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Prompt 1: Context Setup

You are an expert data extractor tasked with analyzing a podcast transcript. 
I will provide you with part 1 of 1 from a podcast transcript. 
I will then ask you to extract different types of information from this content in subsequent messages. Please confirm you have received and understood the transcript content.

Transcript section:
[00:00:01.520 --> 00:00:06.800] And there are some people that are just honestly pretty shameless about like directly copying people.
[00:00:06.800 --> 00:00:10.560] That has been a problem, which is kind of part of the building public movement.
[00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:15.680] Hello, and welcome back to Indie Bykes, the podcast reviving new stories of fellow indie hackers in 15 minutes or less.
[00:00:15.680 --> 00:00:20.320] Recently, I've been reviewing my catalogue of previous guests and have been intrigued to see where they are now.
[00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:23.280] So, expect to see a few more returning guests over the next few weeks.
[00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:28.640] Today is a chap who was last on the podcast three years ago and is still ever present in the indie community.
[00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:33.200] Pete Coach writes a high signal newsletter, sharing all the best indie hacking news every week.
[00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:39.920] He's making his main living through ghostwriting for Twitter, Blue Sky, and LinkedIn, but he's still launching new projects and keeping his previous ones alive.
[00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:43.120] Before we get into this episode, I'd like to thank my sponsor, Email Octopus.
[00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:50.720] They're an email platform focused on affordability with a very generous free plan and ease of use without some of those bloated features that those other email apps have.
[00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:55.680] So you can focus on shipping and growing your audience, which regular listeners will know is essential for growth in the early days.
[00:00:55.680 --> 00:01:01.840] So to get started with an email platform that gets out of the way, you can contact up to 2,500 people for free.
[00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:06.000] Head to emailoctopus.com or hit the link in the show notes.
[00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:07.680] Pete, welcome back to the pod.
[00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:08.560] How are you doing?
[00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:09.760] Yeah, I'm doing great, man.
[00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:11.120] Thanks a lot for having me back.
[00:01:11.120 --> 00:01:13.120] It's very nice to be here, as always.
[00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:22.880] Well, you're like a mainstay in the indie community, which is why I reached back out to you because High Signal, the newsletter that you started over three years ago, is still going.
[00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:25.760] You're still putting out this indie news.
[00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:30.800] Now, your headline on the High Signal newsletter is: read the stories big tech misses.
[00:01:30.800 --> 00:01:32.960] But it's also the stories that I'm missing right now.
[00:01:32.960 --> 00:01:36.080] So, Pete, how are you keeping up to date with all this indie news?
[00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:40.640] What's your process behind finding everything, collating, and then putting it into your newsletter?
[00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:42.560] I'm amused that you think I have a process.
[00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:44.000] It's not that planned out.
[00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:48.880] I spend a lot of time on places like Twitter and Blue Sky and LinkedIn.
[00:01:48.880 --> 00:02:00.280] And yeah, I guess I've been a founder for over five years now, so I've got a pretty good idea of like what my readers like and what makes a good story.
[00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:04.360] And I guess over that time, I've also been like following lots of people.
[00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:18.600] So if you've seen someone starting out and you know, with their little bootstrap sass, and then like a few years later, they're making like 10 or 20 grand a month, then that's pretty cool to see.
[00:02:18.600 --> 00:02:21.640] And it's a pleasure sharing those kind of stories.
[00:02:21.640 --> 00:02:30.360] Pete, so when you see like interesting stories, MRR acquisitions, milestones, whatever you might see, you're seeing them on Twitter, Blue Sky, LinkedIn.
[00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:33.240] Are you putting them into Excel, Word document?
[00:02:33.240 --> 00:02:36.280] Are you just throwing them into the newsletter editor yourself?
[00:02:36.280 --> 00:02:40.600] I'm like genuinely curious because I don't know how I retain new stuff.
[00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:45.320] I rawdog them straight into my email editor.
[00:02:45.320 --> 00:02:49.160] So yeah, I basically like bookmark a lot of content.
[00:02:49.160 --> 00:02:51.160] So I've started using Blue Sky.
[00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:54.200] And one thing at the moment is they don't have bookmarking.
[00:02:54.200 --> 00:03:01.960] So I kind of will just like a post and then on Wednesday and Friday I'll go through my posts and see which ones I've liked.
[00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:08.840] And then yeah, I just put them into the newsletter editor and kind of write directly there.
[00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:12.280] It's funny though, because I think Harry Dry does the same thing.
[00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:21.480] And I think he said before about writing straight onto the page, but because I write newsletters, it seems more convoluted to do anything other than that.
[00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:27.160] Now, Pete, you mentioned you spend a lot of time on the internet, Twitter, Blue Sky New Entry, and LinkedIn.
[00:03:27.160 --> 00:03:34.040] It seems like before where Twitter was the place to be for all the indie content, it's now sort of split between all three, I guess.
[00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:40.600] And I don't know how much I want to focus on Blue Sky being the thing because it's new.
[00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:42.760] Like, what's your view?
[00:03:43.160 --> 00:03:57.920] Where's most active at the moment most interesting what do you think is going to be or have the most longevity in terms of a platform where indies and founders should focus their time I think it's going to be split between Twitter and Blue Sky probably.
[00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:02.880] I think LinkedIn is like, there is good content there, but it's been quite hard to find it.
[00:04:02.880 --> 00:04:11.680] And I think quite often your LinkedIn feed is like, oh, I've got indie founder, indie founder, someone I went to uni with 20 years ago, an old boss.
[00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:12.960] And you know what I mean?
[00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:16.000] It's quite like a mangled feed sometimes.
[00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:21.600] I think you're going to get some people that are like, Twitter for life, I'm not leaving here.
[00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:25.360] And there's going to be other people that are like, I'm done with Twitter.
[00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:27.360] I'm going to go to Blue Sky.
[00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:30.400] So I think there might be more of a split.
[00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:33.280] And I think there'll be some people will pick a platform.
[00:04:33.280 --> 00:04:36.320] And I don't think they'll be on the other one if you see what I mean.
[00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:38.400] What's your thoughts on like the indie scene right now?
[00:04:38.400 --> 00:04:40.560] Like is build in public still happening often?
[00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:49.760] So if you want some, if you want some free publicity, basically build in public and tag me and I might add you into the high signal newsletter.
[00:04:49.760 --> 00:04:56.480] I think there's still a benefit because you get the publicity and everything, but I think it's just like it's not the new thing anymore.
[00:04:56.480 --> 00:05:05.600] Whereas like five or six years ago, it was quite revolutionary to be like, you know, this is how many newsletter signups I have.
[00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:07.280] This is how much revenue I have.
[00:05:07.280 --> 00:05:11.200] I'm going to be like an open startup and share all my data.
[00:05:11.200 --> 00:05:13.120] And that was like a new thing.
[00:05:13.440 --> 00:05:18.320] But obviously with marketing, things get old quite fast.
[00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:25.920] And I think like there's a project that maybe some of your listeners know, which was like the million-dollar homepage.
[00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:34.840] And someone basically auctioned off like a million spots on their web page, and they made a million dollars from it.
[00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.480] And that guy actually went on to create the calm meditation app.
[00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:46.040] But the point is, like, if me or you were like, oh, we're going to make a million dollar homepage tomorrow, you know, it's all news.
[00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:47.160] People have done that already.
[00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:58.680] So I think the problem with the build in public is it's still a good idea, but it's not going to have the same like marketing potency as it had six years ago when it was really uncommon.
[00:05:58.680 --> 00:06:00.280] I think there's still people doing it.
[00:06:00.280 --> 00:06:15.080] I guess there have been quite some big names in the indie hacker community that have stopped though, because I do feel like maybe again five or six years ago, the indie hacking community was relatively small and more people knew each other.
[00:06:15.080 --> 00:06:17.560] And I've kind of thought about this recently.
[00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:20.520] It's a bit like if you're a cyclist, right?
[00:06:20.520 --> 00:06:30.760] So if you had a cycling club in Kent or wherever, and there's like 10 people every week, you'd probably like know each other pretty well and maybe get on quite well.
[00:06:30.760 --> 00:06:35.000] If that cycling group was then 100 people, you're like, oh, who's that guy?
[00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:35.960] Who's that person?
[00:06:35.960 --> 00:06:41.960] You probably wouldn't have such strong links and maybe like you might not like some of the people in the community.
[00:06:41.960 --> 00:06:57.960] So I think it's a bit like that with indie hacking where a lot of people that were building in public stopped because new people came into the community and maybe didn't know them or didn't had different values and they're like, oh, you've made this app.
[00:06:57.960 --> 00:07:00.840] I'm just going to like copy your landing page and do the same thing.
[00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:03.960] I mean, obviously, competition is fine, but I don't know.
[00:07:03.960 --> 00:07:06.040] I've had copycats before.
[00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:14.280] And there are some people that are just like honestly pretty shameless about business ethics and copying, like directly copying people.
[00:07:14.280 --> 00:07:18.960] So that has been a problem which has kind of hurt the building in public movement.
[00:07:19.280 --> 00:07:28.240] But yeah, I think there's still value in it, but it's maybe not the same value as if you're like one of a handful of people doing it six years ago.
[00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:30.960] Tons of value, maybe not as much now.
[00:07:30.960 --> 00:07:35.680] Yeah, I mean, I think it was helped with motivation for people when they were doing the building in public.
[00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:45.360] They would, it would help their business because it'll be publicity, they'd grow their Twitter profiles, but also there'll be the camaraderie between everyone and like pushing people forward with it.
[00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:47.520] So, what are people doing now?
[00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:50.640] They're just sort of focusing on growing their businesses behind closed doors.
[00:07:50.640 --> 00:07:53.920] And is there a new thing people are doing that you're seeing, Pete?
[00:07:53.920 --> 00:08:02.560] There's a mixture of some people are just like they've just said, right, I'm not going to share revenue numbers, or they're kind of like obfuscating it.
[00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:07.840] So they'll say, like, oh, I make six figures from my app, or I'll make seven figures from my app.
[00:08:07.840 --> 00:08:10.640] So they're not saying like exact numbers.
[00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:12.240] I mean, some people still are.
[00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:25.680] I think like Ollie, who's the co-founder of Senja, which is like a feedback tool, he's a pretty good example of someone who is, I guess, from like our era of indie hacking, shall we say.
[00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:29.760] And I think they're at something like 40 or 50 grand MRR.
[00:08:29.760 --> 00:08:31.840] And they only started a couple of years ago.
[00:08:31.840 --> 00:08:35.440] So there's an example of someone that's still being open.
[00:08:35.760 --> 00:08:41.280] And there's a guy, Lucas Herman, who has an app called StageTimer.
[00:08:41.280 --> 00:08:43.520] And yeah, he's doing really well.
[00:08:43.520 --> 00:08:48.400] I think he's making maybe $200,000 a year.
[00:08:48.400 --> 00:09:05.160] So there's still people doing it, but I think a lot of other people are like, well, unless I'm like a course maker, if you're like a course maker and you've sold lots of units of your course, A, it's good for you because people are going to see, oh, a thousand people bought his course and must be good.
[00:09:05.160 --> 00:09:06.600] I'll buy it as well.
[00:09:06.600 --> 00:09:14.120] And B, you've kind of got like moats because mostly you're selling to people that like you as a person.
[00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:25.800] And so I think there's definitely value for it for people that have like info products like books and courses because it's really their fans that are buying it.
[00:09:25.800 --> 00:09:40.120] And so if you have someone that sold a coding course and made like 200 grand, well, you could be a great coder, but if you don't have a following, you're not going to replicate that person's results just by making a coding course.
[00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:44.280] Now, Pete, you've covered lots of big news stories over the year.
[00:09:44.280 --> 00:09:48.040] I'm curious, like, what are some of the big things that have happened this year that we can share and talk about?
[00:09:48.040 --> 00:09:48.760] Yeah, sure.
[00:09:48.760 --> 00:09:49.720] I was really impressed.
[00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:51.880] There's a guy, Tony Din.
[00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:53.400] I think that's how you say his name.
[00:09:53.640 --> 00:10:00.600] He's a developer from Vietnam and he's just got to a million dollars in revenue.
[00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:09.320] He's got an app called Typing Mind, which is basically like a front-end app for using all kinds of AI tools.
[00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:18.120] So it's kind of like a nicer front-end web site experience for using things like ChatGPT and loads of other LLMs.
[00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:29.720] And yeah, he's got a pretty cool story because I'm not sure how long ago it was, but I mean, he started off as an intern making, I'd say, something like a few hundred dollars a month.
[00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:34.760] I guess because he's in Vietnam, he had, you know, much lower living costs.
[00:10:34.760 --> 00:10:37.640] And he's just like done storming work.
[00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:43.080] He's like building new businesses, selling them for six figures, building another one, selling them on.
[00:10:43.400 --> 00:10:50.400] And yeah, to get to a million dollars in revenue, bootstrapped from Vietnam, I think that's pretty crazy.
[00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:53.680] So, yeah, I think that would be one of the good stories.
[00:10:53.680 --> 00:10:56.560] And I've do interviews for Hi Signal as well.
[00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:05.120] I interviewed Andre, who created an AI for that, which is a kind of like an AI tools directory.
[00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:09.200] And that gets like three to four million visits a month.
[00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:20.320] I think his number one tip was basically with a directory, you have to be really early because obviously, if me or you made a directory for AI tools now, it'd be pretty hard to stand out.
[00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:23.600] There's a lot of them, so he was definitely early to the space.
[00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:29.040] And I think he charges companies to like put a listing on the website.
[00:11:29.040 --> 00:11:38.400] So I think he's another example of a really big indie founder who's kind of gone from zero to, I assume, really good revenue.
[00:11:38.400 --> 00:11:38.800] Interesting.
[00:11:38.800 --> 00:11:43.360] Yeah, I remember when Tony was doing Blackmagic for Twitter and that got really popular.
[00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:48.720] Then the Twitter API thing went up to 42 grand a month, and he sold it.
[00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:50.800] And I saw him launch Type in Mind.
[00:11:50.960 --> 00:12:04.480] So like there is something with these kind of founders who can like consistently launch amazing products, like spot a gap in the market, build a great product, and then grow it to actual big numbers of revenue.
[00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:06.640] So props to Tony for that.
[00:12:06.640 --> 00:12:12.400] So yeah, you've been quite open about the numbers for your newsletter, like 1700 subscribers, fantastic.
[00:12:12.400 --> 00:12:15.360] It's a lot of people who are reading your newsletter.
[00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:19.040] What's your plan for growth, or are you just going to like carry on doing the same thing you're doing?
[00:12:19.040 --> 00:12:20.960] Yeah, I've got a few different ideas.
[00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:24.400] I think some side project marketing.
[00:12:24.400 --> 00:12:28.720] I guess there's always the kind of thing with founders, especially bootstrappers.
[00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:33.320] We get like this kind of like itchy feet and we want to make something new.
[00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:41.400] But I think what I'm going to do next time I make something new, I'll make like a side project which promotes high signal, if you see what I mean.
[00:12:41.400 --> 00:12:49.000] Well, I appreciate you doing it, Pete, and giving a service to the indie community and keeping us all up to date with the news.
[00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:54.280] Now, end every episode on three recommendations: a book, a podcast, an indie hacker.
[00:12:54.280 --> 00:12:59.400] Your previous ones were Mindset, the Indie Hacker podcast, and Lutland Kirkwood as your indie hacker.
[00:12:59.400 --> 00:13:01.240] What new ones have you got for me?
[00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:07.000] Yeah, I'd say for Indie Hacker, I'd like to say Millie Tamati.
[00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:08.920] I think you've interviewed her before.
[00:13:08.920 --> 00:13:17.080] She's like the founder of Generalist World, which is a paid community for people with kind of squiggly careers, as she calls it.
[00:13:17.080 --> 00:13:17.880] So she's cool.
[00:13:17.880 --> 00:13:41.800] I think for a book, I'd say Profit First, which is basically the idea of like you have to think about how much profit your business makes and not just be distracted by like revenue figures because it's quite easy to be like, oh, I've sold loads this year, but if you're not actually making a profit and using it to improve your life, then that's not much good.
[00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:47.880] And I think for podcasts, like the Bossy podcast, which Morning Brew put out, is really good.
[00:13:47.880 --> 00:13:53.320] It's got host Tara Reed, who's really like underrated entrepreneur.
[00:13:53.320 --> 00:13:56.920] She was making like millions in revenue like five, six years ago.
[00:13:56.920 --> 00:14:01.560] So she's like quite a character and she's, yeah, really good to listen to.
[00:14:01.560 --> 00:14:05.640] Pete, thank you so much for coming back on this episode of Indiebites.
[00:14:05.640 --> 00:14:06.280] No worries.
[00:14:06.280 --> 00:14:07.400] Thanks for the chat.
[00:14:07.400 --> 00:14:12.440] Thank you for listening to this episode of Indiebites, and a big thank you to my sponsor, Email Oxford, for making the show happen.
[00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:13.320] That's all from me.
[00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:14.760] See you in the next episode.

Prompt 2: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 3: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 4: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Full Transcript

[00:00:01.520 --> 00:00:06.800] And there are some people that are just honestly pretty shameless about like directly copying people.
[00:00:06.800 --> 00:00:10.560] That has been a problem, which is kind of part of the building public movement.
[00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:15.680] Hello, and welcome back to Indie Bykes, the podcast reviving new stories of fellow indie hackers in 15 minutes or less.
[00:00:15.680 --> 00:00:20.320] Recently, I've been reviewing my catalogue of previous guests and have been intrigued to see where they are now.
[00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:23.280] So, expect to see a few more returning guests over the next few weeks.
[00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:28.640] Today is a chap who was last on the podcast three years ago and is still ever present in the indie community.
[00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:33.200] Pete Coach writes a high signal newsletter, sharing all the best indie hacking news every week.
[00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:39.920] He's making his main living through ghostwriting for Twitter, Blue Sky, and LinkedIn, but he's still launching new projects and keeping his previous ones alive.
[00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:43.120] Before we get into this episode, I'd like to thank my sponsor, Email Octopus.
[00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:50.720] They're an email platform focused on affordability with a very generous free plan and ease of use without some of those bloated features that those other email apps have.
[00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:55.680] So you can focus on shipping and growing your audience, which regular listeners will know is essential for growth in the early days.
[00:00:55.680 --> 00:01:01.840] So to get started with an email platform that gets out of the way, you can contact up to 2,500 people for free.
[00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:06.000] Head to emailoctopus.com or hit the link in the show notes.
[00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:07.680] Pete, welcome back to the pod.
[00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:08.560] How are you doing?
[00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:09.760] Yeah, I'm doing great, man.
[00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:11.120] Thanks a lot for having me back.
[00:01:11.120 --> 00:01:13.120] It's very nice to be here, as always.
[00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:22.880] Well, you're like a mainstay in the indie community, which is why I reached back out to you because High Signal, the newsletter that you started over three years ago, is still going.
[00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:25.760] You're still putting out this indie news.
[00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:30.800] Now, your headline on the High Signal newsletter is: read the stories big tech misses.
[00:01:30.800 --> 00:01:32.960] But it's also the stories that I'm missing right now.
[00:01:32.960 --> 00:01:36.080] So, Pete, how are you keeping up to date with all this indie news?
[00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:40.640] What's your process behind finding everything, collating, and then putting it into your newsletter?
[00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:42.560] I'm amused that you think I have a process.
[00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:44.000] It's not that planned out.
[00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:48.880] I spend a lot of time on places like Twitter and Blue Sky and LinkedIn.
[00:01:48.880 --> 00:02:00.280] And yeah, I guess I've been a founder for over five years now, so I've got a pretty good idea of like what my readers like and what makes a good story.
[00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:04.360] And I guess over that time, I've also been like following lots of people.
[00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:18.600] So if you've seen someone starting out and you know, with their little bootstrap sass, and then like a few years later, they're making like 10 or 20 grand a month, then that's pretty cool to see.
[00:02:18.600 --> 00:02:21.640] And it's a pleasure sharing those kind of stories.
[00:02:21.640 --> 00:02:30.360] Pete, so when you see like interesting stories, MRR acquisitions, milestones, whatever you might see, you're seeing them on Twitter, Blue Sky, LinkedIn.
[00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:33.240] Are you putting them into Excel, Word document?
[00:02:33.240 --> 00:02:36.280] Are you just throwing them into the newsletter editor yourself?
[00:02:36.280 --> 00:02:40.600] I'm like genuinely curious because I don't know how I retain new stuff.
[00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:45.320] I rawdog them straight into my email editor.
[00:02:45.320 --> 00:02:49.160] So yeah, I basically like bookmark a lot of content.
[00:02:49.160 --> 00:02:51.160] So I've started using Blue Sky.
[00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:54.200] And one thing at the moment is they don't have bookmarking.
[00:02:54.200 --> 00:03:01.960] So I kind of will just like a post and then on Wednesday and Friday I'll go through my posts and see which ones I've liked.
[00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:08.840] And then yeah, I just put them into the newsletter editor and kind of write directly there.
[00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:12.280] It's funny though, because I think Harry Dry does the same thing.
[00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:21.480] And I think he said before about writing straight onto the page, but because I write newsletters, it seems more convoluted to do anything other than that.
[00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:27.160] Now, Pete, you mentioned you spend a lot of time on the internet, Twitter, Blue Sky New Entry, and LinkedIn.
[00:03:27.160 --> 00:03:34.040] It seems like before where Twitter was the place to be for all the indie content, it's now sort of split between all three, I guess.
[00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:40.600] And I don't know how much I want to focus on Blue Sky being the thing because it's new.
[00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:42.760] Like, what's your view?
[00:03:43.160 --> 00:03:57.920] Where's most active at the moment most interesting what do you think is going to be or have the most longevity in terms of a platform where indies and founders should focus their time I think it's going to be split between Twitter and Blue Sky probably.
[00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:02.880] I think LinkedIn is like, there is good content there, but it's been quite hard to find it.
[00:04:02.880 --> 00:04:11.680] And I think quite often your LinkedIn feed is like, oh, I've got indie founder, indie founder, someone I went to uni with 20 years ago, an old boss.
[00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:12.960] And you know what I mean?
[00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:16.000] It's quite like a mangled feed sometimes.
[00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:21.600] I think you're going to get some people that are like, Twitter for life, I'm not leaving here.
[00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:25.360] And there's going to be other people that are like, I'm done with Twitter.
[00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:27.360] I'm going to go to Blue Sky.
[00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:30.400] So I think there might be more of a split.
[00:04:30.400 --> 00:04:33.280] And I think there'll be some people will pick a platform.
[00:04:33.280 --> 00:04:36.320] And I don't think they'll be on the other one if you see what I mean.
[00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:38.400] What's your thoughts on like the indie scene right now?
[00:04:38.400 --> 00:04:40.560] Like is build in public still happening often?
[00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:49.760] So if you want some, if you want some free publicity, basically build in public and tag me and I might add you into the high signal newsletter.
[00:04:49.760 --> 00:04:56.480] I think there's still a benefit because you get the publicity and everything, but I think it's just like it's not the new thing anymore.
[00:04:56.480 --> 00:05:05.600] Whereas like five or six years ago, it was quite revolutionary to be like, you know, this is how many newsletter signups I have.
[00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:07.280] This is how much revenue I have.
[00:05:07.280 --> 00:05:11.200] I'm going to be like an open startup and share all my data.
[00:05:11.200 --> 00:05:13.120] And that was like a new thing.
[00:05:13.440 --> 00:05:18.320] But obviously with marketing, things get old quite fast.
[00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:25.920] And I think like there's a project that maybe some of your listeners know, which was like the million-dollar homepage.
[00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:34.840] And someone basically auctioned off like a million spots on their web page, and they made a million dollars from it.
[00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.480] And that guy actually went on to create the calm meditation app.
[00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:46.040] But the point is, like, if me or you were like, oh, we're going to make a million dollar homepage tomorrow, you know, it's all news.
[00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:47.160] People have done that already.
[00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:58.680] So I think the problem with the build in public is it's still a good idea, but it's not going to have the same like marketing potency as it had six years ago when it was really uncommon.
[00:05:58.680 --> 00:06:00.280] I think there's still people doing it.
[00:06:00.280 --> 00:06:15.080] I guess there have been quite some big names in the indie hacker community that have stopped though, because I do feel like maybe again five or six years ago, the indie hacking community was relatively small and more people knew each other.
[00:06:15.080 --> 00:06:17.560] And I've kind of thought about this recently.
[00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:20.520] It's a bit like if you're a cyclist, right?
[00:06:20.520 --> 00:06:30.760] So if you had a cycling club in Kent or wherever, and there's like 10 people every week, you'd probably like know each other pretty well and maybe get on quite well.
[00:06:30.760 --> 00:06:35.000] If that cycling group was then 100 people, you're like, oh, who's that guy?
[00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:35.960] Who's that person?
[00:06:35.960 --> 00:06:41.960] You probably wouldn't have such strong links and maybe like you might not like some of the people in the community.
[00:06:41.960 --> 00:06:57.960] So I think it's a bit like that with indie hacking where a lot of people that were building in public stopped because new people came into the community and maybe didn't know them or didn't had different values and they're like, oh, you've made this app.
[00:06:57.960 --> 00:07:00.840] I'm just going to like copy your landing page and do the same thing.
[00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:03.960] I mean, obviously, competition is fine, but I don't know.
[00:07:03.960 --> 00:07:06.040] I've had copycats before.
[00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:14.280] And there are some people that are just like honestly pretty shameless about business ethics and copying, like directly copying people.
[00:07:14.280 --> 00:07:18.960] So that has been a problem which has kind of hurt the building in public movement.
[00:07:19.280 --> 00:07:28.240] But yeah, I think there's still value in it, but it's maybe not the same value as if you're like one of a handful of people doing it six years ago.
[00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:30.960] Tons of value, maybe not as much now.
[00:07:30.960 --> 00:07:35.680] Yeah, I mean, I think it was helped with motivation for people when they were doing the building in public.
[00:07:35.680 --> 00:07:45.360] They would, it would help their business because it'll be publicity, they'd grow their Twitter profiles, but also there'll be the camaraderie between everyone and like pushing people forward with it.
[00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:47.520] So, what are people doing now?
[00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:50.640] They're just sort of focusing on growing their businesses behind closed doors.
[00:07:50.640 --> 00:07:53.920] And is there a new thing people are doing that you're seeing, Pete?
[00:07:53.920 --> 00:08:02.560] There's a mixture of some people are just like they've just said, right, I'm not going to share revenue numbers, or they're kind of like obfuscating it.
[00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:07.840] So they'll say, like, oh, I make six figures from my app, or I'll make seven figures from my app.
[00:08:07.840 --> 00:08:10.640] So they're not saying like exact numbers.
[00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:12.240] I mean, some people still are.
[00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:25.680] I think like Ollie, who's the co-founder of Senja, which is like a feedback tool, he's a pretty good example of someone who is, I guess, from like our era of indie hacking, shall we say.
[00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:29.760] And I think they're at something like 40 or 50 grand MRR.
[00:08:29.760 --> 00:08:31.840] And they only started a couple of years ago.
[00:08:31.840 --> 00:08:35.440] So there's an example of someone that's still being open.
[00:08:35.760 --> 00:08:41.280] And there's a guy, Lucas Herman, who has an app called StageTimer.
[00:08:41.280 --> 00:08:43.520] And yeah, he's doing really well.
[00:08:43.520 --> 00:08:48.400] I think he's making maybe $200,000 a year.
[00:08:48.400 --> 00:09:05.160] So there's still people doing it, but I think a lot of other people are like, well, unless I'm like a course maker, if you're like a course maker and you've sold lots of units of your course, A, it's good for you because people are going to see, oh, a thousand people bought his course and must be good.
[00:09:05.160 --> 00:09:06.600] I'll buy it as well.
[00:09:06.600 --> 00:09:14.120] And B, you've kind of got like moats because mostly you're selling to people that like you as a person.
[00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:25.800] And so I think there's definitely value for it for people that have like info products like books and courses because it's really their fans that are buying it.
[00:09:25.800 --> 00:09:40.120] And so if you have someone that sold a coding course and made like 200 grand, well, you could be a great coder, but if you don't have a following, you're not going to replicate that person's results just by making a coding course.
[00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:44.280] Now, Pete, you've covered lots of big news stories over the year.
[00:09:44.280 --> 00:09:48.040] I'm curious, like, what are some of the big things that have happened this year that we can share and talk about?
[00:09:48.040 --> 00:09:48.760] Yeah, sure.
[00:09:48.760 --> 00:09:49.720] I was really impressed.
[00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:51.880] There's a guy, Tony Din.
[00:09:51.880 --> 00:09:53.400] I think that's how you say his name.
[00:09:53.640 --> 00:10:00.600] He's a developer from Vietnam and he's just got to a million dollars in revenue.
[00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:09.320] He's got an app called Typing Mind, which is basically like a front-end app for using all kinds of AI tools.
[00:10:09.320 --> 00:10:18.120] So it's kind of like a nicer front-end web site experience for using things like ChatGPT and loads of other LLMs.
[00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:29.720] And yeah, he's got a pretty cool story because I'm not sure how long ago it was, but I mean, he started off as an intern making, I'd say, something like a few hundred dollars a month.
[00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:34.760] I guess because he's in Vietnam, he had, you know, much lower living costs.
[00:10:34.760 --> 00:10:37.640] And he's just like done storming work.
[00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:43.080] He's like building new businesses, selling them for six figures, building another one, selling them on.
[00:10:43.400 --> 00:10:50.400] And yeah, to get to a million dollars in revenue, bootstrapped from Vietnam, I think that's pretty crazy.
[00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:53.680] So, yeah, I think that would be one of the good stories.
[00:10:53.680 --> 00:10:56.560] And I've do interviews for Hi Signal as well.
[00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:05.120] I interviewed Andre, who created an AI for that, which is a kind of like an AI tools directory.
[00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:09.200] And that gets like three to four million visits a month.
[00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:20.320] I think his number one tip was basically with a directory, you have to be really early because obviously, if me or you made a directory for AI tools now, it'd be pretty hard to stand out.
[00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:23.600] There's a lot of them, so he was definitely early to the space.
[00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:29.040] And I think he charges companies to like put a listing on the website.
[00:11:29.040 --> 00:11:38.400] So I think he's another example of a really big indie founder who's kind of gone from zero to, I assume, really good revenue.
[00:11:38.400 --> 00:11:38.800] Interesting.
[00:11:38.800 --> 00:11:43.360] Yeah, I remember when Tony was doing Blackmagic for Twitter and that got really popular.
[00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:48.720] Then the Twitter API thing went up to 42 grand a month, and he sold it.
[00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:50.800] And I saw him launch Type in Mind.
[00:11:50.960 --> 00:12:04.480] So like there is something with these kind of founders who can like consistently launch amazing products, like spot a gap in the market, build a great product, and then grow it to actual big numbers of revenue.
[00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:06.640] So props to Tony for that.
[00:12:06.640 --> 00:12:12.400] So yeah, you've been quite open about the numbers for your newsletter, like 1700 subscribers, fantastic.
[00:12:12.400 --> 00:12:15.360] It's a lot of people who are reading your newsletter.
[00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:19.040] What's your plan for growth, or are you just going to like carry on doing the same thing you're doing?
[00:12:19.040 --> 00:12:20.960] Yeah, I've got a few different ideas.
[00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:24.400] I think some side project marketing.
[00:12:24.400 --> 00:12:28.720] I guess there's always the kind of thing with founders, especially bootstrappers.
[00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:33.320] We get like this kind of like itchy feet and we want to make something new.
[00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:41.400] But I think what I'm going to do next time I make something new, I'll make like a side project which promotes high signal, if you see what I mean.
[00:12:41.400 --> 00:12:49.000] Well, I appreciate you doing it, Pete, and giving a service to the indie community and keeping us all up to date with the news.
[00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:54.280] Now, end every episode on three recommendations: a book, a podcast, an indie hacker.
[00:12:54.280 --> 00:12:59.400] Your previous ones were Mindset, the Indie Hacker podcast, and Lutland Kirkwood as your indie hacker.
[00:12:59.400 --> 00:13:01.240] What new ones have you got for me?
[00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:07.000] Yeah, I'd say for Indie Hacker, I'd like to say Millie Tamati.
[00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:08.920] I think you've interviewed her before.
[00:13:08.920 --> 00:13:17.080] She's like the founder of Generalist World, which is a paid community for people with kind of squiggly careers, as she calls it.
[00:13:17.080 --> 00:13:17.880] So she's cool.
[00:13:17.880 --> 00:13:41.800] I think for a book, I'd say Profit First, which is basically the idea of like you have to think about how much profit your business makes and not just be distracted by like revenue figures because it's quite easy to be like, oh, I've sold loads this year, but if you're not actually making a profit and using it to improve your life, then that's not much good.
[00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:47.880] And I think for podcasts, like the Bossy podcast, which Morning Brew put out, is really good.
[00:13:47.880 --> 00:13:53.320] It's got host Tara Reed, who's really like underrated entrepreneur.
[00:13:53.320 --> 00:13:56.920] She was making like millions in revenue like five, six years ago.
[00:13:56.920 --> 00:14:01.560] So she's like quite a character and she's, yeah, really good to listen to.
[00:14:01.560 --> 00:14:05.640] Pete, thank you so much for coming back on this episode of Indiebites.
[00:14:05.640 --> 00:14:06.280] No worries.
[00:14:06.280 --> 00:14:07.400] Thanks for the chat.
[00:14:07.400 --> 00:14:12.440] Thank you for listening to this episode of Indiebites, and a big thank you to my sponsor, Email Oxford, for making the show happen.
[00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:13.320] That's all from me.
[00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:14.760] See you in the next episode.