🦄 First User Fridays Issue #7 - How Anthony got Indie Worldwide, a paid community, its first users
The story of how Anthony Castrio was inspired to build Indie Worldwide and how he found its first users.
Hey all! 👋
Hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas 🎄🎅! Some might’ve noticed a skip in last week’s issue, that was intended cause’ I took a day off from any work to enjoy the holidays haha!
Let's get started and take a look at some market and tech news:
So apparently LastPass, had a data breach 🐱💻 where some of their user data was accessed by someone it shouldn't have been. But they're saying that the actual password vault with all the encrypted data is totally fine and that they've let all the affected users know what happened.
Well well well, it looks like TikTok has been banned from all House of Representatives-owned devices! 🚫💃 I guess those politicians are really worried about their security, or maybe they're just trying to avoid all the dance challenges. Either way, I'm sure there are plenty of other ways for them to waste their time.
Last, it looks like Southwest Airlines had to cancel a bunch of flights 🛬🌨️ because of a winter storm. They're trying to get everyone where they need to go, but it's going to take a while because of the weather and all the delays.
Now for this interview I had the chance to sit down with Anthony Castrio, the founder of Indie Worldwide, an awesome community of tight-knit indie builders and talk about his experiences building it.
Hope you enjoy this issue and find the news and insights shared to be valuable. As always, I welcome your feedback and suggestions for future issues.
Let’s get started! 😁
First off, can you tell us a little about yourself?
I'm Anthony, digital nomad, indie maker, and host of the Indie Worldwide Community.
What is the product you want to talk about today?
Indie Worldwide: a community for indie makers and bootstrapped startup founders. We introduce you 1-1 to other founders via a weekly email based on how much money you're making.
How did you come up with this product idea?
Four years ago I started traveling as a digital nomad. I wanted to start an indie business, but wasn't sure what yet so I started organizing local meetups wherever I went, but it was hard to keep the friends I was making when I moved on to the next location. That's when I started Indie Worldwide, as a virtual version of the in-person meetups and the concept grew very organically from there.
How were you able to find your first customers?
My first members (we were a free community for the first two years), came from the local meetups I was hosting and from posting in places like Indie Hackers, Twitter, and Product Hunt.
For a long while we were just a Zoom call, then we added a Slack community. I was looking for a way to encourage more 1-1 interactions between members which led me to start directly introducing people via email for video chats.
In order to make the chats useful I'd match people based on revenue. People really enjoyed the calls! So much so that multiple members asked me to charge them money for the service.
That's how my free community got it's first customers and started to make some money.
What do you want Indie Worldwide to become 2-3 years from now?
I'm not planning out that far, part of what's made Indie Worldwide work is that each change is incremental and based on what I see that the members need.
Seeing as how a paid community is different from how a typical SaaS works, what would you say are the most challenging and rewarding parts of running a community?
Most challenging: Your users are your product, so finding great users is key. Activity levels vary from week to week and if someone shows up at a high point or low point they'll assume that's the average.
Rewarding: I stopped working on Indie Worldwide several times in the past, but was always pulled back in by passionate members. It's been super reward making relationships that have lasted years now and getting to be a part of so many people's founder stories.
Can you share other ways of how you find your customers now?
Number one is Twitter right now, followed by word of mouth and posting in communities like Indie Hackers, Reddit, and Product Hunt.
We're also on a lot of "best communities" lists which means people searching for a community for startup founders will find us indirectly through Google search.
Can you share an approximate of how many users you currently have?
100+ paying users, 500+ active in our Slack, and 5,000+ free readers of the newsletter.
Can you share your current revenue numbers?
Indie Worldwide made $4,645.21 in the month of November, on track to do similar in December.
Lastly, do you have some insights that you can give founders who are just starting to look for their first users?💡
I did it the long and slow way because I wasn't really trying to build Indie Worldwide into a business. Now when I'm looking for early users for new projects, the first place I start is actually in Indie Worldwide. We have great channels for getting early feedback and finding early users.
Where can we go to learn more about you and your projects?
Our website: indieworldwide.com and my Twitter: @AnthonyCastrio
Thanks for the time and thanks for the insights Anthony!
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That’s it thanks for reading everyone! See you next week! 👍