The Bootstrapped Founder

Arvid: 00:00

Today I'm talking to Nick Gruneweld, a UX designer and the reason why you are watching or listening to this today. Nick has been instrumental in getting this podcast off the ground, and he's extremely skilled at both seeing the bigger picture and making smart specific choices. And he speaks the language of indie hackers. What's not to love about this guy? He's a design thinker, and he will share his insights and frameworks with you today.

Arvid: 00:23

So if you're having trouble understanding and designing your app or you don't know how you can learn more about getting it right, Nick will help you right here, right now. This episode is sponsored by acquire.com. More on that later. Now here's Nick. Hey, Nick.

Arvid: 00:40

You are a UX designer, your creator and a great editor, and much more than that, you're my great editor and my great designer and my creator. I I wanna dive into how this is working for you, working with for and as a creator in the creator economy, and then dive into the freelancer life a little bit and where this is going, what the future of this is. My first and probably, a question that I've never asked anybody else is how weird does it feel to know that you're gonna be the one editing this interview of yourself?

Nick: 01:10

Yeah. I've I've been thinking about that all week. Like, oh, man. I have to listen to myself for 4 or 5 hours. But what's even worse is that I also have to make a thumbnail of myself and then decide what of the parts are the best to turn into a clip.

Nick: 01:28

So it's, much more focused on myself than that I normally would, But, I have to, I have to get through it and it's okay.

Arvid: 01:37

It's pretty funny because I think you started out as my my thumbnail guy. You were you were really, really good at this and I I loved your work and then over time we added more things on top. I wouldn't even just call you an editor now. I think you're more of a producer at this point. Right?

Arvid: 01:52

Like, do you feel that you are a producer? Would you put that on a business card at this point?

Nick: 01:58

I I I think I would at some point. Beginning well, I'm I'm not going to put beginning producer on it, but, it's growing into that direction. And I'm okay with that. I like to do more stuff and learn and keep growing. I don't want to get bored.

Arvid: 02:15

Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. That's that's been part of the process. Right?

Arvid: 02:18

For, like, from the start, we've just been growing into this relationship, this professional coworking relationship together. And it's always been more new things that work with the other things that you already have been building. I really like this. Did you did you set out to become kind of a producer? Because I know you're a UX designer, I think, by trade.

Arvid: 02:36

Right? Is this is this something that just happened randomly, or was it a conscious choice to move more into the media production world for you?

Nick: 02:44

Well, you know, the the funny thing is I never wanted to become a UX designer on purpose. I always know I wanted I wanted to do something with design. But when I went to school, you know, the, the high the design school stuff, you know, I I never I didn't even know what UX was at that point. But I enjoyed certain topics like usability and psychology and color theory. And then without really knowing about it, I ended up as an intern as a UX intern somewhere.

Nick: 03:17

Then I was like, well, what does it even mean? So I, and then I I well, I kept doing it, you know, UX work because, I got some experience and that made it easier to get another job in UX. But, when I was very young, I I started as just a, you know, an all around designer, you know, animation and and drawing and stuff like that. And, I never really wanted to let that part go. So then you get asked for more different kinds of design, you know.

Nick: 03:51

Hey. I see you can do icons too. Like, oh, yeah. But this is my UX job. Well, I don't care.

Nick: 03:55

Can you make me an icon too? Oh, sure. You know, whatever. I like to do that kind of stuff. And, well, that just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and I don't know where it's going to end, to be honest.

Arvid: 04:09

Yeah. Well, who knows? Right? That's that's the beautiful part of entrepreneurship or just doing your own thing. And that's kind of what you do as well.

Arvid: 04:16

Right? You do a lot of stuff for me, and I really, really appreciate it. I've been blown away by your work from the start. Like, your first couple of thumbnails you made was like, yeah, this is what I want. And then over time, you've you've figured out how to take my process and make it even better.

Arvid: 04:30

I was talking to, Mark Lou last week compared to when this is being recorded, And, we we talked about just giving jobs that you established as a process to people who do them way better, and that's what you do for me. I really, really appreciate that. But I also know that I don't fill your full week with my one podcast episode, so you probably do more things. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit, like, what what the the field is that you work in with maybe other clients and all that kind of stuff and how you juggle this? Because context switching that costs some effort.

Arvid: 05:06

Right? So I I would like to know as an ex freelancer myself, how you deal with that?

Nick: 05:13

I didn't know you were a freelancer, an ex freelancer. That's that's cool. Yeah. I well, I think that's clear now. I do a lot of different things.

Nick: 05:24

I still have the UX part, like the the main thing that I do. Some people call it product design. Some people call it UI slash UX or just UX or something else. But that's the the main thing. So I work with startups, you know, and then that's, like, one day a week somewhere.

Nick: 05:45

But, also, sometimes there is someone running a, you know, software as a service business, and they're like, well, I've done everything myself so far, And I'm getting a bit of traction. You know, the MRR is growing. It's above 0 now. And now it's time to have someone do something better than I can do, you know, what you just mentioned. And then I help them as well.

Nick: 06:08

And it can be a a small thing, like a a few hours doing a review, giving them some points to improve. Like, you can check these few things that would really help. Sometimes it's a bit bigger. It's a full like, how can we make sure more people, join the platform and then actually keep using it? So more conversion on one end and less churn on the other side, like the whole psychology behind that.

Nick: 06:35

And sometimes it's just thumbnail design. Like, you know, I like to to draw, and it's not really, you know, UX related per se. So it's it's a lot of design things. And, yeah, so I I think that's that's about it. It's a lot of different design things.

Arvid: 06:55

But all design things. Right? That's that's what I hear. Yeah. That's really cool.

Arvid: 06:58

I love that. And I love that for you that you get to explore all these many different things, but still have this core thing, this creative process that always leads to some tangible outcome. Right? Either it's an icon which is itself a tangible file or it's a process improvement where you see the numbers change at the end. I think that that that is often, I think, overlooked particularly when you come from a very technical background.

Arvid: 07:21

Maybe maybe let's dive a little bit into, you know, in the indie hacker world, the the software engineer centric design, which is often not very much designed at all. You you probably know that I recently started building something and I really don't think I have any design skills, or at least I don't have the mental models to express, you know, what I want things to be like or what I want the the kind of the conduit between the wish and the reality to to to be like over time. Right? How can I make these things happen? And I think a lot of indie hackers that are very technical, just coders, but not much design skills other than knowing how to implement, like, tailwind CSS, right, which is kind of predesigned u UI components.

Arvid: 08:05

They struggle at some point with making things not just better, but making things usable at all. Get let's let's maybe establish kind of a baseline. What do you think is the most helpful thing for an indie hacker to consider when it comes to UX? Not just UI, not just the interface, but actual UX, the experience of the user in their product.

Nick: 08:30

Well, I I think the number one thing, by accident, we talked about that, you know, few days earlier. I think when this comes out, it's, the I called it the moment, and I think you called it time time to first value. Yeah. I think that's that's the the thing. No.

Nick: 08:50

People are busy. They don't have time to read, you know, a big wall of text or to fill out a an endless form of, different things. They want to have this, oh, this is useful, that realization like, wow, I'm onto something here. They want to have that as quickly as possible. So that's the time to first value part.

Nick: 09:10

But then the the moment is like, well, what's that thing going to be? And I think that's a real UX job. Like, it's pre Figma. You know, it's pre Tailwind UI. It's really thinking things through first.

Nick: 09:26

And, you know, people think that takes a long time, but it doesn't really have to take a long time,

Arvid: 09:33

you know. I think the the there's a common issue with with products like this that where people eventually stop and think, what is this about? What should this be about? Like, everything leading up to that moment is just like adding one more thing on top of it. Right?

Arvid: 09:48

That's that's kind of my developer experience. I build something that I think is okay. And then I add a feature and I add a feature and I add a feature, they're not very much connected. They're just you have any any concept of, first of, how you can stop yourself from do you have any any concept of, first off, how you can stop yourself from just adding, adding, adding? And then maybe if if you haven't stopped yourself, if you've built this weird amalgamation of everything, how can you zoom out?

Arvid: 10:18

How can you zoom out and and kind of break things down into usable parts again?

Nick: 10:23

Now what I always hope when something like this happens that I'm involved very early. For one of the the startups that I'm, working with, I was lucky enough to be there from the start. So when you see the first design, you know, it's very empty, and and some would even consider it boring. Like, hey. There's there's nothing going on here, but that's because I know that over time, all these, you know, Lego bricks are added on top, and I want to make sure it's a nice looking tower instead of some sort of blob.

Nick: 10:53

You know? And so it's it's very hard to untangle when it's already like a mess, especially because, you know, when you're the owner or the founder, like, you're very attached to your to your baby. You know, that's, it's hard to, well, just take away an arm or a leg, you know, because I'm I'm like, I want to build it up again. Usually, what helps is to have a designer, you know, me or or someone else just look at it and, you know, a few tweaks would help. I think a very important one is just, consistency in in margins and visual hierarchy.

Nick: 11:35

Like, it's at some point, it becomes a big wall of text. And that's just too much. It really overloads the user. Like, I don't know where to look. You know, is this part important or that that part?

Nick: 11:48

And then the founder's like, oh, everything is important, but that's usually not really the case. Like, there's, like, a main thing and then a few supportive things. And, you know, really sitting down with a with a founder or or if it's a bigger complex, someone who's in charge of of that part of a of a start up really helps to well, I don't want to to use negative words in a way, but to really educate them and to to take them by the hand and help them through that process of, you know, this thing is important. And this is only a little bit important. So let's hide it behind, you know, a second view or something like that.

Arvid: 12:27

That is a very interesting observation. And I think that the fact that you call it like to to I'm paraphrasing, I guess. But what I hear you say is the founders think everything is important, you know, because for them, all the data has a purpose. Right? It that nothing is adjacent.

Arvid: 12:44

Even though it might not be as important. It still is something that they they want to have there. My my my recent experience with this has been in in pod scan. Like, I have these notifications where I show people where their mentions of of their keywords are just had have just been found in some podcast somewhere. And to me, obviously, it's super important that the name of the podcast is there and the the name of the episode so they know exactly what the context is and then where in the transcript it is and then when it was found and you know where the link goes and all these things.

Arvid: 13:16

But probably the fact that there is a mention of your name, Click here is almost enough because, you know, like, that is the first initial trigger. For me, it's hard to understand that and see all these other things are also important, but not as critical. So do you have any idea how I can for myself without the involvement of a designer, which we will get to that part, like working with somebody. Right? But as somebody who has to juggle all these hats, right, the developer had the designer, the marketing, the operations had How I can teach myself to or reeducate myself, as you said, to to prioritize these these moments, these kind of hierarchy based structures more?

Arvid: 13:57

Mhmm.

Nick: 13:58

Mhmm. Yes. I would I would make a good boring old school list of things that you want to put on, a certain page, let's say, for both scan you already mentioned, I I think I, you know, I see all the tweets, and I I really have to refrain myself from, you know, feedback, feedback, feedback, feedback.

Arvid: 14:17

I love it. But

Nick: 14:19

I have a lot of ideas there, but, maybe first check if there aren't any duplicates. Like, I I think you had a time stamp for multiple in multiple places. But if you have a list, like, unsorted list of all the things that you want to display on a page, like, everything that's potentially useful for a user, And then I would use, like, 123, like, extremely important, somewhat important, and not really important. And then without really thinking about, well, I have a lot of wants now. Let's let's do it too next.

Nick: 14:55

Don't think about that. Just write what makes sense to you behind everything you want to display, and then you have, like, 3 buckets, like the ones, the twos, and the threes. Hopefully, you don't have to don't have too many ones. So if you have too many ones, then, well, everything's important. That's going to be a mess.

Nick: 15:15

You should be, like, overstimulated, and, I don't want to use this anymore. Let's look at a competitor, or let's not not look at at anything at all. Well, if that's the case, then you can maybe do the the same exercise for only the bucket of ones, you know, really be critical about it. But, hopefully, it's a pyramid, like, a few ones, a little bit more twos, and a lot of threes. Then, you know, like, okay, all I think that's the one I want to ex display right away.

Nick: 15:46

And then the the twos are maybe behind the, you know, show more collapsible thing. And then the trees, they can be behind, like, a settings or show all or, like, really buried somewhere. It's not really important. I think that's, that's a very good way to do it. Even better way, and I know you're talking to users already.

Nick: 16:08

Like, I think that's, that's super important. I was very happy to to see that you were doing that already. You can let your users do it as well do it as well. Like, in the new exits, the the card sorting exercise. Like, you can do it in in Miro or FigJam or any of these collaborative tools where you make all the sticky notes and all day, you know, within the sticky, you write features or things to show, and then you let them sort it, put it into groups.

Nick: 16:35

In that case, it doesn't have to be 1, 2, 3. You can leave it all out and let them decide. Like, how how would you group this even? And, but that's more like, you have different tiers in this, how far you want to go. Like, it can be super simple.

Nick: 16:51

Like, you're doing it, and then you have, like, user testing and card sorting. But that also depends on, like, are you just an indie actor on your own, or do you have funding like VC or already MRR? Like, you know, that that really plays a role in how far you want to go?

Arvid: 17:07

Yeah. And it also plays a role in how much time or how much capacity, let's just use that word, you have for these kind of exercises. Because when I think about this, and I've been talking, like you said, to users and and ask them certain questions, just trying not to lead too many of these questions, right, to to give them the opportunity to explain themselves without me putting thoughts in their minds. But that's tough for somebody who is who has this this vision of truth, right? I want this to be the thing and now tell me how I can make it happen.

Arvid: 17:37

It's, talking to people.

Nick: 17:38

To say about that as well, maybe.

Arvid: 17:40

What what is it? What what do you want?

Nick: 17:43

It is it's it's, I think, important for you or anyone talking to users, to know, like, if you're a designer or a founder or a developer. I've I've done this myself as well, so I'm not trying to be like the preacher, like, you have to do it like this, but users don't really care about what it looks, or what you use. So let's say there's, too much info, like too much text, like we're we're already talking about that one. I've done this myself, and I've seen other people say, like, well, would a list help? Or how about a table maybe, or a graph?

Nick: 18:22

And then the users are like, well, I don't care. I just want to see where I mentioned. I don't care what you're doing. So, I I would try and just listen listen to what's going wrong, and and and I hope they get very, like, passionate and emotional about I don't like this, and I just want to do that. And then, you know, just lean into that, what they're saying.

Nick: 18:46

Like, oh, really? Why do you want to do it? And, what what would it bring to you? And don't mention any solutions. That's something to you or maybe to a designer.

Nick: 18:55

Like, this is what they want. And then you can think about, well, maybe we should try this, and then you can return to them and show it to them and test with them. And then, you know, if they're less angry and and more, well, if they're happier, then you know you're on the right track. But, don't bother your users with, well, how about a table? How about a drop down menu?

Arvid: 19:16

Yeah. That's that's the kind of engineering, the engineering thinking. Right? Like, okay, this is the solution to your problem that you just have, but you'd really wanna discover the actual problem more and better. Right?

Arvid: 19:25

The yeah. That is that is hard for me. I I'm so solution centric in my thinking as a developer and also as a writer. I'm I'm always trying to to help, like, by telling people what to do. It takes it takes some effort to take that back and just explore the topic to give people room to find their own solutions.

Arvid: 19:42

That's that's complicated for and and solopreneurs who are pressed for time, and let's just be frank, like, wood shoppers who are pressed for money, they need the conversion, they need to make it better so people pay pay them for the product. It's it's hard to take that step back. How how much time would you invest in this if you were like a a bootstrap solopreneur or somewhere starting with your business? You may have a couple users. Let's use PodScan for an example.

Arvid: 20:05

I think I'm now at $80 MRR. It's it's MRR. It's not necessary. Right? It's it's it's more than 0.

Arvid: 20:13

Thank you. But it's it's definitely not profitable yet. I'm at a point where I need to ramp this up. How much time should I be spending on talking to customers? And maybe in addition to that, how should I do it?

Arvid: 20:23

Like, should I go in Zoom and watch them use their screen? Should I go visit them? Like, how what's what's the ideal situation for somebody working from home, like building this maybe on the side to get started with these kind of exploratory conversations.

Nick: 20:37

Well, I think what really works for you is that a lot of people know you. I think they they I think you have a lot of reach, a lot of followers, big audience. So, I think you can get people on a on a video call quite easily. I think that's, that's a big advantage for you. Otherwise, you know, I I always want to keep things small at first.

Nick: 21:00

You know? Yes. It's super important, but you still have to build a thing as well. You know, and I would like to make it like a continuous feedback thing, like, what works now? Well, that's good to know, and then you add a feature.

Nick: 21:18

But that can change the whole thing. Like, if you decide to put something, like, on top of the the first page, everything else moves down. Maybe the things you know knew before, they don't really apply anymore. So, maybe, like, once a week or once, once per 2 weeks. Like, talk to maybe 3 people.

Nick: 21:42

And they they can be the same people. Like, I know you can you can give them, like, a a longer trial, version or a big discount, like, in return. And, you know, I think that would be the best, the best way. And I really want to keep it simple.

Arvid: 21:58

That's very interesting. And, it clicked in the image in my mind just now, because the people that I talked to initially, like several of them are also the people who actually subscribed because I like they told me something I helped them get to that, like, I didn't do what they told me to build. I built the thing that I figured would help them best at what they wanted to do. So that was kind of the abstraction there. But they were also the ones that feel I had the most connection with.

Arvid: 22:27

So obviously, I would talk to them again. Yeah, that makes sense. It that that's also one of the things that that I I as somebody who hasn't read much UX literature or hasn't been around a lot of UX designers or product managers or people who really understand this kind of more human approach to all of things. Right? I'm very technical, talking to the same person over and over again to see your progress from their perspective.

Arvid: 22:52

It it is kind of sad, but this blows my mind. You know, like that's that's just having this as a framework. Having this as a tool is really helpful to think about, like, the progression of your business. Thank you for sharing this. That that that's really cool.

Arvid: 23:04

That's

Nick: 23:04

really useful. And what's also great when you do it like that is those people, they feel very involved. They feel like like a part of BotScan at some point. Like, wow. Wow.

Nick: 23:14

Did you do you see that feature? I made it happen. Well, well, you you you developed it, but they feel like it's it's their own thing. And, they will will probably be a subscriber for a long time. They will feel so informed that they will keep giving you feedback, which is, you know, good for you.

Nick: 23:33

And they are very likely to bring more people on board as well because they are so happy with the whole user experience of how things are going. On having a hand few of the handful of those people, I think, is very good for business. That's that's something you have to consider as a UX designer as well. You know, the view of user. You know, it's, in in in UX boot camps and schools.

Nick: 24:00

It's it's all about user first, but sometimes even user only. Well, that's not true. It's still a business. And, now having finding, like, the the middle ground between a business and a user, I think that's like a UX superpower, like, if you can do it that way.

Arvid: 24:17

Yeah. I think finding middle ground between business and the other thing is is always a problem in in entrepreneurship or in solopreneurship. Right? And people building their business as they build their business. They're building the product as they build the business.

Arvid: 24:38

The business is nowhere to be found. On the other side, you could try to drum up a business, but you don't have a broad product that you need to balance these kind of things. One thing that you just mentioned is very interesting, and I experienced something similar with FeedbackPanda, the company that I sold a couple of years ago. The people, the customers that I talked to very early and that I helped very quickly and built the thing that they needed or fixed the bug that they found or, you know, it just helped them in in some meaningful and measurable, quick way. They were the ones that stuck with us the longest.

Arvid: 25:07

They had very high retention. And the thing you just mentioned that I wanna kinda drill into, they were also evangelists for the product. Right? They were they they they took great efforts to talk and fight people, talk to and fight people on Facebook who were the kind of shit talking of product. Like, they were defending us when we were sleeping.

Arvid: 25:26

Like, that's the kind of relationship that came out of that. So community is really important to build, and that's the way to build it. Right? You can build goodwill in your community by building goodwill with individual people. That is that is a very interesting point.

Arvid: 25:40

In a way, this kind of customer service interaction is a UX, a business UX interaction. Right? That's an experience there. I'm just trying to highlight this because UX is not just the interface. UX is everything beyond it as well.

Arvid: 25:53

Right?

Nick: 25:54

Yeah. That's many designers, myself included, are very passionate about, about labels, I think a little bit too passionate. I call myself a designer, but, people are looking for UX designers. So I still have to put on the the UX mask and and call myself UX designer as well because I, I still need to to pay the bills. But Yeah.

Nick: 26:21

I consider myself much more than just a a UX designer. But but you are right about that part. Like, it's, it depends on on the customer as well, like, what they're looking for. Like, sometimes, a shiny landing page is enough. They already know exactly what they want to do.

Nick: 26:38

And it doesn't really matter if they're correct or not, but they they at least they think they know what they want to do. And, you know, just a UI project, like, here's a shiny landing page, nice gradient to the inter font and all the the basic stuff. It's, it's all there. That's sometimes it's enough. But I like the the holistic approach more.

Nick: 26:58

Like, I I I've done enough of, light development myself, and I've talked to enough, you know, developers and business people that I know it's more than just, just UX. It's there there's a much bigger pie, and I'm I'm only a small bit of the whole thing. But I do like to focus on moving the whole party forward. Like, you know, it's more than just design. That's that's very true.

Arvid: 27:25

Yeah. So from a I like this description as it's like a small, like a crumble of the big pie. Right? Like, a a little part. And I I that's that's how I think about, like, hiring people to help me.

Arvid: 27:38

I started with little crumbles, like our experience. Right? We started with thumbnails and then over time, got into editing, and now you're kinda helping me figure out what to even write about and what to talk to, who to talk to. All these things, just a cascade of the the part of your pie just gets bigger and bigger, right, over time. But let's let's start with the crumble.

Arvid: 27:55

Where does somebody who wants to who has no clue about, design, UX design, and who wants to talk to somebody like you, but not hire you for 40 hours a week? Like, what is that progression? Where does it start? Where do they even go? Like, why would people find you in in particular, but also find people that can help them, that understand their language.

Arvid: 28:16

Right? Where does a developer go to find somebody who speaks their language?

Nick: 28:21

Well, you know, it it you can start with something really small. Like, for example, I even have a, a design check-in service. You know? It's, it's on the the ask a designer thing that I that I have. And, and then you just, well, we do a design check, and you probably have one question.

Nick: 28:41

You're stuck somewhere, and it's just just while you're asking a designer. That's that's what the name is about. Pretty obvious. Right?

Arvid: 28:50

Yeah. For sure.

Nick: 28:51

And, well, then we sit down. We we it can be asynchronously, but can be can be in a meeting as well. And then usually 30 or 45 minutes later, you know, then the the person who's stuck, they're like, oh, that's very helpful. And then they're super happy, and then they can can move on. You know?

Nick: 29:08

And that's, I think, very accessible. I guess it's a one meeting and and, one one challenge fixed.

Arvid: 29:16

That that that I love because it is very specific. Right? And and that that you you have to like, if if you are capable of solving this specific problem, then I know you will also be capable of solving the the bigger problems that are kinda compounding into these things. That is cool. I like this.

Arvid: 29:31

Ask a designer. Hey. That's that's cool. Is that something that you just built for yourself or you is that is that a business or is that like a kind of a lead generator for you? Like, how does that work?

Nick: 29:42

Both, actually. You know, it's, if if that's that design check-in, if it helps, you know, people like to do more of things that are helpful. That's my UX strategy usually also with, you know, in in a big corporate job when where everyone's, you know, they don't really want a lot of UX bound. But if you give them one, like, gold nugget, they're like, I want more of this this stuff. You know?

Nick: 30:06

So, the design check-in, you know, that's one fix, but then, you know, you can do a full day where I'm there just, you know, 8 hours straight. We can do everything design related that's needed. And then it goes bigger and bigger and bigger until it's, you know, 40 hours a week or a productized service thing or, you know, all the things that you have. So that's the lead magnet side of things. You start small.

Nick: 30:35

You know, I I'm even thinking about making products to start even smaller for people with, you know, less budget. But it's also a business. Like, I'm going to put everything on the website that I can do for you. You know, thumbnail design thumbnail design is also on the on the website. I it's it's what you mentioned.

Nick: 30:56

I have, like, the the perfect thing in my head, and I'm building it myself to learn a bit of development as well. Yeah. So that it's it's both.

Arvid: 31:06

That's a cool idea. I love this. Like, do you have a do you have a vision for this to to go even bigger, like maybe into kind of a SaaS platform or maybe even a marketplace? Like, the kind of you you know, Mentor Cruise is a kind of human to human marketplace for people who look for mentors. Do you envision building something along those lines for designers?

Nick: 31:25

Yeah. I I had a lot of things in mind. Okay.

Arvid: 31:28

And, but, you know, what

Nick: 31:30

what I what I like about, you you know, how my career has been going so far is that I, it's it's like it's very foggy in front of me. Like, I know the next step, and I have, like, a a fake vision of where I want to go. But most things that I do happen by accident, you know, because I I was an an icon designer, and I can do visual design as well. It's it's part of my toolkit and and all my all the tools that I have. But I I wasn't actively searching to become a YouTube thumbnail designer for, well, for for anyone, you know, or for for you or anyone else.

Nick: 32:07

But it happens anyway. And, that that's a recurring theme for anything that I do. So for the website, for example, I I was also thinking about a, like, a credit system, you know, where you can just buy, like, 10 design tokens or credits or or or, you know, whatever. And, well, do you want the landing page like a basic one? Well, that's 5.

Nick: 32:30

And then, you know, it's like the the opposite of a subscription. Like, it's, pay once and then, you know, it's like prepaid. You know, like old school phone cards. You know? And but that requires, like, users.

Nick: 32:43

And so that's like the SaaS thing that I had in mind, but, and multiple things. But that's that's evolving as I go.

Arvid: 32:50

Okay. That's cool. What do you think about the concepts like, what is it Brett Williams' design joy? These kind of design as a service things that does is that something that you're interested in? Or how does that work?

Nick: 33:04

Well, I am well, it's it's a it's a retainer in a way. And that's a very, that's very old school way of working. I, you know, there's a lot of hype there, of course. And, at first, I was a bit wary, like, well, how does this work? And, you know, some people, they claim, like, I have so many active subscribers.

Nick: 33:26

And then I was doing the math, like, well, that doesn't fit in a day. But, Brett Williams, he shared recently, like, out of the 30 that I have, like, some of them don't have any active requests, a few have, and then a few others are, I'm waiting on feedback. And then I was like, woah. Yeah. Now now I can see the math work.

Nick: 33:47

You know? And I am building something like that as well, but I want to make it more, you know, suitable for my way of working. And so I want to limit the number of people that I take on because, as you know, like, I really want to focus on the relationship that I have with someone. I don't like to well, you want a you want a landing page? Here's a landing page.

Nick: 34:09

Goodbye, and let's never talk again. Give me your money. You know? I, I get a lot of motivation out of, seeing, like, the lines in your YouTube analytics go up, like and and you being happy with how things are going, that motivates me. So I would probably limit it at 2 people.

Nick: 34:29

You know, maybe 3, but let's start with 2 because I want to I want to focus on on things because that's, that's the big motivator for me. I want to build things.

Arvid: 34:39

That's that's really nice. First of really nice to hear. I I love that you're kind of buying in to the success of the people you work with. That's it kinda makes it way less transactional, and that that just allows for a relationship to grow. Right?

Arvid: 34:53

Like, just before we we hit record, we figured out that we've been working for over a year together, which is really cool. You've you've done 100 now of of the the thumbnails, and you've edited dozens soon to be 100, I guess, as well of, of the episodes here on this show. It has it's just really nice to know and be able to trust you. We we were also talking about that. Right?

Arvid: 35:16

Like, my my QA, my quality control for the videos is I upload it and I trust you. That is my QA. And and that is something that can only happen because you've shown over and over again that you want to make it better. It is it is funny. A couple weeks ago, I had Rox on the show.

Arvid: 35:33

He is the, let's say, ex owner of, thumbnail test.com. Right? A tool that we use together to to a b test. I I think the the the current owner of thumbnail test.com reached out to me to be able to ask me if they can feature some of our AP tests on their of their landing page now. Really?

Arvid: 35:52

Like, that's that's how all of this is connected, and I really love this. Right? It's it's kinda these, in in our community, the tools that exist and the people that work together, we know each other. We trust each other, and we we trust each other's work and each each other's commitment to the work. And I I can see this very strongly in you, obviously, also in rocks and the people involved in this community, but very much in you.

Arvid: 36:13

And I'm again, let's let's I I'm gonna do use this episode to just say thank you the this whole time for you being awesome and for you doing wonderful work. Knowing that you also do it for others, I love the idea that you limit the amount of people that you work with. And I think Brett Williams is also trying this in a way. Right? Like, even though there's a lot of people there, he he still doesn't, like, infinitely scale this because that I think the the big discussion on Hacker News when there was post that the the vitriol that came out of people and the negativity was focused on this.

Arvid: 36:42

Right? You dilute your your capacity to build something meaningful if you use too many people. So it's nice to know. Do you generally do this? Do you always have, like, a max of people you work with at any given point?

Nick: 36:56

Well, I have more of a lifestyle goal. It's like, I I don't need, like, 50 k a month. I don't need it. Would be nice is what everyone's going to say, of course. But, you know, I I I want to spend time with my, my family.

Nick: 37:15

I have a a daughter, just turned 1 Uh-huh. Last week. You know? And, I work from home a lot because I, well, I really made that choice on purpose. And sometimes I look at a a very nice picture of her, and I see the time stamp.

Nick: 37:31

It's, like, 5. It's just past 5 PM. Like, I'm like, well, I would be in traffic if I wouldn't work from home, you know, and that makes me very happy. Like, I I'm building this lifestyle for myself. Like, you know, I have numbers in my mind.

Nick: 37:45

Like, I want to if I can reach this number, I can build the life that I want, and that's very family focused, do what you want, kind of approach, while working with people like you. Like and, I mean, the way we're working together, that's that's something I enjoy a lot. So, you know, I need about 2 or 3 ARFits, if I can call it like that. And that's enough for me. You know?

Nick: 38:16

I don't want I don't need to become a millionaire or something.

Arvid: 38:19

I love this. I love that you used the word enough because that's that was gonna be where I was gonna go with this. It it seems you haven't enough, and that is rare, man. That is rare to find somebody who's like, but no, no matter how much money I make, if I don't spend time with my family and I'm just projecting here, but that's what I hear, then it's not enough. You know?

Arvid: 38:40

And if I get to spend time with my family, it doesn't matter how much money I make as long as it's, you know, sustaining the life that I have. That that that sounds like a very reasonable approach to life.

Nick: 38:50

Yeah. Yeah. I'm, you know, I have this dream of having the family Minecraft server at some point, you know, the Sunday afternoon. And I don't have enough children to make a raiding party to go into, like,

Arvid: 39:04

Yes.

Nick: 39:05

Yes. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're 1 DPS

Arvid: 39:10

short. That is awesome. Yeah. But that those are the those are life goals. Right?

Arvid: 39:16

I mean, being a, being a, being a millionaire and all that in our community, it's like celebrated as this massive thing, but the actual life goal is having enough DPS at your rating party. That's schedule.

Nick: 39:26

Yeah. I feel very much part of the community, but I'm still, like, the the strange one there because I don't have the the digital nomads dreams at all. You know, I don't think you have it either. Right, you're

Arvid: 39:40

No. And I never had. I've always been mesmerized by people who would go to Bali or would go to, you know, all these places in the world and hang out with other cool indie hackers and build stuff together and then travel, travel, travel. But I'm not a traveling kind of person. I mean, you know, like, try taking a studio and traveling with that.

Arvid: 39:59

Like, I I I wanna I wanna build a place in which I can just work. Maybe that's the thing. And I don't know how that works for you. I would like to know about, your your office setup, your your your work setup. Like, do you as a person working from home, do you have, like, a a separate separate place where you just go and you can commit to the work?

Arvid: 40:17

Is that how you set up as well?

Nick: 40:19

Yes. Yes. I have my my home office. And, it's it's very much like a work in progress. And, to make that all happen, I probably need for a short while about 5 or 6 RFS.

Nick: 40:34

But, that's, yeah, I I can, you know, I can close the door behind me because I think that's very important, especially, you know, after all these lockdowns and stuff like that. I was still living in a smaller apartment, so I was working from the kitchen table. And then at the end of the day, I had to slide, like, the laptop and all the stuff to the side, and then I was having dinner. I could still look to the side and see work. You know, I was never really at home, but now it's my commute.

Nick: 41:04

It's walking down the stairs.

Arvid: 41:06

That's awesome. Same for me. Like literally the same for me. I work in the basement, and my my commute is really from the coffee machine upstairs with the mug into my office, and then I'm at work. And when I leave work, I'm out of work.

Arvid: 41:17

Right? I'm I'm done with work. Yeah.

Nick: 41:19

It's it's important. Yeah.

Arvid: 41:20

How do you I I mean, you work from home. Obviously, that means you probably don't hang out with people in offices too much. It kinda feels like you sometimes might if if if people want you to, but how do you find community? Like, the people like us, people like you, people who are skilled professionals or just interested in the same thing? How do you deal with that now that you work from home?

Nick: 41:42

Well, I am considering, you know, like, a few streets down the block. There's a new office building for, like, small businesses. They have, they have, one person spots for hire, like, in a bigger room. I'm considering going there, just to be with other people as well. But I I don't really I don't really miss it, to to be honest.

Nick: 42:09

But I do talk to a lot of people, virtually, mostly. But that's also because most of my, the people I work with, they're not from the Netherlands like I am. Like, I, I looked at my my client list recently, and it's you know, last week, I worked with another Dutch person for the first time in, I think, in 5 months, to be honest. So I'm very much, like, globally working. And, we already established I'm not much of a traveler as well.

Nick: 42:43

So, it's hard to meet each other in real life. And,

Arvid: 42:47

Yeah. I wonder when we're gonna meet for the very first time, you know, like, how many years it will take us to get to that point?

Nick: 42:54

I'm I'm I'm in Germany, every now and then. I mean, I can drive for an hour east, and I'm there.

Arvid: 43:02

Well, I'm I'm in Canada, so I I need to jump, like, all all across the pond to to go visit family, which I also don't do much. Like, I'm so settled here in in the studio. Right? I'm I'm so settled in in what I do and how I do it that I can barely travel. It's it's very interesting because, like, the whole indie hacker community is very focused on the nomad thing and, like, being very flexible and independent in the geographical sense.

Arvid: 43:25

But the moment you start building something, either a family or a business or something bigger, like a community, you kinda have to settle in some way. I I found this to be something that even Peter Levels was talking about, like being a slow mat. Right? So like that, you just slow down. It kind of you can't just jump from place to place if you have if you have something to lose.

Arvid: 43:46

Right? If you have processes and stuff in in the in a yeah. And the family makes this obviously even more complicated.

Nick: 43:53

I feel I feel a very strong sense of responsibility, you know, especially after becoming a parent. I'm like, well, if I'm not there, you know, it sounds a bit harsh, but that little thing over there is going to die. Right? So I have to provide and, make sure it's all going very well. And I don't feel like traveling the world really fits that stage, at this moment, you know, and and I'm okay with that.

Nick: 44:19

You know, I don't really mind. I, I enjoy the family time too much.

Arvid: 44:24

Yeah. I love your priorities. I I really enjoy that you're very consciously strategized around your lifestyle design. That is really cool. And obviously, this lends itself pretty well to being somebody who helps other people find their own priorities in their business, in their in their UI, in their UX.

Arvid: 44:42

Right? It it it feels like this is kind of a tool of the trade to just be aware of what things are and where they they should be going. That's really, really cool.

Nick: 44:51

Yeah. You know, I I I mentioned the I'm one DPS short for full party. You know, it's, like in in in our way of working, like like, you're the main tank, and I'm just support. I'm just healing. I'm just making like, you decide where you're going, but I'm just making sure you're getting there in one piece.

Arvid: 45:09

Yeah. But without your work, I would die. Right? The the the boss would just slap me a couple of times and I'd be dead. So that's, yeah, that's a very I I love this analogy, obviously, being a gamer myself.

Arvid: 45:20

I think that is what what business becomes. Right. In the beginning, you're kind of this paladin who can both tank and DPS and heal at the same time. Right. It's kind of how that happens.

Arvid: 45:30

You just have to do it all at the same time. But over time, you start going into one of these directions and you find other people to take up the spots, people who are better equipped to tank, better equipped to heal. Right? Better equipped to to deal damage in the in the vernacular of of a gamer. I think that's that's a very interesting observation.

Arvid: 45:48

I think also an observation that a lot of us, indie hacker dev nerds can really understand. Right? You know what a what a braiding party is and you you know, like, how it works and that you can only defeat the boss together.

Nick: 46:00

Yeah. That's, that's an important one. I was, you know, this analogy came to me while walking just before this, this, this chest. I was like, wait a minute. I'm a healer.

Arvid: 46:12

And,

Nick: 46:13

but that that's also a UX thing. Like, you have to talk the language of the people you're working with. Like, if I'm all about shiny gradients and all this stuff, and you're look looking like with big question marks, you know, I was like, what? Like, that doesn't really work. Yeah.

Nick: 46:29

That's, I mean, that's super important.

Arvid: 46:31

Well, if if you have shown anything, over the last, like, 3 quarters of an hour, you have shown that you speak the language of indie hackers and solopreneurs who may not know much about design, but who are interested in making things better. And I I I would very much appreciate, for anybody listening, everybody, watching this to check out your work. Where do you want people to go to find you both to find where they can book you to help, but also to find you and your journey and to find you as you become more of yourself and build the businesses that you wanna build. Where do people go?

Nick: 47:06

Oh, I'm, I'm mostly on Twitter. And, it's it's toolbox of design because the designer's toolbox was too long. So I had to get creative. Like, that's where you can find me. And the the ask a designer thing that I mentioned is ask a designer dot I o just because I'm in that community.

Nick: 47:30

Yeah.

Arvid: 47:31

That's right.

Nick: 47:33

And, yeah, you can you can see me building it in public. You know, I'm it's it's a version 0.1 of what I want it to be. But, if you want to see a a designer try and build stuff, that's the place to go.

Arvid: 47:49

That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all your insights. It's been really, really nice. It's always nice chatting with you. Obviously, we do this occasionally, but it's it's nice to to learn from you.

Arvid: 47:58

That is really helpful. Thank you so much for sharing everything you shared today.

Nick: 48:02

It was really, really nice. Thanks for having

Arvid: 48:04

me. Of course. And that's it for today. I will now briefly thank my sponsor Acquire.com. Imagine this.

Arvid: 48:13

You're a founder who's built a really solid SaaS product. You acquired all those customers, and everything is generating really consistent monthly recurring revenue. That's the dream of every SaaS founder. Right? Problem is you're not growing for whatever reason.

Arvid: 48:28

Maybe it's lack of skill or lack of focus or applying lack of interest. You don't know. You just feel stuck in your business with your business. What should you do? Well, the story that I would like to hear is that you buckled down, you reignited the fire, and you started working on the business, not just in the business.

Arvid: 48:45

And all those things you did like audience building and marketing and sales and outreach, they really helped you to go down this road 6 months down the road, making all that money. You tripled your revenue, and you have this hyper successful business. That is the dream. The reality, unfortunately, is not as simple as this. And the situation that you might find yourself in is looking different for every single founder who's facing this crossroad.

Arvid: 49:10

This problem is common, but it looks different every time. But what doesn't look different every time is the story that here just ends up being one of inaction and stagnation. Because the business becomes less and less valuable over time, and then eventually completely worthless if you don't do anything. So if you find yourself here, already at this point, or you think your story is likely headed down a similar road, I would consider a third option, and that is selling a business on inquire.com. Because you capitalizing on the value of your time today is a pretty smart move.

Arvid: 49:39

It's certainly better than not doing anything, and acquire.com is free to list. They've helped hundreds of founders already. Just go check it out at try. Acquire.com/arved. It's me.

Arvid: 49:48

And see for yourself if this is the right option for you, your business at this time. You might just wanna wait a bit and see if it works out half a year from now or a year from now. Just check it out. It's always good to be in the know. Thank you for listening to the Bootstrap founder today.

Arvid: 50:02

I really appreciate that. You can find me on Twitter at Avidkar, a r v e r k a h l, and you'll find my books and my Twitter core set too. If you wanna support me and this show, please subscribe to my YouTube channel, get the podcast in your podcast player of choice, whatever that might be. Do let me know. It would be interesting to see.

Arvid: 50:19

And leave a rating and a review by going to ratethispodcast.com/founder. It really makes a big difference if you show up there, because then this podcast shows up in other people's feeds, and that's I think where we all would like it to be. Just helping other people learn and see and understand new things. Any of this will help the show. I really appreciate it.

Arvid: 50:40

Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day and bye bye.