Founder Danny Postma's Seven-Figure Exit

Hey Indie Hackers! Danny Postma here. I'm mostly known for Headlime, which I built and sold in the open on Twitter. I went from zero to a seven-figure exit in eight months.

AMA!

Did you build Headlime with selling in mind?

I wasn't expecting to sell it, but I'd always built Headlime (code, documentation, helpdesk etc) with a potential acquisition in mind. Building this way makes onboarding new hires much easier because it forces you to document everything well.

I read a great book a few years ago called Agency: Starting a Creative Firm in the Age of Digital Marketing. It mentioned that, if you have a wish to be acquired, always build with one or two potential companies in your mind who would want to buy you. Build something that fits perfectly with this bigger company and could be worth acquiring for them in the future.

For Headlime, I had two companies extending an offer. One of them was a company that I've always had in mind to be acquired by, but did not end up with in the end.

What's your method of learning?

I can't learn from books and courses. What works for me is building something, and learning in the process. I didn't know how to code over two years ago, but really wanted to.

So I set myself a challenge. I picked a framework and started to build. I chose to rebuild Landing Folio. I needed a server, a database, user authentication, image uploading, etc.

Every time I ran into something I didn't know yet, I started to learn it. This way, I really understand it. I learned design first by recreating other sites in Photoshop. Next, I learned HTML and CSS to try and build the designs. Finally, I learned Javascript.

Do you build first or talk to your audience first?

I talk to my audience by showing them a product. But I build fast: Two weeks, not two years. That way, I either stop working on it, or based on customer feedback, I iterate it.

Headlime went from a headline generator to a fully copywriting solution only because of the early customer feedback I got.

What was your customer acquisition journey?

Facebook Groups, Twitter, and word-of-mouth were my main acquisition channels. I'm shocked how powerful Facebook is in the MarTech world!

The acquisition journey that works the best for me is:

1. Free usage (no trial).
2. Run into a paid product feature that you want to use.
3. Upgrade to an entry-level paid plan.
4. Upgrade to a premium paid plan.

This way, you'll get a lot of emails that you can contact and reactivate at a later time. I also did limited-time deals quite often, which had a super high conversion rate.

How do you deal with copycats?

I was hugely frustrated with copycats for a month or two. But ultimately, it was totally not worth it.

The best thing you can do is to issue a DMCA if it's a 1:1 clone. Otherwise, if it's partly a copy, copy some smart stuff back yourself!

How do you come up with new ideas?

Built fast, ship fast. If a product doesn't take off, I start another one. I got lucky with my fourth startup being the big winner. For some, it takes more than 10 to find the perfect one.

As for coming up with ideas, I mostly build products that I need myself. I suck at copywriting. Headlime was literally built to help me. And luckily I wasn't the only one who needed it!

Your best and worst product decisions?

Best decision was raising my prices from $9 per month to $29, and again to $59.

Second best would be pivoting from a templates-based tool to an AI-based tool (although I was basically throwing away the thousands of dollars that I spent hiring someone to write the templates!).

Worst decision might have been to add so many different features. It made it way harder to market Headlime, or describe exactly what it did. It also made the onboarding harder, since there's so much to do in the app.

What is your favorite chicken burger in Canggu, Bali?

Definitely the Southern Fried Chicken Burger at Bench Burger in Batu Bolong!