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PRESENTED BY

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

This founder built multiple apps instead of going all-in on one.
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: Sponsor one weirdly specific blog instead of buying broad ads.

Justworks handles HR, payroll, and benefits complexity, so you can focus on building your small business.

Getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to him 🔥

Fernando Pessagno got fired the day before his vacation in 2023, after a huge pay cut and a move to Sweden for his girlfriend. Instead of job hunting, he spent his vacation days shipping the MVP of aiCarousels․com. Three years later, his portfolio of design tools has crossed $500k in revenue.

His setup is a cluster of sharp, single-purpose SaaS products (aiCarousels, ResumeMaker, GeneratePPT) that all feed each other. His bet: most people hate design, Canva is too bloated, and solo founders win by staying constrained instead of chasing "giant platform" energy. He's also skeptical of a lot of the indie hacker gospel being preached right now, and he says so.

In our interview, he explains the one thing scarier than zero MRR, the trick he uses when motivation dies, and why he thinks half of today's indie hacker advice is wrong.

Read the full article →

Built for businesses ready to scale. Simplify your tech stack with HighLevel 😱

If your business runs on scattered tools, disconnected automations, and half-built funnels, you are not alone.

Most marketers and business owners only scratch the surface of what HighLevel can do. They use a few features, launch a campaign, and never tap into the full power of the platform.

HighLevel was not built to be just another tool in your stack.

It was built to run your entire system.

With HighLevel, you can capture leads, build high-converting funnels, automate follow-up, manage your pipeline, and deliver seamless client experiences all in one platform.

Inside HighLevel you can:

Capture and convert more leads
Build funnels that actually perform
Automate follow-up and nurture at scale
Manage pipelines and close more deals
Deliver seamless client experiences
Create predictable, repeatable revenue

Everything works together in one place so you can spend less time duct-taping tools together and more time growing your business.

Start your 30-day FREE trial of HighLevel and see how powerful your business can be when everything runs on one platform.

Vibe coding tools to try 🧑🏻‍💻

Hatch: A better ChatGPT — one that actually knows you, your work, and your projects. From the founders of Indie Hackers.
Cursor: AI code editor that predicts your next edit and understands your project context.
Repo Prompt: Generate and edit code across repositories using AI-driven prompts.
Tabnine: Code completions from a fast AI model you can run locally.
v0: Type a prompt — v0 drafts production-ready React, Vue, or Svelte components.

See all 30 tools in the directory →

Bite-sized growth tip 🍪

Sponsor one weirdly specific blog instead of buying broad ads.

Garrett Dimon, the solo founder behind Sifter (a bug tracker built for non-technical teammates, the kind of people who stare blankly at Jira), burned roughly $20,000 over eight years testing podcast ads, AdWords, the usual suspects. Almost none of it paid off.

The one exception was a single $2,500 sponsorship on Daring Fireball, John Gruber’s famously opinionated Apple-focused blog. It pulled in 30 to 35 paying customers. Do the math and it's absurdly cheap per signup compared to anything algorithmic.

Your buyers already read someone. Find that person and skip the ad networks.

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. LiFast: Autopilot your LinkedIn B2B Marketing Saved 15 hours a week on LinkedIn and 3x'd my inbound leads in 60 days	▲ 11

	2. ShipAhead: Ship your SaaS in a weekend Made $2.3K in 3 weeks shipping the same idea three different ways	▲ 10

	3. Pracal AI: Know how your content performs even before publishing See why your content won’t work before you post	▲ 3

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 🐦

Missing a 6th: Your taste. The one thing you still can't outsource to AI.

—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: Getting rich after getting fired, win by protecting 6 things, sponsor a high-traffic blog