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PRESENTED BY

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

This founder validated on a marketplace instead of launching his own site first. Now ThemeForest alone still pulls $15-20k/month for him.
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: Become a regular in the niche forums your customers already hang out in.

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.

From ThemeForest to $65k/mo 🧩

Ajay Patel and his cofounder Vrushank didn’t start Clevision by trying to own the whole customer relationship. They started on Envato’s ThemeForest, where developers were already looking for admin templates. That marketplace gave them distribution, proof of demand, and cash flow before they had to build a platform of their own.

ThemeForest still generates $15-20k/month for them, and Clevision’s broader suite of developer tools now does $65k/mo.

Later, things got more difficult. ThemeForest had given them distribution, payments, and a steady stream of buyers. Moving to their own platform meant learning the stuff the marketplace had handled for them: acquisition, support, pricing, and direct customer relationships. But once they owned the customer, each new product could build on the same developer audience instead of starting from zero.

Worth reading if you’re sitting on a dev tool idea and still trying to decide where to launch it.

Read the full article →

One unified path for startups 🧑🏻‍💻

Build and ship your AI MVP on the same ecosystem from commit to production. Use AI‑native tools built into your workflow and move faster with fewer handoffs.

Start building with Startup credits immediately and unlock up to $150K over time as you grow and scale with Microsoft for Startups. Apply now.

Vibe coding tools to try 🧑🏻‍💻

Hatch: Ditch ChatGPT. Use the most productive AI assistant ever made. Thoughtfully crafted by the founders of Indie Hackers.
Kilo Code: Open-source AI assistant that orchestrates complex tasks, writes, and self-repairs — all inside VS Code.
Junie: Chat, refactor, and generate tests across JetBrains IDEs with context-aware AI.
Repo Prompt: Generate and edit code across repositories using AI-driven prompts.
Bolt.new: Prompt an app — Bolt spins up and deploys the full-stack in one click.

See all 30 tools in the directory →

Bite-sized growth tip 🍪

Become a regular in the niche forums your customers already hang out in.

Eric Bandholz, founder of Beardbrand (a grooming brand that sells beard oils, balms, and tools to men who actually want to grow their beards), didn’t start with ads or influencer deals. He spent years showing up in obscure beard forums like Beardboard․com and BeardedGents․com, answering questions in YouTube comments, replying to Reddit threads, and personally handling support emails.

That presence built the kind of trust no ad budget can buy. By the time Beardbrand had products to sell, the community already considered him one of their own. The company eventually hit $2M/month.

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. Achiv: Content Marketing on Reddit without SPAM I used Claude Code to analyze 100,000 top-performing Reddit posts - what makes promo efficient on Reddit?	▲ 8

	2. Recurflux: Payment recovery and churn prevention for SaaS Your revenue burning by churn, which you or stripe can't stop. But we can.	▲ 8

	3. Who Owes What: Scan · Split · Settle Introducing Who Owes What	▲ 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.

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.

Channing's Tweet Pick 🐦

I've given up on trying to get non-entrepreneurs to understand the roller coaster that is my life. This is what founder communities are for! 😉

—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 | 120 Westlake Avenue N, Seattle, Washington 98109

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🗞️ What's New: WordPress theme to $65k/mo, forum marketing, wives of founders