I Built A Platform For Indie Creators On The Side And Had Paying Customers In Two Weeks
Hello there, my name is Peter Ullrich and I am the founder of IndieCourses.com, the video course platform that helps indie creators sell their courses quickly and teaches them how to make more money.
It tailors towards professionals like software developers who want to monetize their expertise through video content, but don’t want the hassle of creating their own website or designing a complete classroom experience with quizzes and certificates. On Indie Courses, they can just drag & drop their content, set a price, and start selling.
Indie Courses’ pricing model caters to starters and professionals alike. New creators can test the waters with a true 10% transaction fee and upgrade to 5% + $29/month or 0% + $69/month subscriptions when their course becomes successful. The product is currently pre-revenue but has its first 30 customers.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I have been a professional software developer for more than 5 years now, and I love sharing my knowledge with the community. I have always created info products next to my studies and full-time job. I learn best by teaching others. I am not very motivated to simply “learn” something, but if my goal is to “teach” something, I have no problem to deep-dive into a topic and learning all about it.
This strategy of learning-by-teaching has led me to record a podcast, create a YouTube channel, speak at several major conferences, write a book, and eventually to record a video course. My experience of creating and selling the video course has given me the idea of founding Indie Courses.
After I finished my video course, I struggled to find a place to sell it. I looked through many different services, but they were either too complex, too basic, or too pricey. Many focused on replicating the classroom experience with custom websites, cohorts, certificates, and quizzes, which is great for professional educators, but was overkill for me. I wanted a platform where selling my video course is as easy as uploading a video to YouTube.
I finally settled on Gumroad because they seemed affordable and simple enough. But after I made $16k in 8 months with my video course, their roughly 12.5% effective transaction fee started to hurt. I wanted a platform that allowed me to switch to a subscription without transaction fees once my course started to sell. All these irritations gave me the idea to create my own platform.
I primarily validated my business idea through market research. I looked at the big players in the EdTech industry and sifted through tons of user feedback on Reddit and product rating sites. Eventually, I had a huge table with their pros and cons. I looked for a gap in their offerings and saw the potential for a low-effort video course hosting platform that caters to indie creators who want to sell a video course on the side.
I had saved up some money during COVID and the inflation years afterward, so I had a financial buffer for around 18 months. I also had offers for part-time freelance gigs, which would have paid my expenses. Since I wouldn’t have to worry about making rent, I started building Indie Courses in July and went full-time in December 2023.
The best way to find business ideas is to create something. Just experiment with technologies and content creation and see where you get irritated. Then just scratch your own itch.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
I built the MVP of Indie Courses next to my day job on evenings and weekends over 7 months. I started in July 2023, went full-time in December, and launched the MVP end of January 2024. My goal for the MVP was to build the must-have features and at least one feature that my direct competitors didn’t have.
Unfortunately, video course platforms are “all-or-nothing” products where you need to build many features before you can release the product. That delayed the launch until the initial feature list was completed. If I ever start another business, I would choose an idea that delivers value quicker and then iterate on it instead of doing this “big bang” release.
At first, I had no idea how to implement the core of my system: to upload and stream video content. Luckily I had a good friend, Marcel Fahle, who is an expert on that matter. He helped me tremendously with setting up the video upload and transcription part of the system.
After coding the system, I incorporated a company in Delaware, US, through Stripe Atlas. This was necessary because I wanted to use Stripe Connect to pay the course creators on my platform. Unless your company is in the US, you are very limited in making cross-border payments on Stripe.
I wanted to offer my service to creators all around the world instead of just one region. So, I paid the $500 to Stripe Atlas and incorporated the company within two weeks.
The incorporation fee was the second biggest expense I had. The biggest expense was the domain indiecourses.com, which was around $1500. My company was first called “Yellow Spaceship”, but after reading the “One Page Marketing Plan”, which suggests choosing precise company names over vague ones, I rebranded to Indie Courses.
Describe the process of launching the business.
My launch strategy was to release it on ProductHunt and then repeatedly hit my socials and newsletter for a few days, followed by a bi-weekly marketing push focused on SEO and content marketing.
I started promoting Indie Courses on my social channels the day I left my day job to pursue the project full-time, which was around 1.5 months before the official launch. I created a simple landing page with a newsletter sign-up. Two weeks after I launched on January 28th, I had 60 newsletter subscribers, 30 user sign-ups, 6 draft courses, and 1400 unique visitors.
One lesson I learned was not assigning too much importance to the launch day itself. Sure, it’s important, but what is more important is the hard work you put into marketing afterwards.
If your launch was a failure in your eyes, but you have validated your idea and know that there’s potential, just shrug it off and keep going. Empires weren’t built in a single day and neither are companies.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
My main tools for attracting new customers in the short term are Twitter, LinkedIn, and my newsletter. I share interesting learnings from building the startup on Twitter and LinkedIn at least 4 times a week.
I send product updates through the newsletter every week or two to engage my existing customers. But all of these methods focus on the short term. Most of my followers who are interested in the product have signed up already. Any further content on social media will keep them engaged but won’t lead to more sign-ups.
That’s why - in the long term - I’m primarily focused on content marketing and SEO. I am new to all this, but the Ahref YouTube channel and blog explain the basics extremely well. I try to write content that helps my existing creators but also attracts new creators.
Although it takes hours to write a single piece, and it takes even longer until I see the first visitors coming through Google Search, it is worth it, I think. I also share my content on Reddit, HackerNews, and other platforms. The more exposure, the better.
My marketing strategy aims at acquiring new creators, but I also put effort into getting new students to my platform. When I launched my platform, I dropped the price of my video course by 50%. That got me my first 15 students and $750 in revenue.
I also invited students who bought the course previously and that brought another 100 students to the platform. That means that I now have over 115 students who give me feedback about their experience and make improvement suggestions. That’s invaluable for a new product like mine!
One last marketing method I use is a lead magnet. Before launching, I built a directory of indie courses and added over 25 video courses created by creators that more or less fit my customer profile. That brought new visitors to my page through search results, but more importantly: It started several discussions with the creators, who gave me feedback on the pros and cons of their current solution. None of them have converted yet, but it gave me valuable insight which improved my platform already.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
It’s only been around 6 weeks since the launch, but Indie Courses is going strong. The platform has 6 work-in-progress video courses, and I am thrilled about the first one being published soon.
I earned almost $1000 with my own video course and received my first payouts, which is a great feeling. I plan on creating two more video courses this year to bring more students and, hopefully, creators to the platform.
My next steps are to build up the knowledge base for creators with written content that also performs well for SEO. I am 90% focused on marketing right now and only code small features and bug fixes. The MVP is good enough, and I first have to get the customer acquisition machine up and running.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
The best way to find business ideas is to create something. Just experiment with technologies and content creation and see where you get irritated. Then just scratch your own itch.
Chances are that many people feel the same itch and are willing to pay for a solution. Creating a business has given me a thousand new business ideas and if this doesn’t work out, I already have a list of possible new businesses.
Having a brand and followership on social media helps a lot. You immediately have your first customers and can validate business ideas much faster. You can get help much faster and whatever you need, chances are somebody knows somebody who can help you. A good network also helps with finding side gigs or a new job, if the startup doesn’t work out.
Be nice to people. I created good friendships with people on social media by just being honest, kind, and caring. That helped me both personally and professionally. Make it a habit to create stuff for free. Write or share interesting blog posts, videos, jokes, or insights, and people are much more likely to give you their money once you start selling something.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
I use Elixir and Phoenix LiveView for coding the platform, TailwindCSS for styling it, Fly.io for hosting it, Stripe for payments, Plausible for web traffic analytics, Mux for video encoding and streaming, AWS S3 for file uploads, Cloudflare for resizing and hosting images, and Stripe Atlas for incorporating the business.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Podcasts:
- The Business of Authority
- Startups for the Rest of Us
- The Bootstrapped Founder
- Hacker Incorporated
Books:
- Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
- The One Page Marketing Plan
- How to f**k up your Startup
- The SaaS Playbook
Other:
- The Ahrefs YouTube channel
- Justin Welsh and other Twitter Accounts of bootstrapped Founders
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
When you validate a business idea, do market research and be honest with yourself. Think about the business model and how you will make money. Don’t waste time and energy just by “being fast” and think first. Validate your idea at least with a simple tweet and a poll like “Would you pay for this?”.
I like building products well, fast but not rushing, and well thought out. I’m not a fan of Indie Hackers who create a product on a weekend, never market it, and dump it after a month because they didn’t get any customers, only to start the same cycle a day later again. Experimenting is good and launching fast is even better, but without marketing and persistence, almost all companies fail. So, if you build something, stick with it for a while instead of dumping it the second you have a new idea.
Where can we go to learn more?
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
