Mike Slaats is the founder of Upvoty, an instant feedback software which has recently hit $17k MRR. Mike also runs the SaaS pirates community, where he talks all about running a SaaS company. Previously, he scaled Vindy, an only marketplace for home development to 1m ARR in 5 years.
What we covered in this episode
- Why did you start Upvoty?
- Stopping a $1m business to start from scratch
- Why your work should be fulfilling
- Should you be passionate about your audience?
- How to validate your idea
- How Mike got his first customers for Upvoty
- The value of an MVP and a landing page
- Why you should build runway or have an alternative income source
- How you can make your own luck
- Why indie hackers should build a personal brand
- Mike's one bit of advice for founders; validate
- How to build an MVP with the BML framework
Recommendations
- Book: Intercom on Marketing
- Podcast: How I Built This
- Indie Hacker: Arvid Kahl
Follow Mike
Follow Me
Thanks to Weekend Club for sponsoring Indie Bites.
‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’
‘Absolutely love this community.’
These are real testimonials for Weekend Club - the internet’s most helpful community for bootstrappers. If you’ve ever struggled meeting other solo founders and staying accountable, then this is for you.
We offer weekly Saturday deep working sessions with up to 30 bootstrappers, such as the founders of Simple Poll and VEED, an active Slack community and over 100 software discounts.
Go to weekendclub.co and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.