Indie Bites

<p>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.</p><p><strong>What we covered in this episode</strong></p><ul><li>Why did you start Upvoty?</li><li>Stopping a $1m business to start from scratch</li><li>Why your work should be fulfilling</li><li>Should you be passionate about your audience?</li><li>How to validate your idea</li><li>How Mike got his first customers for Upvoty</li><li>The value of an MVP and a landing page</li><li>Why you should build runway or have an alternative income source</li><li>How you can make your own luck</li><li>Why indie hackers should build a personal brand</li><li>Mike's one bit of advice for founders; validate</li><li>How to build an MVP with the BML framework</li></ul><p><strong>Recommendations</strong></p><ul><li>Book: <a href="https://www.intercom.com/resources/books/intercom-marketing?utm_medium=ii-blog&amp;utm_source=cta&amp;utm_campaign=20180109-book-launch&amp;utm_content=inline-text"><strong>Intercom on Marketing</strong></a></li><li>Podcast: <a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this"><strong>How I Built This</strong></a></li><li>Indie Hacker: <a href="https://twitter.com/arvidkahl"><strong>Arvid Kahl</strong></a></li></ul><p><strong>Follow Mike</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://twitter.com/mikeslaats">Twitter</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/mikedotsaas">YouTube</a></li><li><a href="https://saaspirates.co/">SaaS Pirates</a></li><li><a href="https://www.upvoty.com/onproduct/">Upvoty</a></li></ul><p><strong>Follow Me</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://twitter.com/jmckinven">Twitter</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/indiebitespod">Indie Bites Twitter</a></li><li><a href="https://mckinven.co/">Personal Website</a></li><li><a href="https://whistablecraftco.com/">Buy A Wallet</a></li></ul><p>Thanks to <a href="https://weekendclub.co/">Weekend Club</a> for sponsoring Indie Bites.</p><em>‘I absolutely love being part of Weekend Club.’</em><p><em>‘Huge fan of Weekend Club and I love being part of it.’</em></p><p><em>‘Absolutely love this community.’</em></p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>Go to <a href="https://weekendclub.co/">weekendclub.co</a> and enter a very limited promo code ‘Indie Bites’ for 50% off your first month.</p>