The awesome-indie project on GitHub is a curated list of resources to help independent developers make money from their own code and digital products. It aims to inspire and guide indie makers looking to generate revenue from side projects or bootstrap new business ideas.
While it’s never been easier to make money from your own creations, it’s still challenging. This resource list provides tools, courses, communities, newsletters, blogs, case studies, events, books and links on specific topics to help you get started. The goal is to help you turn side projects into cash flow or even achieve financial independence.
Projects don’t need to be big – in fact, smaller is often better. They just need to be profitable. After the initial work, they can provide passive income and a better lifestyle.
All of these resources can inspire you and put you on the right track, but ultimately, the most important thing is to make and try stuff. Consume this content responsibly and take action!
Resource Categories
Communities
- IndieHackers: Collection of interviews with successful developers about their profitable products. Extremely valuable for anyone interested in indie income.
- Barnacl.es: News for bootstrappers, not VC or hacker news. Forum-like community.
- bootstrapped.fm Forum: Forum for bootstrappers, started in 2013.
- ##passiveincome on freenode: IRC channel for discussing passive income.
- HackerNews: Helpful for indie devs, with news around tech and entrepreneurship.
- MegaMaker Club: Exclusive community for indie makers.
- FounderCafe: Invite-only online community for founders.
- Nugget.one: Helping software devs launch successful side projects.
- Makerlog: Free community of makers shipping products together.
- Aussie Founders: Community supporting Australian founders.
- r/Entrepreneur: Entrepreneurship-related content on Reddit.
- Bootstrapped Slack: Slack community stemming from the bootstrapped.fm forum.
- r/SideProject: Active side project community on Reddit.
- r/IndieBiz: Subreddit for small and independent businesses.
- r/Startups: Startup-related discussions and content.
Newsletters
- Bootstrappers.io: Weekly digest of the best user-submitted articles, curated by Darren Stuart.
- IndieHackers Newsletter: Contains latest interviews and best posts from the website and forum.
- Indie: Stories, lessons, and inspiration for independent makers.
- The SaaS Bootstrapper: Content around bootstrapping, SaaS, growth, marketing, and more.
- Hackerpreneur: Resources and articles for indie makers and founders.
- Bootstrap Money: Weekly roundup of stories, guides, and resources to help grow your internet business.
Blogs & Posts
- Startups for the rest of us: One of the original inspirations in the micro-startup movement, with a podcast highlighting their “greatest hits”.
- Product People: Podcast focused on great products and the people who make them.
- bootstrapped.fm: Several different topics related to bootstrapping online businesses.
- Bootstrapped Web: Sharing experiences of bootstrapping web startups.
- Entreprogrammers: Podcast for developer-entrepreneurs.
- IndieHackers: Interviews with successful indie founders.
- The SaaS Bootstrapper: Interviews with founders on bootstrapping, SaaS, growth, and more.
- Smart Passive Income: Content on various types of products to make money online.
- Giant Robots: Ben Orenstein and Derrick Reimer discuss growing their SaaS businesses each week.
- Mixergy: Interview podcast with startup founders.
- How I Built This: Podcast with founders sharing their stories.
- Build your SaaS: A podcast on building SaaS in 2019.
Case Studies
- IndieHackers: From capturing a trend to getting acquired in less than a year.
- Bugmuncher: Transparent growth and financial reports from a solo SaaS founder.
- Basecamp: Collection of bootstrapped companies by the 37signals team.
- Baremetrics: Sharing success stories and lessons learned.
- Carrd.co: AJ’s walk-through of creating carrd.co.
- CandyJapan: Revenue numbers and learnings from a Japanese candy subscription box.
- Awesome Self Funded: List of successful self-funded tech businesses.
Events
- MicroConf: Conference for self-funded software companies.
- MicroConf Europe: European edition of MicroConf.
- BaconBizConf: Conference for bootstrapped B2B founders.
- StartupSchool: Free online event by YCombinator.
- Business of Software: Conference for building long-term sustainable software businesses.
- Business of Software Europe: European edition of BoS.
- B2B Rocks: Leading conference for B2B and SaaS startups.
- PeersConf: Conference for those who make and monetize the web.
Books
- Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling
- Building Micro-SaaS Businesses by Tyler Tringas
- The Single Founder Handbook by Mike Taber
- Getting Real by 37signals
- MAKE by Pieter Levels
- Rework by 37signals
- Just Fucking Ship by Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman
- Marketing for Developers by Justin Jackson
- Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham
- The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
- Technical Blogging (2nd Edition) by Antonio Cangiano
- The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
- Zero to Sold by Arvid Kahl
- Side Project Books – Collection curated for anyone interested in building a side business
- The SaaS Bootstrapper book list – Collection curated by Mac Martine
- Badass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy Sierra
- Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
- Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
Tools
- free-for-dev: List of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings with free tiers for developers
- Stack-on-a-budget: List of SaaS, PaaS, and Iaas offerings for developers on a budget
- Tools Of The Trade: List of categorized tools for developers
- awesome-selfhosted: List of free software network services and web apps that can be self-hosted
Courses
- Marketing for Developers: Online marketing course for software developers and product people
- 30×500 Academy: Learn what your customers need, want, and are ready to buy
Conclusion
Becoming an indie developer is a great lifestyle, and these resources can help inspire and guide you. But ultimately, the most important thing is to make and try things yourself.
Carefully consider this curated content, but don’t forget to take action. With some initial hard work, you can build profitable projects that generate passive income and maybe even provide financial freedom.
Best of luck on your indie hacking journey! For more, check out the full awesome-indie repo on GitHub.
