“A world where only 0.3% of people can create software is a world missing 99.7% of its potential.” — Adalo

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• Who makes $10,000 MRR with a no-code directory?
• Who sold a newsletter marketplace for 5 figures?
• Who grew a no-code form builder to $60,000 MRR in public?
• Who made $12,000 by interviewing no-code founders?
• Who grew a no-code chatbot builder to $18,000 MRR in 6 months?
• Who runs a $3,000,000 ARR business on a $100 no-code stack?
• Who runs a $5,000,000, one-person business using no-code tools?
• Who runs a $1,500,000 ARR unlimited service in Trello?
• How to build no-code apps inside ChatGPT?
• Who made ~$2,200 with a no-code app built inside ChatGPT?
• How to build AI agents without code?
  
  

🔍 Problem

Repetitive work wastes time, money and energy.

💡 Solution

No-code tools help you:

• Build products faster
• Automate repetitive tasks
• Make systems easier to maintain 

Without writing code.

🏁 Players

No-Code Apps

• UserLoop • AI-powered surveys for Shopify
• Strabo • Investment portfolio tracker
• SubSocket • Set up recurring and one-time payments with PayPal
• Riku • Build and deploy AI models
• Packfleet • Delivery platform for ecommerce businesses
• beegle • Marketplace for on-demand helpers
  

No-Code Tools

• Craftar • Build scalable APIs and automations
• Adalo • Build custom responsive apps
• Softr • Build directories, client portals and internal tools
• Make • Build no-code automations
• Framer • Build websites with AI
• Zapier • Build automated workflows
  

No-Code Founders

• Prabhjot Singh Lamba • Helps to craft automations visually with Craftar
• Max Haining • Teaches how to build no-code projects with 100DaysOfNoCode
• JJ Englert • Builds no-code MVPs with Studio NoCode
• Kieran • Teaches Bubble with Zero To Pro Bubble Course
• Katt Risen • Interviews no-code founders at No-Code Exits
• Bram Kanstein • Teaches how to build no-code MVPs with No-Code MVP
• Seth Kramer • Teaches how to use popular no-code tools with No Code MBA
  
  

🛠 How to Build No-Code Businesses

• Build a directory with no-code tools and resources. Help others sift through the noise.
  • Jonas made Duuce with Carrd. Then sold it for 5 figures.
  • Art West made NoCodeDevs which makes $10,000 MRR.
  • Drew Thomas made NoCodeList with Bildr and Airtable. Then sold it to Stefan Quartemont.
  • Joe Brown made Nucode with Bubble, SendGrid and Fathom. Then sold it to NoCodeOps.

• Build in public to stay top of mind.
  • Goutham Jay grew Famewall to $1,000 MRR by building in public.
  • Katt Risen made $12,000 with No-Code Exits which she was building in public.
  • Marie Martens and Filip Minev grew Tally to $60,000 MRR by building in public.

• Presell to validate demand.
  • Marc Lou is preselling a course on making viral launch videos.
  • Alex Vaughtton presold NocodeHackers courses for €1.000. Then grew the platform to €13,000 in revenue.
  • Alex Rainey presold My AskAI chatbot builder for $5,000 before launching. Then grew it to $18,000 MRR in 6 months.
    
    

🌱 How to Grow No-Code Businesses

• Share video tutorials on YouTube. It’s a discovery platform that can help to boost your visibility.
  • Glide shares how to build internal tools.
  • Bubble shares how to build full-stack web apps.
  • Softr shares tips on how to use their website builder.

• Offer freemium to lower your user acquisition costs.
  • Umso lets you build a website for free.
  • Typeform lets you build online forms for free.
  • Backendless lets you build a database for free.

• Build an affiliate program. Get others to recommend your no-code tool.
  • NoCodeAPI offers a 30% commission for attracting paid users.
  • Jet Admin offers a 30% commission for referring paid customers.
  • No Code MBA offers a 40% commission for every customer you refer.
    
    

💰 How to Monetize No-Code Businesses

• Charge per user to grow with your customers. 
  • Jestor charges per builder and per user.
  • Fibery charges up to $20/user per month.
  • AppSheet charges up to $10/user per month.

• Offer subscriptions to earn predictable revenue.
  • TillyPay is a payment platform that charges $40 per month.
  • Tally is a form builder that has a pro plan for $29 per month.
  • Nocodey is a marketplace for no-code gigs that costs $79 per month.

• Offer sponsorships to help brands connect with their target audiences.
  • No Code Founders offers sponsored ads.
  • NoCodeDevs offers paid ads and reviews.
  • Katt Risen offers sponsorships at No-Code Exits.
    
    

🔮 Predictions

• We’ll see more million-dollar businesses built with no-code tools.
  • Joe Speiser said he was running a $1,000,000 startup on a $200 no-code stack.
  • Flexiple grew to $3,000,000 ARR. It runs on no-code tools that cost $100 per month.
  • Justin Welsh made $5,000,000 with his one-person business. He started with Carrd, Airtable, Zapier and other no-code tools.
  • Brett Williams grew Designjoy to $1,500,000 ARR and $3,000,000 in sales. He uses Memberstack, Trello and Webflow to run his design services.
  • Nuage Stays was a $5,000,000 short-term rental business running on a $200 no-code stack. While it was successful, COVID-19 put a strain on the business.

• Custom GPTs will become the new interface for building no-code apps in ChatGPT.
  • Alex Atallah made a speed reading coach.
  • Nick Dobos made $2,192 with GPT apps such as Grimoire.
  • Princely H. Glorious made an app that helps to design board games.
  • Putri Karunia made a prompt generator for building websites with Typedream.
  • Pieter Levels made a text-based adventure game. He open-sourced the prompt to help you build one yourself.

• We’ll see no-code tools for building AI agents. They will take the guesswork out of building, training and running autonomous AI models.
  • AgentGPT is a visual builder for AI agents.
  • Relevance AI lets you build AI agents without code.
  • Flowise AI is a drag-and-drop UI for building AI workflows.
  • Promptly helps to build AI apps and chatbots without code.
  • OpenAI’s GPTs let you build custom AI agents in ChatGPT.
    
    

😠 Haters

“No-code tools are less powerful and flexible.”
No-code tools are easier to use but less powerful. Custom software is more powerful but complex. Tradeoffs are a fact of life.

“Bubble’s pricing changes took some companies out of business. Platform risk is too high.”
While this is true. The accessibility, cost and development speed often outweigh the downsides. Bubble is a unique case. They tried to find a fair price in 2022. They tried again in 2023. Most no-code tools don’t have this problem.

“There’s little-to-no technical moat here.”
There are other types of moats to build around your business. Scale economies, network effects, branding and more.

“Using ChatGPT to write and debug code is not ‘no-code’.”
True. But this is better than hiring a developer if you need to add custom code to your no-code product.

“User-based pricing limits growth.”
While it adds obstacles to user growth. There are some benefits. You can align your expenses with the workload produced by your user base. Your revenue grows as your customers’ teams grow. You get engaged customers who pay for real users instead of subscriptions they forgot to cancel.

🔗 Links

1. ​Growing a No-Code Form Builder to $60,000 MRR • The thread behind this report.
2. Building a Report on No-Code Businesses • The tweet behind this report.
3. What Is No-Code? • Simple guide to no-code tools.
4. Bubble Crash Course • Learn the fundamentals of Bubble by building a marketplace app.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​Micro-SaaS • Build a no-code tool to solve a specific problem for a specific group of people.
• Product-Led Growth • Distribution matters more than product.
• AI Agents • AI agents can think, plan and do tasks on your behalf.
• Low-Code • Focus on solving problems without wasting effort.
• Directories • Save people’s time and build a defensible business.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Marc Kreuzer, Onu Ocholi, Bernhard Friedrichs and Uwe Dreissigacker. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0139 — No-Code has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 14 No-Code App Examples (133% More)
• 15 No-Code Tools (150% More)
• 14 No-Code Founders (100% More)
• 16 Ways to Build No-Code Businesses (433% More)
• 12 Ways to Grow No-Code Businesses (300% More)
• 13 Ways to Monetize No-Code Businesses (333% More)
• 14 Predictions (367% More)
• 9 Links (125% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to monetize your no-code expertise?
• (📈 Pro) How to piggyback on no-code platforms?
• (📈 Pro) Who sold a website builder with $6,300 MRR for $300,000?
• (📈 Pro) How to find an idea for your product?
• (📈 Pro) Who pre-sold a Chrome extension built with ChatGPT?
• (📈 Pro) Who sold $1,000,000 worth of Notion templates?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $10,000 with a lifetime deal to fund product development?
• (📈 Pro) How to monetize open-source products?
• (📈 Pro) How to build websites with natural language?
• (📈 Pro) How to build Chrome extensions without code?
• (📈 Pro) How to turn sketches into functional code?
• (📈 Pro) What accelerators help to launch, market and scale no-code companies?
• (📈 Pro) Who raised £300,000 for a prototype made with Bubble?
• (📈 Pro) What is the top mistake no-code founders make?
• (📈 Pro) How to grow a no-code recruiting agency?
• (📈 Pro) How to build a SaaS without code?
• And much more…
  
  

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

💵 Why charge 100% upfront
🚀 How to launch on Product Hunt
📊 Metrics that cannot be measured
🌎 An SEO guide for international traffic
✨ Official Guide to Prompt Engineering
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Start before you’re ready.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Aaron Nesser unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

📺 Elie Steinbock reached 1,500 YouTube subscribers

🎙️ Hj Barraza launched the En Contxto podcast

🔥 Bernardt J. Vogel spoke at a fireside chat

📝 Julien Collet shipped new features for Scheduled.so

🐦 Kevin Galang announced A Team Overseas

🧠 Avy Leghziel and Patrick Reker unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 30-day standup streaks

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

✨ OpenAI Prompt Engineering Guide shared by Avy Leghziel
The official guide to writing better prompts from OpenAI

🚀 How to Launch on Product Hunt shared by Simon
A practical guide on launching on Product Hunt

🌎 International SEO shared by Daniel Berggren
A guide on reaching new target audiences in different countries

📘 Read This

Metrics that You Can’t Measure in Retrospect

Some important metrics are impossible to measure:

• Probabilities of “risks”
• How a single feature affects revenue
• How your actions affect customer churn
• How small design choices affect user experience
• The value of proactively fixing bugs or good engineering practices

If they can’t be measured in retrospect, they can’t be measured now or later.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Marc Kreuzer

“I had valuable conversations with Trends Pro Members that gave me a deeper understanding of fractional leadership and venture capital. Lots of inspiration.”

Marc helps purpose-driven brands build, adopt and maintain strategies to foster deep connections with their customers.

What’s your most important habit?
Running. It boosts my health, energy and creativity. The best ideas come to me while running. 

What are you reading right now?
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. Nike serves as a fascinating case study in brand-building. Its story resonates with me as I’m a runner and a brand consultant.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A tool that can automatically build a knowledge base from everything I read. Then integrate it with my writing tools to suggest relevant information while I write.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Apple Shortcuts. It’s an underrated tool. In combination with Notion and OpenAI, it adds so much value to my daily life by automating repetitive tasks.

What are you bullish on?
AI as a value-creation tool. The technology opens a lot of ways to do things better. It will have a huge impact across industries and daily life.

What are you bearish on?
AI as a cost-saving tool. If we use this powerful technology to do more of the same, but cheaper, there is no real progress. Brands that use AI to merely cut costs will lose  to companies that understand the AI‘s potential in creating more value for their customers.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🤓 Consulting

This report offers useful insights for building my business, which is a mix of consulting and agency. It serves me as a roadmap to where I’m heading.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) Scheduling tools
  
• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Favorite online communities

🔧 Try This

Why You Should Charge 100% Upfront

Have you ever been stiffed by a client?

The client either paid you late or never paid you at all.

Fix this by charging 100% upfront. Stop worrying about:

• Getting paid on time
• Abandoned projects
• The number of revisions
• Enforcing legal contracts
• Sending multiple invoices

The money becomes the contract.

Pro tip: for clients who don’t want to pay 100% upfront, break down payments into tiers and never start working on the next part of the project until the new payment arrives.

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

“Always deliver more than expected.” — Larry Page

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• Who made $550,000 with 1 programming course?
• How to validate demand?
• How to get early customers?
• Who makes $100,000 ARR via affiliates?
• How to get early feedback?
• How to get predictable revenue?
• Who made $200,000 with a course on spreadsheets?
• Who used side project marketing to attract 150,000 visitors?
• How to boost customer success?
• How to crowdsource product ideas?
• What are evergreen digital product ideas?
• What are 77 digital product ideas?
  
  

🔍 Problem

You know something that others don’t.

But 1:1 help does not scale.

💡 Solution

Digital products help you share your knowledge in a scalable way.

🏁 Players

Ebooks

• Landing Page Hot Tips • How to build effective landing pages
• Zero to Sold • How to start, run and sell a bootstrapped business
• Writing for Software Developers • How to write technical articles
  

Online Courses

• Notion Mastery • Master your life and business workflows with Notion
• Driven Digital • How to make passive income with affiliate marketing
• The Art of Visual Design • Improve the aesthetics of your product with images, colors, fonts and more
  

Templates

• Lume 3D • Portfolio website template for Webflow
• Figma iOS UI Kit • Responsive mobile app templates for iOS
• Design System UI Kit • Design system templates
  

Databases

• CyberLeads • 1,000+ handpicked companies that raised millions
• Free To Use Sounds • Library of royalty-free sounds
• ChatGPT Prompts • 1,000+ prompts for lawyers, recruiters, marketers and more
  
  

🛠 How to Build Digital Products

• Build in public to earn trust.
  • Vensy has built Notion Planner in public.
  • Eelco Wiersma shares the new features of SaaS UI in public.
  • Josh W. Comeau made $550,000 with CSS for JavaScript Developers. He was sharing short recordings of the course in public.

• Presell to validate demand.
  • Jane Portman presold UI Audit (now free) for $3,500.
  • Jay Clouse got 40 pre-orders for Podcast Like The Pros.
  • Ayush Chaturvedi presold Make Money with Words for $512.

• Build an audience to get early customers.
  • Quentin Villard made $3,000 by sharing TIMS with his audience.
  • Xavier Coiffard says building an audience helped him launch UserBooster.
  • Arvid Kahl used his audience on X (Twitter) to launch Zero to Sold. He sold 350 copies of the book in 24 hours.
    
    

🌱 How to Grow Digital Products

• Use affiliate marketing to get others to sell your product.
  • Gabe Ragland offers a 50% commission to Divjoy affiliates.
  • Kerry Godsall offers a 50% commission to How to Sketch affiliates.
  • Rob Austin and Michael Andreuzza offer up to 70% commission to Wicked Templates affiliates.
  • Ryan Sager says Who Sponsors Stuff attracts customers through inbound inquiries and referrals. It makes $100,000 ARR.

• Use digital products as lead magnets. It’s easier to sell to warm leads.
  • Nicole Osborne offers a free Agency Growth ebook.
  • Dan Martell offers Growth Playbooks by SaaS Academy.
  • Modest Mitkus offers free resources for making digital products.

• Use social media to drive traffic from your existing audience.
  • JPatz is showing music beats on TikTok.
  • Chris is promoting his SEO course on YouTube.
  • Matt Olpinski embeds Project Proposal & Contract Bundle in his blog.
    
    

💰 How to Monetize Digital Products

• Offer lifetime deals to get early users, feedback and revenue.
  • Pixel True has a $299 lifetime deal for illustrations.
  • Seth Kramer has a $159 lifetime deal for No Code MBA.
  • Landingfolio has an $89 lifetime deal for all UI components.

• Offer a one-time pricing to lower mental overhead.
  • Doing Content Right costs $300.
  • Podcast Cover Templates cost $19,90.
  • SaaS Conversion Strategies cost $157.

• Offer recurring plans to get predictable revenue.
  • Mark Anderson sells cartoons for up to $75 per month.
  • SaaSFrame offers SaaS layout examples for $14 per month.
  • Andrew Kamphey sells Better Sheets for up to $29 per month. He made $200,000+.
    
    

🔮 Predictions

• Companies will use side project marketing to get more leads.
  • Clientjoy is a CRM for small businesses. They offer contract templates for freelancers and agencies.
  • Surfer SEO is a content creation platform. They have an SEO Writing Masterclass to help you optimize your writing for SEO.
  • Karthik Sridharan runs Flexiple, a recruiting agency. They made free illustrations that attracted 150,000 visitors in 24 hours.

• Platforms for selling digital products will offer real-time help to educate users. Sellers have a high lifetime value for platforms and this boosts customer success.
  • Kajabi helps you make and grow digital products with 1:1 sessions.
  • Teachable helps you make better digital products with group coaching.
  • Thinkific helps you launch online courses with growth and marketing calls.

• Creators will crowdsource content to build products fast.
  • Pieter Levels crowdsourced the chapters for MAKE.
  • Lokesh Gupta wrote Art of Email List Growth based on insights from top email marketers.
  • Gergely Orosz made $14,000 with The Tech Resume. He based the book on insights from recruiters and hiring managers.o Philip Kiely made $39,141 with Writing for Software Developers. The book is based on interviews with software developers and writers.
    
    

😠 Haters

“Digital products are easy to copy. It’s hard to build a moat.”
To boost value, base your digital product on your personal brand, unique experience and provide great customer support.

“Digital products are prone to piracy.”
This is true. If you’re worried about piracy, it can be wise to choose another business model.

“Some digital products get out of date fast.”
Some digital products are evergreen. For products on fast-paced topics, offer lifetime deals to boost the perceived value or sell updated versions as “new” products.

🔗 Links

1. ​Made $550,000 with a Programming Course • The thread behind this report.
2. Building a Report on Digital Products • The tweet behind this report.
3. 77 Best Digital Products to Sell • List of digital products for bloggers, freelancers and more.
4. How I Made $3,000 With a Digital Product • Build, launch and grow a digital product without tech skills.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​Ebooks • Learn from the lives of others and explore new worlds.
• Data as a Service • Gain a competitive edge by fueling your decisions with the right data.
• Email Courses • Deliver promised transformations in a scalable way.
• Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses • Find your highest point of leverage.
• Audience-First Products • Validate products, build distribution and stay accountable.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Sam Schrup and Sahil Sangani. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0138 — Digital Products has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 28 Digital Product Examples (133% More)
• 9 Ways to Build Digital Products (200% More)
• 8 Ways to Grow Digital Products (167% More)
• 10 Ways to Monetize Digital Products (233% More)
• 7 Predictions (133% More)
• 10 Links (150% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to sell “sawdust”?
• (📈 Pro) Who makes $3,771 MRR with tweet templates?
• (📈 Pro) How to get to market faster?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $7,569 with an NFT ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How to lower market risk?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $100,000 by flipping websites?
• (📈 Pro) Who grew to $120,000 ARR by giving away products daily?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $1,000,000 with 2 Notion templates?
• (📈 Pro) How to build a value ladder?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $170,000 by selling stock photos?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $839,968 by selling music beats?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost perceived value?
• (📈 Pro) How to get high-ticket sales?
• (📈 Pro) What 7 digital products you can make with AI?
• (📈 Pro) How to price your digital product?
• And much more…
  
  

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🧘 6 simple habits
💬 A speech-to-text app
🎞️ An AI video generator
💰 Building a $1B startup at 23
❓ 12 questions to guide your work
🪝 A book on habit-forming products
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Ka Yi Hui unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🤖 Elie Steinbock launched Full Stack AI on Product Hunt

🎨 Simon launched Design Rack

💼 Sarim Khalid launched AI/ML Jobs on Product Hunt

🤾‍♀️ David Getchel updated Random Hiit

🧰 Errol Tiozon​ hosted a Trends Pro workshop on Profitable Customer Acquisition with Lead Magnets

🧠 Hj Barraza, Peter Elkins, Pavels Gurskis, Ioannis Bakagiannis and Don Ho unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 30-day standup streaks

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎞️ HeyGen shared by Maciej Cupial
A tool to make high-quality videos with AI avatars

🪝 Hooked shared by Tony Tong
A book on building habit-forming products

❓ 12 Favorite Problems shared by Harsha MV
An essay on using questions to guide your work

📘 Read This

Lifestyle and Habits that Will Upgrade Your Life

Here are 6 simple lifestyle changes that will improve your health and productivity:

• Avoid sugar
• Learn to box
• Lower your screen time
• Meditate every morning
• Drink cappuccino over espresso
• Nap for 30 minutes during the day

🌟 Founder of the Week

Avy Leghziel

“Loving Trends Pro. Great people willing to help each other.”

Avy is building Avyleg.com. He works with companies and professionals who feel stuck with their strategy, management practices or work processes.  He shares his wisdom and resources in his free newsletter, Masters of Babel.

What’s your most important habit?
Reading the newsletters I am subscribed to every morning. I’ve been doing this for 5 years.

Great content helps me jump-start my brain better than coffee.

What are you reading right now?
A History of Ideas by Jacques Le Goff.

Ideas are at the core of any great product and service.

Excellent execution is a function of unorthodox ideas.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A browser extension that automatically hides LinkedIn posts that include expressions such as “It’s been an honor”, “I am humbled” and “Exciting news!”. This would help me sift through the noise better.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
MurmurType. It helps me transcribe and translate my speech.

And ChatGPT Plus.

What are you bullish on?
Micro-education businesses

People are losing faith in traditional education and training frameworks.. If these businesses build state-of-the-art methodologies, our human capital will get much more effective.

What are you bearish on?
Automated content creation.

We are past the point of no return. People are sick of reading cliches and SEO-oriented obvious formulas.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🖖 Open-Source AI

I’m not a programmer. This report helped me find tools to play with AI without learning how to code.

What else?
Feel free to reach out to me on Avyleg.com or  X (Twitter) if I can help in any way.

Exclusive Deal: Avy is offering Trends.vc readers a 10% discount on consulting and training services. Use this form to claim.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) Scheduling tools
  
• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Favorite online communities

👀 Watch This

High School Dropout Builds a $1B Startup at 23

Samir Vasavada founded Vise, an asset manager for financial advisors.

Here’s how he’s building a $1B startup at 23 years old:

• Have as many failures as fast as possible.
• Talk to your customers. Watch how they use your product.
• Have the right people that are solving the right problem at the right speed.

That’s how startups grow.

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎙️ An interview with Dru
✍️ The benefits of writing
🧰 A directory of 1,000 tools
🎛️ A dashboard design guide
🤖 A tool for chaining AI models
👥 How to get your first 1,000 users
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Formula for success: double your rate of experiments.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Onu Ocholi and Keihan Popal unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🚀 Eddie Forson launched EnVsion AI on Product Hunt

📅 Ash launched Review My Year

💼 Maisha Cannon was featured on the Trap Chat podcast

🛠️ Simon got the first paid listing on Hand Picked Tools

🎙️ Dru Riley was interviewed on the Where It Happens podcast

🧰 ​Kevin C. Whelan​ hosted a Trends Pro workshop on ​Starting as a Fractional CMO​

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🤖 Leap AI shared by Yuyu
A tool to add AI models to your workflows

🎛️ Dashboard UI Design shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
A guide to designing user interfaces

🧰 1000.tools shared by Breno Ferreira
A curated directory of the “1,000 best tools”

📘 Read This

How to Start and Scale a Consumer Business

How to acquire your first 1,000 users:

• Go where your target audience is
• Talk to friends and colleagues
• Talk to targeted strangers
• Get physical placement
• Work with influencers
• Make viral content
• Get press

Do things that don’t scale.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Don Ho

“Three thoughts:
I’ve been a Trends Pro member for a week. It was a great experience:
1. Got feedback on my startups’ website which led to positive changes.
2. Daily Standups keep me focused and motivated.
3. Re-reading all Trends Pro reports.“

Don is building Launchpad Legal. It offers legal services, startup information, and guidance to help first-time founders start and grow their businesses.

What’s your most important habit?
Keeping an abundance mindset. I may have a bad day, but I rarely have two bad days in a row.

I spent the last 20 months building a startup that failed. Lessons learned. With that knowledge, I started 2 new businesses.

What are you reading right now?
Just finished Company of One by Paul Jarvis. My failed startup was an attempt at a “homerun” business, with the largest team I would have ever led.

I read this book to reset my mindset about what a “successful” business means.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A luxury version of OpenTable where I could call a week before I wanted to have dinner and get into any restaurant (this was the concept of my failed startup).

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Reflect.app. It’s a note-taking app that integrates seamlessly into my workflow. It’s a perfect combination of Roam Research and Evernote. Anything I add gets backlinked and connected: tweets, emails, ideas and more. 

What are you bullish on?
In-person meetings. Studies have scientifically proven that  remote meetings don’t stimulate the brain as much as in-person meetings.

What are you bearish on?
College degrees (unless you want to become a doctor, lawyer or anybody where a degree is a must).

The system is flawed:

1) Expensive and encourages going into debt.

2) The “jobs of tomorrow” may not be the same as “the jobs of today”.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🔥 The FIRE Movement and 😍 Personal Brands. The two most important topics to me right now, personally and professionally.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Favorite online communities
  
• (📈 Pro) Time tracking apps for productivity

🔧 Try This

Writing is a Thinking Tool

Writing can improve your decision-making, creativity and productivity.

• The great explainer: If you can write it, you can truly explain it.
• Memory enhancer: You better retain information when you retrieve it from your own mind.
• Creative tool: Writing helps to track your ideas and make unique material for creative content.

Writing can unlock parts of your mind that are harder to access otherwise.

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies…” — George R.R. Martin

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to write ebooks faster?
• How to boost visibility?
• How to get early readers?
• Who got $12,000 by preselling an ebook?
• How to build an email list?
• How to reach new audiences?
• How to reach book lovers?
• How to fund your ebook?
• How to add value with bonus resources?
• Who made $200,000 with an ebook generated by ChatGPT?
• How to chat with ebooks?
• How to craft a great story?
  
  

🔍 Problem

You need an easy way to learn from the lives of others and explore new worlds.

💡 Solution

Ebooks offer an endless library that travels with you wherever you go.

🏁 Players

Ebooks

• The Embedded Entrepreneur • How to build an audience-driven business
• Landing Page Hot Tips • How to build effective landing pages
• Doing Content Right • How to build successful blogs and newsletters
• Deploy Empathy • Practical guide to interviewing customers
• The Pathless Path • Imagine a better story for work and life
• 22 Laws of Digital Writing • The rules of sharing knowledge in the digital age
• Team Lead 101 • Manage and grow engineering teams in small startups
  

Ebook Tools

• Gumroad • Publish and sell ebooks
• Canva • Design the cover and layout for your ebook
• ChatGPT • Get help with storytelling, editing, proofreading and more
• Hemingway • Check your writing complexity
• Magic Author • Write, translate and format your books
• Ulysses • Focused writing with proofreading and editing assistance
  

Ebook Publishing Services

• StreetLib • Distribute ebooks and audiobooks to worldwide book retailers
• Ebook Launch • Edit, design and format ebooks
• Pique Publishing • Writing, editing and design services for ebooks
  
  

🛠 How to Write Ebooks

• Repurpose your existing content to get to market faster.
  • Michael Hyatt turns his best blog posts into books such as Platform.
  • Victoria Kurichenko turned this article into an ebook on ranking higher on Google.
  • Anthony Moore used his older content to write ebooks such as What Extraordinary People Know.

• Write in public to boost your visibility.
  • Michele Hansen wrote Deploy Empathy in public.
  • Kevon Cheung wrote Find Joy in Chaos in public.
  • Arvid Kahl wrote The Embedded Entrepreneur in public.

• Base your book on interviews. Take the guesswork out of what to write.
  • Darko wrote Zero to Users based on interviews with indie hackers.
  • Lokesh Gupta wrote Art of Email List Growth based on insights from top email marketers.
  • Docu Magazine wrote Docu Books with interviews and images from street photographers.
  • Philip Kiely wrote Writing for Software Developers based on interviews with software developers and writers. He made $39,141.
    
    

🌱 How to Grow Ebooks

• Use your ebook as a lead magnet to build an email list.
  • HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform. It has free ebooks on marketing, sales and more.
  • WordStream helps to manage online ads. It has 7 Fundamental Facebook Advertising Tips.
  • Springly helps to manage nonprofit organizations. It has A Guide to Nonprofit Networks to help you start one yourself.

• Go on podcasts as a guest to reach new audiences.
  • Rachel Maddow talked about Prequel on Pod Save America.
  • Arvid Kahl shared the making process of his books on Uncommunity.
  • Alex Hillman shared the lessons from The Tiny MBA on The Business of Freelancing podcast.

• Work with reading clubs to share your book with book lovers.
  • Sapphic Book Club lets authors submit books for readers to review.
  • Adam Grant hosted a book club with a giveaway of the Tokyo Vice ebook.
  • Rebecca Dekker offers free copies of Babies Are Not Pizzas to book clubs.
    
    

💰 How to Monetize Ebooks

• Use crowdfunding to get early revenue, customers and feedback.
  • Don MacDonald raised $9,268 for Machiavelli.
  • Rob Walling raised $108,837 for The SaaS Playbook.
  • Nikki Jefford raised $6,000+ for Spellcaster Wild Card.

• Sell your books on multiple platforms.
  • Arvid Kahl sells his ebooks on Amazon, Audible, Apple Books, Gumroad and more.
  • David Gaughran sells his ebooks on Amazon, Apple Books, Rakuten Kobo and more.

• Add value with bonus resources such as templates, checklists and more.
  • Tomek Rudzki wrote The SEO Playbook. It has an SEO checklist with 140 items.
  • Sleepless Yogi wrote HTML to React. It has project ideas, code examples and more.
  • Mohamed Keita wrote How to Start Your Vending Business. Which comes with a contract template, buyer checklist and more.
    
    

🔮 Predictions

• Authors will use AI to get help with writing, editing and visuals.  
  • Joe Popelas shares how he made $200,000 by selling books generated with ChatGPT.
  • The Mystery of Chimney Rock is a visual novel based on the book “The Mystery of Chimney Rock” by Edward Packard. The backgrounds were generated by Midjorney and upscaled with Topaz Gigapixel AI.

• We’ll use AI to chat with books. We’ll be able to ask questions, get summaries and more.
  • PDF.ai lets you chat with any PDF document.
  • iChatBook lets you ask questions to your ebooks.
  • BookAI.chat lets you upload and chat with ebooks.
  • REDiron Bookmate lets you chat with an ebook with your voice.
  • YouAi MindStudio made Book AI that turns ebooks into chatbots.
  • Sahil Lavigna let you chat with his book The Minimalist Entrepreneur.

• Authors will build paid communities and offer their ebooks for free to paid members.
  • Mark Manson offers his ebooks for free to paid subscribers.
  • Paul Millerd offers The Pathless Path for free to paid subscribers of his Pathless newsletter.
  • Dickie Bush, Nicolas Cole and Daniel Bustamante offer 3 ebooks for free to Ship 30 for 30 members.
    
    

😠 Haters

“There isn’t a lot of money to be made with ebooks.”
Many authors write books because they want to tell a story, feel fulfilled, build a legacy and more. If you want to make money, it can be wise to choose another business model.

“Some of the ebooks you shared have print versions.”
While this is true, a lot of strategies we shared work for ebooks and physical books.

“Ebooks are prone to piracy.”
This is true for all digital products.

🔗 Links

1. ​This Ebook Made $499,585 • The thread for this report.
2. Writing a Report on Ebooks • The tweet behind this report.
3. How to Write a Good Story • Universal elements that all good stories need.
4. How to Make an Ebook • How to write, publish and market an ebook.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​Micro-Education Businesses • How to learn new skills fast.
• Build in Public • How to break through the noise.
• Presales • How to get early customers and feedback.
• Personal Brands • How to show why you are worth trust and attention.
• Self-Publishing • How to publish “long-tail” books with more control and upside.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Stewart Townsend and Avy Leghziel. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0137 — Ebooks has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 17 Ebook Examples (143% More)
• 15 Ebook Tools (150% More)
• 7 Ebook Publishing Services (133% More)
• 8 Ways to write ebooks (167% More)
• 11 Ways to grow ebooks (267% More)
• 9 Ways to monetize ebooks (200% More)
• 8 Predictions (167% More)
• 11 Links (175% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to build a connection with readers?
• (📈 Pro) How to break through the noise?
• (📈 Pro) How to crowdsource content for your book?
• (📈 Pro) How to find valuable topics to write about?
• (📈 Pro) How to build an engaged audience?
• (📈 Pro) How to build a strong community around your book?
• (📈 Pro) How to get others to market your ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How to keep more royalties?
• (📈 Pro) How to control publishing?
• (📈 Pro) How to upsell high-ticket products?
• (📈 Pro) How to make money with affiliate links?
• (📈 Pro) Which ebooks have thousands of unique covers?
• (📈 Pro) How to turn readers into students with companion courses?
• (📈 Pro) How to price your ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How to promote other products inside your ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How to generate B2B leads with ebooks?
• (📈 Pro) Who shares the strategies used to earn $210,000+ with an ebook?
• And much more…
  
  

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

📚 A collection of life advice
🎵 190+ music marketing resources
💲 A workshop on founder-led sales
🚀 Takeaways from The Lean Startup
🌐 How to rank on Google with AI content
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Mistakes are how you grow. It’s part of the game.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Rahul Kahani, Onu Ocholi, Keihan Popal, Trilok Hebbur and Sebas Guerrero unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🌟 Abhishek Kumar was featured in Starter Story

📈 Sumant Yerramilly launched The Assembly Partner on Product Hunt

💰 Ivan Zografski reached $300,000 ARR

🚀 Giovanni Vanini launched his NFT platform at TEDxLecco

🤖 Maisha Cannon presented at an AI learning event

🧠 Vikram Aditya unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 30-day standup streak

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

💲 Founder-Led Sales shared by Eddie Forson
A sales workshop for early stage B2B companies

📚 Excellent Advice for Living shared by Cameron Rambert
A book about life wisdom

🎵 Music Marketing Stack shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
A directory of 190+ resources for promoting music

📘 Read This

Google Search and AI Content

Here are some answers to your questions about AI content and Google Search:

• Does Google ban AI content?
• Should you use AI to make content?
• Will AI content rank highly on Search?

In short, Google rewards high-quality content. However you make it.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Joe Montanino

“I just joined Trends Pro. Standups keep me accountable. Fellow founders help me progress with expert advice. Looking forward to solving progress together in Masterminds.“

Joe is building Bigrobot. A subscription-based design agency that designs SaaS, web and mobile apps.”

What’s your most important habit?
Time-blocking my day the night before. This helps me to stay focused and efficient.

What are you reading right now?
Man Uncivilized by Traver Boehm.

What product or service do you wish existed?
An app that lets you document your life by adding memories of personal and world events.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
How We Feel. It helps me track my feelings during the day. 

What are you bullish on?
No-code website builders, such as Framer, that cater to designers.

What are you bearish on?
I’m bearish on the“Design Thinking” process. I think this process will be replaced by more nimble ones that are as effective, if not more so. 

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
♾️ Unlimited Services

This report is packed with insights that are helpful to my design agency.

Exclusive Deal: Joe is offering Trends.vc readers 25% off on a 1-month design subscription at Bigrobot with the code TRENDS50.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Favorite online communities
  
• (📈 Pro) Time tracking apps for productivity

👀 Watch This

The Lean Startup Summary

Many people think that a great idea is key to success.

In reality, ideas are not that great. It’s execution that matters.

Here’s a framework for building products that customers want and will pay for:

• Build: Your MVP should have the most crucial features only.
• Measure: Track the performance and collect feedback.
• Learn: Improve your product or pivot based on data.
  
  
  

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎥 A 7-figure YouTube business
🔄 A process documentation tool
⭐ A collection of animated SVGs
💯 100 ideas on how the world works
🔋 Why you should track your energy
📩 A directory of newsletter best practices
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Be kinder than necessary.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Patrick Reker, Parminder Singh, Rafael Servatti, Areeb Pasha, Jong-Chan Chung, Sebastian, Taras Frank, Julien Collet, Sagar Shah and Jed Crystal unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

📩 Katt Risen built Newsletter Giants

🎞️ Errol Tiozon made a TikTok video that went viral

💼 Bernardt J. Vogel built a live job database

🎓 Rupert Wade launched a product demo for Applaud

🧑 Cameron Rambert updated his personal website

🚜 Bernardt J. Vogel wrote about AI in agriculture

🎙️ Stewart Townsend led a workshop on How to Boost Sales as a Podcast Guest

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🔄 Tango shared by Daniel Berggren
An automatic process documentation tool

🔋 Energy Audit shared by Eren Suzer
A method to easily track your energy and focus on meaningful tasks

⭐ Loaf shared by Chuck Hardy
A collection of animated SVG icons

📘 Read This

100 Little Ideas

Here’s a list of 100 little but important ideas on how our world works.

• Pareto Principle: 80% of outcomes are driven by 20% of events.
• Fredkin’s Paradox: The more equal the options, the harder the decision.
• Skill Compensation: People who are good at one thing tend to be poor at another.
• Boomerang Effect: Persuading someone to do one thing can make them do the opposite.
• Normalcy Bias: Underestimating the odds of disaster by assuming things will keep functioning the way they’ve always functioned.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Vikram Aditya

“Just joined Trends.vc Masterminds. I teach fundraising and storytelling. Looking forward to progressing together.“

What’s your most important habit?
Waking up early, reading and writing. This helps me stay sharp.

What are you reading right now?
Obviously Awesome by April Dunford. It seems that I found the right tech, messaging and market. Finding the right positioning is our next priority.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Superhuman for emails. Apple Notes for organizing information. LinkedIn Sales Navigator for building partnerships.

What are you bullish on?
Artificial intelligence. It helps to build products that offer outcomes instead of software.

What are you bearish on?
API wrappers, general-purpose AI tools and third-party AI tools for big platforms.

• API wrappers have a weak moat.
• General AI tools try to be the jack-of-all-trades.
• Big platforms will eat up small apps by adding similar AI features themselves.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
NFTs and DAOs — they helped me launch DaoLens which evolved into Crunchit.ai.

Niche AI Models — a great piece to learn more about AI.

B2B SaaS — an evergreen report that I often revisit.

Exclusive Deal: Vikram is offering Trends.vc readers 25% off his Maven Course. Message Vikram on LinkedIn after filling out this form, or drop an email to vikram@crunchit.ai with the subject line: “TRENDS DISCOUNT FOR COURSE”.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Running an eCommerce store
  
• (📈 Pro) Time tracking apps for productivity

🎧 Listen To

Building a 7-Figure Business on YouTube

Lucy Bella Simkins runs one of the world’s largest language learning YouTube channels.

What started as a passion project, turned into a 7-figure business.

Lucy shares the challenges, strategies and reflections on building her online course business.

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

“I could never say what I wanted to say in a song, with games I find it much easier.” — Jazz Mickle

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to build indie games faster?
• How to piggyback on popular games?
• How to build an engaged community?
• How to get early feedback?
• How to find beta players?
• Why should you use cloud gaming services?
• How to fund your game?
• What are million-dollar, one-person indie games?
• What are some great indie game accelerators?
• How can indie games tap into other forms of media?
• How to build a moat?
• How to find a great idea for your game?
  
  

🔍 Problem

We are tired of the same genres and game mechanics.

We crave new experiences.

💡 Solution

Indie games experiment with game mechanics, stories, genres and themes.

They take creative risks to offer unique game experiences.

🏁 Players

Indie Video Games

• Among Us • Complete tasks and fight impostors on a spaceship
• Minecraft • Build, explore and survive in a blocky world
• Stardew Valley • Cultivate land, raise animals and mine resources in a rural village
• Escape the Backrooms • Try to escape eerie rooms while avoiding hostile entities
• Terraria • Explore, build, fight and survive in a 2D world
• Undertale • Role-playing game where choices matter
• Into the Breach • Control powerful mechs from the future to defeat an alien threat
  

Indie Tabletop Games

• I Feel Attacked • Game about the people you love to hate
• Untamed: Feral Fractions • Control animal factions to take down the enemy stronghold
• Castles by the Sea • Build and populate a seaside kingdom
• Proxy War • Become dictators, rebels and politicians
• The Morrison Game Factory • Puzzle adventure that blends board games, escape rooms and interactive fiction
• The Old King’s Crown • Claim an empty throne of a crumbling kingdom
  
  

🛠 How to Build Indie Games

• Use a starter kit to save time building and optimizing your game.
  • Starter Kits by Kenney help you build platformers and first-person shooters in Godot.
  • Creator Kit: RPG helps you build a simple RPG with characters, quests and dialogues in Unity.
  • Interaction System Starter Pack helps you save time coding interactions in Unreal Engine.

• Take inspiration from popular games to stack the odds in your favor. If people enjoy them, chances are they will enjoy yours too.
  • Paper Trail is a mix of Gorogoa and The Monument Valley.
  • Eric Barone says Stardew Valley was inspired by Harvest Moon.

• Build a unique game by experimenting with genres and game mechanics.
  • Pyre combines role-playing games and sports.
  • Crypt of the Necrodancer combines roguelite and rhythm genres.
  • Creature in the Well combines dungeon crawl and pinball games.
    
    

🌱 How to Grow Indie Games

• Build your own community to foster loyalty and get feedback.
  • Pirate Software has a Discord channel where you can learn more about Heartbound.
  • Last Epoch has an official subreddit and a Discord channel with updates, player discussions and more.
  • Vampire Survivors has a Discord channel. You can talk to fellow fans, hear about updates, join challenges and more.

• Build in public to earn trust, feedback and early fans.
  • LathanumStudios is building Soul Split in public.
  • Henrik Djerf is building Project Beyonder in public.

• Add your game to cloud gaming services. Let your fans play your game from anywhere in the world.
  • Celeste is available on Xbox Cloud Gaming.
  • Home Behind 2 is available on GeForce NOW.
  • Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap is available on Gamestream.
    
    

💰 How to Monetize Indie Games

• Sell early access to get early funding and feedback.
  • Last Epoch is releasing updates based on the early access feedback.
  • Heartbound uses early access to get feedback and fix bugs on the road to launch.
  • Inkbound offers early access to get feedback and add features suggested by players.

• Offer battle passes. They reward players with in-game items for playing the game and completing challenges. Players can buy battle passes to get access to content or battle pass levels to progress faster.
  • Brawlhalla has battle passes with unique cosmetic rewards.
  • DrainLive has a battle pass with character skins, coins and more.
  • STALCRAFT has battle pass levels with weapons, themed skins and more.

• Sell digital goods such as soundtracks and artwork. Give players something they will enjoy outside of the game menu.
  • Roots of Pacha sells a bundle with 28 soundtracks.
  • DAVE THE DIVER sells Digital Extra with a digital art book and 54 soundtracks.
    
    

🔮 Predictions

• We’ll see more million-dollar, one-person indie developers.
  • Eric Barone built Stardew Valley which sold 20,000,000+ copies and made $30,000,000+.
  • Markus Persson built Minecraft. It sold 4,000,000 copies before its official launch and became the best-selling video game ever.

• We’ll see accelerators for indie game developers. They will help with marketing and sales.
  • Indielab Games helps to grow indie studios from the UK.
  • Appodeal has an accelerator for mobile games and apps.
  • GameFounders helps indie studios launch games and demos.

• Indie games will tap into other forms of media. Such as animations, movies and TV shows.
  • Cuphead has a Cuphead Show.
  • Minecraft will have its own movie.
  • Among Us has an animated series in the works.
    
    

😠 Haters

“This is a hits-driven business with a low chance of success.”
Most indie developers make games out of passion. If you want to make games to get rich, this may not be the right business for you.

“Game concepts are copied a lot. It seems that there’s no strong moat.”
In games, execution is everything. They have more moving parts than software. Experiment with story, characters, visuals and game mechanics to make a unique game.

“You’re not indie if you’re working with a publisher.”
A lot of great indie developers work with publishers to market their games. While keeping full creative control. You can go alone or sacrifice a part of your revenue for better visibility. It’s a matter of priorities.

“Some of the indie game developers you shared have dozens of employees.”
Some studios started as a one-person or a small team. Some got funding and hired fast. Some got acquired right after they made a successful game.

🔗 Links

1. ​Let’s Talk About Indie Games • Thread for this report.
2. Building a Report on Indie Games • The Tweet behind this report.
3. Getting Started in Indie Game Development • How to pick the right game idea, engine and assets.
4. The Point of a First Level • How to give a great first impression with the first level.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses • Find your highest point of leverage.
• Startup Studios • Take a systemized approach to building companies.
• Self-Publishing • Publish “long-tail” books with more control and upside.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Tim Jones, Holger Sindbaek and Amit Das. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0136 — Indie Games has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 16 Indie Video Game Examples (129% More)
• 14 Indie Tabletop Game Examples (133% More)
• 8 Ways to build indie games (167% More)
• 14 Ways to grow indie games (367% More)
• 10 Ways to monetize indie games (233% More)
• 12 Predictions (300% More)
• 13 Links (225% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) Why do game demos matter?
• (📈 Pro) How to involve the community in the development?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost your game’s visibility?
• (📈 Pro) How to build hype around your game?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost the reach of your game?
• (📈 Pro) How to get free marketing on social media?
• (📈 Pro) How to find relevant audiences?
• (📈 Pro) How to get help with distribution?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost replay value?
• (📈 Pro) How to market the game by using unique content?
• (📈 Pro) How to keep your game interesting?
• (📈 Pro) How to sell “the same” game twice?
• (📈 Pro) How to make game assets with AI?
• (📈 Pro) What makes games fun?
• (📈 Pro) What are the 7 game design mistakes?
• (📈 Pro) How do accelerators help indie developers grow?
• (📈 Pro) How to make beautiful game graphics?
• (📈 Pro) How to make realistic sound effects?
• (📈 Pro) What are popular game mechanics?
• And much more…
  
  

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

📅 How to plan your week
👨‍🍳 A list of OpenAI API guides 
🎬 An AI-powered teleprompter app
🧠 The key skills every founder needs
🪴 50 ways to make your life greener
📚 A book on becoming the key person of your industry
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Join the community you want to build your products or services for.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Sahil Sangani, Peter Elkins, Ioannis Bakagiannis, Pavels Gurskis, Joe Montanino, Don Ho, Marc Kreuzer, Shreyans Bhansali, Pierce P., Rob Blake and Avy Leghziel unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

💰 Simon sold his side project

🎙️ Abhishek Kumar was featured in Lex Roman’s podcast

💡 Prabhjot Singh Lamba was accepted to Microsoft Founders Hub

🔥 Bernardt J. Vogel wrote about hype in tech

👨‍💻 Elie Steinbock made a video on the code behind Shadcn CLI

🤖 Eddie Forson wrote about AI in UX research

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎬 BigVu shared by Darren Travel
An AI-powered teleprompter and video editor

👨‍🍳 OpenAI Cookbook shared by Elie Steinbock
A collection of guides and examples for using OpenAI API

🧠 Key Skills for Founders shared by Royce Johnson
A list of skills every startup founder needs

🎧 Listen To

Questions to Ask When Planning Your Week

Planning your week can help you stay focused and avoid wasting time on tasks that don’t matter.

Here are a few questions to help you plan your weeks better:

• What do you want to accomplish this week?
• Is your to-do list for this week realistic?
• Do you have time for yourself?

🌟 Founder of the Week

Kevin C. Whelan

“I love being a Trends Pro member. The Trends.vc team shares a concise yet in-depth summary of niche businesses that people are growing to huge success. They help you find hidden gems few people know about.“

Kevin is building How to Sell Advice. He helps independent marketers create highly profitable businesses selling their expertise, not just their hands.

What’s your most important habit?
Morning exercise. It gives me mental clarity and energy which help me do my best work the rest of the day.

What are you reading right now?
Oversubscribed by Daniel Priestly. He shares a great formula for building interest and selling expertise.

Another book by Daniel is Key Person of Influence. Highly recommended.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A service that would turn all of my training, writing, resources and consulting calls into:

1. Quality content for different social media platforms.

2. Searchable knowledge base of everything I know.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Dropbox Dash. It is a search bar for all of your cloud storage, email, calendars and project management apps.  

What are you bullish on?
Hybrid consulting which combines personalized advice with access to additional resources, training and community—for a reasonable cost.

I’ve been building my membership around 1:1 sessions, group calls, community and a content library. Self-learners with lower budgets can access content and community for self-paced learning.

What are you bearish on?
AI as a threat to people who sell their expertise. It is good at reproducing content. Original thinking is a unique blend of knowledge and nuance. Which AI lacks.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🤓 Consulting is the best one.

What else?
Thanks for highlighting me! Everything I do lives at https://kevin.me and gets distributed outward from there. If anyone is looking to dig deeper into any of these ideas, that’s where you’ll find them. 🙏

Exclusive Deal: Kevin is offering Trends.vc readers 30% off annual Mindshare Learn plans for the first 20 people. It includes access to a library of training, templates, live workshops and private Slack community exclusively for marketing consultants. Use this link to claim.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Running an eCommerce store
  
• (📈 Pro) What to expect from influencer marketing

🔧 Try This

50 Simple Ways to Make Your Life Greener

Expert tips on how to be kinder to the planet – from cooking and cleaning to fashion and finance.

All without complicating your life.

• Recycle: Sort waste into different categories.
• Minimize packaging: Take your own containers to shops.
• Shop locally: The shorter the food chain, the less waste it creates before reaching you.
  
  
  

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.