#021 Digital Nomading with Dominik Sobe

[00:00:00] You can live in an extremely luxurious apartment for $600 a month if you get a one-year contract.

[00:00:06] You're going to live like a king. I met a friend today and he's living in a really nice apartment.

[00:00:11] He spends like $700 a month, but he told me he hasn't left the apartment complex for the past

[00:00:16] one month because the gym is in the condo. There's a nice coffee downstairs. There's a

[00:00:20] supermarket downstairs. You have a big swimming pool. There's a sauna, a steam bath. Essentially,

[00:00:25] there's nothing that you need to do to actually leave. Long story short, you can't do this.

[00:00:33] Hi and welcome to a new episode of the Code & Conquer Podcast. In this episode,

[00:00:38] I talk to Dominik Sober, a full-time digital nomad and indie hacker. Dominik shares his

[00:00:43] unique journey from studying to become a management consultant to actually becoming

[00:00:48] a software developer and creating his own products. He discusses the development of

[00:00:52] his product HelpKit and the innovative marketing strategies that helped him gain traction,

[00:00:56] including the creation of a fake customer support shop. Dominik provides insight into

[00:01:01] the nomadic lifestyle, discussing its benefits and challenges and the importance of maintaining

[00:01:05] a healthy work-life balance while traveling. He also touches upon the importance of community

[00:01:10] and committing loneliness and provides advice to aspiring indie hackers. I think we're in

[00:01:15] for a great episode today, so let's jump right in. Hi and welcome to a new episode of

[00:01:22] the Code & Conquer Podcast. We're on episode 21, if I can count correctly. Today my guest is

[00:01:28] Dominik Sober. Who are you, Dominik? What are your main indie hacker products? What do you do?

[00:01:33] Why are you on an indie hacker podcast? Great question. I sometimes ask myself that question

[00:01:38] too. I'm Dominik. I'm originally from Austria but have turned into a full-time digital

[00:01:46] nomad now. I've been traveling around the world, usually in Southeast Asia,

[00:01:51] spending also some good time in Portugal, where I really like to stay but mostly Southeast Asia.

[00:01:57] You can call me an indie hacker. I'm fully bootstrapping as a solopreneur,

[00:02:02] usually software as a service product. The one that I'm working on the most right now is a

[00:02:07] no-code tool called HelpKit, which essentially turns Notion pages into a professional help

[00:02:13] center or documentation site. That's the one that I'm working on the most. I've been

[00:02:18] working on being an indie hacker for the past three and a half years. That's the product that's

[00:02:25] making my daily bread. That's what I'm working on the most.

[00:02:31] You just said that you're an indie hacker. Do you identify more with the bootstrapper

[00:02:36] label or is there something different for you there?

[00:02:41] I feel like the term has been sometimes a bit in controversy depending on who you're talking

[00:02:46] to. I would guess I'm still the OG indie hacker mindset, but bootstrapping is probably the same.

[00:02:54] I feel like maybe I'm more of an indie hacker than a bootstrapper in the way that

[00:02:58] if my definition of an indie hacker would be someone that is more like a solopreneur,

[00:03:03] someone that's working on their projects just themselves, wearing all the hats in a company

[00:03:08] where I guess bootstrapping could be a whole team. In that kind of

[00:03:12] regards, I would say I'm more an indie hacker.

[00:03:15] I also found the notion under when you talk to indie hackers and bootstrappers,

[00:03:19] there's a year line where people started and if the project is old enough or the people are

[00:03:27] old enough, defending it a little, the people that started earlier seem to favorite the

[00:03:32] bootstrapper label and then people that started later, for example in the big COVID phase where

[00:03:38] everyone went entrepreneurship and solopreneur stuff, people start using the indie hacker term

[00:03:43] there. I thought maybe your business is just old enough that you're still a bootstrapper.

[00:03:48] I feel like the biggest notion around the term indie hacker is just that it got a bit of

[00:03:53] a bad connotation, which means sometimes people see indie hackers as just people who want to

[00:04:00] make products but actually don't do marketing and so their products will never actually

[00:04:04] succeed. They're just building products like every day a new project and then it's not

[00:04:08] making any money and they jump from one to the other. That's the notion that indie hackers

[00:04:12] turn into, but I feel like there's still amazing, actually successful indie hackers out

[00:04:18] there. There was this phase especially on Twitter where you could see that it got a bit

[00:04:22] of a bad rep. Also I think there is a new wave coming in now and people like Peter

[00:04:28] Leavel say indie hacking is dead forever and the whole thing is changing. We need a new

[00:04:33] name now and I have to rename the podcast to something else. But getting back to Helpkit

[00:04:37] and you, you already talked a little bit about what Helpkit does but I am always interested in

[00:04:43] usually a lot of indie hackers start out solving their own problem and I looked at

[00:04:47] your website and you did the same. So how did Helpkit come to be? What did it start as

[00:04:51] and what did it become later? Because those things usually change a lot or a little

[00:04:56] depending on how it goes with the product. Yeah, great question. I feel like Helpkit was

[00:05:03] like a product that really started because I was scratching my own itch. How it essentially

[00:05:09] started was that I was working on other smaller projects before I was working on Helpkit

[00:05:14] and what I always needed for these projects was a help center or a knowledge base because

[00:05:19] since I'm a solo founder there were a lot of times where I really needed to give my customers

[00:05:25] answers to their questions really fast and I didn't want to answer the support tickets

[00:05:28] over and over. So I needed a knowledge base and I was looking for a lot of tools that were

[00:05:32] in the space that were solving the solution and the problem that I always faced was they were

[00:05:36] either super clunky to use, their editor wasn't great and essentially I ended up with using

[00:05:43] Notion. So I used Notion as a little knowledge base help center that I embedded in my apps

[00:05:49] and it worked. You could use Notion as like a little website standalone and that was okay

[00:05:53] but what I noticed is that it's super hard to navigate and it also looks a bit ugly because

[00:05:58] it has a very long unique URL so it wasn't really professional. It was hard for me to brand

[00:06:03] and one day I realized that technically there must be a way how I can take the content of

[00:06:10] Notion, use it as a CMS and then expose it as like a help center website and that's actually

[00:06:16] how it got started. And I'm always interested because maybe it's because I'm at that point

[00:06:21] with my own product right now. How do you start off with a product like this? Obviously you're

[00:06:26] not the first one to think about a product that's a knowledge base, right? Your first customer was

[00:06:31] you which is I think the best thing to have as an indie hacker. You have at least one user

[00:06:35] yourself but how do you get the first customers then? How was that journey for you

[00:06:40] and what was your life in that moment because it obviously changed until today?

[00:06:45] Yeah, I feel like that's a great question to ask essentially because I feel like there's always

[00:06:53] for businesses to really succeed. There's just a lot of notion around you need to be good at

[00:06:57] what you're doing. That's a huge portion but I feel like the more important thing is you need

[00:07:01] to be at the right time at the right spot and what I mean with this is essentially before

[00:07:05] I was working on HelpKit, I was working on another software as a service tool. I bootstrapped

[00:07:09] with myself and I absolutely was miserable doing it. I failed. I was just coding. Essentially,

[00:07:15] I went into the whole issue of I was only focusing on the development side. I was making

[00:07:20] the buttons look nice, the website look shiny but I didn't do a lot of sales or marketing

[00:07:25] and essentially what that led to is the fact that once I published the project, nobody bought

[00:07:30] it and so I got super depressed because I've been working literally my butt off just to

[00:07:36] make this product finally come see the light but I didn't do any marketing. So the moment

[00:07:41] I launched the product and nobody bought it, I literally sat on my chair and I was like,

[00:07:45] huh that's harder than I thought. Completely oblivious to the fact that of course nobody

[00:07:50] will see it because I haven't been doing any marketing or sales for it but what that

[00:07:54] actually led to was that I spent so much of my time and effort into building this tool

[00:07:59] that I got a little mini burnout. I literally couldn't look at my laptop anymore for one

[00:08:04] month. I woke up and I couldn't look at my laptop anymore so I felt literally emotionally

[00:08:12] tied to the fact that I should not work because I just felt miserable that I didn't

[00:08:17] succeed with what I was building for so long and what that led to is that I was in a very

[00:08:22] dark spot. I thought that all of a sudden the thing that I'm loving the most which is building

[00:08:27] products, all of a sudden I can't even open my laptop anymore. So this went me down a really

[00:08:32] bad period of my life I guess for almost two months. I finally got myself out of it and then

[00:08:39] once I got myself out of it, I realized that the next project I'm going to build I need to change

[00:08:43] a lot of things. I'm going to give it one more big try because I think I still want to experiment

[00:08:49] but I did get burned a lot from my past project and so while I was dealing with the

[00:08:54] fact of figuring out what failed with this first project, I realized that the biggest thing

[00:08:58] was first of all I was building in a market that was very hard to educate people about.

[00:09:03] I was essentially building like a little tool for the mobile app development space which is

[00:09:08] great but it is very hard to distribute. Like finding these people, telling them like I was

[00:09:13] building a vitamin versus a painkiller. That's the whole analogy. Like I was building a product

[00:09:17] that is nice to have but not you really need to have so I had to spend a lot of time

[00:09:23] educating people about that they need to use my tool and not like they are actually looking

[00:09:27] already for a tool like this. A knowledge base, something like help kit. Every company needs a

[00:09:32] help center but on the flip side not everyone needs a little tool that helps you to make better

[00:09:37] mobile app screenshots. That was the thing that I was working on the most and so

[00:09:42] fast forward I was in Portugal with a friend of mine in summer, still burnout and what

[00:09:48] happened was that he was thinking about building a little hackathon and I was like

[00:09:53] I'm not sure. He said you know what we're going to have three days and we're just going

[00:09:56] to build something we always wanted to build and I was like you know what that sounds like

[00:10:00] a good three days there's nothing to lose let's just try. And on that same kind of

[00:10:05] little gathering there was a guy I met who like randomly on a boat cruise, like a random

[00:10:11] guy on a boat cruise who happened to be also like a founder, an entrepreneur and he was

[00:10:16] actually talking about this analogy which I will never forget changed my whole perspective

[00:10:21] from building products and he said like you can build products that are essentially

[00:10:27] he had the analogy of the flowing river okay a river that goes like from the top of a mountain

[00:10:32] down and he was like you can build products where you either sit on the boat and the flow

[00:10:37] the direction is taking you downwards and so essentially you end up with the fact that

[00:10:42] your product already has traction and what he meant with this is like building on top

[00:10:46] of things that already have distribution in my case notion already was growing so I noticed that

[00:10:52] if I'm going to build a product on top of notion essentially I know that there's going

[00:10:55] to be demand and as opposite the other thing that I was building where I was like trying to

[00:11:01] essentially swim up the river against the current just trying to make it work there was

[00:11:07] nothing behind me there was no wind there was not current there was nothing and so that was

[00:11:11] the sort of analogy that he said and after he said that I was like all right like this is

[00:11:16] like it like I know already notion is like a growing product it's a growing market and

[00:11:21] it's a I'm building like a mission critical product and these two things were enough for

[00:11:27] me to give me the motivation to actually pursue the idea otherwise I wouldn't have done it

[00:11:31] and I think that's an amazing analogy like the picture is so easy to combine with feeling

[00:11:37] shitty when working on a product where you're pushing your boat upstream right

[00:11:41] like one question that I just had in mind before we continue with that how did you actually get

[00:11:46] yourself out of the rut was it just that you now had a product that you actually wanted to

[00:11:50] build that was easier or what is was it something else in case another indie hacker has the same

[00:11:54] issue yeah good question I would say it was a function of time there was nothing like

[00:12:00] specifically that helped a lot but what actually really did help me was just like

[00:12:05] getting comfortable with the fact that I right now I am in this spot and I know I will eventually be

[00:12:11] out of it and just not forcing yourself to do something like my brain told me to not open

[00:12:15] my laptop that made me in and of itself pretty like depressed but I knew if I'm going to force

[00:12:20] myself it's gonna get worse and then one more important thing luckily back at the time I

[00:12:25] already had a small little group of other founders if you're a solo founder having a

[00:12:30] some sort of community is extremely important a lot of people talking about how great it is

[00:12:34] if you're a co-founder because you can talk with them about everything right if you're a solo

[00:12:37] founder having some sort of community is like is the utmost important thing so luckily I already

[00:12:42] had a group of five other friends they were all doing the same kind of thing so I could chat

[00:12:47] with them at least online all of this happened during covid so I didn't couldn't see them

[00:12:50] physically but the fact that I could talk with them was amazing and one other thing

[00:12:55] I actually did do two therapist sessions the first time of my life because I really felt like

[00:13:00] I hadn't just need to talk it out and this also was like something back then I was 23 so like

[00:13:07] I felt really young for doing this I almost felt ashamed but then I realized that I feel like

[00:13:12] before I'm gonna get insane I might as well just try it and honestly it changed my complete

[00:13:16] perspective on doing therapy doing just talking out your thoughts I think it's like super

[00:13:22] important I think you couldn't start earlier you should start when you actually still feel

[00:13:27] great which is like what they all like every therapist kind of saying you should start when

[00:13:31] you're feeling great probably you won't but I feel like you should never be ashamed to just

[00:13:36] give it a try the stigmatism around I think therapy especially for man like was very negative

[00:13:41] in the past I think it's now getting way way better but yeah as a founder there are so many

[00:13:47] you find yourself in so many like dark spots sometimes that sometimes doing actually going

[00:13:51] to some someone professional and getting your just talking about your thoughts can actually

[00:13:56] be really helpful great that you're actually sharing this here on the podcast I've shared my

[00:14:00] own journey in the episode that was avid karl where we just talked about mental health for

[00:14:04] two and a half hours and we were not finished we just had to stop at some point so yeah I

[00:14:09] think it's awesome when indie hackers when entrepreneurs actually see that it's not like

[00:14:15] they don't have to do anything like everything just as a solo founder they can reach out like

[00:14:21] community is awesome to have that's the thing that we're trying or that I'm trying to build

[00:14:26] for myself on Twitter that's like the biggest motivation not any follower count but having

[00:14:30] a lot of people that kind of work on awesome stuff and you can communicate with each other

[00:14:35] see what technologies work for people stuff like this and just have some element of sharing

[00:14:40] between all of these people and learning together I've learned so much about SEO that

[00:14:44] I've never learned before from people from Twitter yeah so thank you for sharing that I

[00:14:48] think that's awesome that you found your way out of that rut with help kit and also with some

[00:14:53] therapy regarding help kit you then started that product how did that go at the beginning

[00:14:59] like how did you get your first customers how did that whole journey start yeah yeah so

[00:15:04] that's also I think like a big difference that I noticed like immediately to the product that

[00:15:08] was building before is that I told myself besides the two things I already mentioned one

[00:15:13] other thing that I want to try is I want to try to build in public which means sharing

[00:15:17] all of your journey online and something that I always thought before that I won't have the time

[00:15:24] for because in my mind it was like I need to do marketing I need to do development I it's just me

[00:15:28] so also now all of a sudden me sharing everything and then sharing the bad parts on

[00:15:32] the internet like with strangers should I do this but then what I noticed is that especially

[00:15:37] in the beginning when you're building a product all that you need is little dopamine hits

[00:15:42] because in the beginning you won't have a lot of successes right it will take a while to get

[00:15:47] your first customer it will take a while for them to actually start loving your product there is a

[00:15:51] lot of I guess like an onset that takes quite some time to feel really validated some companies

[00:15:56] by the way never find product market fit and will never find this but what I think as a

[00:16:01] founder you need to do in the beginning is you need to find any way to give yourself

[00:16:05] little dopamine pushes that actually show you that you're on the right track and so the whole

[00:16:10] building public thing completely changed the way I saw building a product because I could now all

[00:16:17] of a sudden share every little step and there were people that were actually engaging when I

[00:16:21] started on Twitter I had like 300 followers so there weren't many people that's also something

[00:16:25] that when people get started they not realize is that like you start tweeting and there's

[00:16:30] not going to be anyone I call it the void there's no one you just speak with yourself

[00:16:35] but I think they're kind of like nowadays it's a bit more established like the best thing

[00:16:39] you can do if you have a small following on Twitter for example it's just engaging with other

[00:16:44] people because that would bump you up in the algorithm people will see your posts more and

[00:16:49] it generally engaging with other people helps you make friends that was like a big part for

[00:16:53] me as well I made probably the people that I interacted the most in the first few months of

[00:16:59] being on Twitter before I had even a thousand followers are probably still like my best kind

[00:17:03] of indie hacker friends now so that changed a lot of like perspective for me and then

[00:17:08] just sharing everything on Twitter that was like the initial kickstart and now back to your

[00:17:14] question how did I find my first customer it was actually on Twitter and it was actually

[00:17:18] what I did is I or I published a pre-order page for help kit so you could get help kits

[00:17:24] for a whole year for 40 dollars like extremely cheap but I would just wanted to see are there

[00:17:29] going to be people that are actually going to pay for this and I just had a pre-order page

[00:17:32] there was nothing like you can access it already I just had the landing page

[00:17:37] and lo and behold I tweeted it the tweet got I think like 40 likes which was like out of

[00:17:43] proportion for the amount of followers I had so it meant that it was showing to other people

[00:17:47] and actually two people from the comments were buying it they were just like that's an amazing

[00:17:53] idea I have the same problem I want to write my help articles in notion use it as a content

[00:17:58] management system in notion and then expose it to a nice website I have this issue I'm

[00:18:02] just let's see what Dom is actually doing with it and then these two pre-orders I actually in my

[00:18:07] head I always wanted to have 10 that was my perfect number and but so I was like if I have

[00:18:13] 10 I'm gonna build this product but then I got two and then it took a while to actually

[00:18:18] get the third and I was like I don't have 10 but then one I received an email there was

[00:18:23] like man that was like it took me like maybe 10 minutes to read it was this long

[00:18:28] and it was so detailed about why do you think help kit is a great idea just a random stranger

[00:18:33] I've never met and he was just like I'm so excited this is such a cool idea and here's why you're

[00:18:38] gonna succeed and I'm like why like why is this even happening but then I also realized that

[00:18:44] sometimes when people get passionate about an idea they want to share their thoughts I do

[00:18:48] the same when I use a very immature product and I really like it I send heaps of feedback

[00:18:54] to the founder even if they hate me for sending so much because it just I'm like invested all of a

[00:18:59] sudden and so that seemed to happen to some people they reached out and even that I just got three

[00:19:04] like pre-orders I was like this is something I'm gonna pursue I get engagement on Twitter that

[00:19:09] I didn't have before people seem to randomly out of the blue send me emails that say they

[00:19:15] love help kit even though I haven't fully built it yet and then I was like that is what

[00:19:19] traction should feel like that is like what the guy on this cruise was telling me like you

[00:19:24] I was on the river and I was flowing in the right direction there was wind behind me or you

[00:19:28] guessed the current was pushing me down this river and so I was feeling this traction and that

[00:19:33] that was that's like the kind of like magic that I was missing before and it I don't want

[00:19:39] to downplay how it still took a while to go to anything meaningful with help kit but

[00:19:45] having this initial traction was completely different to the way before where I was like

[00:19:49] here's the product but nobody even wanted it here all of a sudden I have two pre-orders or

[00:19:54] three pre-orders and like a guy who sent me a big long email that he thinks help is gonna be

[00:19:58] a multi-billion dollar company I was like all right there is something there and that's the

[00:20:03] best bet to have so that's how it started and I got the first customers that's making me

[00:20:08] very happy for my own product because I had some people reach out and say when can I give

[00:20:12] you money for it and I think that's also a good sign for a product and I think I got the

[00:20:17] same signals that you got with your product so maybe that's a good idea to continue doing this

[00:20:22] this thing that I'm building right now that's awesome that's an awesome way of starting your

[00:20:26] pro your progress right even if it's not meaning it doesn't mean that you have 10k

[00:20:31] MRR after two months it's still an awesome signal to have at the start exactly yeah you

[00:20:38] did another thing with help kit we have a lot of digital nomad questions but I want to

[00:20:42] ask this because I think it's so awesome you had another thing that you did with help kit

[00:20:47] I think that's a little further down the road then you build you actually build a fake customer

[00:20:52] support shop I was on it and it's hilarious you have products like unlimited coffee maker

[00:20:57] a customer voodoo puppet that people can stab or an escalation escalator for customers who

[00:21:02] always want to speak to the manager instead of you how did you come up with such a creative

[00:21:07] idea and how long did it actually take to build this and did it get enough feedback for

[00:21:11] that amount of effort and does it actually help selling help kit now man so funny that you

[00:21:16] mentioned I like there's a lot of people on twitter that were commenting how long did this

[00:21:22] take you and do you really think it was worth it and one guy even was like one guy even just

[00:21:27] commented this is not worth the time you spent today I was like dude you don't know how long

[00:21:32] it took me but okay I get it essentially how the idea came to be is that like April 1st was

[00:21:36] around the corner and I've never done the April Fools joke so I was like I want to do

[00:21:41] something for help kit like something that is a bit out of the ordinary and then I was looking

[00:21:45] into like ideas of okay how can I make something that is a bit goes a bit viral this may be fun

[00:21:49] and I was on this like marketing blog post by Tom Orbach amazing guy I think he has he runs

[00:21:57] this like marketing to like marketing blog called marketing exam marketing I would tell

[00:22:03] you later I'm gonna wanna there's a great another one marketing examples by the way but

[00:22:08] there's another one I can't remember his name right now his name is and he took talked about

[00:22:12] that he there was a cyber security company and they were like making a sort of a similar idea

[00:22:18] on a tangent industry that they were like selling like cyber security physical tools

[00:22:23] that happens and I saw this and I was like holy moly this is a really cool idea to like

[00:22:29] port over to to like the support space so that he wasn't like actually me just being

[00:22:34] super magically coming up with the most cool idea ever is actually I saw this guy like proposing

[00:22:39] that he was already working on this in another industry and then I saw it and I was like okay

[00:22:43] this could be so fun for the customer support industry so for everyone who doesn't know

[00:22:47] like the site is essentially just a fake online shop like a fake Shopify shop that actually

[00:22:51] works and you can buy like fake customer support items and they all have a funny twist

[00:22:56] on them and yeah it took me two two full days to work on it so not too much but also

[00:23:02] to be honest it felt a long time to work on it because first of all coming up with the ideas

[00:23:07] I tried to use AI I tried to use JetGPT but it is so hard like it comes up with so cringy

[00:23:13] stupid ideas that in the end I still had to came up with ideas myself and then I used GPT

[00:23:18] to like come up with some funny FAQs for example so it was helpful for that and the

[00:23:23] most helpful one that the AI was doing is generating the actual images but every image on

[00:23:28] the website took me like 20 tries and you know how long it takes for the AI to generate one image

[00:23:35] so you can imagine I'm just sitting there all day typing in different prompts and hoping that

[00:23:40] a funny image comes out and the AI is unfortunately using a lot of text and the text is not like

[00:23:45] grammatically correct so I had to do so much like Photoshop editing and stuff to get these

[00:23:50] images out so yeah that's the background that's how it that's how it got developed and then

[00:23:56] was it worth it I would say yes because it kind of you've seen it you find it funny and there were

[00:24:01] a lot of people that reached out I would say like maybe two dozens they were actually saying

[00:24:06] this is hilarious and he actually thought it is a real shop so like even my friends like my

[00:24:10] I have some huge like friends that are like working and like they bootstrapped a whole

[00:24:14] like huge VC funded startup and they were like talking to me like hey dude I went through

[00:24:19] the entire like shopping site and I clicked on buy and it it tricked me and I was like huh

[00:24:23] this is funny I didn't expect that so some of the smartest friends I have thought it's real

[00:24:28] so yeah in terms of like actual sales honestly it's so hard because I didn't do a full

[00:24:33] attribution layer that I would like exactly know who would go from the site to actually

[00:24:38] buying help kid subscription but I did see there was like I got some good traffic coming

[00:24:43] from it and the funny thing still I get a bit of traffic every day even though APFull

[00:24:47] is way over so there was some funny traction I think the whole brand awareness is very hard

[00:24:52] to measure in terms of like marketing expenditure and if there was a big ROI but it was enough to

[00:24:58] get people talking which was exactly what I wanted and it made people laugh so that was

[00:25:03] I think the yeah I think it was like I think it was a great like little thing and it like it

[00:25:08] was funny for me to also build like a little funny side project next to hype kit so I have

[00:25:13] something to be a bit more creative again I think that's something very important apart from

[00:25:17] the fact that I think two days for something like this is awesome like time-wise I think the

[00:25:22] I think there's some return at least for that and also as an indicator we can still pick what

[00:25:27] we want to spend time on and if you had that time fuck it yeah um but the other thing I

[00:25:32] forgot my question now yeah uh the other thing is that it's like if you've ever worked on a

[00:25:38] project for long like there is always times where you don't actually want to work on it

[00:25:44] I think that's something you just have to be realistic about and I've seen a lot of indie

[00:25:49] hackers go the way of having a big product that they actually want to sell and then you have

[00:25:54] to do marketing for it and you have to promote it anywhere and the way that a developer can

[00:25:59] promote projects or do marketing for their actual product is making more products like develop more

[00:26:06] right and I think it works perfectly as like a side project that you have something new that

[00:26:11] you can that feel like a greenfield project where you have to start from zero again and

[00:26:16] quickly pump something out instead of doing the hundredth buck or feature thing that you have to

[00:26:21] do for your big product so I think it's it might not have been worth it for every click

[00:26:28] that comes from the page but even just the fun that you had building it and it still comes

[00:26:33] up in conversations and you also had something other than your main product was probably

[00:26:38] Yeah, 100% agree. So this idea, this marketing idea is called engineering as marketing

[00:26:44] where you are like building free tools or like funny websites that are then like driving traffic

[00:26:49] to your site it's like a sort of proven marketing tactic which is perfect for us

[00:26:54] indie hackers because it means we can just build more products. Do I think we should still

[00:26:59] maybe write more SEO content than take a long time to build like silly tools? Absolutely! But

[00:27:04] there is a lot of things to be said for building free tools that I actually try can drive significant

[00:27:10] amount of traffic so I think engineering as a marketing is a great way for indie hackers

[00:27:14] to actually do marketing because it really helps the distribution. I do think we shouldn't

[00:27:19] neglect the actual marketing part again like not let's not hide behind this and just but

[00:27:24] I agree with you it actually helped me to be a bit more happy you know what I mean? Yeah,

[00:27:29] stay long term on the product that you actually want to sell while still doing new stuff

[00:27:33] that's something that I always struggle with as well. Yeah, I'm excited for the time when

[00:27:38] my product we podcasted is launched we're doing some legal stuff now and then we will launch in

[00:27:43] April or May this year but I'm excited for the marketing stuff and building free tools

[00:27:48] for it and coming up with stuff that is fun to build that is cool for the user and also

[00:27:54] that doesn't cost much which is something that part is a little hard for AI products but we

[00:27:59] will see what we come up with but I think that's an awesome thing to do to stay with

[00:28:03] the product and be motivated. Yeah, regarding the other big part that I want to talk about today

[00:28:10] is the digital nomading part of your life can you take me through like you at some point

[00:28:16] you were living in Austria right how did you actually how did you start doing this what

[00:28:21] was that how did your whole indie hacker journey start because obviously we don't we

[00:28:25] always start at the zero MRR what did that look like for you and when did you start

[00:28:30] doing the digital nomad path so the I am originally I was born in Austria that's where I studied

[00:28:37] I did my undergrad in Innsbruck in Tyrol in Austria amazing ski kind of area I went

[00:28:43] snowboarding almost every day it was amazing but during my undergrad during I was like

[00:28:48] finishing undergrad I was studying economics and business and while I really liked well like

[00:28:54] my studies actually I did realize that I I've been playing with HTML and like JavaScript when

[00:29:00] I was like a kid and I always wanted to come back and learn how to actually build little

[00:29:04] websites and make them interactive and so towards like the end of my undergrad I was

[00:29:08] like really motivated to learn how to code and while I was learning like how to code

[00:29:13] I got into like I needed to have a first project which turned out to be a mobile app

[00:29:18] for people that wanted to become a management consultant so people that want to work at

[00:29:22] McKinsey Boston Consulting Group I made a little like job interview helper app and I coded this

[00:29:29] I learned how to code I built this and that was like how I got into the indie hacking because

[00:29:33] I learned about like back then the OG indie hackers like I learned about John Jung Fook

[00:29:38] and also most prevalent Peter Levers and they were all doing these things where I my mobile

[00:29:43] app all of a sudden like after releasing it took a few months but all of a sudden made

[00:29:47] like five bucks and it was the first time I made money on the internet the moment I made

[00:29:51] five bucks on the internet I really like the first thing I was I always wanted to become a

[00:29:56] management consultant that was my big dream I wanted to work at a consulting firm and just

[00:30:00] have a nice suit and fly business class that was my dream all my friends were doing

[00:30:04] and then my app made five dollars literally five dollars or even five years a bit more

[00:30:09] dollars and I was like scrap all this consulting bullshit I want to become a

[00:30:13] software developer and make cool apps and then for some reason the app kind of made around

[00:30:18] like 100 euros back then and then it kept making 100 euros per month and I was like

[00:30:24] if I can 10x this like this is a living and I'm like why do I want to be like this is so much

[00:30:29] more fun and that was like the moment I realized actually how cool it is to build your own

[00:30:34] products and be able to make money from them then I learned about indie hackers like Peter

[00:30:38] Levers who were making like above every like above the average salary of all my friends with

[00:30:42] just like silly internet products and I was like this is amazing this is gonna be what I want

[00:30:47] to do with my life that was like the starting ground of like how I got into indie hacking and

[00:30:53] then in my undergrad I got lucky to be selected to do a exchange semester in Hong Kong so I got

[00:31:00] the chance to like go to Asia first time in my life alone I was like 19 maybe in 18-19

[00:31:07] and I went there alone and it completely blew my mind because first of all I was like scared

[00:31:12] obviously to travel this far away from my friends and parents alone but secondly I heard

[00:31:16] so many stories about Asia but I had no idea how it actually is like and then I arrived in Hong Kong

[00:31:20] and like my whole mind was blown it was like the most futuristic posh New York style but like

[00:31:26] with Asian touch thing I've ever seen it was amazing I fell so in love with the city also

[00:31:31] while I was studying there that I realized that hold on this is so cool if like Peter Levers was

[00:31:36] also talking about nomading going to different places working from them and I was like whoa if

[00:31:41] I can combine these two things like I'm location independent because I only need a laptop

[00:31:45] I can work from wherever I want if I now find a way to actually make you know money to be able

[00:31:50] to afford this would be perfect and then one thing that I back then wasn't even fully aware

[00:31:55] but the whole location arbitrage which is the idea of that you go to a place where you

[00:32:00] actually spend way less money for a way better quality of life I like I was in Hong Kong I

[00:32:04] was still making this mobile app but then it actually took quite a lot more took two more

[00:32:08] years actually I came back to Austria then I studied my master's in Portugal and spent some

[00:32:13] time in Portugal and then while I was like in my master's I was like help kit was starting to

[00:32:19] grow and help kit made around like three thousand dollars MR and then all of a sudden it hit me I

[00:32:23] was like I can now try out this whole nomading thing I can go to places and see if I like them

[00:32:29] and I I everyone kept talking about going to Bali because every like all my friends they were

[00:32:34] like talking about Bali go to Indonesia it's so much cheaper you can drink coconuts and

[00:32:39] like work on the beach yada yada yada which is like but not really you still spend all

[00:32:42] of your day in a co-working space and you feel like it's the same shit every day but like still

[00:32:47] it's in a nice place and so TLDR I was like okay wait I'm just gonna do this like I know

[00:32:53] I knew from the past I loved Hong Kong I was like Asia is cool I'm gonna do it and then

[00:33:00] I struggled a bit with like community wise like I had some friends that were entrepreneurs

[00:33:04] ish but like none of them really were actually working on their own projects and

[00:33:08] I far never met a real like indie hacker literally I met Peter in Portugal by accident we became

[00:33:14] really good friends and actually he was the first real indie hacker I met like in my like in real

[00:33:19] life can you imagine like for whatever reason luckily or whatever you call it like Peter was

[00:33:24] the first indie hacker friend I really had who made money with his own product and then I went

[00:33:29] to Bali and man it like completely changed everything because in Bali there were like all

[00:33:35] of a sudden 10 indie hackers that were all barely making money but they were still making

[00:33:39] enough to survive in Bali making a thousand two thousand dollars a month with their own

[00:33:43] indie hacker project they gave up the job their freelance consulting to go full in their

[00:33:47] projects some of them failed some of them are making now like tens of thousands of dollars

[00:33:52] MRR but like this mindset everyone is there to grind but also have a bit of a community

[00:33:57] sometimes you go for beers this like indie hack the fact that there was a place where I

[00:34:02] could mine meet like many people completely changed my entire way of seeing traveling and seeing

[00:34:08] that showed me that they're like these things are out there and I felt if I remember back

[00:34:12] how miserable I felt in Austria when I was in my undergrad because I didn't meet any

[00:34:16] entrepreneurs and the only entrepreneurs I met were all with the mindset of I need a VC backed

[00:34:21] startup I need to get hundreds of thousands or millions in funding and I need to go through

[00:34:26] this very rigid kind of scammy process of starting a business which we all know like VC

[00:34:31] funded companies like work out if you want to make a VC funded company that's great but

[00:34:36] 19 out of like 20 times your business case is not made for VC you're not gonna go ultra

[00:34:42] exponential scale you maybe one that you maybe will be like linear growth scale which is

[00:34:46] amazing for a lifestyle business but just the mindsets and then I go to Bali meet all these

[00:34:50] friends amazing and then from there on it was kick-started because I had a bit of a group of

[00:34:55] friends that I knew and they were all scattered all of a sudden some left Bali they went to

[00:34:59] Thailand some went to Latin America and I'm like huh maybe I'll just go to these places as well

[00:35:04] and I have a friend there that is currently there so I can meet up I won't feel super alone

[00:35:09] when you travel alone there's a lot of notion around like you if you're traveling alone it's

[00:35:14] fine especially for me like I would consider myself more like an introvert so I can be

[00:35:19] alone for a whole month if I want to but then sometimes you still you need to see someone

[00:35:23] and having this little backup of knowing there's at least one person I've saw I've

[00:35:27] seen like once at least in my life was really comforting so that's how that kind of started

[00:35:32] and then yeah and then I went then I actually that's how it all started and I went to other

[00:35:37] went through whole Southeast Asia I went to some parts in Latin America now this year

[00:35:41] and just to see like where I like spending most of my time and yeah that that's how

[00:35:45] it started. I have so many questions now so I'm afraid of flying so I have some problems

[00:35:51] with traveling that much but that might be another discussion oh interesting but something

[00:35:55] I think something that's really hard for me to understand is there like you have another product

[00:36:00] called Nomad Kit which is a product where you now sell a guide for I think Bangkok right and

[00:36:07] there are others planned and I just read through it very shortly when I had time for

[00:36:11] it before this interview and you suggested that and I'm not sure if it was there in

[00:36:16] the tweet you suggested that it was doable to have a city like Bangkok and spend about 600

[00:36:23] maybe 800 a month and live there and when you when I look at Nomad Kit the hotels that you

[00:36:29] have as pictures there are what I would call luxurious yeah let's say that is that something

[00:36:35] that you can do there survive on a thousand dollars a month let's say a thousand with

[00:36:41] healthcare and food and a place to live and not feel shitty about it yeah yeah 100 percent

[00:36:48] okay so let me boil this down because I think sometimes it can seem maybe a bit exaggerated or

[00:36:54] easier than it might be because there's like little things you don't see when you see these

[00:36:59] like amazing condos that are super cheap you can go on youtube type in Bangkok luxurious

[00:37:03] apartment you will see apartments that you can rent a whole year if you get a like

[00:37:07] apartments are cheaper if you rent them long term which means six to 12 months if you

[00:37:12] you can live in an extremely luxurious apartment for 600 dollars a month if you get a one year

[00:37:17] contract and you're gonna live like a king you can you don't I met a friend today and he's

[00:37:23] living in a really nice apartment spends like 700 a month because it's short term but he's he

[00:37:27] told me he hasn't left the apartment complex for the past one month because the gym is in

[00:37:32] the condo there's a nice coffee downstairs there's a supermarket downstairs you have a big swimming

[00:37:38] pool there's a sauna a steam bath you have a library to work from and yeah and so essentially

[00:37:44] there's like nothing that you need to do to actually leave and so long story short you

[00:37:49] can't do this but so now I would say comfortably you can like really have a nice lifestyle if it's

[00:37:55] like maybe 1500 dollars okay let's say a thousand you even for the thousand can like still

[00:38:01] live like pretty nicely but I would still say that it depends a bit on like the life

[00:38:06] that you want to have but still you can you can definitely you can do this and that's the

[00:38:10] amazing thing about like local arbitrage like being a digital nomad in southeast Asia especially

[00:38:15] Bangkok you can live a really high quality of life but still yeah. So one question that would

[00:38:20] bug me all the time would be what happens if I actually get sick there that's like the thing

[00:38:26] I know that there's stuff like private hospitals but what are your what's your take on this is

[00:38:30] it safe to be there even if you have some health issues or you might not have even an

[00:38:35] health issue but you might like be hit by a car or something like that and not be dead

[00:38:39] but still be hurt what's the whole health care situation like then what if you actually get

[00:38:43] sick there what what happens then is there what does your insurance look like because as a

[00:38:48] freelancer in Germany my insurance alone is a thousand euros in that part in that case not

[00:38:54] dollars how do you like finance that and is there any health care if you actually need it?

[00:39:00] Yeah I love this question and I love to talk about this because first of all a few people

[00:39:05] ever think about this the reason why you think about this is because you're German slash me

[00:39:10] Austrian and we are so prone to think about these really important things but you will be

[00:39:16] surprised by just randomly I've met so many digital nomads and I would swear to god

[00:39:22] 98% don't even think about this they are like if something happens let's see what's going on

[00:39:28] which can be detrimental especially in places like Bali where you think everything is super

[00:39:33] cheap and then you see that the hospital can run you like tens of thousands of dollars it can get

[00:39:38] wild so great question let me iterate because I've been through all of this I've done the whole

[00:39:44] Austrian German due diligence so let me break it down how it works so if you're digital nomading

[00:39:50] there's two things that you can do or should do if you are doing it for the first time you

[00:39:55] should get a travel insurance you can get a really affordable travel insurance for 50 dollars

[00:40:00] a month and you're good to go this will cover anything like any issue you will have perfect

[00:40:05] the second one if you're doing like more of a long-term thing especially you're like traveling

[00:40:10] from one place to another and it's going to be multiple months you can you should do what people

[00:40:16] call an expert insurance or a global nomad insurance and this essentially is like private

[00:40:21] health care but around the entire world you know here comes the funny thing if you break

[00:40:26] it down this private health insurance that is like a real global insurance can go to any hospital in

[00:40:33] the entire world with an asterisk obviously on some of the networks that these insurance

[00:40:37] companies have but like in my opinion like in my specific case with my expert insurance I can

[00:40:43] go to any like the most expensive hospital except the US and everything will be covered

[00:40:49] and now here's the thing I pay way less than you would pay with social security contributions

[00:40:54] in like central european countries as in Germany or as in Austria so I'm paying around 200 US

[00:41:01] dollars a month and I get like whole like inpatient and outpatient health care around the

[00:41:07] world including cancer treatment should all that kind of stuff ever happen so it's also long

[00:41:11] term thinking and now here's the thing like you said what's the important things to know

[00:41:16] now here's the thing in play like you would be surprised the health care in southeast Asia

[00:41:21] specifically in big Asian cities Singapore Bangkok Kuala Lumpur has one of the most best like one

[00:41:28] of the best health care systems you can possibly even imagine like you're going to be treated

[00:41:32] like in a in one of the three best hospitals in Bangkok 10 times better than in any like

[00:41:38] normal hospital in Germany even though you think the quality might be better like it's

[00:41:43] almost not understandable here in Bangkok we have a hospital called Bumrungrad you can google

[00:41:48] it it's built like a five-star hotel it has a starbucks it has anything you can think of and

[00:41:53] it's like like worldly known for medical tourism so the idea that like health care doesn't work

[00:42:01] in like southeast Asia that kind of stuff completely debunked it's absolutely amazing

[00:42:05] now is it affordable or not that is a question depending on a lot of factors if you happen to

[00:42:12] go to a private hospital that is like catered towards westerners and is known already to be an

[00:42:18] expensive one yeah you're gonna pay a bit of money there especially if you have something

[00:42:22] if you need to pay out of pocket for something serious but for example the other day I had to

[00:42:28] I had tonsillitis infection on my throat I went to the most expensive hospital here which

[00:42:32] is like top-notch you feel like you're treated like a royalty and I spent 70 dollars

[00:42:37] for a consultation including all the drugs that I had to get so just to give you a bit of a

[00:42:42] reference right but then I can equally for something that is like not as severe as tonsillitis

[00:42:48] to a more local hospital where everyone still speaks perfect English and pay like 35 dollars

[00:42:53] for an everything so I just chose this hospital because I was already like I had everything like

[00:42:58] registered and my tonsillitis was getting pretty bad I just wanted to take it care of

[00:43:03] but what I want to say is healthcare is really great here you just need to make sure that you're

[00:43:09] insured in a way because paying out of pocket for something that would be serious like you

[00:43:14] don't want to be in the position where maybe you have appendix right but you need to get

[00:43:20] a surgery this can run you to tens of thousands of dollars no not tens of thousands but like

[00:43:24] this can rank up maybe you spend like seven thousand dollars on this privately because it's

[00:43:28] not that important and private hospitals are known to like wanting to make money so that is an

[00:43:33] important thing to know however you can like easily get around this if you have travel

[00:43:38] insurance and so that's like the thing that a lot of nomads don't know like you can get

[00:43:43] for 50 bucks a month you can get a great travel insurance that will cover you with all

[00:43:47] these cases and you will be fine and you will be treated in these hospitals better than

[00:43:51] anywhere else you would but of course if you're like if you don't have a travel insurance and

[00:43:55] you happen to have a bad accident yeah like this is private like you don't want to go to

[00:44:00] a public hospital in Thailand as a foreigner like you can but you don't want to I just don't trust

[00:44:08] that healthcare system enough to put my life on it so you're obviously going to go to a

[00:44:14] private hospital and if you go there without being insured man things can rank up and

[00:44:20] that's I think the mindset you got to put yourself in but I feel so comfortable having

[00:44:26] my insurance and being here rather than being in for example in in Austria like I had some

[00:44:32] issues back in Austria and it was like finding first of all private healthcare was a bit of an

[00:44:37] issue for me because some of them don't even accept you some others like you have to be

[00:44:42] still partnered with like your local public insurance and there's all these little nuances

[00:44:48] that even like for a private healthcare appointment I have like wants to wait two weeks which is like

[00:44:53] disastrous to think about because like here I can go to any doctor in like tomorrow and just

[00:44:59] get what I have treated so I think more and more people are realizing this and if you are

[00:45:05] having like some sort of an issue that can be that that is not like that doesn't need to be

[00:45:11] fixed right now a great example is a friend of mine has sleep apnea and he's a digital

[00:45:16] nomad and sleep apnea is something there's very a lot of doctors treated differently so he wanted to

[00:45:21] get a lot of opinions so he traveled to five different countries to consult with the best

[00:45:27] medic doctors there which was still cheaper than if you would just do it in London and he had

[00:45:32] five different opinions and could really get a big picture and that's the beauty of the digital

[00:45:36] nomad because you can do like literally some sort of like medical tourism now one thing last

[00:45:41] thing I want to add to this I'm a bit passionate because I like talking about this

[00:45:45] because nobody does and it can really wreck your life so one thing you got to know some places have

[00:45:50] better health care than others like Bali for example it looks like a paradise it has beautiful

[00:45:56] beaches it's really nice a lot of people drive motorcycles without a license and insurance and

[00:46:01] helmet great if something happens Balinese hospitals aren't really amazing and they are

[00:46:08] known sometimes to fuck shit up that could like that is otherwise in other countries like

[00:46:12] really easily solvable so they're getting better but I want to stress a couple of things like you

[00:46:18] need to I feel like if you're a digital nomad you need to do your due diligence like worse

[00:46:22] if shit would hit the fan which hospital would you pick where would you go do you have some

[00:46:26] recommendations that was literally one of the big reasons why I built Nomad Kit like these

[00:46:31] digital city Nomad guides because in the Bangkok guide for example the last thing you want to

[00:46:36] do and honestly I'm really not chilling this guide I just want to say if the last thing

[00:46:41] you want to do if you go to a new city you have something like god forbid that is really bad to

[00:46:46] you is go on google and browse for five different like hospital review sections because if you've

[00:46:51] ever tried to find a good google review for a hospital yeah you won't really find them

[00:46:56] everyone just everyone that had a bad experience will say that they almost died in this hospital

[00:47:01] good luck with your anxiety finding a great hospital while you're sick and while you're

[00:47:05] trying to like scout the different like hospitals and that's why I feel like it is

[00:47:09] just important to do your due diligence some people just they're playing roulette with their

[00:47:13] life which is fine but I guess for someone like you who said who is a bit wants to like

[00:47:18] it's a bit scary like how the health care might work doing these things can really help you to

[00:47:23] feel at ease but yeah it is something that takes a bit of time to get used to like just

[00:47:27] to the fact that you need to do these things as opposed to just being comfortable in your

[00:47:32] own country and just everything just works but then once you get step your foot out you also

[00:47:37] see like how efficient some other places for example can be or how good the health care can

[00:47:42] be or sometimes unfortunately how bad it can be and it's a bad time to find out that the

[00:47:47] healthcare is shitty when you actually need it right so that might not be the best time

[00:47:52] to learn about that yeah I would love to do a whole podcast on this but I'm trying to

[00:47:58] move on a little bit apart from the health care and living cheaply anyway there I think

[00:48:03] one big benefit and I've seen this in some tweets of yours as well is that you can actually get

[00:48:08] into really deep work when you're there of course there's a lot of distractions that's

[00:48:13] something that you mentioned in some tweets especially with Bali and that's why you

[00:48:17] recommended going for big Asian cities like Bangkok Jakarta and you had a tweet where you

[00:48:22] said that it promotes hard work more than others do so first question how do you what's

[00:48:30] your thoughts on this like how focused should somebody be and how much can you actually enjoy

[00:48:34] the culture I guess is the question how do you do work life balance and still commit to doing a

[00:48:40] lot of work yeah I think it's a hard question there's not a single answer to this everyone

[00:48:44] responds differently to traveling to working I feel like one thing that has like a universally

[00:48:51] accepted like there's a universally accepted thinking around nomading these days for

[00:48:57] entrepreneurs that is you cannot fully travel and get work done as you would think that people do

[00:49:05] this like mindset of you're gonna travel for two weeks to a nice country to Bali you're gonna

[00:49:10] be there be super productive while also checking out the waterfalls and like going

[00:49:14] for drinks with your friends it's just not gonna happen and the whole idea of nomading I

[00:49:18] feel should be treated a bit differently as in you should see it more as the concept of

[00:49:23] slow madding I stopped for example traveling to a place shorter than a month if I want to get work

[00:49:28] done now what I started doing is I prefer to much more spend one to three months maybe in

[00:49:34] a place maybe even like four or five months if I really like it and then go to another place

[00:49:38] that allows me to get a routine and actually get stuff done I need a routine I need to

[00:49:43] know where's my gym I need to know where can I get clean good food and then like other stuff

[00:49:47] around that like promotes just a normal way of living and then I do short trips I maybe go

[00:49:53] like a week somewhere and I know I'm not gonna do a lot of work there but I'm gonna actually

[00:49:56] explore the whole place or there's other strategies like last year when I came to

[00:50:00] Bangkok for the first time my friend Marion and I for example what we set out to do is

[00:50:05] we both had to do a lot of work so we said we're gonna be one week like tourists here

[00:50:10] so every day we have like hundreds of itineraries everything we're gonna do everything in

[00:50:14] this one week which was a bit stressful but super fun and then after this we could

[00:50:19] chill down and find our routine and live in the city like locally and so these are like the

[00:50:24] little things that you need to find to like actually find a good balance and that's the

[00:50:28] whole thing I think about being a digital nomad if you really want to get stuff done

[00:50:32] you do need to be you need to be very committed and also disciplined which can be hard

[00:50:39] because there are so many cool external things you want to do maybe you want to do some

[00:50:43] people like my friend like that I met today he just he spent a month in his condo amazing like

[00:50:48] he said he had never been on the metro here in Bangkok which is absolutely not understandable

[00:50:52] for me because like I used it like the first day I arrived he saw the metro today he was

[00:50:57] like oh there's a metro I'm like what do you mean this is the most prevalent thing in the

[00:51:01] entire city it's literally it's called Skytrain because it's like elevated but

[00:51:05] looks like a futuristic Gotham kind of city vibe with the Skytrain and he hasn't seen it

[00:51:10] I'm like what so these kind of things exist like in parallel but for the average digital nomad if

[00:51:18] you really want to work on your business because that's what like the whole idea is like you go

[00:51:24] to a place where it's cheaper to live the food is amazing everything else can get taken care of

[00:51:29] that's like the thing like here in Asia like you don't really need to do your own laundry

[00:51:33] there's someone who does it for you as weird as this might sound it can help you to get a

[00:51:38] lot of these like daily tasks away you don't really need to cook like you can order really

[00:51:43] great food for really cheap my favorite food here in Thailand is Pad Ka Pao it's rice with

[00:51:48] minced meat and basil leaves and it costs three dollars including shipping to deliver and it

[00:51:54] arrives here in 10 minutes so that being said I feel like coming back to the routine thing

[00:52:00] you do need to find a way to start eating clean as well because that's I have an air

[00:52:04] fryer here as cliche as it might be and I have very good quality food that I'm cooking myself

[00:52:10] it's using an air fryer I wouldn't really consider cooking because it's like ridiculously

[00:52:14] fast but all of these like little things these like little annoyances maybe for some

[00:52:18] that can take be taken care of in like Southeast Asia for example and that frees up a lot of

[00:52:24] mental space if you don't have to think about doing your laundry tomorrow and it gets

[00:52:27] doing it gets done for you or you don't have to do the cleaning of your entire apartment

[00:52:32] next week it's these little things that for some might not be a lot for some might be even

[00:52:37] important some people love to cook as a meditation thing I can I get that but there's other ways for

[00:52:43] example I love to do little massages from here and there sometimes and they are really

[00:52:47] more affordable here for example these are the little things and that's the whole idea

[00:52:52] that you want to get yourself into yes traveling amazing you get to see a lot of things

[00:52:56] but try to find a routine because otherwise this will eat you up alive because only doing fun stuff

[00:53:03] while you actually have a big goal which is your business it can work for a while but you will

[00:53:08] feel I felt really depressed after if I don't if I have a goal but then I get lost in the

[00:53:13] sauce so to say it doesn't feel great that being said sometimes you got to live a little

[00:53:19] that's the whole idea of also traveling don't like there's a reason why you are in these

[00:53:24] cool places so use them but I read this post on reddit a year ago where someone was saying

[00:53:31] I'm a digital nomad I get to live in the coolest places I could have ever dreamed of all my

[00:53:36] friends are are jealous of me however here I am every day going to the same co-working space

[00:53:42] sitting on the same seat and working my five six seven eight hours a day and it feels like

[00:53:47] a daily life I could now be in my random old village at home it wouldn't feel different

[00:53:52] and that kind of hit home you can't be in that place too but that's why sometimes you just got

[00:53:58] to remember to also live a little so there's a good balance you need to find definitely it's

[00:54:04] not easy but I guess if you have the chance and if you are able you don't have many

[00:54:11] constraints right now in life you don't have a like an animal a pet or your partner is

[00:54:16] flexible or you're a singer take the chance and just try it out that's what all I would

[00:54:21] say just give it a try see if it is for you I met people that actually said they tried it for three

[00:54:25] months and they were like meh I like my place at home much more I'm gonna go back there there's

[00:54:30] too much air pollution here in Asia some things seem a bit sketchy which they definitely are so

[00:54:35] I'm gonna go back and now I saw it didn't really like it perfect you already knocked it

[00:54:40] on this point I actually didn't want to I wanted to ask something else but now I'm interested

[00:54:44] what do you think are the sketchy parts like maybe you sometimes struggle with staying

[00:54:49] in Southeast Asia I feel I've spent some time in Latin America now which I would say the most

[00:54:54] sketchy part is literally just safety places like Rio are really beautiful but my friend got

[00:55:01] almost killed literally while going for a run in one of the most poshest areas and these

[00:55:06] stories keep coming up so there's a lot of actually just theft robbery just actually not

[00:55:11] just petty crime but there's like real crime happening that's the Latin America vibe that

[00:55:15] is like a bit sketchy in Asia I would say there are more nuanced things that can be a bit sketchy

[00:55:22] the biggest one probably just being I would say just things that you actually like that you do

[00:55:28] that everyone does but are actually really like shoot like that are just sketchy for example

[00:55:33] best case example everyone in Bali or in Thailand is taking bike taxes you're not taking

[00:55:38] a car taxi because there's a lot of traffic so you sit behind on this little bike but

[00:55:42] as opposed to like Germany Austria where the EU where there is rules they don't give you a helmet

[00:55:49] and they drive 80 kilometers an hour with you on a little Honda that if there is a speed bump

[00:55:54] you pray to god that you have a good grip and so should you do it absolutely not is everyone

[00:56:00] doing it because there is no other better way and it's honestly really fun to be on a bike

[00:56:05] and slaloring through all the cars great but man you don't want to fall off this with

[00:56:10] no helmet like it's absolutely the stupidest thing for example that I do like in terms of

[00:56:15] like safety here for example in Bangkok right now but everyone's doing it and so these are

[00:56:20] like little sketchy things another one obviously corruption in terms of corruption in Europe

[00:56:25] happens on a big scale in Asia it happens on every level corruption works in two ways it works

[00:56:30] in favor for you in a lot of cases there is a way sometimes you cannot even be without

[00:56:34] corruption here but then sometimes it can work against you and there are stories for example

[00:56:41] places like Bali where it's still a bit more underground everything is a bit like there's not

[00:56:46] like things can happen for example things that can happen is if you are if you're making if

[00:56:52] people local people find out you have a lot of money for example you need to be in a certain

[00:56:56] position to actually be there you need to start bragging maybe on social media and like making

[00:57:01] kind of obvious mistakes but can happen there are people out there that will find out that

[00:57:06] you are bragging about being rich and then there can be extortion there can be people

[00:57:11] that suddenly knock on your door and say oh interesting you're right now in Indonesia

[00:57:16] I'm like I'm from a local police you have no idea about what if you just give me a bit

[00:57:21] of money and I won't knock again this is like these little nuances that you keep hearing

[00:57:27] from some people that happen never happened to me but there's like slightly things that are a

[00:57:33] bit sketchy and then or if you would happen to for example try to rent out an apartment in Bali

[00:57:40] absolutely not allowed for foreigners a lot of people still do it you can get yourself into

[00:57:45] big troubles there or one more the biggest one for everyone listening going to southeast Asia

[00:57:51] except Thailand for some reason drugs are a big no-go and there is a death penalty in Indonesia

[00:57:58] and still in Singapore if you get caught with like big drugs if you're smuggling stuff that's

[00:58:02] very crazy stuff consumption is a bit less but like still in Thailand illegalized weed for

[00:58:07] some reason is funny but they are thinking about illegalizing it again the what I want to

[00:58:12] say though is this can be sometimes pretty sketchy because for example there are a lot

[00:58:17] of cases in Indonesia where you know someone that you a local who you think might be a friend

[00:58:24] while you're partying might put a little pouch of a certain drug into your backpack and then

[00:58:30] randomly there is a police officer suddenly who wants to check your backpack and then he's I

[00:58:35] can go now to the police and report you and you will be deported and probably be in jail

[00:58:40] for years or you just give me a bit of money and this never happened I think the biggest

[00:58:44] thing in southeast Asia is stay away from drugs as far as you can like no matter what like if

[00:58:52] someone offers even if you think weed is not a drug I don't care I certainly think it is but

[00:58:57] if you don't think it's a drug stay the fuck away because it you cause so much potential for

[00:59:04] issues so that's a sketchy part because sometimes it's not you that like puts yourself

[00:59:09] in this position it might be others but I want to make sure southeast Asia is extremely safe

[00:59:14] it's not like anyone would ever harm you it's more subtleties usually it's just about money

[00:59:19] and it's about trying to get a bit of money from you usually it's smaller scales sometimes

[00:59:24] it can be more you never know in all of these cases I feel like the people like two big sketchy

[00:59:30] parts in Asia that happen that I keep seeing is people mess around with drugs even though

[00:59:34] they shouldn't and they talk with the wrong people because they're partying and then do

[00:59:38] like stuff while they're drunk number one and the second one is essentially riding motorcycles

[00:59:44] without having an insurance or having no helmet or both or even better without a helmet no

[00:59:51] insurance and then drunk if you do this like there are so many motorcycle accidents in

[00:59:57] Bali for example and most of them happen by foreigners especially at night and especially

[01:00:02] because they either don't wear a helmet or they're drunk or both and stay away from

[01:00:07] drugs and drive a motorcycle if you know how to drive a motorcycle and please wear a helmet

[01:00:12] like that's like that keeps you out of like most troubles I have one like one big question

[01:00:17] for you and it's a lot of questions combined your answer can be long if you want to looking

[01:00:22] at that like the help kit has a very healthy MRR I'm not sure how much profit you take from

[01:00:28] that but the MR is very healthy I think you tweeted about 10k and I probably think that

[01:00:33] a little more now but what do you think you will do now with the nomad lifestyle with help kit

[01:00:41] are you of the mindset of just growing it and growing it and keeping the product or selling

[01:00:45] at some point and do something completely different and will you stay as a nomad will

[01:00:50] you at some point come back to Europe what's your plan for the future at the moment in terms

[01:00:54] of traveling I it's a hard question I'm still scouting I love to spend time in Portugal it's

[01:01:02] an amazing place in Europe one I feel like one of the best places in Europe to spend time in

[01:01:07] I like it for the safety in Europe there's just like something that great air quality like things

[01:01:12] that are a bit different in Asia for example right now I'm still scouting I really love

[01:01:17] Bangkok I love Bali so I think I will never be in a position where I will settle in one

[01:01:23] place I could probably see myself during a year doing three places maybe going from being

[01:01:28] a bit in Portugal being a bit and maybe in Bali Bangkok and then circle around these are the

[01:01:34] things I think that I'm slowly realizing after traveling from one place to another I do want to

[01:01:38] have more of a base if you can call this a base because it like it tires you down if you

[01:01:45] constantly keep searching and then maybe do little trips but find a base and I'm slowly

[01:01:48] figuring out the bases that I like specifically right now I love like Bali Changu still like

[01:01:54] it even though a lot of people think it's overhyped I love it there is Bangkok of course

[01:01:58] I really like it as well but sometimes the air pollution can be high and can get really hot

[01:02:02] so you don't want to spend all the time there and then Portugal is just an amazing

[01:02:06] you know place for me because I got just like it is like the European kind of safety nice

[01:02:12] air quality and still also nice so that's the traveling part that I'm still figuring out

[01:02:18] I'm slowly narrowing down but then never been to other places so you will see and in

[01:02:24] terms of help kit yeah great question I so far so far my goal or still my goal is and

[01:02:31] ideally I want to keep growing help kit as long or as best as I can with a bit of an asterisk

[01:02:38] because so you ask me profit margin my profit margin is more than 90 percent actually more

[01:02:43] than 95 almost like 95 so pretty high which is amazing that's why software rocks the thing is

[01:02:50] what I didn't notice with help kit with any product is that I have been working it for

[01:02:55] almost three years now and I had a face last autumn where I was almost about to sell it

[01:03:02] because I just couldn't look at it anymore if you do something every day we talked about this

[01:03:07] earlier we scratched the surface about like doing other side projects that keep you like

[01:03:11] still working on the main product but then doing other stuff and that really helped now

[01:03:15] in the past few months to get back my motivation but I was at a point where I was

[01:03:18] like I just I can't look at this anymore but then the other problem is I'm like really like

[01:03:25] value driven in the way that I want help kit to still exist I want to keep using it because I

[01:03:29] literally build it to solve my own issues for every product in the future I will build I want

[01:03:35] to use help kit from a help center so if I'm gonna sell it to someone and they're just gonna

[01:03:40] acquisitions sometimes they just suck and they suck more than they don't so I don't want to

[01:03:46] sell it to someone who just grinds it down and then it doesn't work anymore and then I

[01:03:50] what do I do I need to build help kit internally again just to use it like what

[01:03:54] like so that's a bit of an issue however I don't want to cross out selling help kit

[01:04:00] eventually because I feel like still I want like maybe at one point taking off a bit of

[01:04:05] quote-unquote like risk platform risk would be an interesting way for me especially because

[01:04:11] I am an indie hacker and I'm passionate about building new projects and I keep thinking

[01:04:15] about new cool stuff I can build but there is I think one really important notion to this that

[01:04:20] a good friend of mine Jesse a couple weeks ago reminded me again and that is that growing help

[01:04:26] kit from $15,000 MRR to $18,000 MRR versus growing a new product from one from zero to

[01:04:34] 3k MRR what's easier obviously it's much easier to grow help kit because it already has

[01:04:40] product market fit and there's much more levers to pull than like a new product so from

[01:04:46] I would guess saying like revenues like growing wealth perspective doesn't make much sense to just

[01:04:53] sell help kit now one thing also that I that at least is true for me maybe not for others

[01:04:59] is that I don't like obviously my big goal with building anything is I want to achieve

[01:05:05] like what you would call financial independence right like I want to be able to

[01:05:09] financially retire financially independence retire early fire the idea of living off of your

[01:05:15] investment basically like a low index fund that's like the dream goal right that's what

[01:05:20] I want I want to have one project or one source of like wealth that allows me to have

[01:05:25] financial stability and that's what I keep thinking about man I need to grow help kit to

[01:05:29] a bit more and then I can sell it and then I can achieve this wealth goal and then after

[01:05:34] that I can build other stuff but what I'm like slowly realizing as well is the fact that

[01:05:38] I don't like how should I say is like I don't feel like I this would be the last project I

[01:05:43] ever worked on and they will make money like we entrepreneurs unless I will get seriously

[01:05:48] sick and god forbid this will happen we like you and me we will be building products

[01:05:52] until we're 70 you know what I mean like we will make try to make cool stuff and make money

[01:05:58] until we're 70 or like older like we won't stop building stuff I don't like I think the whole

[01:06:04] financial independence retire early stuff started because a lot of software engineers that

[01:06:09] absolutely hated their job needed a way to look forward in 10 years I'm gonna work 10 years now

[01:06:15] make good amount of salary and then I finally stopped with the shitty job and then I will

[01:06:19] enjoy my life but it's a bit of an outdated view I would say in terms of maybe this goal is

[01:06:26] not exactly what I should achieve like with like help kit what I'm meaning is maybe there will be

[01:06:32] a point where I might sell it for some good amount of cash maybe not like forever life

[01:06:37] changing amount but like it will be at a point where I can be comfortable have a good financial

[01:06:42] cushion and then go from there and build another product and then obviously I'm aware

[01:06:46] that it would take a bit of grind and it would be super hard to reach to even become

[01:06:50] profitable again the whole journey starts again but then again I learned so many things

[01:06:56] throughout my journey now that I would love to reapply onto a new thing there are some

[01:07:02] things that I learned that are obviously retrospectively I also applying now for help

[01:07:06] kit but it is a bit of the I don't know the technical term but there's a there is this thing

[01:07:13] where it is much easier to start something completely from scratch with all the knowledge

[01:07:17] you had versus retroactively patching it on top and so I there is this thing in me this urge that

[01:07:25] I want to work on something new maybe even maybe even bigger maybe not I don't know it is

[01:07:29] amazing it's like a knowledge-based product but like maybe there is something that is a bit more

[01:07:34] ambitious and maybe could fail even easier but like it is a bit bigger so there's a lot of

[01:07:38] things that so I want to don't want to cross out selling help kit actually funnily enough

[01:07:43] literally today I got an email from someone that wants to acquire it they just out of the

[01:07:49] blue texted me like an email I just briefly read through it couldn't tell if it was super serious

[01:07:54] to be honest though but yeah finally enough that came in today but yeah probably I'm going

[01:08:01] to chat with them see how they're feeling but yeah like right now I want to grow help kit

[01:08:07] because what I realized and that circling back to the indie hacker problem in the beginning

[01:08:12] help kit right now is in a great cash flow generating position however right now

[01:08:18] head kit is like the growth of head kit is very slow right now it something happened like

[01:08:24] ending of last year that growth has been like way less than it used to be and that sucks

[01:08:31] honestly that is demoralizing I had the first month last november where I had a negative month

[01:08:36] meaning I lost MRR as opposed to getting MRR and I cannot tell you how demoralizing it feels

[01:08:45] when you see your growth almost stagnating like over a month long period let's say two

[01:08:51] or three months you keep doing you try to push but it is not gonna go that like kick growth

[01:08:57] again that you want to see that you used to see maybe it's the typical growth slump stagnation

[01:09:02] problem that a lot of sass have but I always thought I'm just unique I just me because on

[01:09:07] twitter everyone is growing on twitter everyone is making so much money they grow from 10k MRR

[01:09:14] to 20 to 30 to 50 in two days and you're sitting there and you're like why am I so

[01:09:19] miserable and then especially as a solo founder it is they say don't associate your business

[01:09:26] with yourself but like I if my business if I get a lot of like people's cancelling my subscriptions

[01:09:32] it feels like they're ripping out half of my heart even though it shouldn't be and I'm getting

[01:09:37] better at this but I'm just telling how it is with that in mind just knowing that your

[01:09:43] business right now is slow like it is growing man like it's so slowly growing that I've just

[01:09:47] can you grow more like I want more and the thing is what I always think next it is

[01:09:54] I have not really done like going proper marketing mode with help kit and that's what

[01:09:58] I finally started doing for a month like one and like maybe two months now almost and that's a

[01:10:05] part of the business if I would sell now I would never get to see this like harder part

[01:10:11] of the business some people have this harder part of I've seen for example what is it

[01:10:15] convert kit is Nathan Barry who like struggled at like 2k MRR for a year and then suddenly he

[01:10:22] found a way out of it like insane story if you see the chart you won't even believe how it grew

[01:10:27] and how long it took him to get out of this but so for me it just happened to be at this stage

[01:10:32] now luckily didn't have happened earlier so I don't want to give up now and be like all

[01:10:38] right I love building products but it starts to stagnate so now I'm just not gonna do it

[01:10:43] anymore like I could do it but I would be at this position with another product in the future

[01:10:48] maybe it will be at a thousand dollar MRR and what do I do then sell it again or hopefully

[01:10:54] things turn around no like I'm gonna try to now learn processes that I can apply and

[01:11:00] it's it wasn't easy it's like learning how to program again like I it is taking a lot time

[01:11:05] like today I spent man I spent six hours writing one blog post and I used part of AI

[01:11:12] for it's not like I wrote this entire thing by myself I used part of AI some things I did

[01:11:17] myself but then I had to do research it took me like six seven hours to write one post and I

[01:11:22] still don't think it's great and if I compare this I could build an entire feature for help kit in

[01:11:28] three hours four hours if I wanted to and this mindset is it's hilarious to think about because

[01:11:35] for marketers it's the other way around right for them it seems easy to do the marketing part

[01:11:40] and then the development by his heart but so I want to become better at the marketing part

[01:11:44] and help kit is providing me the opportunity to learn right now so I'm taking it as that

[01:11:49] I can take I reframed my entire like I had a phase in November where I'm like I literally

[01:11:55] was just like like instead of being motivated by wanting to grow more I had the complete

[01:12:01] opposite I was like I don't want to do this like nothing is growing and I don't like

[01:12:06] marketing man I'm just gonna chill and watch Netflix now that was my stupid mindset because

[01:12:12] I had analysis paralysis I didn't know had so many options I could take but I didn't know

[01:12:17] where to start and what to do like you stand in front of like marketing and you're like

[01:12:21] what does it even mean and so now I'm in this thinking and I'm like now I'm gonna

[01:12:28] try to grow and honestly it still sucks because it's been two months and the growth

[01:12:33] is still not really getting better like I saw an uptick but it's like the amount of push I

[01:12:39] give it and the response like I give it a lot of push and the response is really little and

[01:12:44] that's what every marketer tells you it's you've got to throw so much against the wall and then

[01:12:48] you will find something and it sucks so much but at least I'm in the position now where

[01:12:54] I know that this is how it should feel like so that's how I take it I honestly don't get

[01:13:01] me wrong while I say this with a happy happy face like some days I still have to write like

[01:13:07] I have to focus on SEO now and like I still don't see results and it sucks and I want to code but

[01:13:12] yeah I just really just I want to become like this like this um full stack machine like even

[01:13:19] in the future if I want to outsource I don't want to be the developer designer kind of guy

[01:13:23] who knows about this part but then I blindly hand over everything to the marketing guy because

[01:13:29] how do I know if the marketing guy is actually doing proper marketing like I need to know a

[01:13:34] bit of it and so that's what I'm teaching myself now some people would say Dom that's absolutely

[01:13:39] stupid that's not how you run a business you should get a co-founder that is doing marketing

[01:13:43] or you should hire a marketer I had a friend who actually had a kind of was like similar

[01:13:48] situation in me and then he started hiring like a kind of marketer and she actually helped

[01:13:54] him to grow quite a lot in in the next few months and it's something I might consider

[01:14:00] eventually down the line but I just and he kept telling me Dom hire a marketer hire the marketer

[01:14:04] and I'm like but if I don't know what I'm hiring them for what if they just sit down

[01:14:10] watched one course about SEO and now they're just gonna blindly do this one thing because

[01:14:15] they know about that like I want to at least in a way I'm like obviously constraining myself

[01:14:22] a lot because I want to be a jack of all trades and we know that capitalism didn't like

[01:14:25] this concept we want to specialize and that's how you increase your production but I don't care

[01:14:33] I want to learn about marketing so that's what I'm doing now.

[01:14:36] That's just a solopreneur thing that I think we all are doing I might have two or three

[01:14:41] guests in mind that I had on the show that might be able to help you a little bit at

[01:14:45] least further down like nail down what you could do I have some names in mind we'll do

[01:14:50] that after the show ends and awesome maybe those guys can give you a little push as well

[01:14:57] so you're gonna keep Habit Kid for that sorry Habit Kid for now we are we're far past the

[01:15:03] time that I actually had in mind for the podcast like always but awesome to hear all of

[01:15:07] this. I had one more question for you just regarding how the whole Nomad thing help kid

[01:15:12] I think it brings all of this a little together in the end Nomading all the time

[01:15:17] you don't want to be in one place a lot of friends that you have are Nomads as well

[01:15:24] but there's still family and friends in Austria still how do you do you ever feel you already

[01:15:29] said that you're an introvert but do you ever feel lonely while doing this whole travel thing

[01:15:34] being in your solopreneurship thing so you work on your own the most of the time which

[01:15:37] just hurt you don't want to hire someone how does it feel is that always okay with you or

[01:15:42] do you have no points on the road sometimes I think I how should I say this there are times

[01:15:47] where I feel absolutely lonely and have felt really lonely it is just almost unavoidable

[01:15:53] especially if you're a founder I think it is super super hard for a lot of people that

[01:15:59] don't really spend a lot of time with founders to actually know what they're going through

[01:16:03] there is you constantly keep thinking about your business you think about what if it breaks

[01:16:08] tomorrow will I be able to survive what if like an atomic bomb hits my server farm and then all

[01:16:13] my servers are dead like all these little things and you need to share this with someone

[01:16:16] eventually because well we all know like we feel so much better sharing stuff with other

[01:16:21] people if you just swallow this it's gonna build up and so the thing is if you happen

[01:16:26] to have a partner obviously that's amazing but like I for the I'm now in a happy

[01:16:31] relationship for the past eight months but before that I was single as well what did I

[01:16:35] do first of all it is normal to feel lonely from time to time you should be comfortable with that

[01:16:40] I think that's a big point I think it's important to be able to live with yourself

[01:16:45] be alone with yourself but be comfortable we kind of hackers indie hackers we feel like it's

[01:16:50] easier for us obviously but like anyone I think even if the most extra word you need to be

[01:16:55] comfortable being at least home for a single day and not talking with anyone just so that's

[01:17:00] an important skill set meditation that kind of stuff but other than that I have to say like

[01:17:06] the reason why I started nomading was because I felt so lonely because back home in Austria

[01:17:12] I just couldn't find like-minded people yes I had friends still loved them but there was not

[01:17:18] this like connection they couldn't feel how I feel like for example there is I have a really

[01:17:23] like perfect case example how this podcast came to be today I just happened to have today

[01:17:29] I got bombarded with some really like urgent support tickets before our podcast so I ask you

[01:17:34] kindly to postpone our call for one hour right now you were a founder you understood it luckily

[01:17:40] you also had time obviously so that worked out amazing but you know how many times I've been

[01:17:46] in like talks with friends like normal friends I call them or normies not as a derogatory term

[01:17:51] but normies exactly like can you just like support like I have asked a question in my

[01:17:57] life to a support center they responded in three days later can you not just respond to

[01:18:02] this customer tomorrow and for example yes I can but then this is really urgent and

[01:18:06] they're gonna cut my head off or unsubscribe and then I lost a customer and I want them

[01:18:10] to feel great like little things so you need some you need people around you that understand

[01:18:15] this and freaking hard to find so what do you do you need to find like-minded people

[01:18:21] and so how I got started is Twitter that's why I started billing in public I made many internet

[01:18:27] friends that actually now came to be even physical friends like I luckily had the chance

[01:18:32] slowly over the years like actually meet all of them all but like most of them in real life

[01:18:37] and but still if I ever feel lonely I know there's this kind of community behind that

[01:18:42] knows me at least now on Twitter for example that's one big thing then I'm also part of

[01:18:48] one really like important like telegram group of just like 10 founders that like happened to

[01:18:53] somehow we found ourselves in this telegram group and now we have this group for five

[01:18:57] years already and we like best friends some of us haven't even seen each other yet once

[01:19:01] but this is like a self-help group we always help each other with feelings like really deep

[01:19:07] stuff sometimes even beyond the typical business stuff but things that are related

[01:19:13] to being a founder and like super helpful this group has helped me so many times so

[01:19:19] luckily I happen to be in the position to like somehow find myself into this group so you need

[01:19:23] to do a bit of work right but that's the part you need to take care of I think as a if you're

[01:19:29] nomading having an internet community that is like somewhat like consistent is the best thing

[01:19:36] because then you can always return to this you can go out be a nomad be alone in a hotel

[01:19:40] room but still know I have friends on the internet they understand me like it's not something to be

[01:19:45] ashamed of oh I don't have physical friends you're like no absolutely not in fact I see my

[01:19:51] best friend that happened to be like physical friend Marian shout out to him once a year

[01:19:56] physically and we're still like best friends and we talk sometimes online that's an important

[01:20:01] thing I cannot underestimate that and then the reason why I keep coming back to a place

[01:20:07] like Bali is because that's where most of my physical friends are so I found a place where I

[01:20:13] know if I go there there's always going to be like five maybe even more friends I know that

[01:20:19] know me that really know me now that I actually friends not just like acquaintances and so it's

[01:20:25] a great thing to know there's a place you can always return and actually see someone and

[01:20:30] that's why Bali I still love Bali so much for exactly that because I haven't found another place

[01:20:37] where there is a constant influx or let's say a constant stay of people that are always there

[01:20:44] or seem to come in and out so that you get to meet them and I haven't found this anywhere

[01:20:49] that's why yeah that's why I really like Bali still even though it's getting a bit pricey now

[01:20:54] and there's so much construction going on but still that's what you need to do you need

[01:20:57] to find places especially as a solar founder and then yeah these are the two things I think

[01:21:02] that are the most important like being like quote unquote being lonely because it will happen

[01:21:08] and literally yesterday a friend of mine reached out who is like right now

[01:21:12] hustling he's making so much money right now with his new SaaS like amazing but he said bro I

[01:21:18] feel extremely lonely I think I might book a ticket to like Bali or Thailand now whoa okay

[01:21:26] awesome you need to be there for these people as well that's like the thing I feel like

[01:21:29] you just need to have a bit of a community and even that the big thing is even if it's just

[01:21:35] one or maybe two people in the beginning like amazing prefer two deep connections on the

[01:21:42] internet that understand you over like random people to meet in a nomad meetup that you can

[01:21:47] maybe talk a little bit about but they just don't really get you or like you won't see them

[01:21:52] ever again like such a big difference and we all seen this during covid like how many zoom

[01:21:57] calls did you have with your friends all of a sudden quite a few more and do they

[01:22:02] that they don't replace physical presence of course it can work so that's the nomading

[01:22:11] like advice I think I could get to being lonely yeah and I can pretty much do the same even

[01:22:17] though my account on twitter is still small yeah like you said the people that I'm talking

[01:22:22] to now are mostly my podcast guests of course but also the people that I've met when I was

[01:22:29] at like two or three hundred followers now I have three times that and still growing and it's

[01:22:35] still the same people like the kind of you the it feels like the batch of indie hackers

[01:22:41] like that yeah we have to get to the end even though I would want to talk a lot more

[01:22:45] about this nomading stuff and all of the other stuff that you did but we always have

[01:22:49] three finishing questions that are still open for you sorry two and one I added now

[01:22:54] for the last two episodes the first one is what's something that you personally

[01:22:58] are excited about right now that can either be completely like work related something like

[01:23:03] that or completely not like you want to go surfing in Bali something like this really

[01:23:07] excited right now is that I keep seeing more and more people being more into analog photography

[01:23:14] again and I'm a big film photographer and I have a little side project as well called

[01:23:19] film types which is like a wiki site for yeah for an analog photography so that you're like

[01:23:23] one thing I keep noticing especially in Thailand I keep seeing people with analog film cameras

[01:23:28] and I just can't be like like I'm so excited whenever I see them I almost want to go to

[01:23:32] each of them and say hey I have a website that is helpful but I'm like that's I don't

[01:23:36] want to do this you don't do this really in Asia but so yeah that's one thing that excites

[01:23:40] me and honestly the other one like I said I like right now just forcing myself through the

[01:23:47] gutters of learning how to do marketing so that's like the second one yeah awesome I have two guests

[01:23:52] that were on this podcast that you have to talk about that you have to talk to because both of

[01:23:57] them are specializing in both of these things so there's some interesting discussions coming

[01:24:03] up the last regular question that we have is what's the one lesson or advice that you would

[01:24:08] give someone that's starting their indie hacker career now someone that was in your shoes five

[01:24:12] years ago I think the biggest advice I can give to someone starting out is just you have to try

[01:24:18] a bunch of things throw thousands of things against the wall and see what sticks like I

[01:24:23] haven't seen a single person a single indie hacker that like randomly creates his first

[01:24:28] product and then becomes really successful it just doesn't work and don't be afraid to build

[01:24:33] a very embarrassing product and then and learn from it because it sounds so cliche but you

[01:24:40] need to get something out into the world and then get feedback and then reiterate you cannot

[01:24:46] do all of this in your little cave thinking about it and then publishing it you can't like

[01:24:52] finish something make it somewhat acceptable put it out in the world if people like it keep

[01:24:58] building what they say ask them for feedback if you just think you I'm gonna do development

[01:25:05] marketing I'm sorry it ain't gonna work I would say try to get your mindset when you build

[01:25:12] something into the fact that you should focus on marketing and distribution first and development

[01:25:18] second if you build a product think about what distribution channels aka marketing channels can

[01:25:24] I use for this product is there even one can I maybe there is something that is really nicely

[01:25:29] to be promoted on like subreddits perfect build it and then go to separate it but don't build a

[01:25:34] product stand there at the end of the line and be like and how do I sell this now get rid of

[01:25:40] this mindset okay awesome perfect and one last question I have for you Dominic thank you for

[01:25:45] being here where can people find you yes you can find me probably the most active on twitter

[01:25:51] or x at sober dominic with a k I also have my own website called dominicsuba.com which I

[01:25:59] rarely but sometimes write a bit more thoughtful blog posts about and yeah to check out my

[01:26:05] products obviously help kit like the one I'm working on the most help kit dot so which is

[01:26:11] the Somalian top level domain for some people that are interested same as notions oh so help

[01:26:16] kit dot so and if you're interested in the film photography website it's called filmtypes.com

[01:26:23] all right never put everything that is just was just mentioned in the show notes as well

[01:26:27] so people can just click it dominic thank you for being here thank you for talking so much

[01:26:32] about your life and also sharing some deeper stuff like your struggles with a product that

[01:26:36] even a product that obviously makes a lot of money can still make a person like

[01:26:41] feeling very miserable from time to time thank you for sharing that part as well

[01:26:45] and for taking the time to be here I appreciate you like also asking a bit more

[01:26:51] like the tougher questions I love to talk about them I really hope that like some people

[01:26:55] that are maybe in the same position as I or happen to be in the same position can take a bit out

[01:27:00] of it and if anyone like listening to this has any questions please just find a way to reach out

[01:27:05] to me probably you can find my email address on my website or otherwise in my twitter dms but I

[01:27:10] think you need to be like a twitter subscriber for reaching my dm so email is probably the

[01:27:16] best you will find it if you have a question yeah just let me know more than happy to help

[01:27:20] however I can all right thank you dominic for taking the time thanks man and have a nice day

[01:27:26] thank you so much and that's our episode thank you for sticking with us to the end you can

[01:27:32] find me on twitter with username ice bellaps that's i c e b e a r l a b s we have a website

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