The Bootstrapped Founder

Arvid: 00:00

Welcome to the Bootstrap Founder. Today, I'm talking to Nikolaj Klemke, PHD. PHD in indie hacking? Well, almost. This guy left academia to become an indie hacker, and he's building an AI product for musicians.

Arvid: 00:13

Pretty interesting journey. You'll hear all about it. This episode is sponsored by acquire.com. More about that later. Now here's Nico Lang.

Arvid: 00:21

Nico, welcome to the show. It is not often that someone with a PhD in physics goes into indie hacking or let alone being able to build a business to the point of, like, mid five figure revenue, which is super impressive. What made you switch tracks?

Nicolai: 00:36

Well, Avid, first of all, thanks a lot for having me on. Great pleasure to be here. Yeah. I mean, I I studied physics, and I was always I mean, I I studied physics in Berlin. Right?

Nicolai: 00:49

And it was never really my true 100% passion, I have to say. I was kind of making music on the side and and was always putting the priority to music a little bit. But then after my masters, I didn't really know what to do and applied for some jobs. There was a little bit boring, thought maybe I should do full time music, but didn't have the guts to do it. And then did a PhD.

Nicolai: 01:12

So I ended up in that position. I kind of liked the PhD, I have to say. I did some cool research, but then fell in love with programming, while doing so. So. So I had I did some measurements and then did some simulations for these measurements.

Nicolai: 01:23

And, while doing simulations, I I discovered that I really, really love programming. And so after my PhD, it was clear to me that, okay. Physics, I did this long enough without, like, without having my true passion there somehow, Although, I love what I do. Yeah. But but I I felt like there was something else to do for me.

Nicolai: 01:42

And and then there was the whole programming side, that I really started to like. And, simultaneously, there was this whole AI trend going on somehow. This was, I guess, in 2019 or something. There was already quite some movement in the back then, it was called deep learning space, and now it's called AI. Right?

Nicolai: 02:02

So I got more and more into this topic and tried it with a normal job for a year. I got also a bit bored by it. And then end of 2022, I played around with Stabil diffusion. Stable Diffusion had just come out basically 3, 4 months ago. And there was a technique that, people use Stable Diffusion for to to generate animations.

Nicolai: 02:23

So, basically, wrapping the image to image functionality of Stable Diffusion into a loop, and then you get image to image to image to image to image, and then you can get animations. And it's very trippy, weird, cool animations. And I just kind of played around with it on on my gaming PC. And, actually, it was, I think, the best use of my gaming PC back then. And, like, I didn't use it for much afterwards, but that was actually really cool to have the GPU at home.

Nicolai: 02:51

And then, I mean, this was I I wrote this in in a Jupyter notebook in in Python, and I I was really impressed by the animations that I was able to get with it somehow. And and back then, there was no tool to create these types of animations. And so I thought, would be really cool to build a tool for that. And and so I I started what I what I wanted to do since a long time somehow, did my own did my own thing, even though I wouldn't have called it a business back then, really. It was more like a project.

Nicolai: 03:20

And then launched in January last year 2023. And and since then, it's on a constant constant yeah. It's it's it's it kicked off a really, really cool journey that is a lot of fun and keeps me busy. And

Arvid: 03:33

It's a it sounds like you got super lucky in a way that your first project, if if it is your first project, took that that kind of trajectory. But it also sounds like you are a person that just constantly explores things that they find interesting. Because I don't I don't think it's very much surprising to, you know, see both of these things happen at the same time. That is that is amazing.

Nicolai: 03:54

That's very true. I mean, I did a lot of things also before somehow. You're you're right. I explore. I do like to explore, and I think there's a lot of value in it.

Nicolai: 04:01

I I became obsessed with astrophotography for a while. I became obsessed. I had a I had a project where I had a camera on my balcony and, filming the crows that came to visit us, and there was a bit of a bit of uploaded videos and stuff like that. So, like, I I I think out of boredom with my job and my PhD, I always did things on the side. But now I kind of like, okay.

Nicolai: 04:22

Let let's try to find something that people actually could use, and and I got totally lucky.

Arvid: 04:27

That is that is funny. Yeah. I the the honestly, I I very much relate to this. Like, I I got a collection of cameras and lenses for the exact same purpose. Like, I was, like, taking picture of the stars and the birds in our backyard.

Nicolai: 04:40

Really? Yeah. We I

Arvid: 04:41

I got, like, a like, one of these sports photo lenses. He's extremely, like, super long, like, super, you know, like, if you can take pictures of things very far just for the birds. Like, for that thing otherwise, but, like, that was the thought of solid stupid heads. That was not a smart choice, but it was a fun one. So I get the the excitement of new projects.

Arvid: 04:59

That is really cool. I'm super glad to see, actually, that you stuck it through, like, that you actually stuck with the project to a point where it's making that much revenue, like, mid 5 figures. That is quite impressive. Honestly, I think a lot of indie hackers have have trouble with, like, actually sticking with these projects. So what what is keeping you with this?

Arvid: 05:16

Like, what makes you want to continue working on this project instead of chasing another dream that you may have?

Nicolai: 05:23

Yeah. That's a cool question. So, I mean, in the beginning, it was really an obsession with the topic. Just I I I thought this is so cool to to build something like that. I also had a lot of fun just building it, the the programming side of things.

Nicolai: 05:36

And then I guess so I had very early on a a Hacker News post that was quite successful and also a Reddit post that was quite successful, and that kind of kicked things off. And then, like, I would have been stupid to to to, stop doing it somehow because there was there was a constant interest in it. Actually, no. Actually, that's not true. I had, like, a I had a point in March last year where where can I was it it was a bit slow somehow, and the side cut that I felt I had hit a bit of a dead end?

Nicolai: 06:05

But I but then I had, like, a revelation that, okay. Actually, the product needs to look different. It needs to be more like a I don't know if we wanna talk about what the product actually is, but it's like a video generation tool. Right? And back then, it was very, very simplistic.

Nicolai: 06:18

It was also my first React project ever. So, like, I I had no idea what I've done. But then I had an insight that it should actually look differently. It should look like a more like a like Adobe Premiere or something like this, like a proper video editor. And then I took it offline, wrote an apologetic email to all the subscribers, and, rebated, basically, in 7 and 10 weeks.

Nicolai: 06:40

That was awesome. And launched then. And then since I think this is also what what so back then, I had probably a point where I could have switched it off, but I still believe very much in the product somehow. And then, the redesign helped. Then I got some people really interested in the product who were also creating cool videos on it.

Nicolai: 07:00

And this is just the best thing, man. I I wake up and look through the videos, what what the users create on the platform. It's like, wow. That's so cool. You know?

Nicolai: 07:08

And now there's an active Discord community, and a lot of people, like, power users who love the product. And so this is very rewarding to do that even though now I'm I'm not coding so much anymore. So this site somehow, goes away a little bit.

Arvid: 07:22

Yeah. Oh, there's so much in here. Like, I I I hear you have communities of people. I hear you're you're trying to kinda delegate work a little bit more. You also, I'm I'm dimension to pivot is very interesting.

Arvid: 07:33

The way you did it, like, actually stopping the product to be able to focus on something new. There's so much interesting stuff. Let's try to get to all of this because I think, like, in each one of these choices that you made, there's a valuable lesson. Now I kinda wanna start with the one where you said this is not the right product for the right people anymore. I have to do something about it.

Arvid: 07:51

Because it is a moment where you could just you could just say, no. I'm done. I I wanted to build this. It doesn't seem to work as well as I did. Let's do something completely different.

Arvid: 07:59

But you chose to do something about the product, not just to throw the product away. The epiphany that you had in that moment that it needs to look different, I would like to to drill into this because I wonder, does it have to do with the kind of customer that you actually wanted to reach with this product? Like, was there something that where does the epiphany come from? Like, what what sourced this this change of thinking there for you?

Nicolai: 08:24

Yeah. That's such a great question. I never really ask myself. You know? I was traveling the world at that time with my girlfriend.

Nicolai: 08:30

We were in Colombia, Medellin, and I just actually, I bid another product based on the same technology that failed. It was kind of Avatar AI, but with videos. I never I I I don't know. I thought I would be would be a nice scheme to go viral, but it didn't. And it could have been in indie hacking.

Nicolai: 08:49

It could have been.

Arvid: 08:50

Right.

Nicolai: 08:51

But also that's also the point in indie hacking. Right? You gotta stick. Like, it won't like, with everything in life, also in music, like, if you do something and you just assume the words waited for you, this is not how it works. Right?

Nicolai: 09:04

You need to, like, beat the drums. Yeah. I'm here. Here's the product. This is what you can use it for, and this just makes a lie.

Nicolai: 09:10

And this product, I didn't didn't yeah. Whatever. But I did this. It didn't work out also because I wasn't so I didn't believe so much in it. And then, I don't know, I thought, what I said I can I do?

Nicolai: 09:21

Would be cool to build neural frames in a new way somehow. And and then it just came to me. And long story short, I I I'm not 100% sure where the idea came from, to be honest. It just you know, ideas just come, and then it was also I didn't really know what else to do. I, like, I oh, maybe that's also not true.

Nicolai: 09:41

I don't know, Amit. Like

Arvid: 09:43

But it's isn't that the thing? Like, that that is that is such an indie hacker problem. Like, we we make these choices, and in retrospect, they make a lot of sense or they don't. It depends on the outcome, I guess. But you never really have the time to even reflect where these choices come from.

Arvid: 09:57

Like, every single day, this is a problem. Okay. Gotta fix this, I guess. And then, okay, the thing that was a problem 4 days ago is back. Now you gotta fix it again.

Arvid: 10:04

Like, we we never really have time to reflect. Like, honestly, it would be really nice if there was just mandated therapy for any actors because we could benefit from just having somebody connect the dots and pull us out and pull us back in. That is something that I've personally been doing over the last couple weeks, just getting into therapy for everything, not just for for business, but but for many things beyond it. Because it's just so much more helpful to have somebody very warmly and kindly listen to your things. It just give you time to reflect on them.

Arvid: 10:33

Then in our community where everybody's just motivated, let's do it. Let's do it. Like, the hustle, the grind. Right? It's hard to to find time to reflect.

Arvid: 10:40

But I I asked this question in particular because I kind of expected something like this. Like, on your on your first sorry, on your first India hacker journey, everything is new. Everything is crazy. Everything is lucky. Everything is is just an experiment along the way.

Arvid: 10:59

And sometimes we have good reasons to do things. And sometimes we just do things because that's what we could potentially do. And then it happens or it doesn't. So it's it's nice to hear that there wasn't much reflection, but there was a moment where I just thought I need to make a change, and that is enough. Right?

Arvid: 11:14

For for that in particular. Did did did this change in your product actually impact not just how many customers you got or how many video frames you generated, but also who those customers were?

Nicolai: 11:28

Yes. Well, initially initially, I think it was similar ones, but then very quickly, I niched down on smart people told me I should niche down to the, on onto some I think there's also, something that that your audience will appreciate maybe. So I I really I I built the product with text to video for everybody. Why do I need a use case? This is cool technology.

Nicolai: 11:51

But then smart people told me it's gonna be much easier to sell if you if you have a customer in mind. Right? And there were people you all kinds of people using this product. There were, like, people that wanted to visualize their dreams, musicians that wanted to make music videos, book authors that want to visualize stories, and and stuff like that. But then I picked the use case that I know best, which is music videos.

Nicolai: 12:12

Right? Because I did music music in the past, which is also like, things came together somehow. And that helped a lot because now I had a customer's persona. I could build features for these customers only. And and then, of course, more and more musicians came in and appreciated the product.

Arvid: 12:30

That is cool. I love this. I love the fact that your own musician history kinda pulled all of these things together. I think in in a way, like, working with AI system probably is AI systems such as, you know, stable diffusion and the many different things that you have to put into place for this to work. That has that is a very, you know, cerebral or very intellectual exercise to get these things right, very logical.

Arvid: 12:53

That that to me sounds like your, you know, physicist kinda side, did that the person that understands these these complex things. But then you also had obviously the artistic side of of you being a musician as well. I love this. I love this kinda mix of of 2 very opposing forces into a product that combines them both. That is really cool.

Arvid: 13:12

That and that that in particular is an interesting field, like creating video for for music. I'm thinking of Sora being, like, the the big video AI thing that happened. And even this what is the the most recent thing, Sona dot AI? Like, is is that the name of that? Like, Sona.

Arvid: 13:29

Yeah. Music. See, like, the the the names of these things, they are so confusingly similar that I mix them up already. Like, there's there's a lot of development in in the generated fields, like, beyond just the text medium of GPT and something. How how do you deal with this?

Arvid: 13:43

How do you deal with the speed of development in these fields?

Nicolai: 13:46

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely crazy. And it's also the hardest I I guess it's one of the hardest aspects somehow, because there's so much movement in the space.

Nicolai: 13:57

And what what's what's true today is probably not true in 6 months, and we don't even know how 6 months from here is gonna look like. Right? You had an episode about that. Like, with this fast moving, and it's like, there's always a new shiny thing that one could implement. And it's really hard to to do so or to decide against it and see competitors doing it.

Nicolai: 14:19

You know? There's a new feature for stability fusion that one competitor of mine implements it. Do I also implement that? Mhmm. Should I?

Nicolai: 14:25

Or is this actually not really serving the customer persona that they have? You know? So my how I deal with it is I have I I try to formulate a like, I try to formulate a vision for what this product should be. It should be a nice tool for musicians that want to dig into the technology a little bit to create these types of trippy animations. And I think this helps a little bit because it puts you, like, okay.

Nicolai: 14:54

Does this really does this new feature actually help these people or not? And, this is how I try to deal with it. But, of course, like, is this still good in 1 year from now? I have no idea.

Arvid: 15:05

Well, I hope that musicians are still gonna be around 1 year from now. Right? Like, that's you kinda have to think about your market. Is your market gonna be completely replaced by AI? I certainly don't think so.

Arvid: 15:14

I hope with artists, at least, they will have the little, always, you know, the resistance to to technology that they always had and and keep that. But it it is an interesting point. Like, is your ideal customer persona today even gonna be around in a couple years in this in this field? Very interesting. Do do you think what do you think about this?

Arvid: 15:34

Like, what is your perspective on the viability of being a full time musician over the last over the next couple years? Well, I just had

Nicolai: 15:44

a discussion this morning about this, actually. So, I mean, there's so much so, nope, there will always be I think I I deeply believe there will always be artists and musicians and actors and and these type of people because somebody said this. Right? Chess chess computers are better than than the greatest chess grand master. But, anyway, still people watch chess people playing against this.

Nicolai: 16:04

We we want to connect to humans. But, of course, there's also a lot of occasions where you just put on the Spotify playlist lo fi beats or whatever, and it runs in the background. And and you actually don't care if it's made by a human or not. So in in these cases, I guess, yeah, there will be, some disruption happening. I see it also from the other side, though.

Nicolai: 16:26

I have also a lot of people that are no musicians who make their own music with Suno AI now and make music videos for these songs. I love that. Like, this is a completely new customer persona that also didn't exist before, but

Arvid: 16:39

That's right. Like new Yeah. You yeah. You're literally enabling people that to do things that they could never have done before this technology existed, which is cool about AI tools. Right?

Arvid: 16:50

You're not only are you serving the existing market to do things better, you're also creating whole new markets even just in deploying the tools for these jobs. That's kinda nice in a in a way. Right? You're facilitating somebody's career into music in a way or into, I don't know, filmography for music. Maybe that's the first step.

Arvid: 17:07

And then they buy a camera and then they try to make these things themselves in the real world or whatever. Right? Like, you could argue that you are allowing people to get into an industry with this. That that is a very interesting field, and it's a very interesting observation that you're serving a group of people that hopefully will never die out, and you're facilitating something for for new artists as well. Are you ever gonna go beyond artists?

Arvid: 17:30

We we talked about this niching because it's a nice way to kinda scope your business and scope what features need to be built and whatnot. But do you see that there might be a ceiling a ceiling for this, like, at some point, and you need to go beyond that?

Nicolai: 17:44

Yeah. Great question, Ovid. Certainly, there's a ceiling. I have no idea where it is. I with every day where the revenue is the same as the month before, I always think, okay.

Nicolai: 17:57

I hit the ceiling. Like, you know, like, it's just this constant journey too obsessed with the Stripe dashboard. Yeah. So it might be here. It might be at 4 times the revenue.

Nicolai: 18:07

I don't know. And, of course, there's a lot of products around the same technology one could build for a different type of customer. So that is certainly something I'm thinking about. But for now, I still have a backlog so big, for for exactly these products that I I I I would like to get around to.

Arvid: 18:26

Yeah. And and then there's another ceiling, and I think we, we should definitely talk not just about what the industry is doing, but what you are doing and how much capacity you have to do the work. You're now at a point, I I think, where hiring people makes a lot of sense. Right? Or how how are you going about this?

Arvid: 18:42

How is your I I

Arvid: 18:43

I would assume right now you're kind of

Arvid: 18:44

at a solopreneur, stage still, or do you already have the

Nicolai: 18:48

I actually started so, actually, in October last year, 2023, I started hiring people. I was kind of at the point where I thought, okay. I can try to ride this wave alone as long as I can and then most likely burn out, honestly. I mean, you talk about this a lot also. Or I try to play this game now and try to make this an actual company.

Nicolai: 19:12

And so I started doing that in October. I, hired customer support. First, best decision ever, and I hired also a community and social media. But then also hired now front end developer, and there's gonna be 2 more developers joining and and stuff. And, yeah.

Nicolai: 19:30

So so I'm above that I'm beyond that point, trying to build a team, trying to scale a team, running into completely new problems I never had in my life. So, like, you know, how to manage just the culture. Yeah. It's I I don't know. It's it's it's really something that occupies me at the moment because once you hire people, you have people that maybe don't do their job properly, or they do something else that you wanted or or but they also do great work better better than you could ever have done.

Nicolai: 19:59

But, also, you're in problems like, I'm hiring I tried to hire, like, a cloud engineer or something. Right? And I I never worked in the cloud. I never have worked in the software company. So I don't even know like, partly, I don't even know what the jobs even are called.

Nicolai: 20:14

You know what I mean? I don't even know what I'm looking for. And then how do I assess the technical requirements? Like, how do I assess the technical capability of these people? Right?

Nicolai: 20:23

I mean, it's hard. Sometimes I wish I had a cofounder for for this kind of stuff also, but it's also cool. I'm learning so much. It's incredible.

Arvid: 20:33

Right. Yeah. And for somebody who loves to learn new things and figure things out as they do it, I think that's that's a perfectly fine way to do it, but it is stressful. I I very much I feel that, like, from my own experience. So it and particularly the jump from technical to nontechnical or, like, from technical to technical plus nontechnical.

Arvid: 20:50

Maybe that's the better phrase. Right? That is like, management is hard. Understanding human beings is hard. I think computers and maybe even physics in many ways.

Arvid: 20:58

Right? It's it's fundamental laws that work like that all the time. Right? If something is weird, it's probably quantum physics, but everything else is is fairly stable and reliable, and humans are not. Humans are the exact humans are the the the quirks and and the the string theory things.

Arvid: 21:15

Right? That's what humans are. You you never really know, but, I I get that. I I get that building a culture in the company, building a culture also of communication, not just, you know, whatever ping pong tables or whatever culture may mean to some people. Right?

Arvid: 21:28

Just building a a process among people. That is so complicated. And if you don't have anybody who did this before, like, you just have to experiment the same way. Do do you have any kind of particular issues that you're that that you've run into? Maybe some that you even challenges that have solved already that you can share with me?

Nicolai: 21:45

My newest bet is I'm I'm trying to get people I'm hired hiring because that's additionally remote only company. It's even harder to do hiring.

Arvid: 21:56

That's right.

Nicolai: 21:57

So now I'm trying to go for motivation instead of hard skills because my assumption is hard skills, people can learn. But soft skills, maybe not so much. Right? So I'm trying to get people who want really want to work on this, not only as a a source of income, but, who who really like the idea of this. This is my working hypothesis now.

Nicolai: 22:18

I can talk in one year again if this has worked out or something. But so far, I I mean, I'm I'm really great. I'm really I had a few mishires, I would say, but I'm, overall, I'm very, very and these are not there anymore. But over with the team we are now, it's it's fucking fantastic. I love it.

Nicolai: 22:35

I mean, you you you work with people that just that do the job. We had team together. We have calls together. You know? We met on the conference also, last 2 2 weeks ago in Las Vegas.

Nicolai: 22:48

So it's really nice. Yeah.

Arvid: 22:50

Little little team building conference. That's nice. So where did you find those people? Okay. One of the biggest things that this I struggle with is, like, finding even just the locations to look for the right people to hire.

Arvid: 23:01

How did you I

Nicolai: 23:02

mean, you you have an advantage. You have a massive audience. Right? So I I think this is the best point, like, ask. I found a couple of people via power users of mine.

Nicolai: 23:12

Like, I made public that I'm looking for somebody, let's say, in customer support, and then a power user reached out. And I know they will have my best interest somehow because they want the platform to become better. And, they offered a really cool customer support person, Liz, who who who does an awesome job and saves my life in multiple ways. So that's a good source then. I mean, I tried LinkedIn, and that's tough.

Nicolai: 23:38

I did I mean, our front end engineer comes from there, so that was also luckily successful. But there, it's it's much harder to assess because you don't know these people. Yeah. So I for that, I'd really have to have an audience or to have a product that already has some users that like you.

Arvid: 23:54

Yeah. Have you ever considered the, like, the the fractional CTO or the hack the fractional, you know, like, hiring director or something role, like, just hiring somebody out for a couple hours a month or a week to work on these things? Has has that ever crossed your mind?

Nicolai: 24:11

I mean, yeah, I I work with recruiters, let's say. So far, not really successfully. Those are also very expensive. Fractional, no. Not I mean, yeah, it would be cool to have, like, somebody for operate.

Nicolai: 24:22

I what I sometimes think now is is is would be cool to have somebody for operations more, you know, for for, like, dealing, navigating all these, you know, hirings and meetings and and stuff. Yeah.

Arvid: 24:32

Yeah. Isn't it funny that you need

Nicolai: 24:34

But for bootstrappers we have but but for bootstrappers, I mean, it's also always like, okay. Do I hire now an engineer, or do I have somebody to help me hiring? I don't know. Probably an engineer is better. Right?

Arvid: 24:44

Yeah. Yeah. You you have to make pretty tough choices when the budget is, like, not in the 100 or 1,000,000 of of dollars or 100 of 1,000 or 1,000,000. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's just a challenge of building something new.

Arvid: 24:56

Right? If if you had a business that had been running for 10 years and you had 400 people, doesn't really matter how if you hire, like, the 401st as somebody to hire the 4 102nd or you hire 2 people right there in your roles, that would make a big difference, but you're at a stage now. Like, it sounds like you have, like, what is it, like, roughly 5 4 or 5 people? How many people are in the business

Nicolai: 25:15

right now? Yeah. So we are yeah. It depends a bit on how you count. Some people are, like, freelancers who have multiple multiple, clients also.

Nicolai: 25:24

We have, like, 4 to 6 depending on how you count.

Arvid: 25:26

How big do you want it to be?

Nicolai: 25:31

As big as it needs to be, I would say. Not bigger. Nice. I would like to, like, I would like to have it maybe I I don't know.

Arvid: 25:43

That that's a legitimate answer. Yeah. Yeah.

Nicolai: 25:45

As big as it needs to be. At the moment, there's nobody for back end, so I definitely need a back end engineer, maybe 2. But then maybe not 5 at the moment. You know what I mean? That would be a risk with also raising money.

Nicolai: 25:57

I thought also about raising money, maybe. But then, like, I need to hire, what, 20 people suddenly, and I don't even know. I already have now problems to to find, like, job, positions. Like, I had to find the names for for the roles that I need to

Arvid: 26:12

Well, that's I mean, there's there's no easy solution to any of this, but, I I mean, being surrounded by people who know about these things, but also you don't have to pay, or that that are not necessarily part of your business really helps. I'm thinking about about, about peer groups, like founder peer groups, like mentors, just, masterminds, these kind of things. It's hard to find the right people for this because you kinda wanna be open and vulnerable with them, so you kinda to trust them as well. And it's hard to trust people that are in a capitalist interest group. You know?

Arvid: 26:43

You could ask there's always kind of the the idea of, well, can I use this information for my own? But most organized, groups of peers, like, the kind of mastermind groups that I I think the the micro conf community, you know, they they potentially they they put people together that are in the same MRR brackets, for example, in their community. And they have, like, a buy in. You pay, like, $1,000 or depending on how much you make as a as a business to even be able to join this kind of thing to make sure that only people who will and want to afford this can be part of it. This is not sponsored.

Arvid: 27:15

I'm just saying, like, there are groups of people that that that come together and talk about these things and help each other because we all start from very different points. Right? We are some people I

Nicolai: 27:24

don't know if this is if sorry for interrupting. I'm very sorry.

Arvid: 27:26

No. It's okay. I don't

Nicolai: 27:27

know if this is too personal. Are you in such a group?

Arvid: 27:30

No. I I've I've been I've been holding out on this for, I don't know why, for the longest time. I've been with with PodScan in particular now that I'm building this business. I'm like, I need to find people in this this kind of field. Like, I need to talk to SaaS entrepreneurs.

Arvid: 27:48

That's that would be kind of the business therapy side of things, not just a personal therapy, but the actual, like, is are you making same business choices? I don't need, like, a psychologist for that. I need a SaaS founder for that. So I'm actively gonna try and find these people. I'm gonna be at the, probably around the time that this comes out in, 2 weeks from now is the MicroConf US conference in Atlanta.

Arvid: 28:11

I might be right they're right there right now and try to find people to actually, you know, build this group with and join the group. So that is that is what I'm gonna be doing, but I should have done this much earlier. It's one of these things. You know? As an indie hacker, you have 2,000 things on your plate, and this would be number 2,001, so you kinda have it somewhere in the backlog.

Arvid: 28:30

That's why this is. So, no, I don't. Other than other than the DMs that I have on Twitter, which is plentiful. Like, I talk to a lot of people from my field, from the industry all the time in DMs and on this podcast for for that matter. That is kind of my my public accountability group to to get things going, but, no, not yet.

Nicolai: 28:48

I mean, maybe that's already the enough. Right?

Arvid: 28:52

Yeah. Maybe. I mean, it's it's kinda hard to talk about, and and we we talked about this leading into the call. It's kinda hard to talk about hard numbers in this field. Like, how how much money you make exactly?

Arvid: 29:03

How many people you hired exactly for that role. Like, how much funding did you get exactly? That a lot of people make assumptions from those numbers that are detrimental to your productivity, detrimental to the truth, and you have to defend it, then you have to correct them. And, you know, it doesn't really make much sense. It just steals time.

Arvid: 29:19

So it would be nice to have a group where you can privately communicate this and have actual feedback that is not done through a camera lens or, you know, not done from a stage, but actually from a a couch and, you know, of peers. That's that's that's how I see these groups. It's like you hang out with your buddies. It's just you don't talk sports, you talk sass. That's kinda what that is.

Nicolai: 29:40

Right. Next product of it. Yeah. Right? Next product.

Arvid: 29:42

What what that's that's the thing. It probably is a a lot of, value in this, but it's also something that probably happens more natural than it can be kind of forced or organized in a way. But I hope that I find a good group. I hope you find a good group. Maybe maybe we're gonna end up in the same group.

Arvid: 29:55

Who knows? Right? May maybe there's a group for Germans that are just trying to build, like, remote businesses and hang out. I wouldn't be surprised. I bet there's for Dutch people.

Arvid: 30:04

So so many so many Dutch people already organized in these groups. It must be a general group too. But, yeah, that it's it's interest isn't it nice to to think about, like, how we are looking for connection here? Like, both of us at at this point. Like, we we just really wanna help other people with the things we know, and we need help from other people with the things that they know.

Arvid: 30:21

I I kinda like this. It's it's nice that that founders actually, like, strive for that.

Nicolai: 30:26

And that's also something I I find interesting about this whole founder's journey somehow because there's a lot of people that I think, for you, it must be the same for for any solopreneur or for every founder probably for that matter. Like, early customers, they reach out to you. And, actually, I reached out to them also in many cases. And, you meet a lot of amazing people and people that are very willing to help oftentimes also. Right?

Nicolai: 30:51

So now I'm I'm I'm I'm doing what I was supposed to do probably my whole my whole life, somehow, building a network, and now it's all over the world and with people in the like like like minded people in the similar space or something, which is very powerful because, as I said, you you can find you can find employees through that. Right? You can I don't know? Somebody might work at a magazine, and you get a news article there or something. So I I think this is also very valuable to to speak to as many people as possible because you never know, like, who this person's gonna be.

Arvid: 31:23

Oh, interesting. Do do you still do this, like, personally? Like, do you talk to your customers a lot?

Nicolai: 31:28

Not as much. I should do it more. So in in the beginning, I sent with every sign, with every, I think, purchase. I had an automated email with a Calendly link, and I this was a that was a massive hack for honestly, I would recommend this to anybody. Because as I said, I had no idea of the use cases exactly.

Nicolai: 31:44

And then I learned of all these people and what they were doing or what they wanted to do and what they were missing also and what they loved. And now I'm not doing it as much, but I'm actually planning to do it again.

Arvid: 31:56

Also something you would hire for. Right? Like, that is something that somebody else could be doing on your part, particularly if you find some power user from your tool that understands what it can do, but also understands that there might be other people out there with other purposes. I don't wanna turn this into a consulting session. I just thought about this.

Arvid: 32:12

Like, you know, but, like, if if you have that's the great thing about this network you just described. Like, this the kind of the networking opportunities, they go beyond, you know, job searches or whatever. They can be connectors. Like, people can connect you to the right people for the right reason, and that's really, really powerful that you're just you just have to tell somebody, hey. Talk to these people.

Arvid: 32:29

And then all of a sudden, something cruel happens, and you just facilitated it in a very simple way. It's, that that is what I think that's what business is. Like, business is just, helping people help themselves or helping people help other people. In many ways, that's what a service is. And if you understand that and lean into this connection part of it, yeah, you're right.

Arvid: 32:47

It's a hack. I I do the same thing. I send out this email whenever somebody signs up. Calendly link in there that is called, I think, like, PodScan early adopters are the best. That's just the URL.

Arvid: 32:57

Because because I I know I know that people know who they are. They know in the context in which they use the product. So I got a lot of really interesting conversations from that. And all over the place too, like, from people that actually need to use it because their boss told them to do a thing and they thought this would be a good tool, which is great because that's where budget is. And from people who just have a cool idea and they think this might work with that idea, so there's this kind of explorational part too where people wanna build a new business and maybe this is something cool that they could use along the way.

Arvid: 33:25

There's a whole spectrum. And if you never ask people about what they needed for, what their job to be done is, right, if you never ask this, you will never know what's out there. It is so crazy, like, the the different kinds of use case for products like ours.

Nicolai: 33:40

I would even go so far, like, it is almost impossible to build a real business without that. So you really need to understand your customers because what you I see I have some friends who who are bidding a product, and they want to launch. And then they're building feature after feature after feature before launch. They don't even know who's gonna use the product. And that's really what you should not do.

Nicolai: 33:58

Right? You should launch as early as possible with as just barely enough that it somehow kind of works, and then speak to as many people as possible somehow and and learn and and move the product there.

Arvid: 34:10

The did you launch newer frames? Are you still launching it? Is it a constant launch? Is it gonna be launched? Like, how is that working for you?

Nicolai: 34:16

I don't really believe in launches. I think Peter Peter Peter Levitt wrote this in his book. Like, for for us, there's every day is, like I mean, every every day is a launch. I mean, now we are we are building a bigger version of the product somehow. Probably, there will be something like like, I would probably try to get some, like, oh, yeah.

Nicolai: 34:36

Nura frames launched the new whatever version 2 of the video editor. Probably, I would try to to get something like that. But, also, I mean, the launch is also very scary because to get a launch right with a running customer base, needs to work. Like, you know, you need to do some proper QA for that. So I think I will I I I think my launches are very subtle.

Nicolai: 35:00

I I find out who complains about what and then fix things and then Yeah. Make a tweet about it or whatever.

Arvid: 35:06

Microlaunching all the time. Right? That's really what it is. I I I prefer that too. Like, I'm I'm not a big fan.

Arvid: 35:12

And and it depends. Like, if you build a product that is so hyperviral, and it is supposed to be, like, it's supposed to just really be there for that moment and explode, and then you move on to the next. I can see this. I can see that being good enough reason to just really put energy into the launch. It's kind of a adding the kindling to a to a fire before you started.

Arvid: 35:30

Right? Like putting the the weird little, chemical there, the the fire ignite ignition thing, and then it just goes up, and then it just goes back down. And then you move on to whatever next thing you do. But I think the business that you wanna build and the business that most people wanna build is as a consistent, resilient, like, slowly maybe growing, but growing, like, sustainable thing. And a sustainable thing doesn't need the big flame.

Arvid: 35:54

Right? It just needs the constant simmering. Let's go to technical terms here. And and it just needs to keep going. That's the idea.

Arvid: 36:01

A launch a launch breaks that up. Interesting point with the the scalability issue of it with the QA requirements of it. Like, it if you launch, it better be good. It better be be done and ready. And when is our stuff ever done and ready?

Arvid: 36:13

Let's be honest. Right? Software never is. So, do do you think inversions is is that like where you are at the stage of your business now that, you know, this is now a new version, maybe pushed out a bit more, or do do you just see yourself as still as a continuously growing blob of everything?

Nicolai: 36:29

It's a continuous growing blob of everything. We were actually so, I mean, we we approach the production every other day with some new tiny features something. So, like, no. I don't really think inversions. However, as I said, we are kind of revamping the whole video editor, and that will be somewhat a new that we call this internally v 2.

Nicolai: 36:48

So, yeah, I guess it's a new version.

Arvid: 36:49

It it might also be an expectation. Right? Like, some of your customers, like, the the bigger you get, the more enterprise it gets. That is their expectation of how software works too. Right?

Arvid: 36:58

So

Nicolai: 36:59

But but but it's interesting because that's what I also found, what a lot of users appreciate of and this is our advantage as India or India or a sort of preneur or, like, small bootstrapped companies. Somebody says something in Discord that that they want some some or that they're missing something or whatever. And, I mean, I I can build this in a day. And and off in many cases, I have. And, I mean, this is the greatest thing that could ever happen to a customer.

Nicolai: 37:28

Right? You request something, and then later that day, it's there. And, of course, for me, it's also great because I I I I learn like, if somebody requests something, that's awesome. Right? We're we're learning.

Nicolai: 37:39

We're improving. So for for the for kind kind of a while, I would say for for a year or so, I was really trying to do these things in very high frequency to launch tiny micro features very quickly. And this is what people appreciated about newer frames also. And, like, big big teams cannot do that because they have sprints. They have sprint plannings.

Nicolai: 38:02

You know? They have, like, products, things they're working on. So in that case, it's very good to stay in the

Arvid: 38:07

Did you did you ever say no to any of these requests? Oh, how often?

Nicolai: 38:12

Most of them I mean, yeah, most of them, I'm not bidding, of course. Like, there's there's a but

Arvid: 38:19

How do you make the choice?

Nicolai: 38:21

You gotta you gotta prioritize heavily, and, it's the same with the new shiny feature somehow. Right? Like and that's also something I learned. It's like every everything you bid increases the complexity of the product. In the beginning, you don't feel it as much, but then you add thing after thing, you you feel it.

Nicolai: 38:40

Right?

Arvid: 38:40

So For sure.

Nicolai: 38:42

Yeah. Gets more complicated to build new things after a while.

Arvid: 38:45

Yeah. The and technical debt is really hard to pay back if you have a really small team and you need to hire. Right? They already have workload of the things you need to build right now that you don't get to. Like, it's even harder to write tests or to make sure that the code base is clean or that edge cases are properly dealt with.

Arvid: 39:01

Oh, I know that feeling. I think that's the last, like, 15 years of my life is this. Yeah. They're constantly I don't have no time for that. So I it's just, you know, reality for us.

Arvid: 39:11

And, how lucky are the few of us to that get to a point where they do have the financial breathing room to hire enough people to deal with this kind of stuff. Right? In many ways, that is the sign of a maturing business is that they can deal with the kind of the backlog of issues instead of having to constantly gasp for air and even building the things they need to stay afloat with. So that is really cool. Where is Neo frames going?

Arvid: 39:31

Like, what are the next steps for the product for you?

Nicolai: 39:35

So we are at the moment there's all kinds of AI video tools. We are, however, unique in the sense that we offer the most control of to create a certain type of animations in an audio reactive fashion. So you can upload a song, and you get, like, the different components of the song extracted and then can make the animation reactive to whatever the kick drum or the bass bass or whatever. And it feels a little bit like a we call it the visual synthesizer. Speaking about targeting musicians.

Nicolai: 40:11

Right? Yeah. I mean, visual synthesizer. And my goal is to build the best portable product for for this type of very niche application. You know?

Nicolai: 40:21

So, like, it's it's a bit for nerds that like to tinker. Synthesizers are also not for everybody. You know? Like, it's it's for people that like to play with knobs and stuff. So it gives the users a lot of control, but also yeah.

Nicolai: 40:35

It gives the users a lot of control, which which has means there's a certain learning curve, connected to it. But, also, it gives gives a lot of control so people can do whatever they want. And I my vision is to just move further in this direction somehow and make it smoother. So what what I I mean, since I did this myself and this was now my, yeah, first and second react project, I mean, the front end is a bit clunky. And now the front end engineer works on making everything nicer, and I think this will help a lot also.

Arvid: 41:02

Yeah. Very cool. I love this. I love that you have a vision for, like, specifically who this is for. And there are so many you've like, engineering adjacent musicians that that love like, synthesizers to me is is a very it's a field that I'm somewhat interested in.

Arvid: 41:17

Like, I I'm not a musician per se, but I do enjoy playing around with it. So, you know, I have a couple synthesizers at home as well for that reason just to because the complexity of these machines is just so funny. It's just fun to be able to to impact the signal in a way like this is really cool. So seeing you going into that direction, that also makes it absolutely clear who this is for and who it's not for. That that is so important.

Arvid: 41:40

I think that is that is really, really cool to to know and to make that choice. Too many people want their thing to be useful for everyone, and they end up building something that nobody can really use. I'm glad to see that you're the opposite of this. You're building something that is specific.

Nicolai: 41:54

Yeah. That's so interesting because now, of course, the question is, is there a way to expand this? Because there's a lot of people coming to the site who are disappointed or so. That is too complex for them. You know?

Nicolai: 42:05

Yeah. I also think about how to maybe there's a way to combine the two things somehow. Right? To have the complex side, but then also have an easy side somehow, which is very hard to do from a UX perspective. But but I would also like to to implement that somehow.

Arvid: 42:18

Wouldn't that be the best? Right? Like, what's

Nicolai: 42:20

that's kinda the

Arvid: 42:21

the holy grail of of user interface and even product design is to make it accessible and expert level. If you if you look at even even if you look at instruments, let's stick with this. If you get like a controller, like a media controller for, like, an Arturia or something. Right? Like, one of these rather basic things.

Arvid: 42:39

The the essential package has a couple knobs and a couple sliders and and a couple pads or whatever, and all it's already complicated. It's not a keyboard. It's just a keyboard with keys. It's a keyboard with a lot of stuff, and you don't really even know how to operate it. And then you get into the the the m key 3, the bigger one, and all of a sudden, you have, like, 40 knobs, like, 40 things to to twist around, and you don't really know.

Arvid: 43:01

Like, this is scary. Like, you don't don't even wanna touch the instrument. Like, it's not very accessible. It can do everything, but it even a beginner will be scared to to even get started. I think if you go back to software businesses, if you look at Adobe's product line, same problem.

Arvid: 43:16

Like, it's not easy to use Adobe Premiere Pro or even, their their audio product. Right? Like the audition product. Like, these things are expert tools, and it's hard to use them as a beginner. Like, it's there is no easy way to use this.

Arvid: 43:30

There's no easy mode for that. And and I think that that generally is a problem and hard to other than building 2 distinct products, I don't think it's an easy one to solve.

Nicolai: 43:40

Yeah. I have some ideas, but, it's just too small team at the moment to build.

Arvid: 43:45

Challenge accepted, I guess. Yeah. That I that's and that is great too. Like, if you if you are so deep in your niche and you know the people in it and you know, like, how much you can actually throw at them and they won't run away. Right?

Arvid: 43:58

They will still try it. That is valuable. That is that is cool. That is good to know. That that allows you to build more things than somebody like Adobe who has to build for everybody at the same time.

Arvid: 44:08

So being in the niche, probably a good idea. And I hope you could built get to build something that is more expansible over the time that you can put into other niches as well. But right now, you have your hands full, as we say, already with what you got. Right? So that's really cool.

Nicolai: 44:23

Yeah. I'm I'm I'm having a blast. Yeah.

Arvid: 44:26

I can tell. I I could tell.

Nicolai: 44:29

Yeah. It's it's kind of like a computer game. You know? You you play, and there's money coming in, and there's money going out. And so, like, okay, whatever.

Nicolai: 44:35

I mean

Arvid: 44:36

I love that. And I love that you're building a team. You're building a serious business, which, you know, that is, it's it's not just a project. It is something that really material and materially impacts the lives of others, which is really cool. You I also I'm I'm so glad you're talking to me about this.

Arvid: 44:51

I think you you are on a journey that a lot of people a lot of, indie entrepreneurs, in the in the hackers in the making, would like to be on. They are in some field that they are maybe a little bit disillusioned with, a field that they were supposed to be in, but now find themselves, like, looking over on the, the the other side of the fence. And you took the step. You taught yourself coding. You taught yourself the the AI stuff, and you just build something, and people really resonated with it.

Arvid: 45:20

I think that's an inspiring story. I'm glad you're sharing it. Thank you so much. It's really cool.

Nicolai: 45:24

Thank you, Ovid.

Arvid: 45:25

Yeah. It was a pleasure.

Nicolai: 45:26

My pleasure.

Arvid: 45:27

Let's let's maybe tell these people that are on, hopefully, that journey where they can find out more about yourself and your work and the business and all of that. Where should they go?

Nicolai: 45:36

Sure. Yeah. I mean, my main platform, I would say, is Twitter. Nikolai Klempel, just my first name, last name. There's, of course, also Neuroframes, Neuroframes dotcom, Neuroframes YouTube channel, Neuroframes Twitter account, all these things.

Nicolai: 45:50

Yeah. But my I try to share things of my journey on on my Twitter account, and, so I would encourage people to follow there if they're interested.

Arvid: 46:00

Yes. I would encourage them just the same. Thank you so much for talking to me today, Nicolette. That was awesome.

Nicolai: 46:04

Thank you, Ovid. Thank you.

Arvid: 46:07

And that's it for today.

Arvid: 46:09

I will now briefly thank my sponsor, acquire.com. Imagine this, 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.

Arvid: 46:27

For whatever reason. Maybe it's lack of skill or lack of focus or lack of interest. You don't know. You just feel stuck in your business with your business.

Arvid: 46:37

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. And all those things you did

Arvid: 46:47

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 is facing this crossroad.

Arvid: 47:11

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: 47:40

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, me, and see for yourself if this is the right option for you, your business at this time.

Arvid: 47:53

You might just wanna wait a bit and see if it works out half

Arvid: 47:56

a year from now or a year from now. Just check

Arvid: 47:59

it out. It's always good to be in the know. Thank you for listening to the Bootstrap founder today. I really appreciate that. You can find me on Twitter at avidkar, a r v e r I k a h l.

Arvid: 48:08

You find my books and my Twitter course tattoo. If you wanna support me and this show, please subscribe

Arvid: 48:13

to my YouTube channel, get the podcast in your podcast player

Arvid: 48:16

of choice, whatever that might be, do let me know. It would be interesting to see. And leave a rating and a review by going to rate this podcast.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.

Arvid: 48:38

Any of this will help the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful day. And bye bye.