
IndieHackers.com acquired by Stripe - ploggingdev
https://www.indiehackers.com/blog/acquired-by-stripe
======
pc
Patrick from Stripe here. I wanted to quickly chime in to emphasize that our
goal in acquiring Indie Hackers is to simply ensure that the site becomes as
successful as possible. The Stripe upside we're hoping for is that _more
companies get started and that they 're more successful_. We already see a
very large fraction of new internet companies choose Stripe; we're mainly
hoping that Indie Hackers can help us grow the overall number rather than to
grow our fraction. (Our product has to do the latter part.)

Also: congrats to Courtland on building an awesome site! I've been enjoying
the interviews on it since it launched. It's very refreshing to hear from so
many people who are quietly building real businesses with real revenues.

~~~
nitam
You can help us help you by a) becoming available in more countries b) Atlas
LLC

~~~
justinclift
With that LLC thought, does that still mean US based?

Atlas sounded interesting to me (doing product dev atm), however it's based on
incorporating in the US.

The US seems like it's gone in a seriously bad direction for non-US citizens
(I'm Australian, living in the UK), with no positive end to that in sight. So
incorporation in the US isn't really a goer (personally speaking).

~~~
markdown
Isn't UK incorporating a breeze? I'm sure I heard it can be all done online.

~~~
mariusandra
From my experience you can do everything online + post, except for the bank
account. However the reality might have changed in the 3 years which have
elapsed. There might be some new bank that lets you get away with it online.

However, the UK is moving in a strange direction as well. For a decent EU
option, look at Estonia. Get a digital ID card from one of their embassies and
you can use that with your computer to open a company and manage everything
digitally.

~~~
cjrp
>There might be some new bank that lets you get away with it online.

Yep, [https://www.tide.co](https://www.tide.co) (even MetroBank which I used
was all online and only took a few days.

------
minimaxir
While going from a blog-to-acquisition in less than a year is an impressive
feat, there have been suspicious circumstances around IndieHackers submissions
to Hacker News including clickbait titles that are frequently fixed by HN
mods, and in one case, explicit voting manipulation with an attempt to bypass
the voting ring detector via linking to /newest:
[http://i.imgur.com/08pAFOw.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/08pAFOw.jpg)

This acquisition sends a disappointing message that growth hacking _works_.

~~~
throwaway88743
I am glad to see that I wasn't the only one who felt that IH were gaming the
system and was treating their stories as spam.

It does make me suspicious as to if HN admins treat YC alumni more equal than
others.

~~~
throw_this_away
Moderation on HN is very strict. If Indie Hackers were 'gaming' the system,
they'd be banned. That hasn't happened. The posts consistently end up on the
front page because people like the site...

~~~
throwaway88743
> Moderation on HN is very strict. If Indie Hackers were 'gaming' the system,
> they'd be banned.

If the voting data were available, one of us could prove the other wrong. As
they are not, it is my opinion vs yours.

~~~
throw_this_away
It's HN's opinion vs yours.

------
ploggingdev
First of all, congrats to csallen, I have been following your journey from the
day you launched on HN and it was fascinating to follow along. If you haven't
read his month in review posts, highly recommended.

I hope it's not taboo to speculate on the acquisition price, so here's my take
:

* extrapolating a $5k/month revenue to a year = $60k/year

* acquisition price is roughly 2-4x yearly revenue so $120k to $240k

* Plus a full time salary at roughly $120k/year

Really cool stuff man, congrats again!

One of the things I dislike about advertising on IH was that it was
distracting. I see multiple adverts while reading an interview along with
links to tweet pull quotes, not a fan of both those aspects. Glad to know that
the advertisements will be removed.

Can't wait to see how IndieHackers grows, especially the community.

~~~
nugget
Your numbers are low. They didn't buy a suburban lawn care business. I'd
ballpark >$1m up front and >$250k annual comp with upside going forward, in
some mix of cash and stock. Great move by Stripe. Congrats to Courtland for
the exit and what seems like a win-win for both parties.

~~~
petercooper
I'm not so sure. I haven't seen the higher big ticket multiples scale down to
smaller businesses very well (only in the small biz media negotiations I've
been involved in or tipped off about - so I am no expert!). I'd certainly take
a 16x revenue multiple _any_ day of the week though :-D

~~~
nugget
16x mature revenue, sure. But if revenue is growing 20% month over month, then
what?

I see pure talent acquisitions (no tech, no site, no brand) once a month for
>$500k/head. Here the founder is a course 6 (CS) MIT grad, obviously smart and
talented, able to act as an evangelist to broader communities, with a pre-
built launchpad in place. There's real value to that.

If the stock component vests over some period of years, it could easily run
into the millions, and still be a steal by Stripe. I'll echo another comment
downstream: it's interesting to think about whether, in the spirit of the
site, they will (or should) reveal the economics of the deal.

------
itwy
Isn't it ironic the details of the acquisition isn't being transparently
shared?

From Indie Hackers site:

"Anyone with a business or side project that's generating at least $300/mo in
revenue. There's no upper limit. Of course, you have to be willing to share
your revenue — the point of this site is transparency!" Source:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/submit](https://www.indiehackers.com/submit)

I think we have the "right" to know what the transaction entailed; how much
the owner was exactly paid, that is.

~~~
willbw
Why do you think you have that right? Honestly curious.

~~~
itwy
The product took off thanks to the HN community. Hence the "right". He is
simply a hypocrite if he doesn't share that.

------
dollaholla
So in the spirit of what IH actually is, will the financial details be shared?

~~~
csallen
As much as I would personally love to share, there are of course other
employees working at Stripe and other acquisitions that Stripe will make in
the future, which complicates things. What I _will_ do is try to be as
transparent as I possibly can about what's going on behind-the-scenes, traffic
numbers, product and growth strategy, etc. I've always thought it was cool
that I got to talk about growing Indie Hackers itself at the same time that
I've been talking to other entrepreneurs.

~~~
econner
Why do those factors prevent you from sharing? Transparency is difficult, but
isn't that the whole point of Indie Hackers?

~~~
smacktoward
The logical assumption would be that they gave IH a _very_ sweet deal, much
sweeter than they'd generally offer an acquisition target with similar
financials. So if they release the details, future acquisition targets will
expect similarly sweet deals, which Stripe has no interest in seeing.

~~~
nickstinemates
Or made OP feel that way...

------
philip1209
Congratulations, Courtland! Your work has challenged silicon valley attitudes
that success is measured by funding. It's refreshing to read about how
achievable a profitable, lifestyle-supporting business can be. Good luck at
Stripe!

------
alistproducer2
Does this mean IndieHackers become the propaganda arm for Stripe's customers?
Or is this a goodwill purchase? Maybe it's cheaper than a national ad buy
targeted directly at potential new customers?

~~~
csallen
There's a lot of alignment between what I want to see (personally) and
encourage (via Indie Hackers) and what Stripe's mission is: more people
_starting companies_ and _finding success_. It goes much further than simply
advertising. If Indie Hackers and other efforts to inspire + educate + empower
entrepreneurs can grow to have sufficient impact, then it will materially
improve Stripe's bottom line. And of course, Indie Hackers stands to have a
much higher chance of accomplishing this with some actual support from Stripe.

~~~
alistproducer2
Congrats on building something real and I hope the acquisition works out well
for you and the company in the long run. I've enjoyed, and been inspired by, a
number of IH articles.

------
avip
Congrats to the involved parties, great job, etc.

IH is/was, unfortunately, full of unsubstantiated stories and made up numbers,
presented by owners trying to upsell their business, without any verification
or "hard questions" by the site owner.

As we see, this worked.

I'm not sure what's the lesson here. Fact-checking is for losers maybe?

~~~
WA
> _full of unsubstantiated stories and made up numbers_

Possibly, but how would you know?

And what would some good hard questions be?

Edit: Okay maybe because of this one
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13591182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13591182)

------
superasn
One of my favorite sites that provided real value. I guess IndieHackers did a
lot of things right which created such fast growth with a quick exit.

1) Great design. Really professional feel (even though it just a wordpress
blog)

2) Regular updated content to keep visitors coming back.

3) Highly targeted to hacker community / product creators - no wonder it was
featured over and over again on the front page

4) In built SEO and traffic. People who are featured on it link back to it.
People link to it for inspiration (great social signals).

What else? Anyone else wanna chime in?

~~~
chpmrc
I'm not sure it's wordpress, from the source code it looks like a custom Ember
app but I might be wrong.

~~~
superasn
You are right. I checked the source code and found "Wordpress" a bunch of
times but it looks like it's because "Kanban for WordPress" featured on the
homepage. Regardless their design is really slick (especially the sorting and
filtering on top) which definitely helps increase the site interaction and
usability.

------
aresant
I bet the total acquisition price is less than Stripe would wind up paying a
content agency for fees, placement, etc. over a couple of fiscal years for
similar exposure.

And they're getting all the goodwill & talent alongside of it as the cherry on
top.

Brilliant move @stripe and congrats to the founders.

~~~
maerF0x0
Wouldnt that imply not so brilliant move for the founders? The way you've
worded it, it sounds like the founders could have got a lot more?

~~~
nugget
Could the site have continued to grow massively month over month for the next
few years? If so, the founder probably would have earned more money
independently. The HN audience is large, but it's not infinite, so growth
could have stalled at some point. That's risk and reward; who knows? And who
knows if maximizing profit was even his sole goal. Perhaps it was exposure, or
building a real community to help folks start new businesses. Wherever the
site was headed independently, I'm willing to bet Stripe can accelerate the
process significantly, and that counts for a lot.

------
kenferry
Maybe I'm too cynical. This just seems like corporate largesse on Stripe's
part, which is kind of neat, except for what happens to things like
IndieHackers when that largesse runs out.

I guess nice to know Stripe's doing so well they can fund random stuff… ?

------
makkesk8
Now indie hackers should be interviewed on indie hackers :O

~~~
csallen
Check out the timeline! I've written quite a lot about Indie Hackers from the
beginning:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/timeline](https://www.indiehackers.com/timeline).
The meat of the content is in the monthly review posts.

------
kkt262
Courtland, this is absolutely fantastic. Congrats man!

I'm wondering how this works out for you as an entrepreneur. Obviously now
you're working for a larger corporation, but does your long-term vision align?
For example, is your deal structured in a way that growing indie hackers also
personally grows your income? Or is it now just a strict employee-employer
relationship with a bonus (acquisition offer) upfront?

~~~
tianlins
Correct me if I'm wrong, I think the deal benefits stripe as it acquires a
good (and growing) user base.

------
zimlu
Awesome, Looking forward to seeing what the deal was worth! Would be a real
shame if this was hidden behind an NDA or what not.

~~~
giarc
I hope it is hidden. The site owner shouldn't have his/her finances broadcast
on the internet. Friends come from the woodwork when they find out you just
made $x million (not speaking from experience unfortunately).

------
imafish
Transparency is what makes IH great. I don't see this sell as a good move, if
Stripe cannot appreciate that, and allow you to disclose how much you get from
the deal.

------
georgiecasey
didn't see this one coming! major congrats to Courtland.

just a thought on the power of Hacker News to get noticed by 'players'. surely
Patrick Collison heard of Courtland/Indiehackers and Patrick McKenzie through
browsing Hacker News? so it's not all procrastination posting here

~~~
chatmasta
It's definitely not procrastination posting. I've formed valuable
relationships from people who have reached out after a comment I wrote. Aside
from that, commenting on HN is a great way to practice my writing skills,
which I rarely get to use since my day-to-day work consists largely of
programming. The community here is invaluable in that it provides an audience
for your writing, so long as you are willing to fit your arguments into an
intellectually rigorous framework and provide sources when necessary. It's
much easier to hone your writing ability when you have an audience, and I am
very grateful to HN for providing one. I hope the community can avoid a
"eternal September" problem and continue providing a valuable service.

~~~
georgiecasey
Yeah, i hope it doesn't turn out like wickedfire!

------
fpgaminer
Congrats to csallen.

This makes me ... feel weird. Not sure what it is exactly. Let me explain.

I'm an aspiring indie hacker. Currently soaking in the relaxation of a much
needed sabbatical following my previous 8 year long employment (what a ride
that was). When I'm ready, I'm going switch gears and devote myself to
starting a bunch of small "indie hacker" type projects. I've been on HN for
quite awhile now and I always enjoy reading about startups and being engrossed
in the YCombinator community. My previous job was a startup, but I was purely
in technical roles. I think it's time to get my feet wet on the business side.

So I've followed IndieHackers.com intently. I went so far as to read almost
all their interviews and breakdown my analysis in a blog post
([https://hackernoon.com/indie-startups-the-ingredients-of-
suc...](https://hackernoon.com/indie-startups-the-ingredients-of-
success-74531fe3a019)).

After awhile I really started to dig the whole "indie hacker movement". The
idea that SV type startups aren't the only game in town. You don't have to
build a rocket ship. You can built a fighter jet. You may not make it into
space, but fighter jets a cool too.

I didn't start digging it just because it sounded cool, though. The idea that
these kinds of one or few developer teams could start consuming the lower
hanging fruit that SV startups won't touch because they aren't explosive
growth opportunities? It just makes sense. Yeah, in some way it's just small
business reinvented. But Courtland said something that stuck in my mind. The
vast explosion of developer tools, libraries, SaaS, cloud computer, APIS, etc
over the past few years has laid the foundation for single person teams to
tackle problems they never could have managed alone in the past. It reeks of
opportunity.

So, with all that background, this acquisition makes me feel weird. On the one
hand, I'm totally happy for csallen. What a great thing to happen. I don't
mean to down play that at all. On the other ... it's sad to see his indie
business die. Perhaps he doesn't see it that way; dying I mean. Obviously this
is a great opportunity for him and his brother to focus on what's important
for the site. That's a good thing. But it does mean IndieHackers.com is no
longer an indie hacker business itself. That's why I feel weird about it.

I'm of course concerned about Stripe's intentions. IndieHackers is a great
resource, and it'd be a shame to see it consumed by typical corporate greed
and manipulations. I don't mean to imply that's Stripe's MO. But I think I'm
not the only one afraid of that, founded or unfounded. Plenty of people here
are already calling foul on IndieHackers for their past behavior.

At the end of the day I'll get over the fact that IndieHackers is no longer an
indie hacker. But I really do truly hope that it stays true to its core
mission: to provide a platform for us to share our stories, unfiltered and
transparent.

Congrats, and thank you csallen.

~~~
mezod
the word is "betrayed". And you are not alone in feeling in such way. IH
outright lost its essence and what gave sense to it.

~~~
fpgaminer
I don't feel betrayed, no. There are plenty of companies interviewed on
IndieHackers.com that started as small shops and eventually got acquired. I've
got nothing against that, obviously. It's a great opportunity to cash out and
do something else fun.

It's just weird to have IndieHackers.com, which I sort of viewed as a bastion
of the movement, suddenly no longer part of it.

At the end of the day ... I'd probably do the same thing as csallen, if I were
in the same position. He talked several times about how time consuming it was
to find sponsors for the site and podcast. As a consumer of the site, I
started noticing more and more ads showing up and interrupting the content.
Hopefully Stripe will help reduce that. It wasn't clear from the OP if they
intend to do away with all sponsorship. That would be really nice!

~~~
csallen
Thanks fpgaminer for following along and being one of the few crazy people
(including myself) to have read so many interviews!

Totally understand your view about the acquisition... but I wouldn't say Indie
Hackers is no longer part of the movement. I'm not cashing out and doing
something else. Rather, I'm going back to spending all of my time improving
the site itself and trying to make it more useful to more people. Yes, Stripe
is helping me do away with all sponsorships!

~~~
sah2ed
> I'm not cashing out and doing something else.

I get that the cash infusion from Stripe allows you to not have to worry about
sponsorships but if you are not "cashing out" in some way, why go the
acquisition route?

I think parent is right. Indie Hackers is now Stripe's baby and it is normal
that after a few years, you'll get bored and move on to more exciting things.

Anyway, I hope the timely release of the weekly podcasts is now a forgone
conclusion.

Congratulations on the acquisition Courtland!

------
sebleon
w00t w00t, congrats Courtland, this is awesome!

Indiehackers has tons of great content that can seriously help companies using
Stripe Atlas. Together, IH+Stripe could helps companies go all the way from
incorporation to profitability ;)

------
newsat13
Wow, 6k in ad revenue per month sounds a lot. How many page hits are required
to get this kind of ad revenue?

~~~
csallen
Not as many as you might think. It's more about having a specific and valuable
audience and doing sales. I've written about it a bit in some of my monthly
review posts:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/timeline](https://www.indiehackers.com/timeline)

~~~
newsat13
Oh, thanks for the link. This is quite incredible.

Where are the ads btw? I don't see a single ad on your website :-) Or did you
remove them post-acquisition?

------
kirso
And yet here is what is wrong with the tech world, people start speculating on
acquisition price and how much other people made even though news are about an
awesome product and community joining another awesome product to make even
more amazing stuff.

Btw. the best growth hacking is building an amazing product which sells
itself. Click-bait articles, well ok you need some eyeballs but interviewes
always reflected my expectations unlike BuzzFeed stuff.

Big congrats!

------
skynode
Wow! Congratulations Courtland! I've followed IH from day zero and it's been
such a great learning experience. Really happy for you man!

All the best at Stripe!

------
sly010
Will you change the name to mainstreamhackers.com?

------
king_kerr
This is dope. Salute to Courtland and Stripe.

------
gcatalfamo
I know it is a useless comment for HN, just wanted to say _congrats_ because I
think it is really well-deserved.

------
cableshaft
Just wanted to say congratulations to Courtland! I've seen you share the
progress of your business since it was introduced, and to see it grow and
become so successful is very inspiring. You earned this! Hopefully it
motivates others as well. I think it might have motivated me.

------
sremani
IndieHackers is an awesome sight, and with Stripe Atlas, I see a good vertical
developing. IndieHacker is an inspiring high quality source. Definitely, agree
with Patrick of Stripe, the execution was stellar.

------
brianwawok
That was fast

~~~
ptrptr
Indeed, more like an acquihire at this stage.

------
nydrewreynolds
Didn't see this one coming! Congrats @csallen on the acquisition and congrats
to Stripe for recognizing the great value IH has been providing since launch!

------
mattbgates
This is really amazing! Very helpful site and a wonderful thing that makes me
confident in the reasons why I use Stripe for my payment processing needs! :)

------
LukasRos
That's a really unexpected announcement, but congratulations! Hope this
changes the site for the better, not the worse.

~~~
ChanningAllen
Take heart: it means we'll spend less time managing ads and experimenting with
business models, and more time cultivating the community and improving the
interviews and podcast!

------
kevinwang
Wow, congrats!

------
kabuay
Congrats to getting acquired for such a simple site and idea that provides
great value. Inspiring

------
5_minutes
Nice to see your hard work paid off!

------
kd22
Congratulations, Courtland! Really happy to hear this! Keep up the awesome
work!

------
searchhn
Congrats! I have always loved and been inspired by the stories at
IndieHackers.

------
hasanzuav
What a brilliant site, definitely an inspiration! Congrats!

------
gigatexal
Awesome! See, sometimes good things happen to good people.

------
wanqu
Congrats to Courtland!

Happy to be one of your interviewees!

------
skdotdan
That's incredible. Congratulations!

------
aryamaan
Guess we need one post about IH on IH.

------
musha68k
Congrats to csallen – I have recommended IndieHackers to many a fellow
developer, it's a great project!

------
ezekg
Congrats, Courtland! If I were to be acquired by any company, I'd want it to
be Stripe!

------
tixocloud
Congratulations on a wonderful and inspirational site!

------
Jpoechill
Kudos!

------
pnathan
Super cool & congratulations.

------
jitendrac
congratulations, that is a great new.

------
hsod
I've been reading HN for 5 or 6 years and this feels very strange to me. From
the comments in here by the principles it kind of seems like Stripe is doing
IH a favor. A few things that stick in my craw:

1\. This seems like it would be damaging to IH's brand image (since it will
now be perceived as a PR arm of Stripe, and it's all about independence)

2\. Stripe's stated goal here is simply to ensure the success of IH in order
to drive more people to start companies. That's not exactly compelling on it's
own, and with (1), even less so.

3\. IH was apparently very big on financial transparency, yet the principles
are being decidedly opaque about financials in this thread.

Are these types of deals common? Does Stripe own any other media companies?

[note: these are just my thoughts. i don't think i'm entitled to any further
explanation nor do i think anything nefarious is going on.]

~~~
pharrlax
>IH was apparently very big on financial transparency, yet the principles are
being decidedly opaque about financials in this thread.

Financial transparency about profit from a bootstrapped startup is a different
from financial transparency about a contract between two parties. Secrecy
around the latter is a little more understandable.

~~~
econner
Why?

~~~
robotnoises
Well, it was Courtland's right to publish his financials when he was the sole
proprietor of IH. Now he's a Stripe employee and therefore is governed by
their policy on the matter, I assume.

------
mankash666
IH is a refreshing flip side to the VC/YC narrative that's become canonical in
the startup world! As againsit VC valuations, and pressure of growth at all
costs (mostly profitability), IH companies prioritize organic, sustainable
growth without loss of founder control. Many of them end up financially
successful, which is inspiring to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Well done Courtland Allen! Without IH, this flip-side view of startups
wouldn't have a platform.

------
brilliantcode
2 months ago, HN was ripping apart IH:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13591182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13591182)

But at HN, it seems we have short memories and money triumphs morality.

~~~
tobltobs
The thread you link to is about a story which was published on IH. Sure,
publishing this story wasn't a highlight for IH, but starting two swing the
morality hammer is a bit much.

~~~
brilliantcode
read it again, they were ripping IH for letting dubious submissions through
without proper vetting.

2017 Feb: "I'm never using IH again"

2017 April: "I love IH"

~~~
cdelsolar
It's almost as if HN is made of a community of different people with different
personalities and motivations.

------
daveheq
Hacker: "a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data."

This word is not a good connotation, and a company that's an online/mobile
payment gateway buying a company with "hacker" in its name that doesn't seem
to understand the definition of the word "hacker" doesn't look good.

It wouldn't matter to me what IndieHackers did, I would have passed them up
just because they use a nefarious word in their name without understanding how
it's used.

~~~
trcollinson
You do realize you are posting this comment on a site called Hacker News?

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/hacker)

Also just to be thorough there is the dictionary definition of hacker. Your
definition came in at 4th place.

