Patrick from Stripe here. I wanted to quickly chime in to emphasize that our goal in acquiring Indie Hackers is to simply ensure that the site becomes as successful as possible. The Stripe upside we're hoping for is that <i>more companies get started and that they're more successful</i>. We already see a very large fraction of new internet companies choose Stripe; we're mainly hoping that Indie Hackers can help us grow the overall number rather than to grow our fraction. (Our product has to do the latter part.)<p>Also: congrats to Courtland on building an awesome site! I've been enjoying the interviews on it since it launched. It's very refreshing to hear from so many people who are quietly building real businesses with real revenues.
While going from a blog-to-acquisition in less than a year is an impressive feat, there have been suspicious circumstances around IndieHackers submissions to Hacker News including clickbait titles that are frequently fixed by HN mods, and in one case, explicit voting manipulation with an attempt to bypass the voting ring detector via linking to /newest: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/08pAFOw.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/08pAFOw.jpg</a><p>This acquisition sends a disappointing message that growth hacking <i>works</i>.
First of all, congrats to csallen, I have been following your journey from the day you launched on HN and it was fascinating to follow along. If you haven't read his month in review posts, highly recommended.<p>I hope it's not taboo to speculate on the acquisition price, so here's my take :<p>* extrapolating a $5k/month revenue to a year = $60k/year<p>* acquisition price is roughly 2-4x yearly revenue so $120k to $240k<p>* Plus a full time salary at roughly $120k/year<p>Really cool stuff man, congrats again!<p>One of the things I dislike about advertising on IH was that it was distracting. I see multiple adverts while reading an interview along with links to tweet pull quotes, not a fan of both those aspects. Glad to know that the advertisements will be removed.<p>Can't wait to see how IndieHackers grows, especially the community.
Isn't it ironic the details of the acquisition isn't being transparently shared?<p>From Indie Hackers site:<p>"Anyone with a business or side project that's generating at least $300/mo in revenue. There's no upper limit. Of course, you have to be willing to share your revenue — the point of this site is transparency!"
Source: <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/submit" rel="nofollow">https://www.indiehackers.com/submit</a><p>I think we have the "right" to know what the transaction entailed; how much the owner was exactly paid, that is.
Congratulations, Courtland! Your work has challenged silicon valley attitudes that success is measured by funding. It's refreshing to read about how achievable a profitable, lifestyle-supporting business can be. Good luck at Stripe!
Does this mean IndieHackers become the propaganda arm for Stripe's customers? Or is this a goodwill purchase? Maybe it's cheaper than a national ad buy targeted directly at potential new customers?
Congrats to the involved parties, great job, etc.<p>IH is/was, unfortunately, full of unsubstantiated stories and made up numbers, presented by owners trying to upsell their business, without any verification or "hard questions" by the site owner.<p>As we see, this worked.<p>I'm not sure what's the lesson here. Fact-checking is for losers maybe?
One of my favorite sites that provided real value. I guess IndieHackers did a lot of things right which created such fast growth with a quick exit.<p>1) Great design. Really professional feel (even though it just a wordpress blog)<p>2) Regular updated content to keep visitors coming back.<p>3) Highly targeted to hacker community / product creators - no wonder it was featured over and over again on the front page<p>4) In built SEO and traffic. People who are featured on it link back to it. People link to it for inspiration (great social signals).<p>What else? Anyone else wanna chime in?
I bet the total acquisition price is less than Stripe would wind up paying a content agency for fees, placement, etc. over a couple of fiscal years for similar exposure.<p>And they're getting all the goodwill & talent alongside of it as the cherry on top.<p>Brilliant move @stripe and congrats to the founders.
Maybe I'm too cynical. This just seems like corporate largesse on Stripe's part, which is kind of neat, except for what happens to things like IndieHackers when that largesse runs out.<p>I guess nice to know Stripe's doing so well they can fund random stuff… ?
Courtland, this is absolutely fantastic. Congrats man!<p>I'm wondering how this works out for you as an entrepreneur. Obviously now you're working for a larger corporation, but does your long-term vision align? For example, is your deal structured in a way that growing indie hackers also personally grows your income? Or is it now just a strict employee-employer relationship with a bonus (acquisition offer) upfront?
Transparency is what makes IH great. I don't see this sell as a good move, if Stripe cannot appreciate that, and allow you to disclose how much you get from the deal.
didn't see this one coming! major congrats to Courtland.<p>just a thought on the power of Hacker News to get noticed by 'players'. surely Patrick Collison heard of Courtland/Indiehackers and Patrick McKenzie through browsing Hacker News? so it's not all procrastination posting here
Congrats to csallen.<p>This makes me ... feel weird. Not sure what it is exactly. Let me explain.<p>I'm an aspiring indie hacker. Currently soaking in the relaxation of a much needed sabbatical following my previous 8 year long employment (what a ride that was). When I'm ready, I'm going switch gears and devote myself to starting a bunch of small "indie hacker" type projects. I've been on HN for quite awhile now and I always enjoy reading about startups and being engrossed in the YCombinator community. My previous job was a startup, but I was purely in technical roles. I think it's time to get my feet wet on the business side.<p>So I've followed IndieHackers.com intently. I went so far as to read almost all their interviews and breakdown my analysis in a blog post (<a href="https://hackernoon.com/indie-startups-the-ingredients-of-success-74531fe3a019" rel="nofollow">https://hackernoon.com/indie-startups-the-ingredients-of-suc...</a>).<p>After awhile I really started to dig the whole "indie hacker movement". The idea that SV type startups aren't the only game in town. You don't have to build a rocket ship. You can built a fighter jet. You may not make it into space, but fighter jets a cool too.<p>I didn't start digging it just because it sounded cool, though. The idea that these kinds of one or few developer teams could start consuming the lower hanging fruit that SV startups won't touch because they aren't explosive growth opportunities? It just makes sense. Yeah, in some way it's just small business reinvented. But Courtland said something that stuck in my mind. The vast explosion of developer tools, libraries, SaaS, cloud computer, APIS, etc over the past few years has laid the foundation for single person teams to tackle problems they never could have managed alone in the past. It reeks of opportunity.<p>So, with all that background, this acquisition makes me feel weird. On the one hand, I'm totally happy for csallen. What a great thing to happen. I don't mean to down play that at all. On the other ... it's sad to see his indie business die. Perhaps he doesn't see it that way; dying I mean. Obviously this is a great opportunity for him and his brother to focus on what's important for the site. That's a good thing. But it does mean IndieHackers.com is no longer an indie hacker business itself. That's why I feel weird about it.<p>I'm of course concerned about Stripe's intentions. IndieHackers is a great resource, and it'd be a shame to see it consumed by typical corporate greed and manipulations. I don't mean to imply that's Stripe's MO. But I think I'm not the only one afraid of that, founded or unfounded. Plenty of people here are already calling foul on IndieHackers for their past behavior.<p>At the end of the day I'll get over the fact that IndieHackers is no longer an indie hacker. But I really do truly hope that it stays true to its core mission: to provide a platform for us to share our stories, unfiltered and transparent.<p>Congrats, and thank you csallen.
w00t w00t, congrats Courtland, this is awesome!<p>Indiehackers has tons of great content that can seriously help companies using Stripe Atlas. Together, IH+Stripe could helps companies go all the way from incorporation to profitability ;)
And yet here is what is wrong with the tech world, people start speculating on acquisition price and how much other people made even though news are about an awesome product and community joining another awesome product to make even more amazing stuff.<p>Btw. the best growth hacking is building an amazing product which sells itself. Click-bait articles, well ok you need some eyeballs but interviewes always reflected my expectations unlike BuzzFeed stuff.<p>Big congrats!
Wow! Congratulations Courtland! I've followed IH from day zero and it's been such a great learning experience. Really happy for you man!<p>All the best at Stripe!
Just wanted to say congratulations to Courtland! I've seen you share the progress of your business since it was introduced, and to see it grow and become so successful is very inspiring. You earned this! Hopefully it motivates others as well. I think it might have motivated me.
IndieHackers is an awesome sight, and with Stripe Atlas, I see a good vertical developing. IndieHacker is an inspiring high quality source. Definitely, agree with Patrick of Stripe, the execution was stellar.
Didn't see this one coming! Congrats @csallen on the acquisition and congrats to Stripe for recognizing the great value IH has been providing since launch!
This is really amazing! Very helpful site and a wonderful thing that makes me confident in the reasons why I use Stripe for my payment processing needs! :)
I've been reading HN for 5 or 6 years and this feels very strange to me. From the comments in here by the principles it kind of seems like Stripe is doing IH a favor. A few things that stick in my craw:<p>1. This seems like it would be damaging to IH's brand image (since it will now be perceived as a PR arm of Stripe, and it's all about independence)<p>2. Stripe's stated goal here is simply to ensure the success of IH in order to drive more people to start companies. That's not exactly compelling on it's own, and with (1), even less so.<p>3. IH was apparently very big on financial transparency, yet the principles are being decidedly opaque about financials in this thread.<p>Are these types of deals common? Does Stripe own any other media companies?<p>[note: these are just my thoughts. i don't think i'm entitled to any further explanation nor do i think anything nefarious is going on.]
IH is a refreshing flip side to the VC/YC narrative that's become canonical in the startup world! As againsit VC valuations, and pressure of growth at all costs (mostly profitability), IH companies prioritize organic, sustainable growth without loss of founder control. Many of them end up financially successful, which is inspiring to aspiring entrepreneurs.<p>Well done Courtland Allen! Without IH, this flip-side view of startups wouldn't have a platform.
2 months ago, HN was ripping apart IH:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13591182" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13591182</a><p>But at HN, it seems we have short memories and money triumphs morality.
Hacker: "a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data."<p>This word is not a good connotation, and a company that's an online/mobile payment gateway buying a company with "hacker" in its name that doesn't seem to understand the definition of the word "hacker" doesn't look good.<p>It wouldn't matter to me what IndieHackers did, I would have passed them up just because they use a nefarious word in their name without understanding how it's used.