Awesome Indie

Resources to help independent developers make money.

Making money from your own code has never been easier, but it's still hard. Here, I try to curate a list of resources to help everyone interested in making money from their digital products get inspired and give it a try. Be it monetizing side-projects, bootstrapping business ideas, etc.

Projects don't need to be big, actually, it's better if they are not, they just need to be profitable. They might provide a passive income after the initial bulk of work, and who knows, maybe even help you reach financial independence.

Going indie does have lots of lifestyle perks :)

All these resources might help inspire you and put you on the right track but in the end what matters is to MAKE and TRY stuff. So devour this content responsibly :)

Contributions are more than welcome.

by @mezod (Doing things every day with everyday.app)

Notes:

If [$], it means it's not free and probably means I haven't tried it but still decided to add it because of the several references.
This repo was once #1 on Github Trending! :_)
Icepy translated this repo to Chinese :)

Communities
Newsletters
Podcasts
Talks
Posts
Blogs
Case Studies
Events
Books
Tools
Courses
Specific Topics

Communities

IndieHackers

Learn from profitable businesses and side projects. IndieHackers is probably the catalyst for this new wave of interest on making an independent income. It is a collection of interviews to successful developers about their products. IndieHackers has been especially interesting to follow since it's been an indie project itself. Courtland Allen has been very transparent about how he built it. The last news make one think that the forum/community will grow.
bootstrapped.fm Forum

A forum for bootstrappers. Started in 2013 by Ian Landsman and Andrey Butov as a continuation to the now defunct The Business of Software.
##passiveincome on freenode

Matthew Mallard created this channel on the freenode IRC network in early 2017 and it has been pretty active and growing ever since.
HackerNews

News for hackers, mostly technology and entrepreneurship. Not specific to indie devs but a must for everyone interested in computer science, creating products and making money. A lot of indie devs lurking around. Started by Paul Graham and maintained by the seed accelerator YCombinator.
MegaMaker Club [$]

Exclusive community for indie makers run by Justin Jackson. Currently there's a waitlist. Cost is $249 for lifetime access. I'm not a member so I can't personally endorse it. Generally, I'm skeptic on products targeting indie makers but I still found it relevant to add this specific product because of cross references. Some people might find it interesting. Feel free to reference to reviews!
FounderCafe [$]

FounderCafe is an invite-only, online community of entrepreneurs helping each other succeed run by Rob Walling and Mike Taber. $99 every 3 months. I'm not a member so I can't personally endorse it.
Nugget.one [$]

Nugget.one focuses on helping software developers launch successful side projects. Being part of the community gives access to case studios, bi-weekly webinars and live mentoring. Run by Justin Vincent. $19.99 per month.
Makerlog

Makerlog is a free community of makers shipping products together. There's discussions + a task management tracker that allows you to get a streak (to keep you motivated shipping).
Aussie Founders

Aussie Founders is a free community bringing together & supporting Aussies having a go at their own business.

Other

r/Entrepreneur - Not exclusive to indies/bootstrappers but still with relevant content for us.
Bootstrapped Slack (invite here invite link currently dead, working on it!) - Slack that probably originated from the bootstrapped.fm forum. Not really moderated.
r/SideProject - Quite active
Sideprojectxyz (invite here) - Slack community for people working on their side-projects.
r/IndieBiz - A subreddit for small and independent businesses.
/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong
Work In Progress [$] - A public todo list for accountability, and a Telegram chat of 800+ makers. Freemium.
r/Startups - Not exclusive to indies/bootstrappers but still with relevant content for us.

Newsletters

Bootstrappers.io

Weekly digest of the best user-submitted articles featured on bootstrapped.io. Curated by Darren Stuart.
IndieHackers

Newsletter containing the newest interviews of the site and also the best threads from the forum. Normally ships on Thursdays. By Courtland Allen.
Indie

Stories, lessons, and inspiration for independent makers. By Justin Jackson.
The SaaS Bootstrapper

Content about bootstrapping, SaaS, growth, marketing, and other startup topics curated by Mac Martine.
Hackerpreneur

For indie entrepreneurs & makers who live and work on their own terms. Every Friday, you’ll get hand-picked startup resources & essays exploring the future of work in the exponential age. By Marc Eglon.
Bootstrap Money

Weekly roundups of stories, guides and resources to help you grow your internet business. Every Friday. Free. Curated by Nicolas de Thoré

Podcasts

Startups for the rest of us

Started in 2010 by Rob Walling and Mike Taber have covered almost everything there is to cover in micropreneurship. Here you can find a 'best of' selection of their podcast.
Product People

A podcast focused on great products and the people who make them. Since 2012. By Justin Jackson.
bootstrapped.fm

Several different topics around bootstrapping online businesses. Started in 2013 by Ian Landsman and Andrey Butov.
Bootstrapped Web

"To share the lessons we learn by doing, and learn from the things that others are doing, to help us all get ahead as we bootstrap our businesses online." Since 2013 by Brian Casel and Jordan Gal.
Entreprogrammers

A podcast for developreneurs. Run by Josh Earl, John Sonmez, Derick Bailey and Charles Max Wood since 2014.
IndieHackers

Podcast where Courtland Allen interviews some of the most successful indiehackers featured on the site. Started in early 2017 already has 12 episodes with great content and very carefully crafted related notes and links.
The SaaS Bootstrapper

Interviews with entrepreneurs and bootstrappers about bootstrapping, SaaS, growth, marketing, and other startup topics. By Mac Martine.
Smart Passive Income

Not really specific to developers but with great content on the several types of products to make a living online. By Pat Flynn.
Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein (former growth/product lead at Thoughtbot) and Derrick Reimer (co-founder of Drip) talk weekly about growing their SaaS businesses.
Mixergy

Startup Interview podcast hosted by Andrew Warner, who made $1 million a month from an online greeting card business.
How I Built This

A podcast hosted by Guy Raz where startup founders tell their story.
Build your SaaS

What does it take to build a SaaS in 2019? Podcast by Jon Buda and Justin Jackson as they grow Transistor.fm.

Talks

David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08 by David Heinemeier Hansson

Bootstrapping as the better alternative to VC funded startups.
Tyler Tringas on Storemapper and MicroSaaS by Tyler Tringas

15 minutes filled with a lot of valuable information and insights where Tyler presents the concept of Micro-SaaS and tells us his story.
Bootstrapping Side Projects To Profit by Pieter Levels by Pieter Levels

Probably one of the most known indie hackers of the last couple of years talks about how to turn our side-projects into profitable businesses. Very straight to the point, Pieter always provides a lot of insightful thoughts. By the way, don't get fooled by his lifestyle, his success is 500% work.
Marketing for Minorities by Patrick McKenzie

Lightning 7-minute talk by one of the most respected indie developers. The point Patrick is trying to make, is that solo developers can target way smaller and niche markets which might have low competition and be very profitable from a solo business point of view.
Talking about CoderPad and business at Dropbox by Vincent Woo

Talk on building a successful small solo business.
Paul Buchheit at Startup School 08

In this classic talk, AdSense/GMail/like button inventor explains how to listen to your users and why you should be critical of startup advice.

Other

Posts

I’m Launching 12 Startups in 12 Months by Pieter Levels

The challenge that started it all for Pieter. It inspired me to do something similar. What matters is to create and ship a lot, learning in the process, until something is worth pushing further.
Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice by Patrick McKenzie

Patrick has written over 500 posts and I have obviously not read all of them, but of the many I've read, I chose this one...
Running A Software Business On 5 Hours A Week by Patrick McKenzie

...and this one too :D
Storemapper: Bootstrapped to $50,000/year in 2 years (with live metrics) by Tyler Tringas

This is just an example of a business more than one would be happy with :-) Besides liking how Tyler shares his story building Storemapper, I think he always maximizes for valuable content.
Why You Should Do A Tiny Product First by Amy Hoy

This is the first of a series by Amy Hoy. I'll be honest, I don't even remember what this was about, just that I found it worth my time. Oh wait, yeah, Amy told me not to code, at least at first. I haven't still gotten there...
The Epic Guide to Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch — By Yourself by Clifford Oravec

Another series on what solo bootstrapping is about, with an offensive twist.
How to get more customers by Justin Jackson.

This is a bit of a too specific topic for this general selection of posts, but the hell, you