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Here's what you'll find in this issue:

This founder stayed solo instead of hiring a team. Now he runs a $50k MRR business on $100/month of overhead.
5 vibe coding tools. Some of the latest apps for coding with AI.
Yesterday's build board winners, including three new product launches from indie hackers.
30-second growth tip: Ditch your corporate-sounding name for a physical avatar.

Still using ChatGPT for serious work? Try Hatch instead.

Built by the founders of Indie Hackers, Hatch is the most productive AI assistant ever made. Use code INDIE30FREE for 100% off your first month.

10 years, $50k MRR, a few hours a day ⚡

Jason McCreary built Shift at a Laravel conference hackathon in 2015 after asking the framework's creator, Taylor Otwell, if there were any tools that automated version upgrades. Otwell said no, then tweeted about Jason's buggy MVP a few weeks later. Ten years and 175,000 upgrades later, Shift is at $50k+ MRR. Jason still runs it solo on about $100/month of overhead and a few hours of work a day.

Shift connects to a Laravel developer's repo and returns a pull request with all the changes needed to upgrade between major versions. Jason has spent a decade embedding the product in the Laravel community: Laracon talks, podcasts, courses, and a follow-up email sent to every single user 48 hours after they run an upgrade. He says he still replies to each one.

One of the best ways to build a thriving lifestyle business is to niche down in a single community. And toward that end, this is one of the best case studies you'll find.

Read the full article →

AI assistants are evolving. Hatch is the next generation. 🧠

AI models have evolved. ChatGPT has not.

We're still using the same old AI assistant products we were using in 2022, even though the models underneath them keep getting better.

It's time for the next generation of AI assistants.

Introducing Hatch, the most productive AI assistant ever made.

From the creators of Indie Hackers, Hatch was thoughtfully crafted to help you get real work done. From floating windows to tagging documents, we've reimagined every aspect of your daily AI assistant to help you operate at a higher level.

Try Hatch free. Use code INDIE30FREE for 100% off for 1 month.

Vibe coding tools to try 🧑🏻‍💻

Hatch: Ditch ChatGPT. Use the most productive AI assistant ever made. Thoughtfully crafted by the founders of Indie Hackers.
Augment Code: Context-aware AI agent that navigates huge repos and writes fixes like a senior dev.
Continue: Create custom AI copilots in VS Code or JetBrains with one open-source plugin.
Amazon Q Developer: Build and refactor AWS apps faster with AI that understands your stack.
Cline: Plan, act, and execute tasks inside VS Code with an open-source dual-mode agent.

See all 30 tools in the directory →

Bite-sized growth tip 🍪

Ditch your corporate-sounding name for a physical avatar.

Ryan Sanders and Ben Peterson spent a year bootstrapping HR software under the name "Human Services HQ." The product worked, but their own clients literally kept forgetting what it was called. So they rebranded to BambooHR.

They gave people something green and easy to visualize. Just being able to picture the brand removed a massive mental hurdle for word-of-mouth growth. Big names like MailChimp and Pinterest signed up soon after, and today BambooHR pulls in nearly $20 million a month. In short, great code can't save a forgettable identity.

Read the full growth report →

The Build Board 🪧

Every day, indie hackers post updates about the products they're building. Here's what the community voted to the top yesterday!

	1. DiscountHub: Find real discounts and promo codes in one free app I’m building DiscountHub — a free app for finding real discounts and promo codes.	▲ 21

	2. IbexAI: Finds high-intent leads on LinkedIn On track to hit $10bn ARR.	▲ 11

	3. Shipfit.ai: Kill bad ideas fast. Make good ideas win. I'm 50 and I launched my first solo SaaS a few months ago. The story so far.	▲ 7

Enjoy building in public? Post an update to your product page on Indie Hackers, and it will automatically be added to the daily leaderboard.

Channing's Tweet Pick 🐦

Good advice if you've gotten millions in funding and the marketing push of an accelerator like YCombinator.

For everyone else, yes: learn to build. But also learn to market and sell what you build.

—Channing

We'd love your feedback! 🙃

Did you like today's stories? Did they suck? Which ones?

We're constantly changing things up to make this newsletter more useful, so let us know what you think by replying directly to this email. We read every reply!

Special thanks to Yushavel Calderon for the graphic design, and to James Fleischmann for contributing a post.

—Channing

Indie Hackers | 522 W Riverside Ave #6526, Spokane, WA, 99201

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🗞️ What's New: $50k MRR solo, ditch corporate names, building is not enough