What's up, everybody? This is Cortland from IndieHackers.com, and you're listening to
the IndieHackers podcast. On this show, I talk to the founders of profitable internet
businesses and I try to get a sense of what it's like to be in their shoes. How did they
get to where they are today? How did they make decisions, both of their companies and
in their personal lives, and what exactly makes their businesses tick? And the goal
here, as always, is so that the rest of us can learn from their examples and go on to
build our own profitable internet businesses.
Today, I'm talking to Bram Canstein. Bram, welcome to the show.
Thanks, man. Happy to be here.
Tell us what you're drinking right now, because you seem to be enjoying yourself over there.
I just told you I have wine and I have lemonade, so I'm amped up.
Wine and lemonade. Here I am just drinking water like a chump. So you are the creator
of Startup Stash, which is the highest upvoted product of all time on Product Hunt.
Yes.
Tell us about how that got started. What's the story there?
Oh, man. Yeah, the story there is I launched that now five years ago. So it still amazes
me that it's still the number one product on Product Hunt, actually. But the story there,
yeah, I was an early user of Product Hunt. I think I'm user like 2000 or something. And
now I think, I don't even know, a few hundred thousand people, maybe more than a million
people have an account on Product Hunt. So I was super, super early. And yeah, at one
point when I got access, I stalked Ryan for two weeks asking him, you know, can I please
be on here too? I think I know some cool new products that I can share. And so eventually
I started posting, you know, stuff that I found on Product Hunt. And a lot of them ended
up as the number one for that day. And that way, you know, I got in touch with a lot of
founders that were thanking me like, hey, cool that you helped us. We got a lot of attention
and investors and users and stuff like that. So that was really cool to like be active
on Product Hunt. And at the same time, I was working as an investor here in Amsterdam.
And because I was on Product Hunt, I was just saving, you know, interesting tools and resources
that I found that I thought could be helpful to the startups that I was working with to
start from the portfolio. And so after some time being active on Product Hunt, I thought,
okay, I think I know how to, you know, come up with an idea, build something, and then
launch it. And yeah, that was basically where this challenge or idea started. So the goal
of the challenge was actually to prove to myself that I knew what I was doing. And eventually
I combined the list that I had. So I had like six, 700 bookmarks of interesting resources
and tools. I combined that with my like love for old school directory pages. So when I
was younger, like 1516, I was always on the computer. Yeah, just browsing on the internet,
browsing big stuff like that. Yeah, so I kind of combined that into what eventually became
a curated directory of resources and tools, 400 of them for startups. Yeah, and I launched
a true Product Hunt and other channels. And yeah, it really exploded. I think first two
days, I had a lot of visitors, and a lot of people sharing it. So yeah, it went pretty
viral. And it's still, like you said, the number one most upvoted. Yeah, it's got like
20, 20,289 upvotes. As of today, I'm just saying. Yeah, it's crazy. It doesn't make sense. It's
still getting upvotes. Yeah. Well, it's interesting to think about why it's so popular. I think
part of it is definitely just this curation component. If you spend time curating resources
and putting together a list of things to help you out, and then you decide to make it public
for everybody else, they're going to appreciate that. Yeah, I think that that's the thing.
A lot of people have asked me, why was it so popular? Because basically, it's a simple
WordPress site that I butchered with my minimum coding skills. So I just deleted all these
lines of code of stuff that I didn't need. And now the site looks a bit different. So
actually, I sold it at the end of 2017. It was acquired. So now it looks a bit different.
But when it launched, it was just 40 orange square blocks, no visuals, whatever, just
the name of a category. But I think that site really represented, but also still represents
what I'm really about that I really think that, you know, if you deliver value with
your product that people don't really care what it looks like, or what it was built with.
And so yeah, I think the value was really in the fact that I did the curation. So I
looked at like all these 400 content items, I went through them, I created like a screenshot
and a description and a tagline and all these things. So I already went through a lot of
work that other people didn't really have to do. So yeah, I still think that curation
is really strong. So I really focused on focused on the curation part, not as much a review
part. So for example, there was a marketing category that just said, here's a suggestion
for 10 marketing tools, I didn't say this is the best one, or that's the worst one or
whatever, like, hey, from all the marketing tools that are out there, just check out these
10, and there's probably something in there that is valuable to you. That's, I think basically
what the value was that startup stash was or is giving to people. And so yeah, that
project really showed me, yeah, like I said, that it doesn't really matter what the product
looks like, as long as you deliver the right value, but also launch it to the right people
and talk to those people in the right tone of voice, you know, and show that you understand
the problem and how you're serving them, that that's a way for your product to become popular
and adopted.
It's funny how long that checklist gets. It's like, oh, you just need to do this one thing,
and also this and also that.
So yeah, if it's one thing, it's deliver actual value. Well, actually, it's three things. So
yeah, I was trying to be smart. Now, it's delivering value, finding out where your target
audience hangs out, like, how can you talk to, or where can you talk to these people?
Who are these people? And, you know, how do you talk to them? And that's something that
I see still people doing wrong. Like I, for example, if I just look at myself, like I
get cold emails, probably every single day, people asking me if I can put them on product
hunt or, you know, even these cold outreach emails of design agencies in whatever country,
why are you talking to me? There's nothing in that email that says why you are reaching
out to me. Yeah. And I think that especially indie hackers also can learn from that. Like
there's so many times where I think, you know, if you take one more minute, if you put one
more minute into this email, you will get a reply. And so yeah, those are the little
nuances I think that make up, you know, know when something becomes successful or not.
I think starting a business forces you to be a more empathetic person, because the entire
thing is really just an exercise and repeatedly trying to see things from somebody else's
point of view. And if you're just constantly talking about what you want or what you need,
and you're sending emails that are all about you and not about your recipient, then you're
never going to make any sales, you're never going to get anybody to respond. It just doesn't
work. Yeah, totally. And it's super, super hard. Like I'm not trying to make this simple.
Like it is super hard, but that's, you have to be genuine A and B, you have to act like
nobody knows you and nobody cares about your idea, even though you've been working it for
whatever time, no one cares. The person that you reach out to really doesn't care. And
you identify them and you really have to show why you care about them and what type of value
you can bring to them. And that's when I think people will reply. So you kind of have to
like detach your ego from what you're doing and try to realize that, you know, nobody
wakes up in the morning and thinks of your product. That's you're the only one that does
it.
Yeah.
So we're going to get into a lot of this business advice strategy stuff, because you run a course
called No Code MVP, where you teach people how to build and validate the startup ideas
without having to code. And I think in the last month, you made about $4,000 in revenue,
according to your graph on Indie Hackers. Is that accurate?
Yeah, I think it's a little bit more because I also have PayPal now and some Dutch people,
they just send me their bank account. But yeah, I think it's between 4K and 5K right
now. And so first it was low, then it went up, then a little bit low, if you look at
the graph right now. So, you know, it's the start, I'm already happy that I at least have
people that bought it. And now I'm really figuring out, you know, how can I grow this
further, like my it started as a side project, obviously, but my, my goal is to, to really
turn this into a sustainable source of income. And I'm trying to figure it out as I go, like,
what to do.
Yeah, did the concept of no code first pop onto your radar?
I think it was when cards, C-A-R-R-D code, a card launched on Product Hunt, I think it
was four years ago, maybe, maybe a bit longer, but definitely four years ago. And yeah, website
builder.
Yeah, it's a website.
It's pretty easy on the podcast.
Yeah. So, and the funny thing there was that I actually knew AJ without realizing it. Well,
not new, I'm in person, but I knew his like product. So yeah, like I just mentioned, like
I have really minimal coding skills like HTML, CSS, that's basically it. So I'm not diving
into that any further. But you know, I was pretty proficient with WordPress. So that's
why I also chose like a WordPress directory team for, for startup stash. But in my search
for teams, I found, you know, like pixelarity and there's, there's another like website
that AJ also made. So AJ before card, he made like all these WordPress templates. So at
one point when I found card and I found AJ, I was like, whoa, damn, I already, you know,
used products of this guy. And what I really saw, what he did was translate his like style
of creating teams or like his way of working into an actual website builder. And up until
that point, I tried a lot of different website builders like Squarespace and others like
Squarespace I never got, for example, like I have no clue how it works. I don't know
why. But when I first used card, I was like, damn, this is this is it. Like I instantly
got it. I loved it. And I started talking with AJ, giving him feedback and stuff like
that. So also there was a really early user and now just a super big believer in card.
I love what he's doing with that. But at one point, he started adding integration. So integrations
with Zapier, for example, so you could connect a forum on your card website with Zapier,
or Zapier, I have to say Zapier, because it rhymes with happy. Yeah. So once he did that,
I saw, oh damn, if I create a card website with a form where I can basically ask any
type of data, even a payment also later, so it integrated with Stripe in the form, if
I can send that data to Zapier, I can basically do anything like I can create so many workflows.
And that's kind of where it dawned on me. If you have a website, if you have an automation
tool like Zapier, and if you have a Google Sheet or later also Airtable, you have a workflow
that works for probably like 70 plus percent or maybe even 80 plus percent of startup ideas,
you know, like all, especially like all the landing page stuff, all the service type of
products, even in the early stages, on demand service type of products. And yeah, I think
that was the point where I really dove in. So that's probably like three years ago or
something. So I learned Zapier, still want to become like a Zapier expert, I have to
do the test. But yeah, that's when I really thought, okay, now there are these tools that
you can use to build a first product. And before I found a card, I was working, like
I said, for that investor. But I've also worked with dozens of startups on like, let's say
the first two years of their journey. So what's your idea? Who you're building this for? How
are you going to market? How are you going to validate this? What's your MVP? Like all
these things. And at one point, I was like, okay, if I can combine that methodology, that
way of working, that I really believe in and also think I'm really like good at to help
people with. So basically the consulting part, if I can combine that with the practical part,
the actual tools, then I'll have something in the form of a product that's, that's pretty
unique. Like in all these years that I've worked with startups, and looked at different
types of tools, I never saw a product, I consider of course, a product that combined like these
two things, because I know you can learn a lot about methodology stuff. But if you don't
actually do it, then you're a talker, not a walker. Right. So I really wanted to give
people a way to yeah, combine those two things.
One of the consistent themes that I've noticed about you is that you're very early to things.
So you were one of the very first users of Product Hunt, you were early to this no code
movement. And in fact, started sketching out plans for no code MVP, or course back in 2017,
before anyone was really talking about the no code movement, even have a podcast that
you told me you're working on called early ones. Why is it important for indie hackers
to be early?
Yeah, so I always was like that, I later figured out like, what's really the thing that I'm
good at or really like, and I think one of the things is like you're mentioning, being
early to stuff. And I've always been intrigued. So so like, I just told you, when I was younger,
I was always on the computer, and I was I was just trying out new stuff. I was one of
the earliest users of Napster, for example, in the Netherlands, or at least in like the
smallest first batch, for example, because I was on dig, I was reading about all these
Silicon Valley type people, I figured all of this stuff out, like five years later,
who was actually reading about when I was more conscious about what I did, which is
funny. I've always been intrigued, like why people spend time on a certain idea. So if
someone pitches me an idea, then of course, I think about it, like I give them my feedback,
whether it's it's good or bad or whatever. But if I think this idea sucks, then these
people are still working on it. So somewhere in their idea, or their motivation is something
hidden that I don't see. And I've always been intrigued, like, why does this thing exist?
Why are people spending time on this product or this service or this app or whatever? And
so that's why I just signed up to a lot of new stuff every week, just to try it out and
see what people are working on. And I think if you want to be an entrepreneur or product
builder or a maker, stuff like that just gives you inspiration, like it gives you what some
people call like product sense, you know, like, how should a product work? Yeah, so
I think it's it's just part of getting the inspiration, you know, you can read about
other people's stories. That's one. But if you try out a lot of products that will also
show you, you know, just what are trends and what are people working on and stuff like
that. So yeah, I think I'm just I'm just naturally interested in that. It's basically my hobby.
When I found product hunt, I was like, this is a tool for my actual hobby, like something
that I was already doing. And now I found a platform where I can, you know, share that
voice or that was previously just me on Twitter with 1000 followers or something like that.
I think the inspiration and motivation parts are so underrated. Because if you're constantly
seeing what new people are launching and building, and you then see these people in the comments
and you're talking to them, and they're talking to you, and you realize they're humans just
like you, and some of them don't even know how to code, and maybe you could do the same
thing, then suddenly you start thinking about what you can build. And I talked to so many
founders who have so much trouble getting started. And invariably, when you kind of
look at their lives, what's going on around them, they're not really immersed in this
world of other makers and builders and indie hackers. So besides just seeing what's new,
I think it's so helpful to be kind of where the creators and makers are. And that seems
to be the case with you.
Yeah, I think so too. But I also think it's really important to be aware of, let's say,
where you're looking, right? So I think we've talked about this before, you know, for example,
when I look on indie hackers, I see a lot of interesting discussions. But I also see
discussions around things where I'm like, man, just try this out, you know, like you
can get analysis paralysis by just keep talking to people. And what do they what does this
person think? What does that person think? You know, like, at some point, you just have
to try. And only when you try, you figure out that something doesn't work, or it does
work. And if something doesn't work, you have a problem. And if something does work, you
also have a problem, right? Like, that's basically what I think, trying to be an entrepreneur
or an indie hacker is basically all about you want something which is not there, which
is in essence a problem. And then you're trying to figure out how to get there. And the result
of every step is basically a new problem that you have to solve. And as long as you keep
talking about it, nothing's gonna happen. So I think you have to be aware of like, which
phase you're in? Am I just consuming now? Am I sharing something now, like just my knowledge
or my product or whatever? And yeah, I think you really have to be aware of that because
the danger here is that you'll just keep analyzing and consuming all this content without just
moving forward. You have to be aware of where you're at. And it's really easy to fall into
the trap of going too far either way, where you can't really be objective about, you know,
the steps that you're taking or the progress that you're making. And I think that's the
essence of trying to become an indie hacker that can, you know, sustainably generate income
to live off or being an entrepreneur. If your buy in is too big at one point, you can't
be objective anymore. And that's where things start to go wrong, I think.
This is one of the hardest lines to walk as an indie hacker because I think you're right.
It's kind of two modes you can be in. You need to be building and doing things or you
can be reading and consuming information and learning. And I talked to so many people who
are slacking in one area and really need to focus on that area to the exclusion of the
other. So many people who just read and listen to podcasts all day long, but they haven't
sat down to build anything or start anything or come up with an idea. And then so many
people who've been working and hacking every day. Yeah, for years. And it's like, hey,
read a book, you know, like, come over here, talk to somebody.
Yeah, totally true. I think even this week I shared, I anonymized it, but I shared like
a thread that I saw on indie hackers where someone said, you know, finally, after two
years, my minimum viable product is live. That was basically the title. So I was super
intrigued. So I clicked on it. And basically this guy said, yeah, we are finally finished.
Now I'm thinking about like, where can we find the people? How can we distribute this?
And I'm like, wow, damn, like, you're probably not a dumb guy. You're probably super smart.
But this is really the like the wrong approach. You're going to disappoint yourself, which
is a totally unnecessary consequence of the steps that you took. Yeah. And that's what
I really want to tell people, you know, like not to talk you down, but I really want to
show you that eventually you can build anything, especially if you're a coder. But the question
is, should you be building everything? And for someone who can code, for example, building
something is the most fun part. So I totally get it, you know, when that's the first step
you take. But in most cases, that's not the best step.
It's rough, because so many of the things that you would intuitively think you need
to do to be a founder are actually the wrong decision. And the right decision is extremely
unintuitive. It's very unintuitive that if you're going to start a company, you shouldn't
just jump into building stuff. And I think for you, as somebody who's creating this course
and trying to help people learn, that's quite a challenge, because you've got to help them,
I think on one hand, figure out this startup strategy stuff, like how they actually build
their company in the right way, so they're more likely to succeed. But also, you're doing
a no code course. And that's part of it. So you're actually teaching people which tools
they need to use, how they can actually build their product as quickly as possible, even
if they don't necessarily have the skills. So you're teaching people these two things
at once. How do you structure that?
Yeah, well, actually, there are three things. So I think that the structure of the course
is it starts with the mindset. So it's kind of a bit what we already talked about, you
know, what's the right mindset when you have an idea. And so the first thing you want to
really, really believe is no one cares about your idea, right? Your idea is not unique.
Doing nothing and just talking about your idea doesn't get you anywhere. So you have
to do stuff. So I think like 20% of the course or 15, 20%, like just the start is about the
right mindset, because I think that is really important. Because if you don't have the right
mindset, especially when you're working on an idea with more people, like two or three
people, then you really have to create the right baseline before you start. Or else you
cannot have like the objective conversation about what are we actually doing? How should
we move forward? Is this good? Or is this bad? Or you know, the evidence or the data
that you found? And when you're alone on one side, it's easier on one side, it's more difficult
because there's no one who's gonna, you know, go into a discussion with you. But the first
part is really about the right mindset. So and if I have to, you know, drill that down,
one is nobody cares about your idea. And the second one is nobody cares about your product.
So it should really work and deliver the value. That's basically where we start. And then
the middle part is really about the methodology. So when I finished my my study, like eight
years ago, I did my final paper on the lean startup, which just came out. And I've always
been a big believer in that, especially in the fact that you have to make all your steps
super small and focused. And I think you already go the wrong way if you just start building
your idea, because then it's already really big, and you can't really go back to small.
So if you have the right mindset, you are hopefully able to make it small, like all
your steps small and small is not only money and time, but also like your focus. So what
I really share in the course is that, you know, your big idea is probably the most amazing
solution to all the people in the world or all the people in the customer segment that
you're targeting, you know, like all makers in the world or all marketeers in the world.
But what I'm showing and I also created like, my own methodology for that that actually
launched on product hunt or on Twitter yesterday, which is like a canvas, it's like a set of
12 steps that you follow to go from your big idea. So this is my big solution for my big
target customer segment for their big problem that they have. You know, that's where you
eventually want to go. If you solve everything for everyone in your customer segment, that's
where you eventually want to go. But you cannot start that there because no one cares about
your idea and no one cares about your product. So you have to dive into that customer segment
to figure out from all the marketeers in the world, for example, who are the ones that
really have this problem. And then you can segment that any way you want. So marketers
working for a startup or for a corporate or whatever, that's totally contextual. So you
have to figure that out yourself. But if you segment that customer, customer segment even
further down, that's when you go into the right process of eventually creating that
into an MVP. So if you say, okay, the most valuable segment from all the marketers in
the world is this type of segment, then you're going to dive into that. Okay, is the problem
that I think they have also the actual problem or should I refine it? And then if I tell
them about my solution, what's my value proposition and so on and so on. So that's kind of the
process that I teach to go from your big idea to something that you can test and learn from.
So you know, how can you learn the most the fastest, that's basically what an MVP is about.
So I really don't see an MVP as the first version of my product, or, and that could
be like the actual the actual first version or like a rudimentary version, like the first
three features of the 10 features that I want to build. So I'm totally not looking at an
MVP in that way. And that's why I also think the discussions on indie hackers are super
interesting, because a lot of people approach it in like the technical way. So that's like
part two. So how do you go from your big idea to a structured experiment is how I approach
it that you can put out in the world to that segment that you chose of your bigger customer
group and validate all the assumptions that you have? So do they actually have the problem?
Are they looking for a solution like all these things? And then the third part, so I think
that was the biggest part. So like 50% is about that process. And the rest is really
about the stack of tools that I chose for this course. And for me, I think those are
the tools that are easiest to learn and also cheapest to start with. So of course, card
is in there, sappier is in there, right table, but also the G Suite, just Gmail, Google Sheets,
you know, those are all free to start with. And at the end of the course, I also share,
you know, I don't really care like how you eventually build your product or which tools
you use, or maybe you're even coding like 25% of all, and no code MVP members are actually
developers, you know, it's about what works best for you. And I really want to give people
like the practical skills to just start working on on all their ideas. So if I look at myself,
you know, startup stash was a successful product, but that was, you know, before startup stash,
I maybe threw away like 20 ideas that I worked on, some for two weeks, and some for six months.
And from all these things that I failed from, I took like one, two or three learnings. And
those eventually, you know, compound into, well, they also get into your skill set of
figuring out, you know, should I do this thing or that thing? Or what does this evidence
tell me? Should I proceed with its idea, like all these things? And so I think the eventual
goal of no code MVP is to really just help people get started. And also help them figure
out if they're working on the wrong idea, if nobody's waiting for the idea, that's fine,
what you're learning, move on to another idea. Yeah. So that's kind of how the how the course
is composed. Yeah.
How did you use some of the things that you're teaching in your no code MVP course to develop
no code MVP itself? Like what was your mindset? How did you take your big idea down to something
small that you could validate? And what were the stack of tools that you use?
Yeah, totally. At the beginning, I thought, okay, I have to dog food my own methodology
or at least my own, you know, process or else it wouldn't be really, you know, how do you
say like viable, right? You know, it doesn't make sense if I wouldn't use my own approach.
So basically, I put up a landing page with cards, app, your Google sheets, and put it
up on beta lists. So the landing page told the proposition, you know, I thought, okay,
it's a mindset process and tools. So these three things, and I wanted to show people the tools,
what was my process, but also in the course, there are six, like step by step building
guides for six different type of products. And I knew I wanted to have those in there.
So that was basically like my value proposition. And I put it on beta list, I shared it on,
I don't know, Reddit and Twitter and stuff like that. And my goal was get 500 subscribers.
And if I got 500 subscribers, I would pursue this idea. So eventually, when I launched,
I had like 2800 or something, I don't remember when I had the 500. But at one point, I was like,
okay, now I have to create this thing. And so yeah, that's when I really started working on like,
yeah, like I mentioned before, I think a course is really a product, right? There's a value
proposition, there's all these designs, there's the actual layout of the course, there's all this
content. So yeah, I started working on that, especially the layout, like table of contents,
and also doing my research. I was thinking where I wanted to go with this. But yeah,
so at one point, I had these 500 subscribers, I was working on the research and the content.
And a guy from a network he called me he was running, or he is running like the innovation
department at a big bank in the Netherlands. And he asked me like, hey, I see you're sharing stuff
about this Nokot MVP thing. Do you have a company workshop for this? And but I didn't have anything,
but I told them, yeah, sure, I have, I have a company workshop. And then he asked me for the
price. And I told him, it's a two day workshop. And this is the price. And he's like, okay, let's
do it. I'm like, oh, damn, now I have to really make this thing. So I was already working on it.
But that really gave me a boost. Yeah, I got paid to actually develop it. So I thought, okay,
I'm going to do really going to do my best with the workshop. If they hate it, okay, I can even
return the money, you know, I was at that point. Do you remember how much you quoted him as a price
for the two day workshop? Yeah, it was like 5k. Yeah, it's a pretty healthy amount. Yeah, it's a
healthy amount. Yeah, I before that, I also worked at another big bank in the Netherlands. So I kind
of knew what the prices would be. But I quoted him that so yeah, I got I basically got paid 5k to
validate, well, at least do something you're already part of my part of my content. So eventually,
I ended up with like a keynote presentation of 400 slides that had everything that I wanted. So the
mindset, the process, the tools, and getting them to work to build on a tool. So I bought another
card account. And I put up like these demo websites and gave them gave my login to the team
so that they could work with it. There's a free Zapier trial, right? So they could just use all
the tools on that day and even two weeks after. So we did the workshop. And then from that workshop,
I did another one and another one. So eventually, I think I made like 18k or almost 20k just doing
workshops and the workshops were my way of validating the content and also the layout so
I could really easily switch up my keynote just by dragging around the slides. So yeah, my MVP
was it started with the landing page on better list and it ended up as as like a corporate
company workshop. Yeah. And from those slides, I eventually created chop them all up and those
eventually became like all the videos in the course. Yeah, so each video has like a keynote
presentation behind it and me talking over that presentation. The consistent theme here is that
you're not just blindly making things and then hoping that you'll find customers or an audience
later, you're building the audience first, you're finding the customers first, you're building a
mailing list and putting up landing pages well before you make your course. And you didn't make
a workshop and then go looking for customers for your workshop, you got a request for a workshop
and then you made your workshop. So you're always sort of minimizing the risk that you work on
something that nobody needs. Yeah, you can also go with the flow, right? So like I said, if you
want to go somewhere, there's always a problem. So this guy called me and I was like, okay, this is
an opportunity, but I don't have anything. Is this the right price? I have no clue. These are all
small problems, talking to someone on the phone, getting an opportunity, small problem, figuring
out the price on the spot, small problem, creating the deck, small problem, or well, big problem,
doing the actual workshop, big problem. All these little moments are learnings, I think. And just,
you can only learn when you do them. And yeah, like I said, I really thought if I do really poorly,
if they hate me, if they hate the workshop, I'll just refund the money. I don't really care. It's
already a blessing that he gave me the money, that he found me. So yeah, I always think that's the
right approach. And especially because, and this is also one of the things that I really believe,
your idea as a whole is already filled with all these assumptions. So if you ask someone to pitch
you their idea, they will say, my product is solving this problem for these people in this and
this way. And I'm going to ask this and this amount of money, for example, there's already like four
or five, right? Really big assumptions. Like I know who you are as a customer. I know who your
problem is. I know how I'm going to solve it. I know how I'm going to send it to you. And all
these little assumptions, you have to figure them out. So as long as they are not true, you are
still figuring them out. And when you get to a point where you know that they are all true, so
when you know who to talk to, how to talk to them, where to reach them, like how to, what your
value proposition is, like what price to ask and how to actually serve them, which is your product,
then you're not a startup or something anymore. Then that's a company. And then
then you go on into focusing on optimizing all those things. And I think if you keep that in
mind, then it becomes easier to just stay objective about what you're doing. And that's also, I think,
where, you know, what I just said, I'm also still figuring it out. That's just, that's not to be
cool. Or that's just the real thing. I have no clue. I'm just figuring it out as long as I go.
And I, of course, you have to get some traction in the beginning. If I wouldn't have sold, I think
now it's like 22K revenue or something total. If it was like 3K, I probably, you know, we probably
would have had a different conversation, but that's the game of, you know, putting something
out there in the world and figuring out if you can make a living of it. So yeah.
I think one of the things people struggle with the most is just coming up with an idea. When I
talk to people who haven't gotten started more often than anything, it's, well, I don't really
have an idea I'm excited about yet, et cetera. They haven't even gotten to the point of making
a bunch of false assumptions that aren't proven, et cetera. They don't know what to work on. When
I look at what you're doing and what so many other successful indie hackers do, your idea isn't
particularly elaborate. The idea of teaching people how to start successful companies or how
to build things without code, that's not some genius, oh my God, lightning struck while I was
taking a shower kind of idea. No, man. And I was super insecure about it. I saw Y Combinator,
Startup School, you know, whatever, this and this forum or, you know, YouTube channels or
whatever, but it's about figuring out what your angle is on that subject. Does that make sense?
You know, like my angle is methodology plus the practitioner part, which, well, I'm convinced
that that's a unique selling point. And so that's why I pursued the idea. But just being a course
that tells you, you know, this is how you start a startup, just that value proposition wouldn't make
much sense anymore, I think. I like how you said you were insecure at first about solving one of
these very straightforward problems. It's not glitzy and glamorous, but then you realize you
could come up with your own unique angle on it. And I think the order of operations there is super
important and very unintuitive to first time founders. This is another one of those unintuitive
things where the very first thing you should do, you're picking like what industry you're going to
be in, what problem you're solving, you do not need to be unique there. And a lot of times first
time founders will come up with an idea and they'll look out and they'll say, hey, there's no
competition, perfect. I'm so excited, like no one's doing this. And the biggest risk in the early
days is that you build something that nobody wants. You solve a problem that no one cares
enough to pay money for. And so oftentimes, when you have competition, that's a good sign,
because that's proof positive that there exist customers out there who care about this problem
and are going to pay money to have it solved. So I think you should come up with a problem that
basically, you already see people paying lots of money to solve and start there,
investigate there for what kind of creative and unique solutions that you can build.
Yeah, and I think you can go at it from different angles. So for example, one of the people that I
really want to reach with the course is people that have been working in a certain company for
10 plus years, and they always see the same thing go wrong. That's where their idea comes from,
like, hey, I want to build a product for the companies that look like the company that I'm
working now working for, and I'm going to sell it to them, right? Like, that's where their idea
comes from. And those are the people that I would love to help. And so they get their idea from a
certain type of experience, right? They see the same thing going wrong for 10 years, for example.
So they don't really look for the problem, they actually experience it. And that's how they
validate for themselves, you know, there's a problem. And it's different types of steps.
So let's say you see that there's a problem somewhere, you think, okay, this problem occurs
in this and this type of company. How many of these companies are there? What are these companies
spending on software, whatever? You know, where are these companies located? And that's kind of
where you do that type of research. So it's all about finding little evidence that supports your
idea. And at one point, yeah, you have to say, I'm going to go for it or not. And that point,
like, how much certainty do you need around an idea is totally, well, contextual based upon the
idea, but especially on the person, right? So, you know, maybe for you, an idea should have 40%
certainty, and you would totally go for it. Me, I'm a super risk averse person. For me,
it should probably be like 70%. But there's like 80, 90. Yeah, yeah, well, maybe even more. But
there's also people that just go at it at like 5%, which is amazing to me, like, I applaud that I
could never do that, but I applaud it. So that's also why it's pretty difficult to teach people
this, you know, in some sense, like, when do I know if my idea is successful? And then my
answer is always, I don't know, that's up to you. But it's more about the process. Can you objectively
say that you did the steps to get to a point where you can make an objective decision,
then you make the decision. And so coming up with ideas, one could be experiencing the idea
in a certain context, you could look at trends, you know, what are people buying now or doing now?
Well, like you said, the online learning space is just growing. There's a gardener report,
which I think predicts this at, you know, 10Xing in I don't know, five years or something like
that, it's just going to be huge. So that's also where you can find evidence to support your idea
and get to that point of certainty where you can say, okay, well, for example, I don't really know
what my product is eventually going to look like. But I know that more people will be at home,
this space is growing. So I have to do something in this space. And that's why I'm going to explore
problems within this space, right. And that's kind of how you can validate in small steps,
the direction where you're going to go. There's one blog post, it's called a heuristic way to
finding startup ideas or something like that. If you Google a heuristic way startup ideas,
then you'll find this article. And it shows you like eight to 12 different types of,
I want to say mental models or ways of thinking to approach ideas and markets and trends and
stuff like that. So maybe that's fun, fun to share. And I also think another interesting
article is called the idea maze by Chris Dixon, I think, where he says, you know, if you start with
the idea of an online music streaming service, you can still go different routes, right? You can go
the Pandora route or the Napster route or the Spotify route, which basically all start with
the same idea, online music streaming, but they are all really different types of products.
I think you're really painting a strong distinction between the problem and the solution. And you
know, these companies that you're listing Pandora and Spotify, iTunes or Napster, like, they're all
very different solutions to pretty much the same problem. Yeah. And I think what a lot of founders
have in their heads is this very amorphous thing called a business idea. And it's not really clearly
defined what that is. But if you break it down into, okay, there's a problem and there's a solution,
then you can think a lot more clearly about it. You can say who has this problem? How many people
have this problem? How important is this problem to them? How much do they pay to have this problem
solved? How frequently do they need this problem solved, etc, etc. And then you can think about
your solution. That's kind of a distinct separate thing. No, totally. And I think I was thinking of
I have a friend who's in San Francisco, and he just raised 250k. I'm not saying this is the right
way, but it's interesting. He raised 250k to investigate, not even an idea, but it's to
investigate a market. His thesis is like, we should build some sort of back office software service for
these independent dentist clinics, something like that. So what they found is 90% of all the dentist
clinics, they work with Excel and manual stuff and combined with all the insurance stuff. So
basically, if you go to the dentist and you claim that with your insurance, then the insurance sends
a paper check to the dental office and then the dental office has to go to the bankroll, stuff like
that. So they just identified that really sucks. And the only thing they're saying is we're pursuing
this market. We don't know the product, we just know that the current process sucks. We don't know
what we're eventually going to build, but we're going to dive into this market. And of course,
the whole Silicon Valley thing getting funded for this stuff is crazy. But I thought the approach
was really interesting. This market is interesting. That's basically it. And then you really dive into
it. So he's doing like 20, 30, 40 interviews with dental clinic owners, ask them, this is my
assumption of the process. Can you tell me about the process? Is it true? And that's his time box
is I'm going to do the interviews and figure out if from these interviews I can dig deeper. Is there
an opportunity here? And that approach I think is the right way. But also for indie hackers,
also for indie hackers, if you have an idea, what's the smallest thing that you can do to learn the
fastest? And how do you time box it? If I have to think about what am I going to do for the next
two months or four weeks, one month, your answer will probably not be built a thing then. If you
time box it in a month, well, if you can code, no code is faster, obviously. But my point here is
that if you time box it for a month and you really have to, if you really ask yourself the question,
how can I determine if I should pursue this idea four weeks from now? And your answer to that
question is what you're going to do from tomorrow on the next four weeks. And that's why you really
have to like chop it down. You have to make it small. And making it small doesn't mean it's
less valuable. That's I think sometimes for some people, what they think, you know, their big idea
is awesome. It's going to save the world or whatever. And if I make it small, then it won't
count anymore. But you have to make it smaller or else you will never end up at the big, the big
place, the big picture place. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Andy Hackers, listen to Bram, figure
out what's the smallest thing that you can do. Time box it, figure out how you can get it validated
in the next four weeks. And don't be afraid to start small. Bram, thanks so much for coming on
the show. I'll have to have you on again to see how your course is going and see how, I'm really
just curious how this trend plays out with more and more people using no code tools, more people
getting into building online businesses. So I will follow up with you on that. But is there anything
you'd like to say to the audience, just part ways and also let them know where they can find you
online? Yeah, I couldn't agree more with you. I'm also really excited to see where this is going
to go. And I thank you again for inviting me. Yeah, people can follow me on Twitter,
B-R-A-M-K, that's my handle. And of course, check out the course at don't code MVP.com.
All right. Thanks, Bram. Thanks.
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