What's New: Visa and JPMorgan Chase have now adopted crypto
(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
Bitcoin traded at nearly $60K, a 4.5% boost from last week:
- Visa is the first major payment platform to use USD Coin, a stablecoin backed by the US dollar. As top banks begrudgingly begin to accept crypto, critics warn that it's still a speculative bubble that will soon burst.
- Startups received 42% more funding in 2020 than they did in 2019, according to top researchers. 10,000 new startups launched globally in 2020, and yours could be in the 2021 count. Still looking for a great idea? Start by letting go of the desire to reinvent the wheel.
- This founder's tweet went viral and led to to $7K in revenue. His key learning? It's far more important to bring a product to market as soon as possible than to wait for it to be "perfect." You can iterate and improve as you go.
Want to share your ideas with over 70K indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
🏦 Visa and JPMorgan Chase Have Now Adopted Crypto
from the Indie Economy newsletter by Bobby Burch
Visa has become the first major payment platform to use USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin backed by the US dollar. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase adopted crypto as Bitcoin trades near $60K this week, and its volatility cools.
Major financial institutions enter the crypto game
What it means: Top banking institutions’ support for crypto is a glaring about-face that further validates crypto to the masses, fuels its adoption, and boosts its value.
Visa allows crypto payment settlements: Visa CEO Al Kelly had to eat his words this week as Visa announced its pilot program with Crypto.com. In 2018, Kelly claimed that crypto wasn’t a threat.
The company will soon allow the use of USDC to settle transactions with Visa over the Ethereum blockchain:
The announcement today marks a major milestone in our ability to address the needs of fintechs managing their business in a stablecoin or cryptocurrency, and it’s really an extension of what we do every day, securely facilitating payments in all different currencies across the world.
Morgan Stanley embraces Bitcoin, kinda: Morgan Stanley announced via a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it will allow some mutual funds to invest “indirectly” in Bitcoin through cash-settled Bitcoin futures and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Although the option is available, Morgan Stanley maintains that it’s a risky move, as funds will be exposed to prospective regulatory changes, high volatility, fraud, theft, manipulation, and possible technical glitches on crypto marketplaces.
JPMorgan Chase: Bitcoin’s erratic price jumps have kept institutional investors away from crypto in general. However, JPMorgan Chase predicts that Bitcoin’s relative price stabilization will help normalize the asset for other huge investors and banks. Bloomberg reports that the three-month realized volatility for Bitcoin dropped to 86% after hovering above 90% in February. The six-month volatility has stabilized around 73%.
PayPal’s crypto checkout: Earlier this week, PayPal announced the launch of Checkout with Crypto, a new feature that turns crypto assets into a country’s fiat currency. Users can purchase from 29M merchants. PayPal already allowed all users in the US to directly buy, hold and sell crypto:
As the use of digital payments and digital currencies accelerates, the introduction of Checkout with Crypto continues our focus on driving mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies while continuing to offer PayPal customers choice and flexibility in the ways they can pay using the PayPal wallet.
Fidelity ETF: Fidelity Investments is planning to offer its own Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, though it must still clear the hurdle of receiving SEC approval. The company’s S-1 filing with the SEC outlines its plans to fund the ETF Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust.
Bitcoin eyes record-high: Visa’s news helped boost Bitcoin’s value by about 4.5% to a one-week high; it's currently hovering near $60K per token. Bitcoin smashed its previous record-high on March 13 when a single token topped $61K.
What’s next? Crypto’s momentum is picking up steam again. As more financial giants enter the space, the FOMO from other industries, investors, and casual observers will only continue to grow. Bitcoin's growth over the last year (more than 750%) has rallied optimism that a single coin could one day top $1M.
What are your thoughts on crypto? Share in the comments.
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📰 In the News
from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani
🎧 Slack takes to Clubhouse to announce its own live audio rival feature.
🛂 South Korea to use blockchain tech to avoid fake vaccine passports.
🤗 YouTube tests dislike counts to boost creators' well-being.
🎶 Spotify acquires Clubhouse rival Betty Labs.
🚀 Elon Musk urges experts to move to Texas to work for SpaceX.
Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.
🤔 How to Generate Startup Ideas
A recent report found that globally, startups received 42% more funding in 2020 than they did in 2019. More than 10K new startups launched across the globe in 2020, and the average funding round increased by 57%. This is great news for founders, but what if you're stuck on the "idea" stage of indie hacking? Read on for tips on generating great startup ideas.
Let go of common misconceptions
- Misconception: You need a unique idea. Reality: Few ideas are truly unique. We're all standing on the shoulders of giants. Let go of your need to create something never before seen.
- Misconception: You need a sexy idea. Reality: Most good ideas are very un-sexy. Get out of your ego and make something useful.
- Misconception: You need an idea that could be the next big thing. Reality: They don't all have to be unicorns. There are plenty of makers out there killing it with small businesses.
In the same vein, Jason Friedman of YC shared a few reasons that founders pass on good ideas, which you can check out here.
Practical techniques for generating startup ideas
- Analyze existing businesses and think about how you could pivot them to make them better.
- Ask yourself how things could be better in any given situation so that you learn to see the problems that need fixing.
- Ask friends about their problems to see what issues are common among certain groups.
- Get inspired by following people who are building in public.
- Subscribe to newsletters that provide you with ideas and market gaps. Good options include Trends.vc, Software Ideas, Gaps, and Trends.co.
How to brainstorm tech startup ideas
The best ideas come organically, but brainstorming is still a valuable tool. When brainstorming to generate ideas, you should think about existing problems and jot down possible solutions. Try these prompts:
- Think about the future: What is changing? Trends, technologies, platforms, niches...what's next? Then ask yourself how you can build for that.
- Think about what bugs you encounter in your work (and life in general). What would make things easier?
- Think about your skills: What are you good at? What is your unfair advantage? How could that be applied to new fields?
- Think about what industries are broken and ripe for disruption.
- Check out more prompts here!
Evaluate your tech startup idea
You don't necessarily want to go with the first idea you have, but you don't want to wait forever until the perfect idea comes along either. Once you've got a solid idea or two, it's time to evaluate them and decide whether they're worth pursuing.
James suggests rating the following criteria on a scale of 1-10:
- Could the idea be big? The easiest way to figure this out is to look at competitors and see how they're doing. (A caveat: Big ideas are great, but don't use this as the deciding factor. Small ideas can be cool too.)
- Is there founder/market fit? In other words, are you an expert in the field?
- Do you have personal experience with the problem that you're trying to solve?
- Are you bringing something new to the table?
Of course, you should also make sure that the idea is feasible given your resources (time, money, etc.). If it isn't, you'll have to get creative.
The final step is actual validation in the market. That's beyond the scope of this post, so I'll leave it at this: Do it as soon as possible. Like, before-you-even-start-building soon. And then keep validating.
Please share additional tips and stories in the comments!
Discuss this story.
🌐 Best Around the Web: Links Posted to Indie Hackers This Week
🆓 Free no-code tutorial collection released. Posted by Nick Shevchenko.
💸 This mistake cost Andrew Wilkinson $10M. Posted by Rosie Sherry.
🎙 How to record, edit, and promote a podcast. Posted by Justin Jackson.
📈 How Thankbox grew by almost 50% in March. Posted by Valentin Hinov.
🚢 IsTheShipStillStuck hit 50M views in 5 days: Inside a viral website. Posted by Leo Nagano.
💰 My journey to bootstrap an open source service to $3K MRR. Posted by Son Nguyen Kim.
Want a shout-out in next week's Best Around the Web? Submit a link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across an article you think other indie hackers will enjoy.
📱 This Founder's Viral Tweet Brought in $7K
Hi indie hackers! I'm Augis, developer and founder at Morflax, a 3D design tools platform in the early stage. I recently launched my first paid SaaS project, a 3D device mockup builder, and it generated $7K in revenue in one month.
The backstory
I worked on a 3D device mockup builder for about two months, and decided to launch a pre-release version on Twitter to attract visitors. I had ~120 followers at the time.
The first 10 customers received a lifetime deal for only $19. I charged very little so that I could attract customers from which to receive feedback, and improve the app. The price of lifetime deals went up by $10-$20 for every 20-40 customers, finally reaching $69.99.
Pre-release
When I launched the app, I had 3 sales on the first day. It was an amazing feeling! Next, I wrote a letter to my 200 waitlist subscribers and included an app presentation gif. I decided to post it on Twitter too:
It exploded! The tweet went viral in a way I had never imagined. Sales came in every few minutes, and there was a lot of chaos on my Twitter. I'd expected to raise this amount of money only after launching on Product Hunt, but this worked even with the early version of the web app. This experience affirmed for me that it is much more important to bring the product to market as soon as possible, and iterate and improve later, than to wait for the product to be "perfect."
Launch
After things calmed down a bit, I was able to return to programming. I fixed the bugs, integrated the new functionality, and launched on Product Hunt and Reddit. During the campaign launch, I was supported by my Twitter friends and indie hackers, and I hit Top 5 on Product Hunt for the first time.
My tips
- Ship product as soon as possible.
- Start selling as soon as possible (lifetime offers are a great start).
- Build in public and share your process and achievements.
- Books: Steal Like An Artist and Show Your Work.
- Engage with others on Twitter and make friends!
I am so grateful to the Indie Hackers community and my first customers. ❤️
AMA!
Discuss this story.
🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Nathalie Zwimpfer for the illustrations, and to Bobby Burch, Priyanka Vazirani, James Fleischmann, and Augis Kaleinykas for contributing posts. —Channing
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