(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
As a founder, you have countless tasks to complete:
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by Jimmy Rose
When you’re running an indie software business, there are so many things that need to be done. You either have to do them yourself, hire someone, or get software to do it for you.
There’s only one of you. Hiring is difficult, and sometimes prohibitively expensive, especially in the early days. That leaves software.
In our business, we save over 400 hours per month with automation. Here's how you can do the same!
If you automate the right things, the answer is an obvious yes!
Here's an example. Say you have a form set up on your website to capture new leads. You get an email in your inbox with the lead’s contact details, which you then have to manually input into your CRM. That might take a minute to do. That’s pretty fast. Why bother automating it?
If it takes you an hour to create that automation, you’ll get your initial hour back after it’s processed 60 leads. If you’re doing five leads a day, that’s 12 days. After that, you’ve got a free five minutes every day. Doesn’t sound like much, but the more processes you automate, the more they add up.
At the time of writing, our business automates around 50K tasks per month. If you assume 30 seconds per task, that’s 416 hours per month. A full-time employee is around 170 hours per month.
It’s so much more than just time, though. Other benefits include:
The most basic automation typically follows a formula: When this happens, do that. You can also add multiple actions or conditions.
An example that includes each of the elements would be: When someone fills out my screening questionnaire, post a message in Slack. If they list their budget as $20K+, send me an SMS to call them immediately.
A great place to start when it comes to deciding what to automate is exploring the Zapier or Make websites, looking at the automations and templates they have there, and noting what looks useful.
Once you get into the mindset, you’ll notice more processes that are ripe for automation. To keep track of these ideas, I recommend keeping an automation wishlist: A simple spreadsheet or Google Doc that you add ideas to as they come up.
Here are some examples on what to automate, specifically relevant to SaaS founders:
Onboarding and customer success:
Support:
Which platform is best for you? There are tons of intricate differences, but if you'd like a deeper dive, check out my video: Zapier vs. Integromat (Make) - A detailed comparison!
What's been your most helpful automation so far? Let's chat below!
Discuss this story.
from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko
💻 Google has rolled out a blue checkmark in Gmail, and it's already being exploited.
📉 Twitter US ad sales have plunged 59%, and internal forecasts are grim.
🍎 Here's what you can learn from Apple's marketing philosophy.
🗣 Tap into 187 markets with Microsoft Advertising.
🎁 TikTok has launched its 2023 holiday marketing playbook.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
from the Trends.vc newsletter by Dru Riley
Voice cloning lets you create audio at scale.
Your ability to create content is limited by time, energy, and physical conditions.
You need to eat, sleep, and rest. You're mortal.
Voice cloning helps you build an audio content machine that works anytime, anywhere.
Voice cloning tools:
Voice cloning use cases:
Voice cloning will be used to replicate the voices of deceased actors and musicians. We'll see their posthumous performances in movies, music, TV shows, and more. Morgan Neville used AI to create the voice of Anthony Bourdain for Roadrunner. Resemble AI and Netflix will use Andy Warhol's voice for The Andy Warhol Diaries.
People will clone artists' voices to make new songs. Best AI Songs made Pressure by Travis Scott with AI. Hot AI Music shared an AI-generated album by Drake.
We'll see digital twins. Instead of voices, entire people will be cloned. Rephrase AI builds custom avatars. Hour One builds virtual twins with cloned voices.
Scale your podcast with voice cloning. Save time recording and editing episodes by using your cloned voice. Rob Walling used voice cloning for the intro to Episode 649 of the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast.
Turn your written content into audio content. Narrate a book, blog post, or newsletter without spending time doing it yourself. audiostory.ai turns articles into podcast episodes. Cherie Hu made an audio version of the Music AI Deepfakes issue of the Water and Music newsletter.
Use your digital twin for course lessons, explainer videos, personalized messages, and more. This lets you scale your presence without recording yourself each time. Berlitz created eight virtual teachers for its language courses. DeFiance Media created a 24 hour newscaster for decentralized culture, finance, and tech news.
"How can I prevent my voice from being cloned? This tech lets anybody use it without my consent."
Don't ever speak in public. A better solution is to add safeguards to voice cloning tools, such as live reading. Podcastle asks to record 70 short sentences directly into the app. Only account owners can do that.
"Voice cloning will make voiceover jobs less relevant."
True. AI can narrate content faster and cheaper than professional voice actors.
"Modern tools like Adobe Podcast make it easier to record audio without the right setup."
You still need a decent setup for them to work properly. They won't help if you record yourself on a construction site.
"It's illegal to clone artists' voices to make music."
Copyright laws are tricky. Some say that an artist's voice, style, or flow is not protected by copyright. Courts say that using a widely known voice to boost sales of a product is a tort. Time will tell what position regulators will take.
"Why would I pay for a cloned voice if I can clone it myself?"
You need permission to use them commercially. Corporations are good at striking copyrighted content. Dae Lims made songs with the voices of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They were taken down by Universal Music Group.
Go here to get the Trends Pro report. It contains 200% more insights. You also get access to the entire back catalog and the next 52 Pro Reports.
Subscribe to Trends.vc for more.
from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry
If your product is unique, explain it as simply as possible:
Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.
Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.
by Paul Millerd
Hi, indie hackers! I'm Paul Millerd, and I want to convince more people to write and publish books. My experience of self-publishing my book, The Pathless Path, taught me that:
Read on if you're interested in learning more about my book journey!
I hit 1K in sales within a couple of months, and my sales were pretty steady throughout the first year. This is usually a good sign, as that is when any potential word-of-mouth can kick in. A friend from Scribe said that 1K in 100 days is a great benchmark for success. I also sensed that something was going on, as the emails people were sending me were very powerful.
However, I didn't really have a marketing strategy other than:
The book got a huge spike 11 months into sales from an Ali Abdaal shoutout, where he mentioned my book in a "Top 15 Books of 2022" post.
The sales leveled out, but appeared to have hit an unlock in the Amazon algorithm, with a higher floor of sales. As you can see above, it seemed to start selling at a higher steady rate.
In March, Portfolio (a Penguin imprint) reached out, and quickly made an offer. They wanted to purchase, not only this book, but sign me to a second book deal for $200K total.
I decided to walk away, and didn't even really negotiate. Here's why:
If you adjust for two periods where Amazon nominated my book for Kindle sales (the company adjusts the price for a month, and promotes it more), my average price per book is probably closer to $6. I'm still surprised that it's about $5-6 a book and $4 per audiobook. The numbers can add up pretty quickly!
In deciding not to sell the book, I thought a lot about the comparison between the two modes of publishing. I think the key thing to remember is that they are complete different ballgames.
You should pick the one that is aligned with the way you like to make a living and create in the world. I compared the two in this tweet thread.
Most people are interested in the royalty information, and the best example that I could find was from Jenny Blake, who did an amazing podcast sharing all her information. Here were her statistics for the book, Pivot:
She still hasn't "earned out" her advance, meaning that she won't get royalty checks until she does. This is different compared to self-publishing, as you earn money every month you sell a book, and you also get paid that month.
I'm trying to lean into using my experience to inspire others to write and create books. I want to help others make sense of this, and don't really want to build a business or make money doing it. I just think that the future is indie publishing, and I want to help make that happen.
Ultimately, I think that books should be ways to make money, and support indie hacker lives and careers. And, if we get some great books that otherwise wouldn't have gotten produced? Even better!
Discuss this story.
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 Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Jimmy Rose, Darko, Dru Riley, Harry Dry, and Paul Millerd for contributing posts. —Channing