Indie Bites

<p>Elston Baretto is the founder of <a href="http://tiiny.host/">Tiiny.host</a> and is in a similar position to most indie hackers - working on his side-project alongside a full time job, but has had a career packed with learnings that we're going to talk through in this episode. Elston started out his career at JP Morgan, having reluctantly accepted a graduate job he planned to stay at for 6 months. 4 years later, he was still at the conglomerate bank, but he wasn't satisfied staying there for the rest of his career.</p><p>While at JP Morgan, Elston launched a few side-projects, some of which still make revenue today, but decided to leave to chase the startup dream. Fast forward a year and the startup dream was over, a company with 14 employees but little traction - sound familiar?</p><p>Elston went back to work full-time while he figured things out. In January 2020, he launched <a href="http://tiiny.host/">Tiiny.host</a>, a super simple way to host your projects. After launching, he made $1,000 in just 3 days using lifetime deals and is now chugging away nicely as a side project.</p><p><strong>What we covered in this episode:</strong></p><ul><li>What is Tiiny Host and why did Elston start it</li><li>How he made lifetime deals work for his launch</li><li>Why Elston has put marketing first for Tiiny Host</li><li>Setting goals for your indie hacker business</li><li>How Tiiny Host got 150 sites a day being created from free SEO pages</li><li>How has he made marketing fun</li><li>Doing side-project marketing</li><li>Elston's plans to go full-time</li></ul><p><strong>Recommendations</strong></p><ul><li>Book: <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/0241242533/ref=asc_df_0241242533/?tag=googshopuk-21&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=310623486223&amp;hvpos=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=14283608132518086892&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvdvcmdl=&amp;hvlocint=&amp;hvlocphy=1006602&amp;hvtargid=pla-472047750457&amp;psc=1&amp;th=1&amp;psc=1"><strong>Traction</strong></a></li><li>Podcast: <a href="https://tim.blog/podcast/"><strong>Tim Ferris Show</strong></a></li><li>Indie Hacker: <a href="https://twitter.com/sab8a"><strong>Sabba Kenyejad</strong></a></li></ul><p><strong>Follow Elston</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://twitter.com/_baretto">Twitter</a></li><li><a href="https://tiiny.host/">Tiiny Host</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>