Startup to Something

A weekly podcast by two indie hackers, Marc and Matt. They share their ups and downs of building their bootstrapped online businesses. They prefer to show instead of teach, so you get to see the real story about what it's like to “startup to something” - raw and unpolished.

110: Free and untethered

Marc's post-acquisition support of PowerImporter is over, and he's running wild and free. Matt is setting out to submit Email Wonderful this week to the monday.com marketplace. The guys discuss pricing and how to keep it simple, and technical issues around CSS in emails.Mentions:dashdashHARDemailwonderful.comJudoHacker.comMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

01-25
01:03:57

109: The right kind of rest

The guys are back!Matt is fighting with the HTML editor he's using for Email Wonderful, and is coming up with a go to market strategy. Marc is doing support according to his PowerImporter acquisition terms and they are coming to an end. Marc gives Matt his opinions on getting his app into the hands of his customers.Topics:Mentions:dashdashHARDemailwonderful.comJudoHacker.comMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

01-11
54:12

108: Sometimes garbage is actually garbage

Marc's AI-powered domain buying bot is drawing to a close. Matt is gaining momentum with his product EmailWonderful and is onboarding beta users!The guys talk through Matt's go-to-market plan and tips and tricks for getting potential clients on the phone.Mentions:dashdashHARDemailwonderful.comJudoHacker.comMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

12-14
48:54

107: Finding early traction

Matt has found early traction in the monday.com ecosystem and is building a quick MVP for a niche problem to solve.  Marc is building an AI bot to buy expired domain names to feed his addiction.  Topics:Finding business problems to solve on UpworkHow to win Upwork jobs with a brand new account... with this one trick Using LLMs and GPT as an intelligent filterThe benefits of expired domains vs new domainsThe gotchas of sending emails on behalf of your users (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)Mentions:dashdashHARDJudoHacker.comMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

11-30
55:23

106: A purely creative act

Marc is hacking on new technology, but building in public is killing his creativity. Matt is having a lot of fun playing in the monday.com marketplace and learning about Zapier and make.com.The guys discuss creativity and how to just enjoy hacking and how to think through problems we see in the world.Mentions:dashdashHARDJudoHacker.comMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

11-16
59:47

105: Where commerce happens

Matt has hit a wall with his render blog and talks it out with Marc. What is the next bet he should make?Mentions:MemberRowdashdashHARDMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

11-09
34:58

104: PowerImporter ACQUIRED

It's all about Marc this week because he has sold PowerImporter! This is the story and some highlightsMentions:(One more backlink!) PowerImporterMemberRowdashdashHARDMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

11-02
46:30

103: Matt gets users, Marc goes serverless

Matt's momentum journey continues- he has published his free tool and has users! Matt has goal related questions for Marc about how to get stuff done outside of work.Marc is doing a deep dive into serverless and he and Matt have a long conversation about it.Mentions:PowerImporterMemberRowdashdashHARDMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

10-19
01:05:07

102: Rebuilding the right muscles

Marc is having a tough time with his shipping muscles after being disappointed with his performance with a recent hackathon. Matt is making good headway on his render blog.The guys discuss dealing with discomfort, and working the right muscles to ship in public and how do decide where experiments should take us when deciding to invest time into themMentions:PowerImporterMemberRowdashdashHARDMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

10-06
56:14

101: Keeping momentum and keeping books

Matt has lots of momentum on his new blog about render.com and is publishing articles with a goal of shipping a free product.Marc has taken control of the financials of his company and is doing his own books, and is finding it fun.The guys talk about financial operations when doing business, difficulties with it and an idea Matt has around bookkeeping.Mentions:PowerImporterMemberRowdashdashHARDMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

09-21
58:00

100: We are so back!

Matt and Marc are BACK for episode 100 after taking the summer off of recording.Marc has been relaxing, camping, and hanging with his family. Matt has been freelancing after a tragic water spill and hacking on an ecommerce AI product.The guys discuss Rob Walling's stair-step approach and if Matt should try his hand at blogging and learning to drive traffic.Mentions:PowerImporterMemberRowMarc's TwitterMatt's Twitter

09-07
47:08

99: This time, for real

The guys discuss Stripe and how it works with SaaS companies, its shortcomings and benefits.Mentions:PowerImporterMemberRow

07-06
27:38

98: Pickled

Matt has updates about his projects. He’s trying to stay productive while enjoying his last few weeks in Lisbon.Mentions:PowerImporterMemberRow

06-29
14:43

97: I built this for you Marc

Matt is in the hotseat this week: he is trying to market the amazon product finder during a reddit blackout. He’s also breaking ground and making progress on his developer assistant. The guy's discuss how they'd monetize Jon Yongfook's engineering as marketing project onlinecertificategenerator.com.Mentions:PowerImporterMemberRowProductAIGet in touch!Marc’s Twitter and MastodonMatt’s Twitter and Mastodon

06-15
43:42

96: It's my browser, dammit

Matt’s has a few ideas for simple projects he's working on in the AI space to help make developers more efficient.The guys discuss hiring a life coach to help with momentum and goal setting. Could ChatGPT be that coach instead of a person?Mentions:PowerImporterMemberRowGet in touch!Marc’s Twitter and MastodonMatt’s Twitter and Mastodon

05-25
50:54

95: MemberRow resurgence

Marc is in the hotseat this week and is getting back to building MemberRow and reevaluating if the idea still makes sense from its original inception. He’s been exploring BulletTrain and is loving super scaffolding and how efficient it makes him. The guys discuss building in public and if it’s right for MemberRow.Mentions:PowerImporterMemberRowGet in touch!Marc’s Twitter and MastodonMatt’s Twitter and Mastodon

05-18
39:07

94: Marc the snowflake

Marc is working on the refactoring for PowerImporter and finds himself wishing he had a better pre-composed starting blocks for his projects that he could use to get off the ground faster. Matt had an insightful discussion around the Amazon product discovery app he's building. The guys discuss Copilot and how to use it to maximize productivity.

05-04
41:33

93: I can guarantee you do not use ChatGPT the way Marc does

Once you hear about how Marc uses ChatGPT to help him in the day to day, it will open your mind.The guys talk through how they are using ChatGPT in their workflows, how to engineer better prompts, and how Marc tweaks his experiences on the web to make his life better.

04-27
36:48

92: Matt, the demo illusionist

Matt is back in the hot seat this week. He has been in transit to Portugal, and has a v1 of a product demo video for the Amazon product research tool he's building. The guys talk through ways to use AI to help developers be more productive.

04-20
19:56

91: AI musings

The guys talk through the incredible innovation that is ChatGPT and what it means for emerging software engineers.When everyone has a calculator, should we bother learning long division?

04-13
26:16

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