Identify the Patterns. Build with Confidence.

Interactive indie case studies that surface repeatable success patterns.

Make the decisions real founders made, see the outcomes, and collect the patterns you can apply today.

Browse Stories Explore Patterns
Align Pricing with Usage Cycles Align Publishing & Email Cadence to Seasonal Usage Audience-First, Then Offers Audience‑First, Then Offers Build Bottom-Funnel Category/Geo Pages First Build in Public to Earn Trust Cadence-Driven Distribution Cash-Flow-First and Lean Ops Content → Newsletter → Offers (Calm CTA) Design for Clarity, Not Flair

How It Works

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Read & Map

Each story is parsed into pivotal decisions and mapped to named patterns (e.g., MVP First, Audience Leverage, Freemium Funnel).

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Decide & Reveal

Pick your option. We reveal the real founder's choice, outcome, and the pattern behind it—so you learn the why, not just the what.

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Compare & Apply

See where your choices match the founder's patterns, then apply those patterns to your product today.

Featured Stories

Daniel Vassallo

How Small Bets Led to a $3.6M Exit

Daniel Vassallo left Amazon in 2019 and adopted a small‑bets portfolio: freelance, a fast‑shipped AWS ebook, and a one‑take audience course that each produced early revenue. In 2021 a live cohort evolved into the Small Bets community, later packaged as ‘join the community; course included’. In April 2025 he sold Small Bets to Gumroad for $3.6M on a mixed cash/options structure while continuing to operate it—an outcome consistent with his downside‑aware, audience‑led approach.

Indie Hacking Info Products Audience Building
5 decision points Read Story →
Danny Postma

How HeadshotPro Grew to $300k MRR with Programmatic SEO & Lean Ops

HeadshotPro is Danny Postma’s pivot from avatar novelty to a durable, paid use case: professional AI headshots. He combined programmatic geo pages and targeted blog posts to capture purchase-ready demand, and kept operations lean with one-time purchases and automation. Prior Headlime experience and a build-in-public audience supplied capital, confidence, and backlinks that accelerated traction. As growth outpaced solo capacity, he began hiring selectively to sustain quality and momentum.

Indie Hacking SEO Programmatic SEO
4 decision points Read Story →
Jon Yongfook

How Jon Yongfook Grew Bannerbear: Lessons Behind a Bootstrapped $50k MRR Engine

Bannerbear’s growth came from choosing a domain with strong product–founder fit, operating on a strict build–market cadence, and turning free tools into link and traffic engines—while hardening infrastructure after a DDoS. Branding and open updates kept it memorable as an API business matured toward ~$50k MRR over ~3 years.

SaaS Developer Tools Image Generation
4 decision points Read Story →
Justin Welsh

How Justin Welsh Reached $10M in Six Years with a One-Person Business

Justin Welsh built a one-person, content-powered business to $10M cumulative revenue in ~5 years 9 months, relying on daily LinkedIn/X posts, a trust-building newsletter, and a product ladder that started with a $50 course and scaled to premium offers and sponsorships. He kept operations lean (no employees, ~$620/mo in tools) and avoided paid ads, preserving high margins. He also shut down a $15k MRR community to protect lifestyle and focus, then reinvested time into channels and products with better fit.

Solopreneurship Audience Building Newsletter Strategy
5 decision points Read Story →
Lukas Hermann

How Stagetimer Grew from a Weekend MVP to $25k/month

Lukas Hermann built Stagetimer to solve a simple but underserved problem in event/AV production: remotely controlled stage timing. He validated in niche Reddit communities, shipped fast using familiar tools, and later aligned pricing to event-based usage with short-term licenses. Growth came from documentation-led SEO, Google ads, and freemium-powered word of mouth.

SaaS Event Production Pricing Strategy
3 decision points Read Story →
Marc Lou

Marc Lou: Ship Fast, Sell Faster — How a Solo Studio Hit $1M+

Marc Lou runs a solo product studio built on fast, feature-scoped launches, public validation, and distinctive packaging. After dozens of attempts, turning his internal boilerplate into ShipFast created a strong core offer, while YouTube added a powerful discovery channel—correlating with revenue spikes during viral periods. He routes distribution through a personal brand, uses Product Hunt for pre-validation, and applies simple pricing where subscriptions underperform.

Indie Hacking SaaS Next.js
4 decision points Read Story →
Matt Giovanisci

Swim University: How Matt Giovanisci Turned Pool Know-How into $1M/yr Content Business

Matt Giovanisci built Swim University by translating hands-on pool retail experience into precise tutorials and ‘one best pick’ recommendations. He shifted from ads to affiliates and then to courses/books, while curating an evergreen catalog maintained like a textbook. A lean family team repurposes scripts across YouTube, SEO, and a large seasonal newsletter, contributing to a $1M+ year. The approach is disciplined: fewer but better posts, single-SKU picks, price testing, and operations that stay small to protect margins.

Affiliate Marketing SEO Content Strategy Pricing Strategy
4 decision points Read Story →
Marko Saric & Uku Täht

How Plausible Hit $1M ARR with Open‑Source Trust, Clarity & Calm Content

Plausible Analytics began as Uku Täht’s lightweight, privacy‑focused GA alternative; Marko Saric joined to refine positioning and drive a content‑led go‑to‑market. Public code and transparent messaging built trust, while licensing and self‑host packaging evolved to protect a bootstrapped business. With a simple one‑page dashboard and paid‑only pricing, they reported thousands of paying users and a public $1M ARR milestone, continuing to grow with a lean, independent team.

SaaS Open Source Web Analytics
4 decision points Read Story →
Tibo Louis-Lucas

From Failures to $200K MRR: How Tibo Maker Built a Distribution-First Studio

Tibo Maker operates as a distribution-first studio: build a single audience engine and reuse it to launch and grow several products in parallel. The approach emerged after multi-year VC-style failures, was refined through Tweet Hunter/Taplio, and now emphasizes revenue-first validation, partner-led distribution, and platform-risk hedging. This studio model prioritizes fast cycles, aligned incentives, and shared reach across products.

Indie Hacking SaaS Distribution
4 decision points Read Story →
Tim Stoddart

How Tim Stoddart’s Directory Sites Became a $250k/Year Profit Engine

Tim Stoddart built directory sites where the core product (listings) also serves as marketing: every new listing increases utility and attracts more advertisers. After learning content and SEO through Copyblogger and agency work, he focused on technical directory architecture—category/geo pages aligned to commercial intent—and monetized with paid featured placements. SoberNation’s treatment directory demonstrated the model’s profitability (on the order of $250k/year), and the approach generalizes to high-LTV local services. Cash-flow-first operations and lean systems underpinned execution.

Directories Lead Generation Local SEO
4 decision points Read Story →
Tony Dinh

How Tony Dinh Built TypingMind: From Weekend Hack to $500K Indie SaaS

TypingMind began as Tony Dinh’s weekend experiment to fix ChatGPT’s missing search and folder features. Built in one day after the API release, it went viral through his build-in-public updates, reaching $10K revenue in 10 days and $500K within a year. Tony applied lessons from past indie projects — shipping fast, clear UI, and direct customer billing — while avoiding platform risk seen in his earlier Twitter tool. The result: a sustainable indie SaaS proving that speed, focus, and transparency can outperform scale.

SaaS AI Tools Indie Hacking
3 decision points Read Story →
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