Aprilynne built up a YouTube channel from zero to over twenty two K subscribers last year. But she is starting all over again. No subscribers, no videos, no monetization, nothing. Her goal is to get Youtube monetised in 30 days. Will she make it? Let’s keep an eye.

Key Takeaways

[01:30] - Why skipping the Wall Street for a better life.

[04:20] - What is better, a corporate life or being a startup founder.

[05:22] - How to go from 0 to monetisation on YouTube.

[07:58] - How to make $10,000 before the launch.

[12:10] - How does reputation play in YouTube success.

[14:30] - How to build and profit for a YouTube channel.

[18:02] - Results after 9 months of YouTubing for bootstrapping founders.

[20:11] - Getting 1,000 followers on YouTube fast.

[22:41] - What equipment you need to start on YouTube.

[25:45] - 6 figures as a YouTuber and indie hacker.

Links

Follow the journey:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aprilynne

Twitter: twitter.com/AprilynneAlter

dumpl.ink/aprilynnealter- Sharing insights and struggles as a full-time creator

Book with insights: Navigating The Bootstrapped Mafia

Connect with Bulat:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebulatk

Twitter: twitter.com/thebulatk

Pietro is a serial founder bootstrapping mobiloud.com, feedbear.com and mixbloom.com with a mind-blowing goal of moving from $1.5M to $5M ARR in 3 years. This is probably not for all indie hackers, but it is an amazing situation to be in.

Key Takeaways

[01:23] - A path from consulting to building digital products.

[02:31] - "Go big or Go home" VS "Make customers happy" mentality.

[03:45] - A path to serial bootstrapped entrepreneurships.

[07:03] - What are the downsides of running multiple businesses.

[08:40] - Team set up for an effective business management.

[09:51] - "Indie hacking a business" VS "Bootstrapping a business" worlds.

[11:13] - When bootstrapping founders should start hiring people.

[14:22] - Focus on high-level strategy and team support.

[16:53] - Where to find the first paying users for a product startup.

[19:31] - Exploring the market by talking to customers.

[21:23] - How many customers do you need? and other considerations before you start.

[22:45] - How the explosion of AI challenges all bootstrapping founders.

[24:45] - How to work with AI as a bootstrapped digital product business.

Quotes

“I want a business that I've built to work for me.“ - Pietro

“ As quickly as I can, I want to get out of execution. “ - Pietro

“I enjoyed the business more when I build a team around myself.“ - Pietro

“As soon as you can afford it, bring new people.“ - Pietro

“Fire yourself from the customer support. It creates a lot of stress and takes a lot of time.“ - Pietro

“Everything should really start from customer interviews, customer surveys and talking to people.“ - Pietro

“The healthiest thing to do is to talk to customers.“ - Pietro

Links

Follow the journey:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pietrosaccomani

Twitter: twitter.com/psaccomani

MobiLoud.com- Turn your website into a mobile app in under 2 weeks

FeedBear.com- Collect and Prioritize Customer Feedback the Easy Way

MixBloom.com- Scale Your Agency with Quality Social Media Content

Book with insights: Navigating The Bootstrapped Mafia

Connect with Bulat:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebulatk

Twitter: twitter.com/thebulatk

Rox worked for MrBeast, Facebook, Microsoft, and other companies. Now, he helps big creators start software businesses while trying to live the most amazing life he can. He makes content about what he builds so you can follow it.

Key Takeaways

[01:12] - How to exit everything and bootstrap a SaaS product from Thailand.

[03:26] - How to make money from a startup on day one and ship quickly supports development.

[04:19] - Making money as a bootstrapped startup money.

[05:09] - What are the downsides of a long product launch.

[06:25] - How to validate a product idea without validating a product idea.

[08:49] - How to choose the pricing model for a product startup.

[10:09] - How bootstrapped SaaS founders approach scaling and x10 growth.

[14:18] - What are the next steps in the startup journey.

[14:56] - Where to get the paying users for a product startup.

[18:27] - Twitter marketing strategy for a digital product startup.

[19:18] - $1,000,000 worth bootstrapping founder.

[21:11] - Don't mess up.

Quotes

“Now I treat validation generally as either I think it is a great idea and I trust my instinct and I think I can build it quickly, or I'll try and get money upfront for it.“ - Rox

“I try to do a free refund instead of a free trial. Coz I think you prove something different if people give you money. “ - Rox

“A real good tip is to build a real big FAQ. It gets me a real good SEO.“ - Rox

“The more I code, the less I think about marketing and I can't do both. I wanna do no development and all marketing.“ - Rox

“I just need more people using it right now, that's my number one goal. Until then I should not spend my time perfecting it.“ - Rox

“I had to learn a lot of things. The first was to build fast. The second was to not build sh*t.“ - Rox

Links

Follow the journey:

Twitter: twitter.com/RoxCodes

🧪ThumbnailTest.com - A/B Test YT Thumbs

👀ThumbnailCheck.com - Preview Thumbs on YT

✨MagicThumbnails.com - AI YT Thumbs

😄ThumbnailFace.com - Bulk Thumb Faces

Book with insights: Navigating The Bootstrapped Mafia

Connect with Bulat:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebulatk

Twitter: twitter.com/thebulatk

Previously, Jelani Abdus-Salaam was the lead VIP tech specialist at ClickFunnels, where he assisted Jay Abraham, Grant Gardone, Tony Robbins, and others. Following his time at ClickFunnels, he worked with high-profile digital entrepreneurs like Dan Lok, Alison Prince, Traffic and Funnels, Beau Crabill, and others, assisting them in developing conversion-optimized funnels, back-end automations, and systems to scale their businesses to multiples of millions.

Jay is now working on CartFuel.io, a technology that assists online businesses in increasing their AOV using conversion-optimized payment forms.

Key Takeaways

[00:40] - How bootstrapping SaaS founder begin their journey.

[01:58] - Cost, team composition, management, and other considerations while developing a SaaS application with outsourced developers.

[03:48] - The issues and constraints of hourly-paid outsourced developers.

[04:53] - CartFuel's MRR and Value Proposition.

[06:13] - Searching the forums to find and validate a worthwhile idea.

[08:28] - Building relationships, estimating costs and utilising UpWork to create an MVP.

[10:32] - Finding the real pain-points of your target users and delivering on it.

[13:08] - Creative cashflow management of non-technical founders.

[14:56] - How to get the first 50+ paying users for a SaaS.

[16:03] - On what to focus and what to track in a digital SaaS startup.

[17:32] - Doing more customer research and finding more pain-points to ship an MVP.

[19:41] - Advice for wannabe entrepreneurs and those with less than $2,000 MRR.

Quotes

“Having two customer segments is a real mistake. You should have one customer segment only.“ - Jay

“All of the work that's being done is paid hourly so you have to manage cashflow.“ - Jay

“Customer success is a number one. If you're able to give that customer the desired outcome that they want and experience specific to them, you are able to scale.“ - Jay

“At $500 MRR, talk to your customer and try to understand why they use your product.“ - Jay

“Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Go and find products that already exist and find negative reviews.“ - Jay

Links

Follow the journey:

Twitter: twitter.com/jelanisince94

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jelaniabdussalaam

Cartfuel: cartfuel.io

Book with insights: Navigating The Bootstrapped Mafia

Connect with Bulat:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebulatk

Twitter: twitter.com/thebulatk

Zeno Rocha was a VP of Developer Experience at WorkOS at the time of our conversation, and he also had a handful of successful side projects, like the Dracula theme and React Email. React.email was created to assist developers in creating modern email templates. Zeno dug more and it became evident that this was only the top of the iceberg, since sending emails was the major pain point, so he began to look into other options.

So Zeno quit his full-time job and created Resend, with the intention of assembling an outstanding team of builders. Resend is a messaging platform that began with emails. The goal is to deliver messages using simple APIs/SDKs without having to worry about emails ending up in the spam folder. Consider it a next-generation Sendgrid.

Key Takeaways

[00:46] - The journey of a bootstrapping side hustler.

[04:13] - How to be open and honest with your full-time employer about your side project(s).

[06:33] - TAX optimisation to improving revenue management.

[09:53] - Difficulties in sustaining a SaaS without a technical cofounder.

[11:36] - A side hustle founder's daily hardships and sacrifices.

[13:23] - Bouncing all facets of a startup as a sole founder.

[14:03] - Self-awareness and being honest with yourself.

[15:46] - People should be devoting more time to marketing than to building.

[17:11] - Be patient while waiting for your results.

[18:40] - How to go about your bootstrapped journey without previous experience.

[19:44] - Be kind to yourself when you look at other people.

[21:59] - Discovering unfair advantages for your persona.

Quotes

“When I close my laptop for my FT job at 5PM, at 5:30 I'm opening it again.“ - Zeno

“What matters is being real to who I am.“ - Zeno

“Your product is not going to be as good as you think it's gonna be. That's why it is so important to focus on marketing.“ - Zeno

“It gets years. Five. Ten. Fifteen years. It doesn't take 1 months. 3 months. 7 months. And knowing that is very important early on.“ - Zeno

Links

Follow the journey:

Twitter: twitter.com/zenorocha

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/zenorocha/

Resend: resend.com

Book with insights: Navigating The Bootstrapped Mafia

Connect with Bulat:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebulatk

Twitter: twitter.com/thebulatk

Alex has sold his bootstrapped startup Taplio to another bootstrapped startup, Lemlist, since we recorded this episode - a big deal in the bootstrapped world. And it wasn't his first venture and entrepreneurship experience. In fact, he exited a few startups already.

Alex is now working on Omni, which assists in the creation and implementation of an Omni Channel outreach system that generates more sales from difficult-to-reach prospects and automatically closes high-quality B2B clients. In just 10 minutes a day.

Key Takeaways

[00:49] - The cold email outreach and pitching superpower.

[02:16] - Co-founding a bootstrapped startup that will be sold.

[03:30] - Serial entrepreneurship and multiple exits story.

[04:15] - Why is it necessary to create marketing hype, push the product, and be consistent?

[07:12] - The synergy of co-founders and the idea validation stage.

[08:16] - Sign-ups struggle after the launch.

[09:25] - Collaborating with influencers via revenue sharing.

[10:38] - Identifying exponential growth channels in order to advance to the next level.

[12:32] - Using an MRR as a success indicator.

[13:55] - Getting money very quickly is the first focus to do.

[14:23] - Startup valuation - how to start from scratch properly.

[16:46] - Entrepreneurial advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Quotes

“All I want to do is to get them in the product so they can make this decision.“ - Alex

“The main thing is getting the landing page that converts and collects money.“ - Alex

“Try what works and try make money as soon as possible.“ - Alex

“Your technical skills are worth zero dollars in the early stage of the business. The only thing that matters is customers. That’s the only thing you need to be focused on.“ - Alex

Links

Follow the journey:

Twitter: twitter.com/alxberman

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alexanderberman

Cold Email Manifesto book: Cold Email Manifesto

Omni: omni.us

Book with insights: Navigating The Bootstrapped Mafia

Connect with Bulat:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebulatk

Twitter: twitter.com/thebulatk

Dashiell Bark-Huss is incredible. She lived in a van for three years, where she taught herself to code. She created WishTender as a solo developer after a friend suggested it would be useful. After Dashiell launched, her spouse began working with her, and they have bootstrapped the business to 50k+ users in 1.5 years.

WishTender is an international wish list that ensures you receive gift funds quickly and without worry (privately).

Key Takeaways

[00:41] - Learning how to code in 1.5 years in order to launch a SaaS.

[02:25] - An untapped market opportunity - anonymous gifts.

[07:23] - Growing to $30K monthly revenue without prior experience.

[09:05] - Navigating the difficulties of a non-tech entrepreneur.

[12:33] - Manual outreach to 100s of people to find the first paying customers.

[13:17] - Organic expansion through word of mouth and Twitter posting.

[14:22] - Bootstrapped success - having money and trying to figure out how to spend it.

[16:00] - Focusing on customers and their needs.

[18:24] - Starting from scratch again - address the struggles and share them in public.

[20:40] - Patience and persistence of a founder.

Quotes

“Patience and persistence is the most important thing.“ - Dashiell

“The most successful founders don't really give specific advice because they know it is very hard to give the right advice.“ - Dashiell

“A lot of advice you will get, beware of the advice you're getting. Are they founders? Are they successful founders? Are they just lucky?“ - Dashiell

Links

Follow the journey:

Twitter: twitter.com/dashbarkhuss

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dashbh

WishTender: wishtender.com

Book with insights: Navigating The Bootstrapped Mafia

Connect with Bulat:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebulatk

Twitter: twitter.com/thebulatk

Noah enjoys programming challenges as well as developing new and unique apps. CoffeePass and Supportman are two startups he co-founded and sold. And is experienced as a web/mobile developer at four different companies. He is currently working on Potion, a Notion-based website builder.

Potion.so adds the magic, resulting in a fast site with custom domains, styles, and excellent SEO. It allows you to quickly create custom Notion websites.

Key Takeaways

[00:38] - Starting out as an entrepreneur in college.

[01:56] - Bootstrapping is making a small business that works.

[03:44] - Noticing what people do in order find a niche.

[07:02] - When to transition from a full-time job to full-time bootstrapping.

[08:01] - Bootstrapping founder's burn out.

[09:54] - Learning the code or no-code tools or partnering up to get to the business.

[11:30] - Difficulties with building on top of large platforms, risk management, and determining what people want.

[16:45] - Finding the users.

[18:28] - Starting from scratch again and again. Properly.

[21:50] - Building in public to get the first 50 users. + ProductHunt.

[24:07] - Keep doing what you doing to find what works.

[24:55] - Making small bets when you are getting started.

Quotes

“Find what works. Find what distribution works. Keep doing what you are doing“ - Noah

“Try to build a little tool or a little business. Build quicker and fail quicker.“ - Noah

Links

Follow the journey:

Twitter: twitter.com/noahwbragg

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/noahbragg

potion.so: potion.so

Book with insights: Navigating The Bootstrapped Mafia

Connect with Bulat:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebulatk

Twitter: twitter.com/thebulatk