doing your project now

[00:31:13] on backlinks

[00:31:14] so I did two attempts

[00:31:16] the first attempt was

[00:31:17] I was just

[00:31:19] the dismantle thing I did

[00:31:21] and then I needed half an hour

[00:31:22] do an hour for every outreach

[00:31:24] I wanted to automate

[00:31:25] first for myself

[00:31:27] because I was still working on this

[00:31:29] on the Shadflat website

[00:31:31] and then I was

[00:31:33] just using

[00:31:35] retool

[00:31:36] you know

[00:31:36] retool the

[00:31:37] no-code tool

[00:31:40] I was using this

[00:31:41] and then I shared some screenshots

[00:31:43] on Twitter

[00:31:44] and then people were saying

[00:31:45] I want to use the same

[00:31:46] I also want to have

[00:31:48] this kind of automated outreach

[00:31:50] so that was the first I

[00:31:52] published

[00:31:53] and

[00:31:55] I got some

[00:31:55] people using that

[00:31:57] but then I found out

[00:31:59] that this

[00:31:59] even this was too hard

[00:32:01] for people because

[00:32:03] you need to have

[00:32:04] good messaging

[00:32:06] why should people

[00:32:07] give you a backlink

[00:32:08] what do you offer

[00:32:08] do you give

[00:32:09] backlink exchange

[00:32:10] or do you pay for it

[00:32:12] or so

[00:32:13] so I saw that

[00:32:14] people were failing

[00:32:15] with this outreach tool

[00:32:17] so the next thing

[00:32:19] I thought of is

[00:32:19] I just want to give them a guide

[00:32:21] just a document where they

[00:32:22] just can work through

[00:32:23] for backlinks

[00:32:25] which are easy

[00:32:26] achievable

[00:32:27] like the product-hunt backlink

[00:32:28] you just

[00:32:29] launch a product-hunt

[00:32:30] you get a backlink

[00:32:31] and that's very easy

[00:32:33] and that's the product

[00:32:34] which is out now

[00:32:35] yeah

[00:32:36] that's very cool

[00:32:37] I think two weeks ago

[00:32:39] I was thinking about backlinks

[00:32:40] and I was like

[00:32:41] why there are no

[00:32:42] projects

[00:32:43] like for example

[00:32:45] a script you add

[00:32:46] to your website

[00:32:47] in the footer somewhere

[00:32:49] and it creates

[00:32:49] auto backlink

[00:32:51] for you

[00:32:52] for other people

[00:32:53] having also the script

[00:32:54] you know it's kind of

[00:32:55] a community of backlink

[00:32:57] and you can say

[00:32:57] okay I am in this kind of field

[00:33:00] so I want backlink

[00:33:01] in this kind of website

[00:33:03] and they do the same

[00:33:04] and it sort of

[00:33:04] feedback link

[00:33:05] and you don't

[00:33:06] check about it

[00:33:07] I was like

[00:33:08] just have like

[00:33:10] the footer

[00:33:11] full of backlinks

[00:33:12] with all their indie hackers

[00:33:13] and then

[00:33:13] you kind of

[00:33:14] share it like this

[00:33:16] and then you just need one

[00:33:18] crawler

[00:33:19] as the sass

[00:33:20] to check

[00:33:21] if the backlink

[00:33:21] are really visible

[00:33:22] and present

[00:33:23] otherwise you remove them

[00:33:25] from other websites

[00:33:26] because they are not abused

[00:33:28] but it could be like

[00:33:30] something

[00:33:30] but I don't know anything

[00:33:31] about backlink

[00:33:32] so free idea

[00:33:34] if you want

[00:33:34] exactly

[00:33:37] there are these groups

[00:33:38] where they exchange backlinks

[00:33:39] and then usually

[00:33:40] you want to have

[00:33:41] kind of a similar strength

[00:33:42] backlink

[00:33:43] because if you have

[00:33:44] like these domain

[00:33:46] ranks, domain ratings

[00:33:47] and if your site

[00:33:48] is strong

[00:33:49] and the other is weak

[00:33:50] then maybe it's not a fair exchange

[00:33:51] so you want to have

[00:33:52] kind of someone on a similar level

[00:33:55] yeah that's

[00:33:56] exactly why I got the idea

[00:33:57] because I got a proposal

[00:33:59] from TopTal

[00:34:00] I think

[00:34:00] to join a group

[00:34:02] like that

[00:34:03] of backlink

[00:34:04] of 300 websites

[00:34:06] and I was like

[00:34:07] yeah okay

[00:34:08] but I'm not sure

[00:34:10] you know

[00:34:11] like how

[00:34:12] it will be working

[00:34:14] you know what I have to do

[00:34:15] for that

[00:34:15] I was like

[00:34:17] I would have preferred

[00:34:18] to do it for me

[00:34:19] tell me it's sure

[00:34:20] you have good backlinks

[00:34:21] and the people

[00:34:23] in your website are also good

[00:34:24] and you auto manage

[00:34:25] to remove them

[00:34:26] at that if required

[00:34:29] so yeah

[00:34:30] yeah

[00:34:31] I mean

[00:34:32] there are some details to it

[00:34:34] like

[00:34:35] links in footer

[00:34:37] are usually less

[00:34:38] less SEO choose

[00:34:40] than a real article

[00:34:42] so ideally you would have

[00:34:44] and that's usually when

[00:34:46] when you do this kind of

[00:34:47] link exchange

[00:34:48] you say

[00:34:48] I write an article for you

[00:34:50] you write one for me

[00:34:51] or the vice versa

[00:34:52] and then the article

[00:34:54] would be exactly about

[00:34:55] your

[00:34:56] startup

[00:34:57] or your product

[00:34:58] or so

[00:34:58] and then the link

[00:35:00] is prominent in the article

[00:35:01] it usually

[00:35:02] the ideal is that

[00:35:03] it's like

[00:35:04] the most prominent link

[00:35:05] on the page

[00:35:06] and then there's not

[00:35:07] too many other links

[00:35:08] on the same page

[00:35:08] so it's really just about

[00:35:10] your

[00:35:11] your product

[00:35:12] and that's usually

[00:35:12] working better

[00:35:13] that's usually

[00:35:14] links

[00:35:15] link exchange are more

[00:35:16] working like this

[00:35:17] and not in the footer

[00:35:19] oh ok

[00:35:19] yeah you know

[00:35:20] that's why I'm not doing

[00:35:21] a project on that

[00:35:22] because I know nothing

[00:35:24] on this

[00:35:25] so yeah

[00:35:26] thanks for that

[00:35:28] so

[00:35:29] currently

[00:35:30] you're selling

[00:35:31] kind of

[00:35:31] the

[00:35:32] how to do backlinks

[00:35:33] basically right

[00:35:36] it's an

[00:35:36] it's an ocean page

[00:35:37] yeah

[00:35:38] and you're selling that

[00:35:39] what?

[00:35:40] you buy

[00:35:41] and then

[00:35:42] what you get is a link

[00:35:43] to an ocean page

[00:35:44] ok what's the price?

[00:35:45] it's 87

[00:35:46] ok

[00:35:47] we're gonna put that

[00:35:48] in the description

[00:35:48] for the footer like me

[00:35:49] who doesn't know

[00:35:50] how to do backlinks

[00:35:52] it's like

[00:35:56] ok that's amazing

[00:35:57] and you have like

[00:35:58] numbers, things

[00:35:59] you want to share

[00:36:00] about that

[00:36:00] ok do you think

[00:36:02] you can leave from this

[00:36:03] or you will need

[00:36:04] something else

[00:36:05] no I cannot leave

[00:36:06] from this

[00:36:07] no it's actually

[00:36:08] good side income

[00:36:10] and it was

[00:36:11] not meant to be a big thing

[00:36:15] because I already had this

[00:36:16] like a mock-room

[00:36:17] and the boilerplate

[00:36:19] yeah exactly

[00:36:20] I had my

[00:36:24] software

[00:36:24] and I still have

[00:36:25] like this retool app

[00:36:26] where you can do

[00:36:27] the niche

[00:36:30] cold email outreach

[00:36:32] ok

[00:36:33] I had running

[00:36:34] and I wanted just

[00:36:35] to have kind of

[00:36:36] a thing which is easier

[00:36:37] for people to start

[00:36:38] so I created this notion

[00:36:40] and I first thought

[00:36:42] maybe I give it

[00:36:43] to my subscribers

[00:36:44] for free

[00:36:45] and I thought

[00:36:45] no actually it could be

[00:36:47] a good entry product

[00:36:48] let's make it separate

[00:36:50] from the main product

[00:36:51] and launch it

[00:36:52] and then I thought

[00:36:53] good mindset

[00:36:55] yeah and I thought

[00:36:56] who would buy this

[00:36:57] because there are

[00:36:59] thousands of these lists

[00:37:01] flying around

[00:37:02] you saw that

[00:37:03] probably as well

[00:37:03] like the best backlinks

[00:37:05] and then you have like a

[00:37:06] spreadsheet with

[00:37:08] 2000 rows

[00:37:09] right

[00:37:09] and no information

[00:37:11] and I thought

[00:37:12] here I come

[00:37:13] and I want to

[00:37:14] have money for

[00:37:15] such a document

[00:37:15] who would buy this

[00:37:17] and people were

[00:37:18] before I launched

[00:37:19] as they would say

[00:37:20] nobody will buy it

[00:37:22] give it for free

[00:37:24] maybe as like

[00:37:25] a goodie for your main product

[00:37:26] because it will not sell

[00:37:28] and then with this

[00:37:29] mindset

[00:37:29] I still tried my best

[00:37:31] I created a video

[00:37:32] a launch video

[00:37:33] and I launched on Twitter

[00:37:34] on Monday morning

[00:37:36] I left the house

[00:37:37] and I told my wife

[00:37:38] today I launched this product

[00:37:40] but nobody will buy anyway

[00:37:42] and then

[00:37:43] come back millionaire

[00:37:45] not a millionaire

[00:37:46] but I made like

[00:37:48] three and a half thousand

[00:37:49] within 24 hours

[00:37:51] it was quite a big

[00:37:52] it was quite a big launch

[00:37:53] yeah

[00:37:54] speaking of very

[00:37:56] yeah

[00:37:56] it's like it's very very cool

[00:37:59] I love this kind of thing

[00:38:00] when you like

[00:38:01] don't expect this kind

[00:38:03] like you know I never did launch

[00:38:05] kind of

[00:38:06] you did

[00:38:07] I mean

[00:38:08] long time ago I was doing that

[00:38:09] with but we've started

[00:38:10] where you don't make people pay

[00:38:12] and blah blah blah

[00:38:13] you know because you have investors

[00:38:14] and then I stopped doing launch

[00:38:16] and lately when I was working

[00:38:18] with Mark

[00:38:18] like last year

[00:38:19] we start doing that again

[00:38:21] and seeing this kind of spike

[00:38:22] of stripe

[00:38:23] it's so cool

[00:38:24] we were like

[00:38:26] 2000 or 3000 the first day

[00:38:27] you're like wow

[00:38:28] yeah it's quite a rush

[00:38:30] then you get addicted

[00:38:32] and you want to say it again and again

[00:38:33] yeah

[00:38:34] can we do better tomorrow

[00:38:36] the launch is always the launch

[00:38:39] but it's very cool effect

[00:38:42] that's mean

[00:38:43] I think this is kind of a realisation

[00:38:46] you're like

[00:38:47] you're not so dumb

[00:38:48] in a way that's what I felt

[00:38:50] because for many times

[00:38:51] I launched shit

[00:38:52] no one's scared

[00:38:53] or some people watch it

[00:38:54] you get like 10,000 views

[00:38:56] but no one buy

[00:38:57] you put it out there

[00:38:59] with a price

[00:39:00] since the beginning

[00:39:01] and people buy it

[00:39:03] and you're like fuck

[00:39:04] I understood something finally

[00:39:06] exactly yeah

[00:39:08] so it's very cool

[00:39:10] but you can never know

[00:39:12] you cannot not before you launch

[00:39:16] and I gave it for free

[00:39:18] to my subscriber

[00:39:18] I wrote them an email

[00:39:20] look there's his Notion page

[00:39:21] and I spent a lot of time

[00:39:24] and they would not care

[00:39:26] I would say they would

[00:39:27] not even click on the link

[00:39:28] because they were not interested

[00:39:29] and then if you launch it

[00:39:31] and you put it behind a price

[00:39:32] and say look

[00:39:33] this is the best thing since ever

[00:39:34] and then people are like

[00:39:35] wow

[00:39:36] this is worth something

[00:39:37] and I will buy it

[00:39:39] price psychology is a thing

[00:39:40] some people are like

[00:39:43] oh yeah this is this thing

[00:39:44] which is perfect for you

[00:39:45] what's the price?

[00:39:47] zero?

[00:39:48] no

[00:39:49] same one

[00:39:50] 10,000?

[00:39:51] amazing

[00:39:51] where do I put my card?

[00:39:53] it's like

[00:39:54] okay

[00:39:55] interesting

[00:39:57] I think this is things

[00:39:58] that took me eternity

[00:39:59] to understand

[00:40:00] like pricing and price psychology

[00:40:01] is not making sense

[00:40:04] of the quality of what you're doing

[00:40:05] you know as a software developer

[00:40:07] especially

[00:40:07] you tend to

[00:40:09] okay if I want to sell expensive

[00:40:10] it has to be complex

[00:40:11] well made

[00:40:12] well code

[00:40:13] blah blah blah

[00:40:14] people don't care

[00:40:15] if the packaging look good

[00:40:17] it's enough

[00:40:18] and the price look too much

[00:40:20] the expectation they have

[00:40:22] in their mind

[00:40:23] works

[00:40:25] not related to anything real

[00:40:27] the real impact they will have

[00:40:30] it's like for

[00:40:31] I see that a lot

[00:40:32] for online courses

[00:40:35] you know

[00:40:36] this is all about

[00:40:38] what people think

[00:40:39] the benefit they will get

[00:40:41] but they will not even get it

[00:40:42] you know they buy courses

[00:40:43] without doing them

[00:40:45] but just because

[00:40:46] thinking they bought it

[00:40:47] it's enough for them

[00:40:48] and this is so them

[00:40:49] so many businesses like that

[00:40:51] who

[00:40:51] you know if you

[00:40:53] if you build online courses

[00:40:55] and if you expect people

[00:40:57] to do your courses

[00:40:58] mostly

[00:40:58] you're going to be very sad

[00:41:00] because most of them will never do it

[00:41:02] like 90% of them

[00:41:04] it's actually insane

[00:41:05] but you have to agree with this

[00:41:08] it's the same business as the

[00:41:10] the travel

[00:41:11] box

[00:41:12] you know like a smart box

[00:41:14] smart box is you offer like

[00:41:16] a tour in both

[00:41:17] in the Sutherland lake

[00:41:19] and you offer that to someone

[00:41:20] or you pay even that for yourself

[00:41:22] and no one would do that

[00:41:24] and the

[00:41:24] the business model of the company

[00:41:26] is made on that

[00:41:28] because they really

[00:41:29] yeah if everyone do the

[00:41:31] if everyone does it

[00:41:32] they okay

[00:41:33] they have banter

[00:41:34] that's why it's so cheap

[00:41:36] it's because no one do it

[00:41:39] it's crazy thinking about that

[00:41:41] I had no idea yeah

[00:41:41] yeah no

[00:41:43] there are many businesses like that

[00:41:45] where the main business

[00:41:46] same with gyms

[00:41:47] you know a gym can host

[00:41:50] like 200 people a day maximum

[00:41:52] or whatever

[00:41:53] a certain amount of people

[00:41:54] and if they were respecting this

[00:41:56] they will not allow more than 200

[00:41:59] the subscriber or I don't know

[00:42:00] two times more than that

[00:42:02] because not everyone can come the same day

[00:42:04] and in fact every gym

[00:42:06] have like

[00:42:07] 10 times or 20 times

[00:42:09] or 100 times more

[00:42:10] subscriber that they can host

[00:42:11] because the business model is

[00:42:13] having people paying

[00:42:15] to fill they pay for the gym

[00:42:17] not to go to the gym

[00:42:18] it made

[00:42:18] it makes them think

[00:42:20] yeah good about themselves

[00:42:21] they already have a better body

[00:42:23] because they just bought the gyms

[00:42:25] yeah because they paid 10 years and months

[00:42:27] and this is crazy

[00:42:28] there's so many businesses like that

[00:42:30] and at the beginning I was like

[00:42:31] very mad about that

[00:42:33] I was like oh this is kind of scamming people

[00:42:35] but no people pay themselves

[00:42:37] like they want that

[00:42:38] they that's help them

[00:42:41] just thinking they pay about that

[00:42:43] not even doing the things

[00:42:45] they pay for

[00:42:46] or having it

[00:42:48] and it took me eternity to understand

[00:42:50] this is okay

[00:42:52] this is okay too

[00:42:53] that's true

[00:42:53] I wonder how many people bought like

[00:42:56] ship fast from Mockloo

[00:42:57] and never did a startup event

[00:42:59] it's just like a lying out

[00:43:00] a lot

[00:43:01] because it sounds nice

[00:43:03] you can do a startup and

[00:43:05] yeah, there you go

[00:43:06] then you're like oh I can do it anytime

[00:43:08] and anytime will never happen

[00:43:11] but anytime

[00:43:13] you know now you feel like

[00:43:15] you're a maker

[00:43:16] and this is

[00:43:19] no I think this is the same as

[00:43:21] I think it's way easier to understand that

[00:43:24] in the brands

[00:43:25] you know in clothing

[00:43:26] like many people are like

[00:43:27] yeah I will buy a Balenciaga

[00:43:30] it's freaking 900 euro t-shirt

[00:43:32] it's a t-shirt

[00:43:33] it doesn't cost to produce near than that

[00:43:35] but you feel your part of something

[00:43:38] when you have it

[00:43:39] so you buy it

[00:43:41] and this is dumb as fuck

[00:43:43] if you look just at price

[00:43:44] this is so dumb

[00:43:46] it's kind of a scam as well

[00:43:47] but it's so long in our mind

[00:43:49] that is very fine

[00:43:50] and I think on many businesses online

[00:43:53] we have to accept and understood

[00:43:55] some people want to pay

[00:43:57] for the wrong reason in a way

[00:43:59] you know not reasonable reason

[00:44:01] but still want to pay

[00:44:02] and I have people paying in CapGo

[00:44:05] not because they use CapGo

[00:44:07] but because this is a safety net

[00:44:09] for them in their mind

[00:44:10] if at one point Apple fuck with them

[00:44:13] they have me as a backup

[00:44:15] so even for some kind

[00:44:17] company they don't pay them

[00:44:19] never used a new date for a year

[00:44:21] but they are like

[00:44:22] I am like an insurance for them

[00:44:24] and it took me a turnity to understand

[00:44:26] this is also something

[00:44:27] I should sell on my website

[00:44:28] because right now I was not selling it

[00:44:30] I was just saying

[00:44:32] oh you need live update do that

[00:44:34] but if you don't need live update

[00:44:35] but you just want safety net

[00:44:38] you can also use me

[00:44:39] and pay me I'm very fine

[00:44:40] don't use my server

[00:44:41] no yeah yeah yeah yeah

[00:44:43] is it a lifetime subscription

[00:44:45] or is it

[00:44:46] no no it's monthly

[00:44:48] so they stay on your month

[00:44:50] subscription and they never use the product

[00:44:52] it's fine for you I guess yeah

[00:44:54] yeah and I think I have like

[00:44:56] 20% of them like that

[00:44:58] because I never advertise

[00:45:00] for it so now since I

[00:45:02] understood that like not long ago

[00:45:04] like six months ago I'm like

[00:45:06] more making things

[00:45:08] on the website to try to make it understand

[00:45:10] this is also like a safety net

[00:45:12] CapGo for you and stuff like that

[00:45:14] I'm still very bad to market it

[00:45:17] but I think I would have more and more people doing that

[00:45:20] and the other side

[00:45:22] is that I think we as

[00:45:24] developer we usually think like

[00:45:26] how hard was it to create this

[00:45:28] yeah but that's not of

[00:45:30] any interest of any buyer

[00:45:31] because like for my product

[00:45:34] what would be their alternative

[00:45:36] their alternative would be to go through these

[00:45:38] like 1000 long spreadsheets

[00:45:40] and then go through one by one

[00:45:41] and that would take them

[00:45:44] days and then

[00:45:46] $87 is much

[00:45:48] cheaper than spending days

[00:45:49] yeah I think it's

[00:45:51] I also needed to learn that

[00:45:53] because first it was for the product

[00:45:55] was $29 and I thought

[00:45:57] that's what I feel

[00:45:59] that's what I feel is okay

[00:46:01] for this product but then I

[00:46:03] just raised the price

[00:46:05] and never saw conversion

[00:46:07] rating decrease I could

[00:46:09] I don't know I can try to double

[00:46:11] the price maybe I can do that

[00:46:13] see if people would still buy it

[00:46:15] yeah I mean

[00:46:16] for me if I have to learn

[00:46:18] backlink on my own and search

[00:46:20] myself on 3 things it will take me

[00:46:23] 1 or 2 days

[00:46:23] 1 or 2 days of my time is like 800 euro

[00:46:26] each day so

[00:46:27] you can raise the price I'm still very

[00:46:31] buying it

[00:46:33] exactly

[00:46:34] especially when you talk about software engineer

[00:46:36] like there are very expensive people

[00:46:39] so every minute counts

[00:46:40] and if they have the right mindset

[00:46:42] then you can make them

[00:46:44] save times and that's exactly what

[00:46:46] fucking mark is selling

[00:46:48] he's not selling good code

[00:46:49] he's selling like you're gonna win time

[00:46:52] because everything is made for you

[00:46:53] it's not perfectly made it's made to go fast

[00:46:56] to the point exactly yeah

[00:46:58] and yeah that's what

[00:47:00] works and everyone who have complained about

[00:47:02] oh mark is coming people or stuff like

[00:47:04] that it's just I know it's people that

[00:47:06] never been in the game enough

[00:47:08] to understand like pricing

[00:47:10] and like how do you sell to people

[00:47:12] and what people expect to sell

[00:47:14] because being a buyer is different

[00:47:16] than being a person who

[00:47:18] sell

[00:47:20] it's different side of

[00:47:22] psychology and you have to understand it

[00:47:24] to do it enough to understand

[00:47:26] like you are very

[00:47:28] thinking as a buyer to

[00:47:30] sell things because it doesn't work

[00:47:32] I think it's something which happens in you

[00:47:34] from when you are a developer

[00:47:35] to when you become a marketer

[00:47:38] and really sell stuff

[00:47:39] and then you need to just

[00:47:42] approach things differently and all the

[00:47:44] the critique I heard

[00:47:46] about mark

[00:47:48] or other successful makers

[00:47:50] is coming from this

[00:47:51] developer mindset

[00:47:54] it's not

[00:47:55] it's nothing original

[00:47:57] it's like where's the big

[00:47:59] idea behind this

[00:48:01] exactly yeah

[00:48:02] it doesn't matter

[00:48:03] this is the market

[00:48:05] and usually you just see that

[00:48:08] people didn't get it

[00:48:09] try to market your own product

[00:48:11] try to sell your first product

[00:48:13] and then it trades so long

[00:48:16] until you are successful and then you get it

[00:48:19] you cannot explain otherwise

[00:48:20] it's just not possible

[00:48:21] yeah definitely it's like

[00:48:23] do it enough and at one point

[00:48:26] you will say

[00:48:27] I'm sorry should I not say that

[00:48:32] yes I think

[00:48:33] all these hack and use discussions are exactly this

[00:48:36] you read like

[00:48:37] I think you see like

[00:48:40] people like indie makers

[00:48:42] who posted on hack and use and they

[00:48:44] always get roasted because

[00:48:46] like yeah it's not

[00:48:48] it's not like groundbreaking

[00:48:49] code or something

[00:48:52] and this is not the point

[00:48:53] and I think one thing we are

[00:48:55] saying is that

[00:48:57] anyone can be

[00:48:59] an indie maker entrepreneur

[00:49:00] so that means you don't need to

[00:49:02] be a great software engineer

[00:49:04] and in fact the most great software engineer

[00:49:07] are very bad indie makers

[00:49:09] entrepreneurs because they are too much

[00:49:11] engineer in their mind

[00:49:12] so they focus on engineer problem

[00:49:14] instead of users problems

[00:49:17] and that doesn't make them

[00:49:19] like making good

[00:49:21] product and you can see that like

[00:49:23] many businesses like

[00:49:24] plausible like simple analytics

[00:49:27] they were having some clients

[00:49:29] but it was still the

[00:49:31] first founders were really

[00:49:33] kind of engineer

[00:49:35] engineer a lot

[00:49:36] and then when the marketing people enter in the game

[00:49:39] then you start to have

[00:49:41] more like

[00:49:42] things that make sense for users and then you have more

[00:49:45] users and you make a successful business

[00:49:47] so

[00:49:48] you have to wait for me

[00:49:50] or you decided to be

[00:49:52] only an engineer and then you need a

[00:49:53] co-founder which is not an engineer to

[00:49:55] help you but

[00:49:58] you will still have to learn about

[00:49:59] marketing anyway at one point

[00:50:01] because otherwise you will keep fighting

[00:50:03] with this guy to tell him how much

[00:50:05] difficult things you have to do

[00:50:07] and prevent him to do his fucking job

[00:50:09] so you will have to learn marketing anyway

[00:50:11] so it's better to do it yourself

[00:50:13] at one point experience it

[00:50:15] see how much it's hard to do the other

[00:50:17] part of jobs

[00:50:19] not only yours you know the support, the sales

[00:50:21] marketing like a customer

[00:50:23] success manager everything like

[00:50:25] to help the users journey

[00:50:28] try that job

[00:50:29] if you enjoy some job keep them

[00:50:31] if there are some you don't enjoy

[00:50:33] but you manage to do so this is very

[00:50:36] important you manage to do the job

[00:50:37] first exactly

[00:50:39] because if you just don't

[00:50:41] enjoy it and say oh shit I need someone

[00:50:43] else then you will go into trouble again

[00:50:45] to work with someone don't understand

[00:50:47] his work and

[00:50:49] like not accept what he's doing

[00:50:51] and fight with him and lose your

[00:50:53] and judge the person yeah I mean

[00:50:55] at my 9 to 5

[00:50:57] my respect for marketing people was

[00:50:59] usually 0

[00:51:01] because I hated them

[00:51:04] for so long

[00:51:05] yeah what are they doing

[00:51:07] it's not worth anything

[00:51:09] yes useless

[00:51:11] exactly

[00:51:13] it's like they just spend

[00:51:15] some time on like social media

[00:51:17] do some

[00:51:20] Christmas pose

[00:51:21] like la la la la yeah

[00:51:22] yeah it doesn't

[00:51:25] change the needle

[00:51:27] and then yeah

[00:51:28] for me this was the biggest

[00:51:30] the biggest challenge was

[00:51:32] to learn marketing I

[00:51:35] went on twitter and asked what is

[00:51:36] marketing and people were laughing at me

[00:51:39] because they thought I was talking

[00:51:40] shit and I minded seriously I didn't

[00:51:42] really understand what it was

[00:51:44] and I think I still could not explain it

[00:51:47] it's I think really hard

[00:51:49] to explain what it really is

[00:51:50] but you need to try it some different

[00:51:53] things

[00:51:54] yeah definitely I've learned

[00:51:56] I think one thing that helped

[00:51:59] me to realize

[00:52:00] how hard this job is

[00:52:03] is by

[00:52:04] when I start to have a kind of a success

[00:52:06] with CapGo, CapGo started

[00:52:08] with kind of a tech solution

[00:52:10] only so there was not much marketing

[00:52:12] unless talking on GitHub issue

[00:52:14] so then I started to have users

[00:52:16] and users complain about

[00:52:18] problems they have with the software

[00:52:20] so as a good developer

[00:52:22] software engineer is like ok we fix

[00:52:24] problem by doing more features

[00:52:27] and then you do the features

[00:52:28] and then people continue

[00:52:30] complain and you're like

[00:52:33] what the fuck

[00:52:35] so I did something

[00:52:36] and I recommend that to do to everyone

[00:52:39] is to put like

[00:52:40] a log snag or post-hoc

[00:52:42] whatever to measure how much

[00:52:45] people use features

[00:52:47] so each time you do a new feature

[00:52:48] you put the measurements

[00:52:50] and then you realize without your fucking marketing

[00:52:53] your feature is never used

[00:52:55] by anyone even

[00:52:56] you put it in the middle of the screen

[00:52:58] people are like dismiss and do something else

[00:53:00] it's insane how much effort

[00:53:02] you need to do

[00:53:04] to make people use the things they have asked for

[00:53:06] even so imagine the one

[00:53:08] they don't even you ask

[00:53:10] it's like it's so

[00:53:12] so hard right now like I'm doing like

[00:53:14] a video to record

[00:53:15] like I post the video on discord

[00:53:17] I send email in the onboarding

[00:53:20] to explain feature people ask the most

[00:53:22] and even still there are people in discord

[00:53:24] don't look any

[00:53:26] questions and ask how do we do that

[00:53:29] it's explained on the website

[00:53:30] on the documentation by email

[00:53:32] on video it's like everywhere

[00:53:34] and still people ask and don't find the fucking feature

[00:53:37] and

[00:53:38] it's not because they are bad it's just because

[00:53:40] like this is hard to do marketing

[00:53:42] and to explain people what to do

[00:53:44] because people are dismissing everything they're like

[00:53:46] nope nope nope nope just want this

[00:53:48] yeah but I was explaining you were just here

[00:53:50] how to do it

[00:53:51] you have looked at the thing

[00:53:53] and so

[00:53:56] yeah marketing super important even

[00:53:58] internally you know to have like

[00:53:59] a successful

[00:54:02] client because you can bring people but people

[00:54:04] have to stay because they feel the value of your product

[00:54:06] and if you don't do

[00:54:08] internal marketing to keep these people

[00:54:10] and tell them this is evolving

[00:54:12] you know you were frustrating this because

[00:54:14] for example you measure bugs or

[00:54:16] crush or whatever so you find

[00:54:18] things and you fix them

[00:54:20] but if you don't tell people we

[00:54:22] find you at this issue and we fix

[00:54:24] it for you then people

[00:54:26] don't see any change for them

[00:54:28] or they even forgot

[00:54:29] they had the bug but they still keep in their mind

[00:54:32] the product is bad and then after a few months

[00:54:34] they find another solution or whatever

[00:54:36] and they leave

[00:54:37] and so this is super important

[00:54:39] to do marketing for inbound

[00:54:41] but also inside to keep people

[00:54:43] because at one point when you start having

[00:54:45] people the problem is to keep

[00:54:48] that's a hard job

[00:54:50] like really like

[00:54:51] marketing what you're doing and

[00:54:53] communicate what you're doing

[00:54:55] when I was CTO I saw that as well

[00:54:57] you know like I'm trying to show what

[00:54:59] my team was doing to the rest of the people

[00:55:01] and no one was understanding the same as

[00:55:03] you think marketing do shit

[00:55:05] people were thinking my teams were doing

[00:55:07] shit and not what they were asking

[00:55:09] for even like marketing people were

[00:55:11] asking so they were in the company

[00:55:13] asking for a feature we do the feature

[00:55:15] and they don't fucking see it

[00:55:17] you present it and they don't

[00:55:19] you know they don't watch or whatever

[00:55:21] they are doing something else email while you're presenting

[00:55:23] and then two weeks later they say

[00:55:24] hey but we still have this problem

[00:55:26] can we have the feature for it and you're like

[00:55:28] it's done already guys it's it's done

[00:55:30] and I told you it was done

[00:55:32] yeah and I told you it was done

[00:55:34] and you're working in this company so imagine

[00:55:36] and you did not market it

[00:55:39] until until when

[00:55:40] did you

[00:55:42] were in that nine to five did you

[00:55:45] until

[00:55:48] three years and half ago

[00:55:50] okay good also just recently

[00:55:52] because what what

[00:55:56] so most of the

[00:55:58] indie makers they just

[00:56:01] demonize nine to five

[00:56:02] they say it's evil or it's just like

[00:56:04] so draining

[00:56:06] of your energy or whatever

[00:56:08] and I would say I would have a different

[00:56:10] take on this because I

[00:56:12] I learned so

[00:56:14] much stuff in the nine to five

[00:56:16] working with different departments

[00:56:18] doing this internal marketing as we just

[00:56:20] said

[00:56:22] being in front of the camera

[00:56:24] and just

[00:56:27] explaining things

[00:56:28] to people

[00:56:30] being in contact with different roles

[00:56:32] yeah even explaining

[00:56:34] to your manager why

[00:56:36] like how you're good at your job

[00:56:38] is marketing and this is important

[00:56:40] if you want to have a good raise

[00:56:42] every year

[00:56:43] of course exactly

[00:56:46] and you need to explain why it took

[00:56:48] now longer or why it's

[00:56:50] better to do this other thing

[00:56:52] and yeah

[00:56:53] you make me think about

[00:56:56] like a memory

[00:56:58] from my school

[00:57:00] I was at Epitec which is

[00:57:02] a computer science

[00:57:04] school so already

[00:57:06] in school I started to try to do businesses

[00:57:08] so I I've tried for long

[00:57:10] for ten years but failed

[00:57:12] miserably for seven

[00:57:14] okay

[00:57:16] and so

[00:57:18] I started the business he failed

[00:57:20] and I go in school I have to go

[00:57:22] abroad I choose Finland

[00:57:23] I go to Finland and I have to have a project

[00:57:26] for two years now in the school

[00:57:28] for the fourth and fifth year

[00:57:30] and I am alone

[00:57:32] because all my teammates create a business

[00:57:34] and left the school so I have like no project

[00:57:36] and I am in this

[00:57:38] flat you know share flat in Finland

[00:57:41] with a guy from my school

[00:57:43] and he's like yeah

[00:57:44] we doing this project for the two years

[00:57:46] it's super cool it's like

[00:57:48] take a picture of Rezip

[00:57:49] scan everything and put it in

[00:57:52] you know it remember it for you

[00:57:54] the name was E-Rezip of the app

[00:57:56] and so we doing that

[00:57:58] blah blah blah blah and I talked with him

[00:58:00] and I was good at

[00:58:02] marketing myself you know to sell myself

[00:58:04] what I am doing so I explain like

[00:58:05] what I was doing the project the things

[00:58:07] the things didn't work and the guy was like

[00:58:09] look amazing like you have a like very experience

[00:58:11] in startup and creating a project

[00:58:13] I had like six months you know

[00:58:15] but for him it was amazing because he was student

[00:58:18] and he told me something

[00:58:19] it's like I think you could join your group

[00:58:21] or group for the work group

[00:58:23] and I was like yeah but you kind of

[00:58:25] are eight people already like

[00:58:27] what I'm going to do in this

[00:58:29] and he told me something very honest

[00:58:31] I love this guy since then and he make me realize

[00:58:33] something huge he say we're so bad

[00:58:35] at telling like the school

[00:58:37] like what we doing and we got always

[00:58:39] by grade when you talk to me

[00:58:41] look like you're selling so good what you're doing

[00:58:43] so I think you can join us

[00:58:45] and sell to the school what we

[00:58:47] I was like so I am

[00:58:49] in a coding school I'm joining a coding

[00:58:51] project and you asked me to

[00:58:53] just do marketing

[00:58:54] just do presentation once

[00:58:57] once every two weeks he say yes

[00:58:59] and you can continue to work on the

[00:59:01] on the freelance you're doing because I was

[00:59:03] doing freelance at the time that's when I did

[00:59:05] the first mobile app

[00:59:07] and I was like what the fuck

[00:59:09] okay so I went

[00:59:11] to the presentation and we double the grade

[00:59:13] like I got the best grade

[00:59:15] because they are individual grade

[00:59:17] and everyone got better

[00:59:19] and they were like oh this amazing thank you

[00:59:21] thank you and I say guys I just

[00:59:23] like just say properly

[00:59:25] what amazing things you're doing

[00:59:27] it's like I did that and then anything

[00:59:29] and I just stop to show

[00:59:31] like the like you know sometimes

[00:59:33] people are like yeah it takes time because it's

[00:59:35] very difficult and we struggle and blah blah

[00:59:37] there a better way to say that

[00:59:39] than just to show like only weakness

[00:59:41] and you don't know what you're doing

[00:59:43] sometimes you know what you're doing and you know it takes

[00:59:45] time and this is fine

[00:59:46] if you say it like that this is way better marketing

[00:59:49] for yourself and what you're doing than

[00:59:51] to show just you're weak and you

[00:59:53] don't know what you're doing because

[00:59:55] it can be true but in certain things you know

[00:59:57] and so in this project

[00:59:59] I joined for two years I never code one

[01:00:01] line of code we are super good grade

[01:00:03] and they were super happy

[01:00:05] and I had such an imposter syndrome all

[01:00:07] along telling them you sure you don't

[01:00:09] want I called something they said no no

[01:00:11] keep going that's like what the fuck

[01:00:14] where were you aware

[01:00:15] of your talent

[01:00:17] to explain things

[01:00:19] I don't know I think

[01:00:20] it came from a very funny thing

[01:00:23] you know I grew up

[01:00:25] with my mom and my dad was

[01:00:26] like not in my family and

[01:00:28] etc and my mom

[01:00:30] as a rule say

[01:00:32] you can ask anything

[01:00:34] you can have anything you want and everything

[01:00:36] is negotiable you just need to

[01:00:39] explain me why

[01:00:40] and have a good presentation about why this

[01:00:43] is better than what I'm talking about

[01:00:44] it was your mom training you this I see

[01:00:46] she definitely

[01:00:49] hates herself

[01:00:51] telling me that because then everything

[01:00:52] was a negotiation all the time for her

[01:00:54] and it was so long for her

[01:00:56] and so exhausting but I had huge

[01:00:58] training about selling my

[01:01:00] shit you know I want to do that

[01:01:02] like didn't work out

[01:01:04] but for many trainings

[01:01:06] after world I managed

[01:01:08] to have a good argument understand like the

[01:01:10] perspective there was a person in front of me

[01:01:12] and understand what I have to say

[01:01:14] to convince the other person you know it's not

[01:01:16] lies it's just like what world

[01:01:18] touching the person in front of you

[01:01:20] but were you aware of your talent

[01:01:22] when you

[01:01:23] you probably didn't realize

[01:01:26] because you thought everyone has this

[01:01:28] and maybe they had all the same parents

[01:01:30] but you have a

[01:01:31] yeah I think

[01:01:35] I realized that

[01:01:36] in school when I started to be

[01:01:38] in this computer science school

[01:01:39] because sometimes I had very bad code and very bad project

[01:01:42] but I managed

[01:01:44] to show it well

[01:01:45] then I got a good grade compared to someone

[01:01:48] who did better code and then I had

[01:01:51] interesting

[01:01:51] I can cut the corner a little bit

[01:01:54] yeah I can improve that

[01:01:56] so

[01:01:57] because that's what happens

[01:02:00] usually in companies that's why

[01:02:01] I think working in 9-5

[01:02:03] has the benefits as well because you

[01:02:06] get these kind of feedback which is

[01:02:08] now not in the 9-5 but it was kind of

[01:02:09] student context but

[01:02:11] in my 9-5 I

[01:02:13] do presentations we have like every

[01:02:16] two weeks we have a presentation to the whole companies

[01:02:18] or you have like 150 people

[01:02:20] watching and it's like

[01:02:21] it's a big show right you need to do

[01:02:24] well and you have to five minutes

[01:02:25] and then I

[01:02:27] kept improving my five minutes

[01:02:30] until I was standing out

[01:02:32] and I didn't even understand

[01:02:34] that I did something special

[01:02:36] it's just normal

[01:02:38] and then people said

[01:02:39] the way you put the energy

[01:02:42] in your voice and you explain it

[01:02:43] you made a show and so on

[01:02:45] how interesting

[01:02:47] maybe I'm good on video as well

[01:02:49] because when I was

[01:02:52] young I was this insecure guy

[01:02:54] always standing in the corner

[01:02:56] I would never do that

[01:02:59] right and then

[01:03:00] suddenly you get these kind of feedbacks

[01:03:02] and I thought

[01:03:03] I just do it out of necessity

[01:03:05] it's not something I think

[01:03:07] I would be good at and then suddenly you give

[01:03:09] these positive remarks and so

[01:03:11] maybe I can work on this

[01:03:12] and it could be in my strength

[01:03:14] and I think if you

[01:03:16] just work solo on yourself

[01:03:18] and you just

[01:03:19] I don't think you have enough

[01:03:22] then exposure to get these kind of feedbacks

[01:03:26] I think lately

[01:03:28] I realized like for a long time

[01:03:30] I was like kind of a Peter Leven mindset

[01:03:32] no one's calling me

[01:03:34] no one can contact me

[01:03:36] I contact people otherwise you cannot contact me

[01:03:38] and stuff like that

[01:03:39] and I realized I am

[01:03:41] very good because of this experience

[01:03:43] and stuff to sell my thing

[01:03:45] and right now one of the main things

[01:03:47] I want to grow in Capcom is big corporate

[01:03:49] clients and big corporate

[01:03:51] clients they love to talk to someone

[01:03:53] they hate emails because

[01:03:55] meetings is they call

[01:03:57] they want calls

[01:03:58] and right now I have such freedom

[01:04:01] that I can have a few calls

[01:04:03] otherwise I have zero calls

[01:04:04] unless the podcast once a week

[01:04:06] so I can have like two or three calls

[01:04:08] a week it's fine

[01:04:10] and it will trade me to sell my

[01:04:12] software also see the feedback

[01:04:14] of people what I can improve because

[01:04:16] doing sales call super good

[01:04:18] to understand what you can do

[01:04:20] in your project what are the blockers of people

[01:04:22] like for example one of the main blockers

[01:04:24] of big corporate is security

[01:04:26] they want to be sure

[01:04:27] you're not like sending a bad update to the users

[01:04:30] because they have like a reputation

[01:04:32] you know and stuff like that and I understood that

[01:04:34] because yesterday I did two calls with them

[01:04:36] and most of the talk was about security

[01:04:39] and it was

[01:04:40] super nice because also you know

[01:04:43] when people sell the kind

[01:04:44] of feel they need to lie

[01:04:46] or to over

[01:04:48] over present themselves this is

[01:04:50] totally not what you should do

[01:04:52] lie doesn't help you and

[01:04:54] at one point you got this core

[01:04:56] of course not done that

[01:04:58] what you have to do is to be confident

[01:05:01] on your weakness

[01:05:03] it's like

[01:05:04] okay you have a weakness the guy told me

[01:05:06] about security like you have so

[01:05:08] too and stuff like that he said no we don't have that

[01:05:10] we don't have that because no client

[01:05:12] ever asked for that yet

[01:05:13] if you want that we can work on that

[01:05:16] together there are no problem we will pass the test

[01:05:18] it will work it was just like

[01:05:20] let's work on it together

[01:05:21] you know and that's

[01:05:24] different than to show like oh no

[01:05:26] I don't know blah blah blah it's just like I'm confident

[01:05:28] we can do it

[01:05:29] we will do it for you if you need that if you want to work with us

[01:05:32] we're gonna work together for that

[01:05:34] and he was like oh that's amazing

[01:05:36] like

[01:05:38] there are very things like that for example

[01:05:40] also

[01:05:41] the guy was like how many people are working in your team

[01:05:44] to be sure like if something happened

[01:05:46] we're gonna have a help I have

[01:05:48] me and an intern

[01:05:50] in Cabo so it's like basically me

[01:05:53] and I say we're

[01:05:54] too we are too but

[01:05:56] we have things built in a way

[01:05:58] that make it secure for you

[01:05:59] like we are serverless so there are no server to

[01:06:01] handle in the night and sleeping

[01:06:03] because there are no server

[01:06:05] so the only thing is the database

[01:06:07] and database is oversized so

[01:06:09] even tomorrow you have million of users

[01:06:12] he will stand

[01:06:14] currently doesn't

[01:06:15] handle it doesn't need much things

[01:06:17] and also we have we are full open source

[01:06:19] so if tomorrow you're not satisfied

[01:06:22] you can opt out and do it yourself

[01:06:24] like there are no lock in

[01:06:25] so we are not like trying to lock you in

[01:06:28] and to fuck you up you are totally free

[01:06:30] you can leave whatever you want

[01:06:31] and you will not lose anything

[01:06:33] the guy was like oh wow

[01:06:36] because like

[01:06:37] if you say yeah we are tiny

[01:06:39] you're not confident I am confident

[01:06:42] I can handle that

[01:06:43] of course shit can happen

[01:06:46] but we can handle that

[01:06:48] and you have to show like you trust what you're doing

[01:06:50] even you're not sure

[01:06:52] you have to be sure

[01:06:54] you're capable it doesn't mean

[01:06:56] you're sure like

[01:06:58] everything will go right because this is a lie

[01:07:00] it's impossible but

[01:07:02] you can be sure

[01:07:03] you can survive through that you know they are

[01:07:06] like unless someone try to kill you

[01:07:08] and you're dead

[01:07:09] you should be able to handle

[01:07:12] anything so you can be confident

[01:07:14] doing that you know you'll not stay in your bed

[01:07:16] and say oh no I had a big client he fucked my server

[01:07:18] so and you do nothing

[01:07:20] no you will work for that

[01:07:21] and so you just have to show that to people

[01:07:23] I will work for that even if it's not working

[01:07:25] even if we are not here

[01:07:28] yet if we go together

[01:07:30] I'm sure we can work for it

[01:07:31] and he will work for you

[01:07:34] and I definitely like love the call

[01:07:36] so we'll see if I get

[01:07:38] like 2 million users

[01:07:40] up client but

[01:07:42] we'll see oh wow

[01:07:43] that's quite something

[01:07:45] it's a big one

[01:07:47] I think this kind of honest communication

[01:07:49] this is really working

[01:07:50] it's also what I learned on twitter

[01:07:55] that when I'm open

[01:07:57] about my weaknesses

[01:07:58] like you were saying okay which

[01:08:00] are just 2 people

[01:08:03] or no other client

[01:08:05] asked about that

[01:08:06] that's very honest open communication

[01:08:08] and they see

[01:08:10] you're not faking it then they're also

[01:08:12] saying things which are probably not

[01:08:14] in their favor and then you realize

[01:08:17] oh this works actually

[01:08:18] it's actually even helping the sales

[01:08:20] in some way

[01:08:21] and I think that's usually

[01:08:24] better than if you

[01:08:27] keeping things

[01:08:28] and not really

[01:08:30] honest and then I think you're also

[01:08:32] communication style

[01:08:34] it's not really

[01:08:35] the body language is not open

[01:08:37] the voice is not open

[01:08:39] for me it's the point

[01:08:42] is to be friendly you know in front of you

[01:08:44] you have a person

[01:08:44] and we are emotional being

[01:08:47] so selling your best fake things

[01:08:50] doesn't work what you have to be

[01:08:52] it's to connect to this person

[01:08:53] so I've been nice I've

[01:08:55] weakness like this person

[01:08:57] I'm not showing off that I'm like a

[01:08:59] super strong and perfect person

[01:09:01] but I show like I am

[01:09:03] confident I can handle things

[01:09:05] I can do things with them

[01:09:06] and we can work together on my weakness

[01:09:09] and there are no problem

[01:09:11] talking about that I'm not hiding them

[01:09:13] I'm not going to show you surprise

[01:09:15] like everything is broken in the background

[01:09:17] it's like I know

[01:09:19] they are visible I'm telling you about that

[01:09:21] and the guy was like

[01:09:23] oh that's very nice conversation with you

[01:09:24] like I felt like really like

[01:09:27] open and we can talk so

[01:09:28] they usually don't have that

[01:09:31] they just have these sales guys right

[01:09:33] that's why we developers

[01:09:35] always hate these sales guys

[01:09:37] because you can always tell

[01:09:39] this is just not true

[01:09:40] and then there's someone like you coming

[01:09:42] and showing up like oh wow that's refreshing

[01:09:44] it's actually he's on the sky

[01:09:47] yeah at the beginning I was very on the defensive

[01:09:49] you know because you know

[01:09:50] you're going to be attacked with sales and stuff

[01:09:53] and when I show like I'm not in defense

[01:09:54] I'm not attacking anything I'm just very open

[01:09:57] they were surprised

[01:09:58] yeah it changed totally

[01:10:00] totally the way he was talking

[01:10:02] yeah it does

[01:10:03] I think this is

[01:10:06] I think

[01:10:08] like indie hackers

[01:10:12] they could use this more

[01:10:14] it's this kind of strength

[01:10:15] like I'm building

[01:10:16] I'm building alone

[01:10:19] showing their face

[01:10:20] their language

[01:10:23] their family

[01:10:25] like being like inviting people

[01:10:27] to their personal lives

[01:10:29] these kind of things

[01:10:30] this could be so much more

[01:10:32] the marketing strategy of indie makers

[01:10:35] and I

[01:10:36] so often see like

[01:10:38] product demos and then you would see

[01:10:40] just the screen and an AI voice

[01:10:43] and I think no no

[01:10:44] why do you do that

[01:10:45] why don't you just show your

[01:10:48] show your face and at the beginning

[01:10:51] I thought like

[01:10:51] I'm not like my hair is falling out

[01:10:54] a bit there's even gray hair

[01:10:56] and I'm not like this

[01:10:58] super

[01:10:59] more clue

[01:11:01] kind of a good looking guy right

[01:11:03] and it looks

[01:11:05] embarrassing but I'm not

[01:11:06] I don't agree it's

[01:11:09] the more you put yourself

[01:11:11] out there and be vulnerable

[01:11:12] the better it sells

[01:11:15] I think

[01:11:17] I think the close

[01:11:19] you get to people because you know

[01:11:20] you're not going to compete to be

[01:11:23] as an indie maker

[01:11:24] you're not going to compete to companies

[01:11:27] where like thousands of people

[01:11:29] superstructure and stuff like that

[01:11:30] so if you try to compete you're going to be a loser

[01:11:33] for sure because like

[01:11:34] and most of things will be

[01:11:36] and at one point you know

[01:11:38] you will see it like you say we are 10 in the team

[01:11:41] but everything

[01:11:43] one point doesn't work

[01:11:45] so

[01:11:47] bet on your weakness

[01:11:48] to become a strength you know

[01:11:50] because you're a tiny team this is also

[01:11:52] well dedicated support you know

[01:11:54] when they talk to someone they talk

[01:11:56] to the CEO

[01:11:57] I started to use

[01:12:00] Bento for email

[01:12:02] and one of the email I received from

[01:12:04] Bento and I found Jesse's

[01:12:06] fucking genius in marketing

[01:12:08] was saying could you talk to the CEO

[01:12:10] of MailChimp? No

[01:12:11] if you answer this email

[01:12:14] you're going to talk to me the CEO of Bento

[01:12:16] so if you have any question feel free to ask

[01:12:18] and I was like oh fuck

[01:12:20] I'm stealing that I answer to him

[01:12:22] I answer to him man

[01:12:24] genius

[01:12:25] genius

[01:12:29] so this is

[01:12:30] super nice like you know when people ask

[01:12:32] oh can I have your like a sales

[01:12:34] person or sales department say no it's only me

[01:12:37] I'm handling sales calls

[01:12:38] directly to me I'm the maker

[01:12:40] you're going to have the person which is the most competent

[01:12:42] in the business and people are like

[01:12:45] oh wow they feel important as well

[01:12:47] you know you take time you have other shit

[01:12:48] to do and you take time to talk with them

[01:12:51] like both of them yesterday

[01:12:52] they were like thank you a lot for your

[01:12:54] because I'm not hiding I also say to the guy

[01:12:57] he's in Australia and the best

[01:12:59] time for him was 11

[01:13:00] at my time so at the end

[01:13:03] of the call we were talking a bit chill

[01:13:05] and I said yeah no problem

[01:13:07] and he said yeah he said

[01:13:09] thank you because you have a lot more time slot

[01:13:11] because at the beginning the only meeting

[01:13:12] was available next week and I said

[01:13:14] yeah I changed the time slot to extend the hours

[01:13:17] later because right now it's 11

[01:13:18] at my place and time slot was not

[01:13:21] open and for I totally forgot

[01:13:23] like there are people in Australia that need

[01:13:24] to talk with me so I'm sorry

[01:13:26] I open more time slot and I like to work

[01:13:29] late anyway so it's pretty good

[01:13:31] and the guy was like oh you're talking with me

[01:13:32] at 11 okay

[01:13:35] you know it's like

[01:13:36] it's value for that it's like okay

[01:13:38] you don't get that with big companies huh

[01:13:41] definitely not it's like

[01:13:42] no sorry we were open 9 to 5

[01:13:43] exactly

[01:13:47] so it's a it's a

[01:13:49] it's a bloke or but yeah

[01:13:50] so I think we can go to my

[01:13:52] finishing kind of question

[01:13:54] we're talking about marketing

[01:13:56] ourselves so I think this is the right time

[01:13:58] for you to be your biggest

[01:14:00] success as indie maker for shorts

[01:14:02] and biggest success as indie makers for shorts

[01:14:04] I need to pump myself up to actually do this

[01:14:07] yes

[01:14:07] jump jump

[01:14:09] you know that

[01:14:11] and that's what I learned also

[01:14:14] for our calls with 150 people

[01:14:16] at work usually

[01:14:17] you put yourself to the

[01:14:19] edge of the seat and then you

[01:14:21] lean forward and then you

[01:14:23] put all your energy in your voice

[01:14:25] and then you usually

[01:14:27] it works best if

[01:14:29] if you make like a clown of

[01:14:31] yourself you think like you would now

[01:14:33] totally like over the top

[01:14:35] and it's a parody

[01:14:37] and then you watch yourself and I thought

[01:14:39] I could have put even more

[01:14:41] energy in it I think it's still

[01:14:43] on the low level

[01:14:45] that's also why when I'm doing

[01:14:46] podcast time standing because I have way more energy

[01:14:49] maybe that would have been good

[01:14:50] I'm sitting here

[01:14:51] okay I ask you again the question

[01:14:55] and then your answer

[01:14:57] what's your biggest success

[01:14:59] as indie maker

[01:14:59] I made 3.500 dollars

[01:15:03] in one day that was

[01:15:05] my success and I was so happy

[01:15:07] about that and I still getting rushes

[01:15:09] when I think about this

[01:15:10] amazing and that was

[01:15:12] selling my ASIO Kickstarter

[01:15:14] it's just a link to an ocean page

[01:15:16] and I thought maybe

[01:15:18] people would not buy it but they were

[01:15:20] buying it I was raising the price

[01:15:22] from 29 in the morning 49

[01:15:24] in the at lunchtime

[01:15:26] and in the evening it was at 70

[01:15:30] and

[01:15:32] I still

[01:15:33] keep selling it I thought

[01:15:35] it would just be a side business but

[01:15:36] it never did go down so

[01:15:38] I switched to my side business now

[01:15:40] and I continue selling this

[01:15:43] for a while

[01:15:45] amazing that's super cool

[01:15:47] I love this story I love this kind of story

[01:15:49] and now on the other side

[01:15:52] what has been your biggest struggle

[01:15:54] when I launched

[01:15:57] I

[01:15:58] was out of energy

[01:16:00] and I thought I will just launch it

[01:16:02] and it will fail

[01:16:03] and I secretly hoped it will fail

[01:16:06] because I was out of energy

[01:16:08] but then it succeeded

[01:16:10] and then I thought now I need to write

[01:16:12] the success wave

[01:16:13] because it would be just stupid just to let go

[01:16:16] of this money so I did product

[01:16:18] on launch and everything until

[01:16:20] my energy dropped to zero

[01:16:21] and I could just not do anything

[01:16:24] and that was my issue

[01:16:26] from March until

[01:16:28] June March April May

[01:16:30] June like for four months I was

[01:16:32] so out of energy

[01:16:34] it was not a burnout

[01:16:35] I could still work on my nine to five

[01:16:37] but as a side builder

[01:16:39] I just could not bring out

[01:16:42] in the very exact way

[01:16:44] and so what

[01:16:45] I started doing is

[01:16:47] I started going to the gym

[01:16:50] two months ago

[01:16:51] and this changed everything

[01:16:54] it's insane

[01:16:56] because you hear all these people

[01:16:57] doing that and say you need to do that

[01:17:00] as well and I thought look

[01:17:01] I'm just not the same kind of guy

[01:17:03] and it will not work for you

[01:17:05] then I go there for one month

[01:17:08] and it

[01:17:10] the energy is

[01:17:12] insanely much higher than without them

[01:17:14] you go to the gym as well

[01:17:15] should have affiliate links

[01:17:17] yeah, you go to the gym as well

[01:17:19] you also look like you do some sports

[01:17:22] what I do

[01:17:23] is I do crossfit

[01:17:25] every Saturday morning

[01:17:26] and then I go to climbing

[01:17:28] to bouldering

[01:17:30] so the only Saturday I do sport

[01:17:32] because the rest of the time is super focused

[01:17:34] and I was not a sport person

[01:17:37] in the world in my life

[01:17:38] so I decided to have at least one a week

[01:17:40] and I will try to improve it

[01:17:42] I have a gym not far

[01:17:43] I still kind of hate it

[01:17:45] I have to get into the gym

[01:17:48] for me one of the problems

[01:17:50] I had is to get out of the thoughts

[01:17:52] I still were caught in my thoughts

[01:17:55] like I should do something

[01:17:57] for my side business

[01:17:58] but I can't and what should I do

[01:18:01] and then it's kind of these turning thoughts

[01:18:02] and the gym for me

[01:18:04] was the one hour

[01:18:06] I can get rid of everything

[01:18:08] because it takes so much force

[01:18:10] to work on this machine

[01:18:12] and you need to do the movements right

[01:18:14] and it's kind of out of your comfort zone

[01:18:18] I get rid of my thoughts

[01:18:20] for one hour

[01:18:21] that's for me quite a feature

[01:18:23] ok

[01:18:25] that's interesting

[01:18:27] because I had the reverse problem

[01:18:29] you know I never did sport in my life

[01:18:31] like even when I was a child

[01:18:33] my mom didn't push me to do much sport

[01:18:35] because she didn't do sport

[01:18:36] and so each time I do sport

[01:18:39] I have kind of this thought of

[01:18:40] I should be working, I should do something more productive

[01:18:42] and this is keeping my mind all the time

[01:18:45] and kind of abandon all the time

[01:18:47] sport because I have this

[01:18:49] mindset coming over and over

[01:18:50] or if I run

[01:18:52] my whole mind is like

[01:18:54] why do you run, this is painful

[01:18:55] why are you doing that

[01:18:56] and this is very like one of the things

[01:19:00] that make me struggle the most

[01:19:03] to keep going to sport

[01:19:04] because this time I remember

[01:19:05] I will have this bad feeling

[01:19:06] and lately what I'm trying

[01:19:09] is I've read a lot about micro dosing

[01:19:12] and so in Amsterdam

[01:19:14] you can buy mushrooms for micro dosing

[01:19:17] and I've tried to start micro dosing

[01:19:18] before sport and that's changed

[01:19:21] totally my mindset, I'm like

[01:19:22] oh well it's so nice outside doing

[01:19:24] sport, I feel so great the fresh air

[01:19:27] and stuff like that where before I was

[01:19:28] hating myself for an hour

[01:19:30] now I kind of enjoy it

[01:19:32] and change this mindset around that

[01:19:34] and I can see now I'm not like feeling

[01:19:36] like why am I going to crossfit

[01:19:38] I feel like oh that's cool

[01:19:40] to go, I will struggle but that's cool

[01:19:43] so yeah

[01:19:44] sometimes this is very deep in you

[01:19:46] the hate of the thing

[01:19:47] like for example on marketing and stuff

[01:19:49] you really have to rethink differently

[01:19:51] and sometimes get help

[01:19:54] from things

[01:19:55] I hope the micro dosing at one point

[01:19:58] will get like fully legal in Europe

[01:20:00] because right now it's legal

[01:20:01] to buy it online

[01:20:04] and receive it, it's fully legal

[01:20:06] but they cannot sell directly

[01:20:07] in your country in Europe

[01:20:08] but it's fully legal to sell it in Europe

[01:20:10] so you can use that

[01:20:13] read about it if you're interested

[01:20:14] there are many documents about that

[01:20:16] many university

[01:20:18] the most known one is in London

[01:20:22] it's John Onkitz University

[01:20:24] who have a

[01:20:26] bigger

[01:20:26] a bigger study about micro dosing

[01:20:29] mushroom and LSD

[01:20:31] and they ask people to

[01:20:32] follow a plan or to do that

[01:20:35] and with intention it's not like to do

[01:20:36] for fun, it's really to heal yourself

[01:20:38] and heal your mind and your body

[01:20:40] so if you're interested in that

[01:20:42] look for yourself

[01:20:44] I'm not telling you to do it

[01:20:46] but there are other way

[01:20:48] to do things in this world

[01:20:50] and I think they will become legal

[01:20:52] and prescribed by doctor at one point

[01:20:54] for sure

[01:20:55] I had it, I shared

[01:20:58] about going to the gym of course on Twitter

[01:21:00] these posts usually work pretty well

[01:21:03] and then

[01:21:05] there were also people

[01:21:06] who were suggesting these kind of things

[01:21:09] with mushrooms

[01:21:10] and so on

[01:21:11] and I was

[01:21:12] generally my first reaction is

[01:21:16] oh no, that's kind of drugs

[01:21:18] and I would not do that

[01:21:19] I take this kind of special things

[01:21:22] but it's

[01:21:23] then the person also pointed me towards

[01:21:26] some of these documents

[01:21:28] and these studies

[01:21:29] and probably I would need to

[01:21:31] warm up a bit more to actually go into that

[01:21:34] but I see people who

[01:21:36] really benefit from it and they

[01:21:38] change quite their life

[01:21:40] the one I bought

[01:21:42] so the website is micro dosing pro

[01:21:44] I think and they sell like

[01:21:46] stuff made for

[01:21:47] it's not like for fun, it's really for a purpose

[01:21:50] they told you how much you can take as those

[01:21:52] and there are tiny dose pre-made

[01:21:54] it's super safe and legit

[01:21:56] made by a laboratory

[01:21:58] they have the chance here in Netherlands

[01:22:00] they can sell that, it's not legal everywhere

[01:22:02] in Europe but

[01:22:04] and for example in US now

[01:22:06] it become to be legal

[01:22:07] and give by doctors and stuff like that

[01:22:10] so the thing is

[01:22:12] we have to differentiate

[01:22:14] which is legal because of

[01:22:16] the mindset of the society

[01:22:18] and which is helpful or not

[01:22:20] taking cocaine I don't

[01:22:22] believe even in micro dosing

[01:22:24] that will help anyone

[01:22:26] but there are some other things

[01:22:28] this seems more and more studies are showing

[01:22:30] like maybe it's not so bad

[01:22:32] and he got like all

[01:22:34] conserved together because drugs

[01:22:35] these kind of things were used for fun

[01:22:37] and yeah of course in a fun

[01:22:39] perspective he could bring

[01:22:41] many troubles

[01:22:43] but in fact you know

[01:22:44] they discover like for psilocybin

[01:22:47] and LSD

[01:22:49] there are much people healing

[01:22:51] from being sick in their mind

[01:22:53] than people getting sick in their mind

[01:22:55] because they took it which is very fun

[01:22:57] for so long I thought like

[01:22:59] everyone tell you it's cool like oh you can get crazy

[01:23:02] if you take LSD

[01:23:02] in fact you can heal people being crazy

[01:23:05] taking LSD which is very

[01:23:07] interesting and like

[01:23:09] not really like

[01:23:11] the first things you will think about it

[01:23:13] so there are most studies about that

[01:23:15] and that's a very interesting topic

[01:23:17] there are one very good

[01:23:19] Netflix documentary about that

[01:23:21] I think the name is Magic Fongi

[01:23:24] which is amazing talking

[01:23:25] about mushrooms in general and

[01:23:27] psilocybin because many mushrooms

[01:23:29] are very good even without psilocybin

[01:23:31] in micro dosing pro most of the websites

[01:23:33] sell not

[01:23:35] psilocybin active mushrooms

[01:23:37] like for example Lyon

[01:23:39] Main it's also a mushroom

[01:23:41] helping a lot for focus and stuff

[01:23:43] and there are nothing illegal in it

[01:23:45] anywhere in the world this mushroom

[01:23:47] is illegal to Salle River

[01:23:48] and this is like good

[01:23:50] it's super food so

[01:23:52] yeah that's for me

[01:23:54] I discovered that I think

[01:23:56] two or three years ago and I was like

[01:23:58] very very surprised

[01:24:00] yeah I think the micro dosing

[01:24:02] I do it for you

[01:24:03] what did it do to your mind

[01:24:07] is it just like

[01:24:08] generally you have like

[01:24:10] a more positive attitude

[01:24:12] or you have more energy

[01:24:15] depending

[01:24:16] which one the

[01:24:18] Lyon Main is more

[01:24:20] is more open

[01:24:22] more energy definitely

[01:24:24] and more stable over the day

[01:24:26] also heal my gut

[01:24:27] I have gut problems like digestion problem with gluten

[01:24:30] and when I take them it's way better

[01:24:32] I could eat gluten and bread

[01:24:34] a bit and I don't feel shit

[01:24:36] if I don't take it for a while

[01:24:38] then I feel shit again if I take gluten

[01:24:40] which is very interesting

[01:24:41] and for the micro dosing with psilocybin

[01:24:44] it definitely open myself up

[01:24:46] I see more

[01:24:47] you don't you know micro dosing

[01:24:49] the thing is not like

[01:24:52] what you see when people take LSD

[01:24:53] or mushroom in Amsterdam it's not like

[01:24:55] you will have no hallucination

[01:24:57] you will have no visible effect

[01:24:59] hopefully not yeah

[01:25:02] because it's so much

[01:25:04] lower than the minimum

[01:25:06] dose to have a visual effect

[01:25:07] then you never got it even if you are

[01:25:09] very sensitive and even in the box

[01:25:12] in the protocol they explain you how to

[01:25:13] start so you start with

[01:25:15] a quarter of micro dose

[01:25:17] which is like barely nothing

[01:25:18] and then you try more to see if

[01:25:20] you are tolerated to that because it's same

[01:25:23] as dolly prance you know you don't try

[01:25:25] to take big train directly

[01:25:27] of medicine you have to try it by tiny

[01:25:31] so basically yeah that make me more open

[01:25:33] I have less bad thoughts

[01:25:36] about myself like how much I'm bad in sport

[01:25:38] how much this kind

[01:25:39] look I feel so far

[01:25:41] right now to telling about that

[01:25:43] but it was my mind you know

[01:25:44] time I was thinking about sport I'm not

[01:25:47] a sport person I'm bad at sport

[01:25:49] stuff like that I was really defining

[01:25:51] myself badly so that cannot

[01:25:53] help you to do anything

[01:25:54] if you tell yourself you shit you will not do

[01:25:57] great and when I

[01:25:59] take the mushrooms

[01:26:01] micro dosing it helped me

[01:26:02] to stop thinking like that like naturally

[01:26:05] and so I could

[01:26:07] because I know to don't do that

[01:26:09] everyday but when I am doing sport

[01:26:10] it's like every two minutes

[01:26:12] every two minutes in my mind

[01:26:14] my body is suffering because I don't do sport

[01:26:16] and now I don't do sport so then

[01:26:18] my mind is about like I'm stupid

[01:26:20] I'm not sport person I shouldn't do that

[01:26:22] I'm struggling and like why I'm doing

[01:26:25] that I should work I should not lose

[01:26:27] my time it will not have effects

[01:26:28] so many things like that

[01:26:30] and now with the mushrooms

[01:26:32] this thought maybe once or twice

[01:26:34] but most of the time I'm like oh

[01:26:36] it's good to move

[01:26:39] I like the fresh air

[01:26:40] you know I have more positive attitude

[01:26:41] I am seeing more beauty

[01:26:43] that's the only real difference

[01:26:47] because most of it

[01:26:48] you don't even realize

[01:26:50] the difference it's the purpose

[01:26:52] of micro dosing you do like

[01:26:54] the protocol I'm following right now is

[01:26:55] three days of micro

[01:26:58] dosing and then the rest of the week

[01:27:00] without and you got three days

[01:27:02] three days and

[01:27:04] I was doing that for one

[01:27:06] or two months which has helped me a lot

[01:27:08] and then now I'm doing just before

[01:27:10] sport so and

[01:27:12] that has helped me a lot

[01:27:13] I really enjoyed that

[01:27:16] and it has changed my mindset

[01:27:18] around that topic I think also

[01:27:20] in January

[01:27:21] I was really struggling mentally you know

[01:27:23] about many things because like

[01:27:25] I was not making enough money I was

[01:27:27] struggling to pay my loan for the house

[01:27:29] and stuff and I was really

[01:27:31] really having bad mindset

[01:27:33] and that's when I started to do

[01:27:35] the four day up and that

[01:27:37] changed so much like I

[01:27:38] I was depressed I was depressed

[01:27:41] I live in a beautiful place you know

[01:27:43] I have beautiful friends and everything

[01:27:44] and I felt everything was shit and I started

[01:27:47] doing that and everything

[01:27:49] went toward the right direction

[01:27:50] business start growing again problems

[01:27:52] stop to arrive and also solve problems

[01:27:55] so that has definitely helped me a lot

[01:27:57] in many aspects

[01:27:58] I think it's

[01:28:00] this is a big topic

[01:28:02] for entrepreneurs

[01:28:04] these kind of mind games

[01:28:05] have a stable psychology

[01:28:09] I think it's easier

[01:28:10] if you just go to 9 to 5

[01:28:12] you just you don't have

[01:28:14] big risks and you don't have

[01:28:16] kind of these money risks and so on

[01:28:19] this is it's a roller coaster

[01:28:20] right and keeping

[01:28:22] a stable psychology in this roller coaster

[01:28:25] it's hard

[01:28:26] and then you see like

[01:28:28] go on twitter you see

[01:28:29] the other people really successful

[01:28:31] think oh no I should have done differently

[01:28:34] I'm bad or whatever

[01:28:35] and then you question yourself

[01:28:37] and then

[01:28:39] imagine that

[01:28:41] and now imagine like

[01:28:43] my partner

[01:28:45] she is right now starting a new

[01:28:48] business she's doing a magazine

[01:28:49] for digital nomads

[01:28:50] and she see me every day like having

[01:28:53] her business start working well you know

[01:28:55] so it's more even than just

[01:28:57] twitter like every day she fell a failure

[01:28:59] when we talk I'm like oh I got a new client

[01:29:01] and she say ah I didn't got any

[01:29:03] you know and stuff like that it's so hard

[01:29:05] for her like she struggled a lot

[01:29:07] but I told her I keep telling

[01:29:09] her this is the journey this is normal

[01:29:10] it's the desert at the beginning

[01:29:12] you learning

[01:29:14] but yeah this is

[01:29:17] hard guys keep it easy for yourself

[01:29:20] be surrounded well take

[01:29:22] fresh air

[01:29:24] and enjoy the journey

[01:29:26] because it's a long journey

[01:29:29] do you have something you would have

[01:29:32] wish someone told you before

[01:29:33] this is a tough question because I usually like

[01:29:36] to learn things on my own

[01:29:38] okay

[01:29:40] maybe develop my own mindset

[01:29:42] think generally

[01:29:44] being relaxed I'm not sure

[01:29:46] somebody could have told me that

[01:29:48] I'm not

[01:29:50] now we're back to this mind game

[01:29:51] things right

[01:29:53] I have now

[01:29:54] I have all the time in the world

[01:29:56] because I'm a side builder

[01:29:59] and

[01:30:00] being like kind to myself

[01:30:02] maybe I

[01:30:04] am not

[01:30:06] progressing for a few weeks and just be

[01:30:08] positive about myself

[01:30:10] I'm doing good I'm doing a break

[01:30:12] it's all good

[01:30:13] I'm not beating myself up so much

[01:30:16] I think that would have helped

[01:30:18] not the concrete thing

[01:30:20] but it's more like an attitude

[01:30:23] usually I don't mind failing

[01:30:26] it's okay

[01:30:27] I like failing

[01:30:30] not so much the next

[01:30:32] that's connected to my next

[01:30:34] next question for me

[01:30:36] one of my favorite quotes is

[01:30:38] or I learn

[01:30:39] or I succeed

[01:30:41] or I learn there are no fail

[01:30:43] and I really love to repeat myself

[01:30:45] that help me keep going you know when I take

[01:30:47] a big slap in the face

[01:30:48] it's like okay it's learning this time

[01:30:51] not this

[01:30:52] so what's yours do you have a favorite quote

[01:30:55] but it's not about entrepreneurship

[01:30:58] it's more about life

[01:30:59] philosophy

[01:31:01] it's a great point anyway

[01:31:03] it's Schopenhauer so it's very

[01:31:05] philosophical

[01:31:07] person is free

[01:31:09] to do what he wills

[01:31:10] but he's not free to will what he wills

[01:31:14] wow that's deep

[01:31:16] it's very deep

[01:31:17] so he's free to do

[01:31:20] what he wills

[01:31:22] but he's not free to will what he will

[01:31:24] wills

[01:31:25] it's a freedom of mind so

[01:31:27] that's kind of my

[01:31:29] when I was young I went to like

[01:31:32] I thought about what profession I should take

[01:31:35] and then I went to

[01:31:36] the recent chairman like the person

[01:31:38] who can guide you towards

[01:31:40] my profession

[01:31:41] and then the person

[01:31:44] said I should study philosophy

[01:31:46] and then I thought

[01:31:47] maybe now I did computer science

[01:31:50] a little bit

[01:31:52] almost same but philosophy

[01:31:54] is something which

[01:31:56] is I like

[01:31:58] reading and I like thinking about

[01:32:02] I'm a Christian also like

[01:32:04] the Christian philosophy I like very much

[01:32:07] and the freedom of the will is always

[01:32:09] something I thought about a lot

[01:32:10] and it's

[01:32:13] it's also apparent if you see

[01:32:14] you can predict how people will react

[01:32:17] so they are not really free with their will

[01:32:19] because they're like

[01:32:21] built a certain way

[01:32:22] they have these kind of certain experiences

[01:32:25] so in

[01:32:26] in a situation they can decide

[01:32:29] but it's just like

[01:32:31] they already decided beforehand somehow

[01:32:33] because it's kind of

[01:32:34] how they are

[01:32:36] they cannot will what they will

[01:32:37] they can decide what they will

[01:32:39] but their will is kind of

[01:32:40] it makes you relax a bit more

[01:32:43] if someone actually is angry at you

[01:32:45] or you think okay that's it

[01:32:49] not to angry at the person

[01:32:50] as well

[01:32:51] it just relaxes things in life a little bit

[01:32:54] yeah that's very

[01:32:56] philosophical sorry for that Martin

[01:32:58] maybe nobody would have intended for it

[01:33:00] no no it's very good I love it

[01:33:02] I love it

[01:33:03] you know like I invite people to be

[01:33:06] themselves I don't

[01:33:07] give me any sales pitch

[01:33:10] of yourself or trying to show

[01:33:12] I've listened so many bad

[01:33:14] podcasts of start-up where the guy is

[01:33:16] super all the same

[01:33:17] he's copy-paste because it's just like

[01:33:19] one philosophy they apply and they're not even like that

[01:33:22] in reality I've met many start-up people

[01:33:24] you see them like in podcasts or whatever

[01:33:26] and you see them in reality that are totally different people

[01:33:28] it's just because they want to

[01:33:29] fit like a role model

[01:33:32] and for me that's what I love in indie

[01:33:33] makers like we're all individual

[01:33:35] we are all different you know like

[01:33:37] you lack philosophy or Christian you have

[01:33:39] kids you're like old compared

[01:33:41] to most of indie makers this make you

[01:33:43] exactly special and that's why I like

[01:33:46] to talk with you more than anyone else

[01:33:47] like which is like a all copy-paste

[01:33:50] so thanks for that

[01:33:51] talking about that who I should invite after you

[01:33:54] people who come to my mind

[01:33:55] okay I'm taking notes

[01:33:57] first did you

[01:33:59] interview Dmitri Krasun

[01:34:01] no the screenshot

[01:34:03] one guy

[01:34:05] would love that

[01:34:06] I don't know what to write his name but

[01:34:09] yeah I can

[01:34:11] direct message afterwards

[01:34:13] and I can give you his twitter

[01:34:15] handle

[01:34:17] it's Dimitriyo

[01:34:19] yeah I think he's in the list

[01:34:21] he's quite

[01:34:23] known and he

[01:34:25] has very original

[01:34:27] thoughts he's very

[01:34:29] introspective and I think he's a

[01:34:31] good guest

[01:34:32] very interesting guest

[01:34:34] and the other one you know

[01:34:37] him for sure because he's

[01:34:39] twitter following is small

[01:34:41] is Alex Otsuki

[01:34:43] he's also Swiss indie maker

[01:34:45] that's the same age as me

[01:34:47] maybe like five years younger

[01:34:49] and he's

[01:34:51] he is doing

[01:34:53] that's why

[01:34:56] it reminded me

[01:34:58] when you told your story

[01:34:59] he does

[01:35:01] QR codes

[01:35:02] he has a QR code

[01:35:03] app

[01:35:05] for an in-app QR code solution

[01:35:08] so you can

[01:35:09] it's a bit similar to what you offer

[01:35:12] you have his library

[01:35:15] in your mobile app

[01:35:17] so to say

[01:35:18] and he looked at the market

[01:35:20] and saw there's only high price

[01:35:23] solutions there

[01:35:24] and saw an opportunity for small

[01:35:26] price

[01:35:27] he stopped his agency

[01:35:30] and jumped into that and I find

[01:35:32] his story very interesting and he doesn't

[01:35:34] get much exposure so that would be

[01:35:37] I think it's

[01:35:39] undiscovered indie maker

[01:35:40] so to say

[01:35:44] okay I'm up for that definitely

[01:35:46] that's fun because

[01:35:48] I've seen

[01:35:49] I have talked with Dimitri

[01:35:54] but I don't see

[01:35:56] where is the

[01:35:57] recording

[01:36:00] I mean he has

[01:36:02] way more than

[01:36:04] 10,000 followers everyone knows him

[01:36:06] right? okay

[01:36:07] send me both and I will

[01:36:09] invite them

[01:36:10] I will

[01:36:12] okay thanks a lot

[01:36:15] and so last question for you

[01:36:17] where do we send people who wants to know more?

[01:36:20] Twitter

[01:36:21] on Twitter so your Twitter

[01:36:22] Philip Keller will be in the description

[01:36:24] in the link list also all the

[01:36:27] product of Philip will be in the description

[01:36:29] if you enjoy the podcast and you need

[01:36:31] backlinks please buy

[01:36:33] his notion page

[01:36:36] that's a nice way

[01:36:37] to thank him and also

[01:36:39] if you cannot afford it or

[01:36:41] you are not really like interesting into

[01:36:43] backlinks you can just say thank you on Twitter

[01:36:45] to me or him it's super nice

[01:36:47] also any comments any

[01:36:49] talk to each other

[01:36:51] it's always cool to have

[01:36:53] indie makers because often we post

[01:36:55] publicly but we never talk in private

[01:36:57] and I think there should be more

[01:36:59] the case

[01:37:01] when we build on our own sometimes we

[01:37:03] do shit for long while talking

[01:37:05] with someone for 2 minutes we will do way better

[01:37:08] my DMs are open

[01:37:09] you can direct message me on

[01:37:11] Twitter about your questions about

[01:37:13] backlinks you don't even need to

[01:37:15] buy my product I still try to help out

[01:37:17] in my limited time

[01:37:19] I'm having a 9-5

[01:37:20] but I try to really help

[01:37:23] people as much as I can

[01:37:25] which is as much

[01:37:27] as fun as doing money right

[01:37:29] almost as much

[01:37:32] if you have

[01:37:33] liked this podcast episode please

[01:37:35] subscribe

[01:37:35] you can also find it on the website

[01:37:38] Solos Ventures

[01:37:39] we are also presenting

[01:37:41] every podcast platform

[01:37:43] if you don't want to watch the video I forgot to do

[01:37:45] to say that often but yeah it's present everywhere

[01:37:48] you can listen on Spotify

[01:37:49] Apple Music, Apple Podcast, whatever

[01:37:53] and on YouTube as well

[01:37:54] with the video

[01:37:55] so I hope you enjoy

[01:37:57] and see you for the next time

[01:37:59] next week