#254 - 与阿尔维德·卡尔和丹尼尔·瓦萨洛探讨致富之道、财富自由后的人生设计及风险管理

大家好，最近怎么样？我是indiehackers.com的Cortland，您正在收听的是独立开发者播客。现在有越来越多的人在线上打造很酷的东西，并在此过程中赚取可观的收入。在这个节目中，我会与这些独立开发者坐下来，探讨他们的想法、抓住的机遇以及采用的策略，以便我们其他人也能效仿。好的。

What's up, everybody? This is Cortland from indiehackers.com, and you're listening to the indie hackers podcast. More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process. And on this show, I sit down with these indie hackers to discuss the ideas, the opportunities, and the strategies they're taking advantage of so the rest of us can do the same. Okay.

今天我们请到了Arvid Kaul和Daniel Vassalo，两位之前都上过我们节目的独立开发者。他们都非常成功，通过我认为是两条截然不同的路径赚了很多钱。而且我想说，他们都是出色的受众构建者和导师，在Twitter上拥有大量粉丝。现在，我们正在讨论通货膨胀的话题，对此我几乎一无所知。

We're here with Arvid Kaul and Daniel Vassalo, two indie hackers who've been on the show before. They're both very successful. They both made a lot of money doing I guess, following two very different paths. And I would say they're both great audience builders and teachers who have big followings on Twitter. And right now, we're in the middle of talking about inflation, which I know literally nothing about.

但是Daniel，你最近发了一条关于通货膨胀的很有趣的推文，提到只要避开图表上红色的部分，通货膨胀就伤害不到你。你分享了一张展示价格随时间变化的经典图表，其中红色部分在过去二十年里变得更贵了，比如教科书、大学学费、医疗保健、住房和食品。而蓝色部分则变得更便宜了，比如电子产品、电视、手机服务、汽车等等。Daniel，你就是这样做的吗？

But Daniel, you had a really funny tweet about inflation recently where you talked about how inflation can't hurt you if you just avoid the red things on this graph. And you shared kind of that classic graph of how prices have changed over time. And the red things have gotten more expensive over the last twenty years, like textbooks, college, tuition, health care, housing, and food. And the blue things have gotten cheaper over the last twenty years, like electronics, TVs, cell phone service, cars, etcetera. So is this what you're doing, Daniel?

你只是通过避开红色的东西来避免通货膨胀的影响吗？

Are you just avoiding inflation by avoiding the red things?

哦，我的意思是，这显然主要是个玩笑。和你一样，我对通货膨胀几乎一无所知。但你知道，像许多人一样，我有些担忧，因为我有些储蓄，不希望它们消失。不过我认为，这90%是玩笑，但其中也有些道理，因为当我们看到这些通货膨胀数字，比如年同比8%的通货膨胀率时，那是许多东西的平均值，并不对每个人都一样适用，对吧？这取决于你的消费方向、你处于人生的哪个阶段、你做什么工作、你能避开什么。例如，住房，如果你能设法确保拥有一套房子，买了房并有抵押贷款，你基本上就免受住房成本上涨的影响了。

Oh, I mean, it was it was mostly a joke, obviously. Like you, I know almost nothing about inflation. But, you know, like many people I worry about because I have some savings and I don't want it to disappear. But I think, you know, it was 90% joke, but there's some truth to it, because I think, you know, when we see these inflation numbers, 8% inflation year on year, I mean, that's an average of lots of things, and it doesn't apply to everyone the same, right, depending on what you're spending money on, depending on what stage in your life you're in, depending on what you do, what you can avoid. For example, you know, housing, you could if you manage to secure a house, buy a house, you have a mortgage, you're pretty much insulated from rising housing costs.

所以，而且这通常是一笔大开销，对吧？所以我觉得这至少提供了一些思考的材料，但它主要还是玩笑，因为有些东西你确实无法避免，比如食物。

So so and that's usually a big expense. Right? So I think it was something, at least some food for thought, but it was mostly a joke as well, because some things you can't really avoid, of course, you know, food.

看到食物是其中之一不好的东西。比如，我怎么能避开食物呢？

Saw food was one of the bad things. Like, how do I avoid food?

嗯，我读到这个的时候就在想，换句话说，就是别上大学，别去学校，别住房子，就买台电脑然后去图书馆住着。

Well, I read that and I was like, so in other words, don't go to college, don't go to school, don't live in a house, just buy buy a computer and go live in a library.

是啊。别生病。别去医院。

Yeah. Don't get sick. Don't go to the hospital.

不过，说到这个话题，谁...这里谁有...丹尼尔，我记得在推特上看到你确实有孩子？

Well, but I mean, on that topic, who who here has Daniel, I think I saw on Twitter that you do have kids?

是的，我有。

I do. Yes.

两个...我是说，你对他们在学校有什么想法？我是说，他们将会...要...

Two I mean, what what is your thought for them in school? I mean, they're gonna be Do

你觉得

you think

你...

do you

觉得你的孩子应该上大学吗？

think your kids should go to college?

是的。他们出生于2014年和2017年，现在大约七岁和五岁。说实话，我还在边走边看。因为我来自欧洲，来自一个较小的国家马耳他，那里的教育方式与美国有些不同，我正在慢慢学习适应。

Yeah. They were born in 2014, 2017, but they're sort of seven and five. To be honest, I'm playing it by ear. Like, I also come from Europe. I come from a smaller country, Malta, which sort of has a different approach to education than The United States, and I'm learning as I go.

我觉得我需要小心的是，不要给他们设定必须上大学或必须做这做那的期望，否则可能会限制他们的机会或影响他们的自我价值感什么的。但在美国我确实经常看到这种情况。我的很多朋友似乎都对自己和孩子抱有这种期望。说实话，甚至在选择私立学校和公立学校时也是如此，我的孩子现在上的是公立学校。我承认私立学校看起来更好、更漂亮。

I think what I'm trying to be careful with is to not set the expectation on my that they have to go to college or they have to do this or that, otherwise it's going to dent their opportunities or their self worth or whatever. But I do see it a lot in The United States. Many of my friends here seem to put that expectation on themselves and on their kids. Even, to be honest, even with the choice of private schools and public schools, my kids are now going to a public school. And I'll admit, private schools look better, look nicer.

可能教育质量也更好什么的。我的一些朋友每年花几万，甚至五万美元，而他们的孩子才上一年级、二年级。这值得吗？我觉得我宁愿给我的孩子留下10万美元或相当于通货膨胀后的价值，等他们18或20岁时用。

There's probably better education or whatever. I think some of my friends spend tens of thousands, $50,000 a year, and they're just first grade, second grade. Is it worth it? Think I'd rather leave my kids maybe $100,000 or the equivalent inflation for when they're, you know, 18 or 20.

十年后就是一千万美元了。

$10,000,000 ten years from now.

可能吧。我不是教育最大化主义者。我知道这么说可能听起来不太好，但我不打算不惜一切代价最大化孩子的教育，因为就像生活中的一切一样，如果你最大化某一方面，你必然在其他方面付出代价，无论是财务上还是其他更微妙的方式，有时甚至更隐蔽。

Probably. I'm not an educational maximalist. I know it sounds almost bad to say it, but I'm not trying to maximize my kids' education at all costs, because like everything in life, you know, if you maximize something, you're paying the cost somewhere else, like either financially or some other sort of more subtle way, which is sometimes even more insidious.

到目前为止，我从大学得到的最好的东西就是我的友谊。比如，我有20或30个大学时期的好朋友，从毕业到现在一直保持着联系。这一方面很棒，但另一方面，我觉得人们也不应该过分依赖这个。我最近在生活中很注重多交朋友，并把它变成一种习惯，随着年龄增长不断结交新朋友，因为我知道当我50、60、70岁时，我会感激年轻时这样做。我会珍惜在35岁左右建立的深厚终身友谊，这些友谊在年老时会让我倍感珍贵。

By far, the best thing that I got from college was my friendships. Like, have 20 or 30 great friends from college who I've had since I graduated. And that's awesome on one hand, but it's also like, I don't think it's something people should necessarily rely on. Like I've been focusing a lot on my life recently on just making more friends and turning it into a habit to make more friends continually as I get older because I know that's something that when I'm 50, 60, 70 years old, I'll appreciate that I did when I was younger. You know, I'll have meaningful lifelong friendships that I formed at age like 35 that I really appreciate when I'm older.

所以我认为学校不应该成为你在这种事情上依赖的拐杖。我不认为人们去学校交了一堆朋友然后就停止社交是件好事。我认为这是一种需要不断锻炼的能力，是一项需要终身培养的技能。

And so I don't think school should be this crutch that you lean on for that kind of thing. I don't think it's good that people go to school, make a bunch of friends, and then just stop. I think that's a muscle you want to flex. That's a skill you want to work on your entire life.

是的。学校确实创造了这种社区感，但同时也具有排他性，因为学校作为一个实体场所范围有限。比如，一个教室里能可靠地容纳多少孩子？对吧？这就是起点，也是教育系统长期以来运作的方式。

Yes. School has this kind of community, right, that it creates that is kind of also exclusive because school as a physical place is limited in scope. Like, many how many kids can you reliably put into a room? Right? That's that's kinda where it starts and that's what is what the system is like and has been for a while.

科特兰，我好奇的是，你认为如果当时不在那所机构，你还能找到同样的朋友或类似的朋友吗？

What I wonder, Cortland, like, do you think you would have found the same friends if you hadn't been at that institution or similar friends?

我想会的。不过肯定会找到更少的朋友，而且会是不同的朋友。

I guess. I would have found definitely fewer friends and they would have been different friends.

我觉得这很有趣，因为你看科特兰有我作为参照——我们是双胞胎。

And I think that's of funny because well, so you have Korlan has me to look at because we're we're we're twins.

没错，我们是双胞胎。

Yeah. We're twins.

然后我

And then I

我们是科学实验对象。我们一起长大。我们有相似的基因背景，但去了不同的学校。

we're the science experiment. We grew up together. We're on similar genetics and we went to different schools.

所以他参加了兄弟会。他就像按个按钮就从盒子里变出一堆朋友，而我没有。我有一小群核心朋友，但数量级上远少于他的朋友数量。

And so he was in a fraternity. He had, you know, he just pressed the button and he had a bunch of friends out of a box, whereas I was not. I had a a a core group of friends, but it wouldn't mean that, you know, order of magnitude smaller than the number of friends that Yeah.

是啊。比如，四个朋友。我大概有四个。

Yeah. Like, four friends. I had, like, four.

对，四个亲密朋友。但就连这个朋友圈也散了，因为我大学毕业后搬到了旧金山，不得不完全重新开始。到旧金山后我第一件事就是找了份工作，然后在那个日常工作中交了很多密友。

Like, yeah. Four four close friends and then even that friend group was gone because I left college, and then I moved to San Francisco and had to completely start over. And first thing I did when I went to San Francisco, I got a job, and then I made a lot of close friends at that day job.

我讨厌公司团建那套。我只做过几份工作。比如大学实习时，公司总说'我们是一家人'。

I hate the company community stuff. I've only ever had, like, a couple jobs. Like, I had an internship in college, and, like, you go work at a company and, like, we're a family.

天啊。

Man.

还要一起去看球赛。我不反对别人这样，但我不愿仅仅因为共事就自动成为朋友。我从不参加那些活动，更愿意选择与我个人契合的人。

And we all hang out at the ballgame. Like, I I I'm not against it for other people, but, like, I didn't wanna, like, automatically have to be friends with people just because I work with them. Like, I never went to any of that of stuff. I would much rather pick the people who align with me personally.

我我这儿有个小故事吧。因为就像，我我也曾一度认为，如果我辞掉一份工作，我会找到朋友，但我从未找到过。但而且而且让我几乎惊讶的是，当我辞掉那份工作时——我不会说是哪份工作，但这是过去发生的事——所有那些我曾有紧密联系的人就完全消失了。就像到现在五年了，我都没和其中大约95%的人说过话。

I I have an anecdote here maybe. Because like, I I also thought at some point that I threw a job, I would find friends and I never did. But and and it was almost surprising to me that when I quit that job, I'm not gonna say which one it is, but it happened in the past. All the people that I had really close connection with just completely dropped off. Like I haven't talked to like 95% of them in five years at this point.

尽管我们曾经每天都一起玩，我们有内部笑话，就像我们一起分享梗图、一起去看电影之类的。但一旦你离开这个社群，就像你退出俱乐部，你就出局了，而他们会让你感觉到这一点。那是一次相当奇怪的经历。而且我发现，在这类自我选择、自愿加入的社群中，情况非常不同，比如独立黑客或者Twitter上的独立黑客社群什么的，独行创业者社群，人们加入不是因为他们被付费待在那里。对吧。

Even though we were hanging out every day, we had our inside jokes, like we were like sharing memes and like going to see movies together and stuff. But the moment you go out of this community, like you leave the club, you are out and they make you feel it. That was a pretty weird experience. And I find that's very different in these kind of self select opt in communities, like indie hackers or like the indie hacker community on Twitter or whatever, the solopreneur community where people go in, not because they are paid to be there. Right.

因为他们想待在那里。然后那种社群，他们也不是付费加入的。就像没有交易性的交换。发生的交易是它们是激励性的或无论什么，但它们不是金钱性的。突然间，这就变得更多是关于社群，关于内部部落层面，而不是关于准入、精英主义和排他性。

Because they wanna be there. And then that kind of community, and they're not paying to be there either. Like there's no transactional exchange. It is that the transactions that happen are they're they're motivational or whatever it is, but they're not monetary. And all of a sudden it becomes much more about the community, about the internal tribal aspect than about access and elitism and exclusivity.

所有那些东西就都瓦解了。

All that stuff just falls apart.

好吧。但所以你和Daniel在Twitter上有大量粉丝。Twitter刚刚被接管了。嗯，它即将被Elon Musk接管。谁知道会发生什么？

Okay. But so you and Daniel had big Twitter followings. Twitter just got taken over. Well, it's about to get taken over by Elon Musk. Who knows what's gonna happen?

就像，你们是怎么考虑平台风险的？

Like, how how have you thought about platform risk?

这是个风险。对吧？我认为，你知道，我觉得你应该在有东西可失去的时候才开始担心它。就像，通常我遇到这些讨论，人们即将开始在Twitter上或建立受众什么的，然后他们过早地开始担心平台风险，我认为你不应该，对吧？你应该利用并抓住社交媒体带来的所有机会，无论是Twitter、Instagram、YouTube、Facebook、LinkedIn，还是其他论坛，独立黑客无处不在，对吧？

It's a risk. Right? I think, you know, I think you should worry about it once you have something to lose. Like, I think usually I get into these discussions where people are about to start out on Twitter or sort of building an audience or whatever, and they start worrying prematurely, I think, about platform risk, and I think you shouldn't, right? You should leverage and take advantage of all the opportunities from social media, whether it's Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, other forums that didn't hackers everywhere, right?

那些地方已经有人在活跃了，我觉得是的。你应该从中受益，对吧？你应该尝试在这些地方建立自己的名声，而不是自己凭空创造。但在某个时刻，我觉得是的，你会开始意识到有些平台让你容易想象，如果我被推特封号，或者算法改变，或者我无法教导我的观众，会发生什么。然后我觉得你会从那里开始行动。

There's people already hanging around in those places, and I think Yeah. You should benefit from there, right? You should try to build a name for yourself in those places, rather than inventing something for yourself. But at some point, right, I think, yes, you start to feel that there's some platform that's easy to start to imagine what happens if I get kicked off Twitter or the algorithm changes or I can't teach my audience. And then I think you take it from there.

然后你开始适应。你开始建立邮件列表，或者建立其他社区，或者，你知道，在你的领域里为别人写作。但我觉得我会等到感觉有东西可能会失去的时候再行动。

Then you start to adapt. You start to build an email list or build other communities or, you know, write someone else on your side. But I think I would I would wait until it feels like there's something to lose.

嗯，我觉得随着埃隆接管推特，你因为做任何事情而被封号的可能性大大降低了。

Well, I think with Elon taking over Twitter, you're much less likely to get kicked off for doing anything.

是的。就像，谁知道呢？这就是问题所在，对吧？我的意思是，我我我怀疑是这样。

Yeah. Like, who knows? That that's the thing. Right? I mean, I I I suspect so.

对吧？我觉得我更多的是乐观而不是悲观，但事情可能会发生变化。

Right? I think sort of I'm more more optimistic than pessimistic, but things could could change.

超级有趣，因为平台就是你。就像，在这方面，就像，如果你是一家媒体公司，对吧，我们两个都是。对吧？我们有新闻通讯、书籍、课程等等。就像，有各种不同类型的媒体。

Super interesting because the platform is you. Like, in in this regard, like, with with you being a like, if you're a media company, right, both of us are. Right? We have we have the the newsletter and the the books and the the courses and whatnot. Like, there's all different kinds of media.

我也会说MD Hackers是一家媒体公司，但它不是个人品牌化的。它不是Cortland、Allen，你知道，但你们是个人品牌化的媒体公司。

I would also argue MD Hackers is a media company, but it's not branded personally. It's not Cortland, Allen, you know, but you guys are personally branded media companies.

而这种个人化接触正是风险所在。这就是那种情况。就像我第一个成功的SaaS项目，也就是我们几年前卖掉的那个，我是把它当作可出售的业务来打造的。对吧？在我读过约翰·沃洛的《打造可出售企业》后——这本书对想打造可出售SaaS业务的人来说很棒，因为它真正告诉你：如果你想让它可出售，你就需要在业务中能够替代自己。

And that personal touch is the that is the risk. That that's the kind of thing. Like, the first SaaS that I was ever successful with, the one that we sold a couple of years ago, I built that as a sellable business. Right? And in my read Built to Sell by John Warlow, great book for people who wanna build a sellable SaaS business, because it really tells you if you want it to be sellable, you need to be able to replace yourself in the business.

整本书讲述了一个代理机构所有者试图出售机构却失败的故事，因为他们就是机构本身。对于创作者来说，我认为这是一个巨大的风险——他们就是平台本身。如果他们无法持续交付，又没有所谓的被动收入项目（比如书籍和信息产品），单就这一点而言，其风险几乎不亚于就业，对吧？可能被迅速'解雇'而不得不另寻工作，这也非常危险。

The whole book is a story about an agency owner that tries to sell the agency and they can't because they are the agency. And I feel for creators, that is a gigantic risk that they are the platform. And if they don't deliver and they don't have, let's call them passive income projects like books and info products, that alone is almost as risky as employment when it comes to that, right? Being able to be quickly fired than having to find another job. That's also very risky.

但关于社交媒体平台这类平台，我认为人们必须明白：借用来的受众，比如在Twitter或LinkedIn或其他任何地方，它们具有惊人的协同效应。对吧？你发现人群、发现其他受众要比获得一个邮件订阅者容易得多。拥有数百甚至数千粉丝可能容易得多。

But one thing about, platforms like social media platforms, I think people have to understand that borrowed audiences like on Twitter or LinkedIn or wherever you are, they have synergetic effects like crazy. Right? You find people, you find other audiences out there so much easier than you find one email subscriber. It's probably so much easier to have like hundreds, if not thousands of followers.

转发的力量。

Power of the retweet.

但确实。一次转发。就像几周前，一个粉丝数是我四倍的账号转发了我的内容，我的粉丝数就增长了大约10%，差不多是六、七千人。就这么发生了。我完全无法控制它，这很棒，但也正因如此我无法控制——这同时又令人不安，你知道，这两种感觉同时存在。

But yeah. One retweet. Like, I I don't I had that a couple weeks ago, like an account four times as big as mine retweeted me and I grew like 10% in in my follower account, which was like like six or 7,000 people. Just happened. And I had no control over it, which is great, but I had no control over it because that, and that was frightening, you know, like you have both at the same time.

所以借用受众是很好的。你拥有所有这些效应，但在某个时候——丹尼尔刚才也提到了——存在实实在在的风险，也许不是从一开始，但你应该进行多元化，应该始终允许人们选择加入你拥有的受众。也许这才是更重要的部分。并不是

So borrowed audience is great. You have all these effects, but at some point, and Daniel just said this, there is a tangible risk and you should diversify maybe not from the start, but you should always allow people to opt in to your owned audience. Maybe that's the more important part. It's not

允许人们成为你的邮件订阅者，允许他们加入你的列表。

Allow people to become your email subscribers and allow them to be on your list.

没错。创建一个新闻简报或者出于某种原因收集电子邮件，但要拥有这些联系方式，这样当你需要时就能真正联系到人们。

That's right. Start a newsletter or or just capture emails for some reason, but have them so you can actually reach out to people if you need to.

Daniel，我觉得你是我认识的独立开发者中最规避风险的人之一。而我几乎完全相反。我不太在乎平台风险，我只是专注于一两个渠道全力以赴。

Daniel, I feel like you're, like, one of the most risk averse people that I know who's an indie hacker. I'm I'm almost the opposite. Like, I don't I don't care that much about platform risk. I just go hard on one channel, like, two.

那么Daniel，你有很多项目。我知道你的一大重点是避免做自己讨厌的事情。当你拥有这么多项目的组合时，有多少是纯粹出于自我保护的风险分散？又有多少是你只是有了想法就想把它实现出来？

So, Daniel, with your you have a lot of projects. I know that a big focus of yours is not doing things that you hate. And so when you you have, like, this portfolio of all this prod of all these projects, how much of it is is purely self protective risk as, you know, sort of diversifying your risk? And how much of it is, like, you just wanna you get you have an idea and you just wanna build it?

我认为我的方法是随着时间演变的。一开始我犯了典型创业者的错误——我想出了一个自认为最适合我的SaaS商业点子，觉得它完美结合了我的技能、兴趣和专业知识等等，然后就不计代价地专注于让它成功。

So so I think my my approach evolved over time. I think I did the mistake in the beginning where I took the typical bootstrapper approach. That's where I came up with an idea that I I thought was the ideal SaaS business for me. I was imagining, you know, it's the perfect combination of my skills, my interests, my expertise, so on and so forth. And I was just going to focus on it and try to make it work at all costs.

对吧？几个月后我意识到这种想法太理想化了，我低估了机会、随机性、运气、坏运气以及所有我无法控制的因素对商业成功的重要影响。于是我很快改变了策略，因为我又开始负面想象回到全职工作的场景，而我想避免那样。所以我转变了心态，基本上抛弃了所有理想化的东西：下个月我怎样才能赚到钱？

Right? And I realized after a few months that this was a very idealistic approach, that I was underestimating the role of chance and randomness and luck and bad luck and all the things outside of my control that tend to have a significant impact on the success of a business. So then I changed quickly because, again, sort of I started to negatively visualize going back to a full time job, but I wanted to avoid that. So I shifted mentality to pretty much throw away all the other idealistic stuff. How can I do how was how can I make some money next month?

对吧？我开始尝试那些并不特别令人兴奋或美好的事情。我赚到的第一块钱是给朋友做自由职业编程工作，然后我写了电子书，制作了课程，开办了付费新闻简报，又通过Gumroad接了更多自由职业项目，不断尝试各种事情。随着时间的推移，我逐渐筛选出更符合我偏好和生活方式的项目。

Right? And I started looking at things that weren't particularly exciting or nice or whatever. The first dollar I made was with some freelancing, know, for a friend of mine, sort of programming work and whatever. Then I wrote an e book, and then I wrote a course, and I sort of started a paid newsletter, and then I took some more freelancing with Gumroad, and then I sort of kept experimenting with things. Over time, that I had been sort of selecting more things that were much more preferable, that's much more compatible with my preferred lifestyle, with my preferences.

但我预计在2023年、2024年后期，我可能会遇到新的机会，让我停止或减少做这些事情。对吧？或者可能会做得更多。对吧？因为我学到的另一个认知是——虽然很明显但我们常常自欺欺人地不愿承认——如果一件事情在经济上行不通，就很难真正享受它。

But I'm expecting that in 2023, 2024 later, I might bump into new opportunities that will make me stop doing those or stop or do them less. Right? Or maybe or maybe do them more. Right? Because sometimes another realization that I learned, which I think is quite obvious, but we tend to as well fool ourselves into believing it's not the case, is that it's hard to enjoy something if it's not working out, right, if it's not working out financially.

无论我们说多少，哦我正在做，我喜欢这个过程，工作很有趣，等等。这很难，对吧？我认为这是人性。所以如果某件事开始奏效，它突然变得有趣起来，即使它原本不是我以为自己会喜欢做的事情。矛盾的是，这也给了我一种内心的平静，某种灵活性，不把自己框定在我需要这个成功或我需要这个特定类别的东西成功。

No matter how much we say, oh I'm doing it, I love the process, the work is fun, whatever. It's hard, right? I think it's human nature. So if something is working, suddenly it starts to become fun, even if it wasn't originally something that I would have thought I would enjoy doing. Paradoxically, this gives me also peace of mind, sort of the flexibility of not pigeonholing myself into I need this to work or I need something in this specific category to work.

Daniel，你有一条很好的推文。我认为这是你有史以来最受欢迎的推文，按点赞数算。1万个赞。他说，你读100本书，99本平平无奇，一本改变你的人生。你尝试100件事，99件不成功，一件改变你的人生。

Daniel, you have a good tweet. It's I think it's your most popular tweet of all time in terms of likes. 10,000 likes. He said, you read 100 books, 99 are meh, one changes your life. You try a 100 things, 99 don't work, one changes your life.

你遇见100个人，99个你再也不会见到，一个改变你的人生。生活比看起来更随机，所以要相应地行动。我认为那条推文是我奉行的准则，它几乎与你所说的效果相反，因为我并不那么分散投资。我没有那么多备选方案。我有点像是，好吧。

You meet a 100 people, 99 you never see again, one changes your life. Life is more random than it seems, so act accordingly. And I think that that tweet is something that I live by, and it it has almost the opposite effect of what you're saying and that I don't really diversify that much. I don't really have that many backups. I'm kinda like, okay.

我尝试过大约100家公司。其中一家做得非常好。我就打算全力推进那一家，完全忘记我正在做的所有其他公司。对吧？如果那家公司能让我赚一百万美元、五百万、一千万，那么我是否分散投资或是否有备选方案就不重要了，因为那一个成功就足够了。

I've tried like a 100 companies. One of them is doing really well. Like, I'm just gonna press the gas on that one and completely forget every other company that I'm working on. Right? And if that company can make me a million dollars, $5,000,000, $10,000,000, then it doesn't matter if I'm not sort of diversifying or I have backup options because that one was such a success.

是的。我认为对我来说重要的是不要感到有义务必须加倍投入某件事。总是有选择，但没有义务。因为我认为一旦我们开始感到有义务，我们就会开始感到被困住。所以我听到很多企业家都有这种感觉，甚至一些非常成功的人，年收入远超他们最疯狂的梦想，达到数百万美元，他们感到被挤压，现在无法放松油门，因为他们锁定了这张中奖彩票，对吧，他们感觉就像，你知道，就像他们中了彩票但没有兑现全部奖金，对吧。

Yeah. I think what's what I feel is important to me is to not feel the obligation that I need to double down on something. There's there's always the option, but not the obligation. Because I think once we start to feel obligated, we start to feel trapped. So I think this is I hear I hear this with many entrepreneurs, even some wildly successful ones that are making way beyond their wildest dreams, millions of dollars a year, that they feel squeezed, that they can't let go of the gas now because they locked into this winning lottery ticket, right, and they feel like, you know, it is like they won the lottery but they're not cashing out the full price, right.

所以我认为这是一个重要的心理技巧，对吧，要感觉你可以放弃桌上的钱，你可以只踩50%的油门，也许那会给你更多自由时间，更多机会探索其他事情。我喜欢‘小赌注’这个术语。我喜欢把每一个增量的事情都看作一个小赌注。所以我把一切都推到了这个阶段。如果我愿意，我可以选择对现有的事情再下一个小赌注，对吧，基本上就是在那件事上再踩 maybe 5% 的油门。

So I think it's an important psychological technique, right, to feel like you can leave money off the table, right, you could press the gas 50%, and maybe that gives you some more free time, more opportunity to explore other things. I like the terminology small bet. I like thinking as every incrementing thing as a small bet. So I got everything to this stage. If I wanted to, I could choose to make another small bet on something existent, right, basically by pressing the gas another maybe 5% on that thing.

但是关于赌注，我喜欢这个术语的地方在于，它再次是一个选择，而不是义务。我可以下那个注，但没有人强迫我这样做，对吧，我认为强迫是不受欢迎的。我不想感到被困住，尤其是在心理上。对吧？因为我认为那些是最难察觉和最阴险的陷阱。

But what with a bet, what I I like about the terminology is that, again, it's an option, not an obligation. I can place that stake, but nobody is forcing me to do it, right, which is something undesirable, I think. I don't want to feel trapped, especially psychologically. Right? Because I think those are the hardest and the most insidious traps.

是的。你提到了人们感到被困住的事实。对吧？就像那些已经成功的人。我们来谈谈生活方式设计。

Yeah. You mentioned the fact that people feel trapped. Right? Like, people who are already successful. Let's talk about lifestyle design.

因为这是我最近一直在思考的事情。而且我觉得你们三位都相当成功。比如Arvid，我之前在Indie Hackers采访过你，已经上过两次节目了。但第一次采访时，你谈到卖掉那家月收入只有60美元的公司。

Because this is something that's kind of at the top of my mind. And I think all three of you guys are pretty successful. Like, Arvid, I had you back on Indie Hackers. I've had you on twice before. But the very first episode, you're talking about selling your company that was making, you know, $60 a month in revenue.

我能想象你卖了个改变人生的价格。Daniel，你在亚马逊做得风生水起，年收入50万美元，现在却自己创业。各种收入流每年能给你带来超过30万美元的利润。Channing和我把Indie Hackers卖给了Stripe，换来了价值数百万美元的Stripe股票。

I can only imagine you sold it for, like, a life changing sum. Daniel, you were crushing it at Amazon. You're making, like, $500,000 a year in Amazon, and now you're self employed. And all these different revenue streams are making over, like, $300,000 a year for you in profit. Channing and I sold Indie Hackers to Stripe for, like, millions of dollars in Stripe stock.

所以我们基本上都财务自由了。除非你们谁去年把所有钱都投了加密货币，否则应该都经济宽裕。那么接下来该如何设计生活？是专注于赚更多钱吗？

So we're all, like, kinda set. Like, we're all in a place where it's, like, we're pretty financially comfortable, presumably, unless any of you put all your money into crypto last year. Like, how do you design like, what do you do from here? Right? Like, do you focus on making more money?

还是专注于守住财富？比如Daniel，你是个非常注重安全的人，几乎自称是生存主义者。作为独立开发者成功后，你们如何思考生活方式设计？

Do you focus on keeping money? Like, Daniel, you're, like, a very safety oriented guy. You're almost like a self described prepper. How do you guys think about lifestyle design, what do you do kind of once you've made it as an indie hacker?

我的思考方式是：我不想认为自己已经成功了。过去可能确实成功过，可以用某些标准衡量，但就像典型财务建议说的：过去不能保证未来。我认为重要的是不设定任何预期，因为那会带来很多问题。就像你刚说我去年赚了30万，但我今年开始时想：如果今年一分不赚呢？因为我没有固定收入，我更喜欢这样思考。我设想：假如2022年零收入会怎样？

The way I like to think about it is that I I don't want to think about of myself as successful. I might have been successful in the past, right, which, you know, you could measure maybe in in such a way, but I think, like the typical financial advice, you know, the past is no guarantee of the future, and I'm, you know, and I think it's important to, again, not set my expectations anywhere, because that leads to lots of problems. If I set a you know, you just mentioned last year I made $300,000 I started this year thinking, what if I make nothing this year? Because, you know, I don't have the kind of revenue, and I think I prefer thinking of it like that. And I visualize, like, if I make zero, let's say, in 2022?

我计算后发现，虽然不会好受，但也不是什么大事。不需要动用储蓄。这让我把2022年赚的每一分钱都当作奖金：有帮助、令人愉悦、没有期望就没有失望，一切都是惊喜。我几乎每月都重复这个过程——虽然现在都快五月中旬了，但感觉就像昨天刚做过同样的事。

And I realized, you know, I did some math, I saw some calculation, it won't be, you know, it would be not nice, but it won't be a huge deal. It's not I have to tap into my savings. And that allowed me to, every dollar that I made so far in 2022, be treated almost like a bonus, right? It was helpful, it was enjoyable, there was no expectations, no disappointments, everything was a pleasant surprise, and I almost repeat this every month. Now these, I mean, we're already almost halfway into May, but it seems like it was just yesterday, I did the same thing, right?

我的意思是，四月是我有史以来最成功的一个月，我四月份赚了将近10万美元，这相当疯狂。但就像我想的那样，如果我在五月或今年剩下的时间里什么也赚不到呢？我认为这一点真的很有帮助，而且我也相信另一点，我不太喜欢靠被动收入生活，我不认为我们天生适合长期依靠被动收入生活。我觉得我们的DNA里有什么东西——这只是我的猜测，我不是科学家，没有深入研究过——但感觉就是这样，感觉我们的DNA里有一种想要我们定期保持活跃的东西。我认为，你知道，一万年前我们的祖先是狩猎采集者时，根本没有被动收入的概念，我们的祖先中没有人只是赚了一百万美元，然后投资于某种股票和债券的组合，靠房地产收租，就无所事事地坐着收取股息。这有点不自然。

I mean, April was my most successful month ever, I made almost $100,000 in April, which was quite crazy. But again, like I thought, what if I don't make anything in May or anything for the rest of the year? And this, I think, is really helpful, and something else I believe as well, that I'm not a big fan of living off passive income, right, and I don't think we're wired to live off passive income for a long time, I think it's there's something in our DNA, just me speculating, I'm not a scientist, I didn't study this rigorously, but it feels that way, it feels there's something in our DNA that wants us to be active on a regular basis. And that's what I think, you know, when when our ancestors were hunter gatherers ten thousand years ago, there was no concept of passive income, there was nobody on our ancestors who just made a million dollars, and they invested them in a sort of a mix of stock and bonds and clipped on the real estate, and they just sit idly and they just collected dividends. It's sort of an unnatural thing.

而且我认为，你知道，这不仅仅是一些与自然共存的理想主义方式或其他什么。我认为如果我们不觉得自己对当今社会仍然有用，我们的潜意识、我们的蜥蜴脑——那个处理焦虑和其他事情的部分——就会开始起作用。对吧？因为我对昨天的社会或五年前的社会是有用的，

And I think, you know, this is not just some idealistic way to live with nature or whatever. I think our subconscious, our lizard plane, the the the the part that sort of deals with anxiety and other things, will start to kick in if we don't feel we're still useful to the to society of today. Right? Because I was useful to society of yesterday or five years ago,

但是

but

世界在变化，环境在变化，我在变化，我的情况在变化，而我认为通过今天做某事获得主动收入，通过今天赚一美元，我是在测试自己是否适应当今世界。我认为这有助于缓解焦虑，有助于心态平和、增强韧性，以及所有这类事情。对吧？所以

the world changes, the environment changes, I change, my circumstances change, and I think active income by doing something today, by earning a dollar today, I'm testing my fitness for the world of the day. And that that I think helps with anxiety, helps with peace of mind, with resiliency, and all these kinds of things. Right? So

我从未遇到过任何想要赚……我遇到过想赚几百万美元然后退休去海滩的人。但我从未遇到过真正做到了却说‘很酷，我们完成了独立开发者的事，然后就想，好吧，我们怎么把它做得更大更好？’的人。

I've never met anyone who who wants to to make I met people who wanna make millions of dollars and retire on a beach. I've never met anyone who's actually done we're like, cool. We did the thing with indie hackers. We're like, okay. How do we make it bigger and better?

比如，下一个挑战是什么？对吧？你几乎总是像西西弗斯一样把巨石推上山，因为不管什么原因，那就是有趣的部分。有趣的部分就是去应对这些挑战。就像你说的，丹尼尔，对当今世界有用。

Like, what's the next challenge? Right? You're almost always, like, Sisyphus sort of pushing a boulder up the hill because for whatever reason, like, that's the fun part. It's the fun part is to sort of tackle these challenges. And like you said, Daniel, be useful to the world today.

如果只是说‘是的，十年前做了这件事’，会有点尴尬。

It's it's kind of embarrassing just to be like, yeah, did this thing ten years ago.

嗯，我认为事情比那更复杂。我认为不仅仅是我们不认识多少真正一夜暴富后就躺在沙滩上享受的人。实际上，我确实认识一些尝试这样做的人，但他们后来变得非常抑郁，然后又回去工作了。我觉得就像你说的那样，丹尼尔。这确实令人沮丧。

Well, I think it's than that. I think it's not just we don't really know that many people who have just scored it rich and then gone and and laid out on a beach. Actually, do know some people who've tried to do that and then they got really depressed and then they went back into work. I think it's what you said, Daniel. Like It's depressing.

我们我们有这种需求。是的。有趣的是，我是一名创业者。在创办这家公司之前，我就想写一本书，而且我非常热衷于各种项目。我脑子里曾有过这样的想法：好吧，一旦这些事情成功了，我赚了很多钱，我就会想去做那些事情。

We we have this need. Yeah. And the funny thing about that is I'm an entrepreneur. I wanted to write a book before I did this company and I'm I'm really into projects. And I had this idea in my mind that like, okay, well, once these things are successful and I make a lot of money with them, then I will wanna do those things.

但是我内心有一种燃烧的焦虑，不过我现在感觉，在明白了这一点之后——不，你只是登上了那座山的山顶，然后你会想去另一座山。如果我早点知道情况会是这样，我想我本可以更加欣赏这个过程，如果这说得通的话。

But and I had this sort of burning anxiety, but I feel that now that on the other side of knowing, like, no, you just you get to the top of that mountain and you you wanna go to another mountain. If I had known that that was gonna be the case earlier on, I think I could have appreciated it a lot more, if that makes sense.

是的。有一个时刻。我经历过的最强烈、最大的挣扎之一就是在卖掉公司之后。就像，我所有的激情、所有的乐趣、所有让我感到有成就感的源泉都被从我身边夺走了。然后他们当然给了我那张大支票。

Yeah. There was a moment. One of the the strongest, biggest struggles that I had was just after selling the business. Like, all my passion, all my enjoyment, all my source of where I felt accomplished was just taken away from me. And then of course they handed me this big check.

那很棒。但我的激情消失了，这是一个我没有预料到的心理挑战，尽管我知道它会来。就像每个播客上的每个创始人，当你问他们关于退出的事时，他们会告诉你存在这种空虚感，要警惕这种空虚，对吧？因为定义你作为一个创造者、独立黑客、企业家的的一切就是你的客户。就是你与你所服务的人的互动，无论你称之为受众、市场还是客户群，这些人，他们是让你赚钱的原因。

That was great. But the fact that my passion was gone, that was, that was, that was a mental challenge that I was not expecting, even though I knew it was gonna come. Like every founder on every podcast, when you ask them about their exit will tell you there's this void, beware of the void, right? Because everything that defines you as a maker, as an indie hacker, as an entrepreneur is your customers. It's your interaction with the people that you serve, like your call it audience or market or customer base, whatever it is, these people, they are the reason you're making money.

而你是让他们生活得稍微好一点的原因。那里有一种联系。一旦这个联系消失了，你一无所有，你有很多钱，但钱并不能，它字面上无法让你快乐，因为它不是一个能动的媒介。你需要找到那个能给你回馈的能动媒介。对我来说，那就是写作。

And you are the reason for them to live a slightly better life. There's a connection there. And once this is gone and you have nothing, you have a lot of money, but money doesn't, it literally can't make you happy because it's not an active agent. You need to find that active agent that gives you something back. And for me, that was writing.

我从来不是一个作家，对吧？在我开始写博客之前，我几乎没写过什么东西。而我开始写博客只是因为我感觉，嘿，我现在知道这么多了。我从各地的人们那里学到了很多，包括在黑客播客中。我只是想，也许我现在处于一个可以分享而不仅仅是消费的位置了。

I was never a writer, Right? I never wrote anything really before I started blogging. And I only started blogging because I felt, Hey, I know this much now. I learned so much from people all over the place, including in the hackers podcast. And I just wanted to seek, maybe I am now in a position where I can share instead of just consume.

然后我开始写作，然后意识到，哦，谢天谢地。我是不是找到了让我重拾激情的事情？否则我肯定会抑郁的。我知道我会，因为我看到，我现在仍然看到很多创始人在卖掉公司后还在为此挣扎。

And then I started writing and then realized, oh, thank heavens. Did I find something that gave me my passion back? Because otherwise I would have been depressed. I know I would have been because I could see, I can still see lots of founders struggling with this after they sell.

这几乎成了陈词滥调，我觉得。因为我认为，当人们听到像Richie这样的人谈论他们的成功时，最常听到的就是：成功并没有让我快乐。然后我觉得很容易听到这个却不当真，对吧？

It's almost a cliche, I think. Because I think, like, the the number one thing people hear when they hear, like, Richie will talk about their successes. The success didn't make me happy. And then I think it's very easy to hear that and and not take it to heart. Right?

就像，我从未真正放在心上。我当时想，是啊，是啊。你有那么多钱，还卖掉了公司等等，当然容易这么说。但我又没处在那个位置，所以那才是我在乎的一切。

Like, I never took that to heart. I was like, yeah. Yeah. That's easy for you to say you have a lot of money and you sold your company, etcetera, etcetera. Like, well, of course, you're gonna say it didn't make you happy, but, like, I'm not in that situation, so, like, that's all I care about.

对吧？然后我觉得一旦你达到了目标，你就会意识到，好吧。实际上，旅程本身才是关键。拥有一个需要挑战才能实现的崇高目标，这本身就是赋予你目标和意义的东西，是努力达到那里的过程。而一旦你到了那里，你可能就需要开始另一段旅程了。

Right? And then I think once you get there, you realize, okay. Actually, it is kind of the journey. Like, having that lofty goal that's a challenge to reach is itself what is giving you purpose and meaning and, like, striving to get there. And then once you get there, you probably need some sort of other journey to go on.

对吧？而且我认为对很多人来说，我们遵循着这种——我想这叫做延迟人生计划——我们有很多真正想做的事情，但却推迟了。因为想着，嗯，先让我赚很多钱。对吧？先让我做这个生意等等。

Right? And I think for a lot of people, we follow this I think it's called, like, the deferred life plan where we have these things that we really wanna do, but we defer them. Because like, well, first let me, like, make a lot of money. Right? Let me do this business, etcetera.

Channing，比如，你想写你的书。Arvin，我不确定你之前是否想写作，但你现在在写了。Daniel，我不知道。你是否觉得你在生活中推迟了什么事情，直到你在亚马逊的工作取得成功？

Channing, like, wanted to write your books. Arvin, I'm not sure if you wanted to write beforehand, but now you're writing. Daniel, I don't know. Like, do you feel like you'd, like, deferred anything in your life until you got successful with your work at Amazon?

或者说，我以前是的。我以前过着那种延迟生活方式的人生计划，不管你怎么称呼它。大概直到两年前吧，我会这么说。对吧？然后我有点醒悟了，开始意识到这个想法有多愚蠢，以及其中往往隐藏着多大的风险。

Or Well, I I used to. I used to live the deferred lifestyle life life plan or whatever you call it. It's like until sort of two years ago, would say. Right? And I sort of I I think I came a bit into my senses and started to realize how foolish this idea is and how much hidden risk there tends to be.

我认为，某种程度上延续一下Arvind刚才说的，这也是为什么我赞成建立项目组合的原因。就像，我认为让某个项目失败不那么痛苦的一种方式，就是同时有其他项目在进行。分享一个个人经历，昨天发生的事情，我甚至还没公开谈论过。有些人可能知道我在Gumroad担任兼职产品经理，每周工作四分之一时间。我不得不逐渐结束这个工作，昨天算是正式离开了，昨天是我的最后一天。

I think what, sort of to continue a bit on what Arvind was saying, this is also why I'm a fan of building a portfolio of things. Like it's sort of the one way I think to sort of make this thing of something going away less painful is by having other things going on at the same time. You know, just a personal anecdote, something that happened yesterday, I haven't even talked about it publicly yet. Some of you might know that I had this quarter time low at Gumroad as a fractional PM. I had to wind it down, sort of, and I had to sort of leave yesterday, like yesterday was my was my last day.

因为Gumroad基本上已经超出了我的能力、技能、容量范围，以我每周十小时的工作时间，我无法跟上进度等等。这有点令人失望，因为我真的很想做好，但两年后我不得不，我们不得不停止。虽然会有一瞬间的失望，但我还有其他三个项目在进行，这样我就不至于陷入需要重新创造什么的空虚中。即使我的SaaS业务失败时，我也开始意识到它不会像我想象的那么成功。但我还有另外两个项目，一个已经启动，另一个即将启动，这帮助我把注意力转移到那些事情上，而不会感到巨大的失望。

Because Gumroad basically outgrew my capability, my skill, my capacity, and my ability to, with my ten hours a week, because I had to sort of be able to keep on top of things and so on and so forth. And you know, it's a bit disappointing because I really wanted to make it work, but you know after two years I had to, we had to stop, but you know, it feels disappointing for a second, but then I have three other things going on, right, sort of it doesn't put me into that void where I now need to reinvent something, right, and this is sort of something that even when my SaaS business failed, started to realize that it wasn't going to be as successful as I thought it was. I had two other things, you know, one that I already launched, another thing that I was about to launch, and this sort of helped me give my attention to those things without sort of feeling that big spike of disappointment.

关于这一点，感谢分享。我感觉你也在公开分享这些事情。我认为这在处理这些事情上也有很大不同。因为如果你公开构建，我不仅仅指构建业务，而是公开构建生活方式，分享你为什么这样做，你做什么，分享你的财务状况，分享什么有效，什么无效，仅仅分享这个过程就对其他人有指导意义。

There's something about this. Like, thanks for sharing this. And I I feel like you've been sharing these things publicly as well. And I think that makes all the difference in dealing with these things too. Because if you build in public, and I don't just mean like build a business, but build a lifestyle in public and you share why you do it, you share what you do, you share your finances, you share what works out, what doesn't, that journey alone in sharing this is instructive to other people.

这赋予了它目的。这给失败赋予了意义。那么即使你的SaaS业务失败了，也很棒。现在成千上万的人学到了不该做什么。突然间这就变成了一个赋权的信息，对吧？

And that gives it purpose. That gives purpose to failure. Then even if you fail with something with a SaaS business, wonderful. Now thousands of people learn what not to do. And all of a sudden it's an empowerment message, right?

你可能会有一些财务损失，或者你众多项目中的一个小赌注没有成功。幸好你还有更多项目，现在这成了一个教训。我认为这种公开构建，特别是这种类型的公开构建，不仅对关注你的人是一种赋能，对你自己也是如此。发生的任何事情都是好的，当然取决于你从哪个角度看待。这也帮助了我，因为我也有一个不太成功的SaaS业务，每月经常性收入只有48美元，在这方面没什么进展，但我可以谈论它。我可以说，嘿，我没有在这上面花任何时间。

You may have some financial loss or one of your many, many projects that many small bets doesn't work out. Well, thankfully you have a few more and this is now a lesson. One that I think building in public, that particular kind of building in public is empowerment, not just for the people who follow you, but for yourself as well. Like anything that happens is good, depending of course, But from which perspective you look at I think that helps me too, because I also have a somewhat failing SaaS business that is just like chugging along at like $48 monthly recurring revenue, really not happening much in that regard, but I can talk about it. I can say, Hey, I'm not spending any time on this.

我有其他优先事项。我不需要这个。你知道，我可以把别人称之为可怕失败的事情，转变成——好吧，在我更大的计划背景下就是这样。对吧？它不再是一个失败了。

I have other priorities. I don't need this. You know, I can take this, what other people would call a horrible failure and just turn it into a, well, here it is in the context of my larger plan. Right? It's something that is not a failure anymore.

它只是一个可以与人分享的轶事。

It's just an anecdotal thing to share with people.

好的。我们来聊聊作为独立开发者如何赚钱。之前我们讨论过，当你成功后该做什么，但如何成功呢？我认为在座的各位，我们算是经历了一个大杂烩。

All right. Let's talk about making money as an indie hacker. So we've talked about, okay, what do you do once you've made it? But how do you make it? I think everyone here, we sort of were I guess we had a hodgepodge.

对吧？比如，独立开发者是一个社区。RVU 经营过 SaaS 业务。而 Daniel，我想你曾在亚马逊工作，但后来更像是一个创作者。所以这是三种不同的路径。

Right? Like, indie hackers is a community. RVU had a SaaS business. And then Daniel, I guess, you worked at Amazon, but then became, like, more of a creator. And so it's, like, three different approaches.

Nathan Barry 有一篇很棒的博客文章，叫做《财富创造的阶梯》，他谈到你可以从内容创作者起步，或者先找一份工作，用时间换取金钱。然后你可以转向自雇，仍然是用时间换钱。再进一步，你可以做产品化咨询，自动化你的服务，从而能够服务更多客户。比如，几个月前我和 Brett Williams 聊过，他作为设计师年收入约150万到200万美元，因为他基本上把他的咨询业务变成了一个高度自动化的体系，有非常可预测的工作流程和工具辅助。而在最高阶段，Nathan 提到的是 SaaS 业务。

Nathan Barry has this excellent blog post called the ladders of wealth creation, where he talks about how, like, you can basically start off as a content creator, or you can or you can start off basically getting a job, and that's trading your time for money. And you can then, like, move into, like, like, So now you're sort of self employed trading your time for money. And then you can move to productized consulting where you're automating away what your serve like, your service is so you can scale to have more customers. Like, I talked to Brett Williams a couple months back, and he's making, like, 1 and a half, $2,000,000 as a designer because he's, like, basically turned his consultancy into, like, an extremely automated thing where he has very predictable workflow and tools to help him do that. And then at the highest end, Nathan put, like, a SaaS business, basically.

或者你可以开发某种软件，让它基本上自动赚钱。这些都是不同的方法。对吧？Arvind，我觉得你很有趣，因为你几乎是反其道而行之。你说，我做过 SaaS。

Or you can build some sort of software that is making money basically on its own. These are all different approaches. Right? And Arvind, like, you're interesting to me because, like, you've almost gone backwards. You're like, I did SaaS.

我想成为一个创作者，用我的时间来交换

I wanna go be like a creator and, like, trade my time for like

就像，Nathan 是从一个成功的 SaaS CEO 的角度分享的。对吧？你必须从那个角度去看待它

Like, Nathan kind of shared that from the position of a successful SaaS CEO. Right? You have to kinda look at it from the

这种方式

The way

我已经做到了，它就在梯子的下方。

that I've done it is it's down the ladder.

我就在这上面。我认为这个位置对他来说完全合适，但我觉得这更像是一个关系图谱而非实际的梯子。就像是一个网络，对吧？你可以在任何位置，并且在那里感到快乐。

I am right up here. And I think it is it's perfectly fine for his position, but I think it's it's more a graph of things than an actual ladder. Like you have it's a web. Right? You you can be at any point and you can be happy there.

你可以开辟自己的小天地，自己的小位置。无论你是从SaaS通过产品关联转向内容，还是从内容通过SaaS最终将其产品化——比如面包或任何东西——这真的不重要。我认为最重要的是你拥有某种能够通过服务赋能他人的方式，比如帮助人们实现目标，或者教导他人，或者教人们如何自助。这真的无关紧要。金钱只是在你帮助他人时发生的交易性回报。

You can carve out your little niche, your little spot. And if it takes you from SaaS through product ties to content or from content through SaaS to then productize it like for bread or whatever it is, doesn't really matter. I think the most important part is that you have something where you can empower other people through either a service, like you help people reach their goals or you teach people, teaching them like other people, or you teach people how to help themselves. It really doesn't matter. Like money happens as a transactional exchange to when you help other people.

为此，我认为任何形式都可以。比如我从SaaS起步，现在基本上在建立一个媒体业务。我从没想过会这样，但结果证明这对我来说更有乐趣。这让我比做SaaS时更有动力。做SaaS时我有焦虑和心理健康问题。

And for that, I think any form is fine. Like I started with a SaaS now I'm essentially building a media business. Like I never thought I would, but it turns out this is more enjoyable for me. This allows me to be more motivated than in a SaaS. In a SaaS I had anxiety and mental health issues.

在这家媒体公司，我每天早上醒来都很开心。对吧？这就是我想要达到的状态。而且，我们也谈过生活方式设计。我只是想顺便提一下。

In this media company, I wake up every morning and I'm happy. Right? That's where I wanted to go. And that's also, and we talked about lifestyle design. I just wanna kind of throw that in here.

这就是我优化的目标。我优化两件事：一个空的日历。我们现在做的这件事是我这周唯一要做的事。真的是唯一的一件事。还有当我起床时，我想做那天打算做的事。

That's what I optimize for. I optimize for two things, for an empty calendar. This thing that we're doing right now is the only thing I'm doing this week. Like literally the only thing. And for when I get up that I want to do the thing that I'm gonna do that day.

这就是我优化的两件事。你可能注意到金钱不在其中，对吧？因为那通过退出已经解决了。

Those are the two things I optimize for. And you probably noticed that money is not in there, Right? Because that was solved with the exit.

最好的挑战是如何赚到你的第一块钱、第一个100美元，也就是你第一个小小的成功。我认为在这方面人们仍然存在认知差距，不知道如何思考那个我称之为'第一个小胜利'的东西，因为我认为正是这个改变了一切。一旦你有了某个小东西在运转，相比那些还没有任何成果的人，你在此基础上继续发展的几率会呈指数级增长。不幸的是，我觉得我们有点过分美化失败了——很多人倾向于尝试那些雄心勃勃但成功率很低的事情，然后失败了就说'至少我学到了很多，过程很有趣'等等。但我认为，从一个成功的小事中学到的更多。我宁愿尝试一些微小的事情，让我每月赚100美元，或者一次性赚一千美元，因为我成功向陌生人销售了产品，建立了有效的销售渠道，建立了一些关系和客户联系，获得了一些实用知识；而不是投入一年时间专注于某个雄心勃勃的项目，结果失败了，一无所获。

The best challenge is how do you make your first dollar, your first $100, that your your first small successful thing. And I think that's where I think there's still a gap for people about how to reason about that first small win, I like to call it, because I think that is what changes everything. Once you do have something small that's working, I think your odds of being able to build on top of that increase exponentially compared to somebody who still hasn't had something. And I think unfortunately we tend to glorify failure a bit too much, that we tend to, sort of, many people tend to try very ambitious things with low odds of success, and then they fail and they say, oh, but at least I learned a lot, the journey was fun, whatever, But we tend to learn more, I think, from something small that worked. I'd rather try something tiny that made me, makes me $100 a month, or makes me a thousand dollars once, because I managed to sell something to strangers, I have some funnel that's working, I built some relationships, some customer contacts, I have some useful knowledge versus I sell something ambitious, I spent a year of my life focused on it and then it flops, and I have nothing.

对吧？这似乎有点反直觉——去摘那些低垂的果实，从小胜利开始，克制你的野心。就像我之前提到的，我会问自己：到这个月底我能做点什么来赚些钱？如果我是刚创业的企业家，从零开始自主创业，我就会这么做。我会问自己：在五月份之前，我怎么能赚到点钱，哪怕是5美元？

Right? So it seems almost counterintuitive, like to go for the low hanging fruit, to start with the small wins, to curb your ambition. As I mentioned before, what I did to myself, like I like to ask myself, what can I do to make some money by the end of this month? I think if I were a new entrepreneur, I just jumped into self employment from scratch, this is what I would do. I would ask myself, how can I make some money, like whatever it is, even just $5, by the May?

我可能会去Fiverr接一些自由职业的投标。可能没什么大不了的，显然低于最低工资，但至少是个开始。我会开始建立系统，学习如何开发票、如何与客户打交道、如何判断该追求哪些客户、避开哪些客户，然后在此基础上发展。成功会带来更多成功。我认为这是最重要的可借力因素之一，要充分利用它，从小处开始。是的。

And I would maybe go to Fiverr and pick up a bid for some freelancing gig. It might be nothing, that it might be obviously less than minimum wage, but at least it will be something. I will start building a system, I will start knowing how to invoice people, how to deal with clients, how to figure out which clients to pursue, which ones to avoid, and then you build from that. Success builds with more success. That's I think the one of the most important things to piggyback on, right, to take advantage on, to start with small Yeah.

低垂的果实，容易的胜利，那些成功率高但规模小的事情。对吧？这在政府工作中也会这么说。然后

Low hanging fruit, easy wins, accessibility things that have high odds of succeeding, but they're small. Right? That's what you would say in Gov. And then

嗯，我觉得最简单的事情就是找份工作。对吧？虽然这显然是个关于创业的节目，我们都在讨论如何创业和自主赚钱，这很酷，但是

Well, I think the easiest thing is like a job. Right? Which I think is like obviously, this is like a show about startups, and so we're all like, here's how to start a startup and make money on your own, which is cool, but like

找份工作。

Get a job.

只是在网上看看。

Just reading online.

是的。在科技行业有份工作

Yeah. Have a job in

科技行业。超级棒。有份工作还有个副业项目。工作能赚大钱，而且你知道，如果你时间规划得好，晚上和周末还能通过项目赚钱，项目可以很小，然后慢慢发展到你想辞职的程度。但我读到过，在美国人们致富的三种方式

the tech industry. It's super yeah. Have a job and a side project. Can make a ton of money from a job, and you could have you know, if you budget your time well, you can make money from a project on nights and weekends, and it can be small, and you can grow it to the point where you wanna quit. But I was reading about, like, three of the ways that people get rich in The United States.

我不确定一个随机网站上的统计有多准确，但排名第一是继承财富。第二是嫁给有钱人。第三是不要孩子。基本上就是工作、不要孩子、好好投资理财。我觉得这样确实能过得相当不错

Like, I'm not sure how accurate the status is on a random website, it was, number one, like, inherit the money. Number two, marry end of the money. And then number three was, like, don't have kids. Just essentially just, like, work a job, don't have kids, invest your money well. I'm like, actually, you'll turn out to, like, do pretty well.

你知道吗？很棒。前几天我在一辆车上看到个贴纸也是类似的意思。就是那种汽车后窗上贴的家庭人形贴纸？每辆车都有，通常是两个大人和两个孩子

You know? Great. I saw a bumper sticker on a car the other day that was kinda the same thing. Like, you know that, like, decal that's got, like, stick figures of, like, a family on the back of a car? It's, on every car, and it's, like, two parents and, like, two kids.

我看到一个贴纸是两个大人，但代替孩子的是一个钱袋子。我觉得简单的方法其实很有效。即使在Stripe工作，我知道有人成了千万富翁，因为他们在一家帮助很多人的公司工作，并且做得很好

I saw one that was, like, two parents, and then instead of kids, it was just a bag of money. It was just, like, the the simple things I think can work really well. And I think even working at Stripe, like, I know people become, like, deca millionaires because they worked at a company that was helping a lot of people and they did a good job in that company.

说到简单方法有效，我觉得这是很多创始人或创业新手完全忽略的一点。每个人都想打造完美的东西。每个人都想用最新技术，创造完美产品，对吧？即使是信息产品，也有人问我怎么创建课程？需要买什么设备？

And if if you talk about simple things working well, I think that that is something that many founders or people who are just new to entrepreneurship seem to completely ignore. Like everybody wants to build the perfect thing. Everybody wants to use the newest technology and wants to create the perfect product, right? Even with info products, I get people ask me, how do you create a course? Like how do you, what kind of equipment do you buy?

怎么写书？用什么软件工具？老兄，直接写本书，转成PDF在Gumroad上卖就行了。别问我需要用什么技术栈，谷歌一下最主流的技术栈，或者用Laravel、Ruby on Rails这些二十年前的技术，你完全没问题。绝对没问题

Like how do you write a book? Like what kind of software tools do you use? Dude, just write a book, turn it into a PDF sell it on Gumroad. Or if don't ask me what tech stack you need to use, like Google this most supported tech stack or use Laravel or Ruby on Rails technology from like twenty years ago, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be perfectly fine.

你应该做的是帮助人们不要纠结于选择最佳技术栈。就像那种，那种人们一开始就会遇到的启动难题，对吧？与其像Daniel说的那样做些简单的事情——使用可靠技术或你已掌握的简单技术组件，这些别人也会用，成功概率很高——他们却想打造这种高度复杂、受独角兽启发的玩意儿。我认为这是我看到创始人或任何级别的创作者在初期最大的问题之一。

The thing that you're supposed to do is to help people not figure out what the best tech stack is. Like that is, that is where, where people have this, this kind of initial starting jumpstart problem, right? Instead of just doing something simple, like what Daniel said, doing something that has a high chance of succeeding using reliable technology or just simple pieces of technology that you already know how to use and that other people already know how to use. They wanna build this highly complicated unicorn kind of inspired thing. I think that is one of the biggest issues that I see founders or just creators any level have in the beginning.

所以，如果你是想起步的企业家，就用你已知的东西，然后创造人们需要的产品，这样你就能赚钱。

So yeah, I guess if you are an entrepreneur that wants to get started, use the thing you already know and then make something that people need and then you'll make money.

我觉得这是一种拖延形式，即使人们没有意识到。因为做真正的事情很难，对吧？走出去帮助别人很难，或者看起来很难。坐在那里思考我要用什么工具、我的书封面该什么样、我的公司要取什么名字——这些就容易多了。

I think it's a form of procrastination even if people aren't aren't consciously aware of it. Like, it's hard to to do the real thing. Right? It's hard to go out and help people. Or so it seems, it's much easier to sit around thinking about what tools am I gonna use, what cover is gonna be on my book, you know, like, these, like and it's like, what what's the name of my company gonna be?

而且，这都不是真正的工作。

And, like, that's not the real job.

你需要紧迫感。需要那种激情，你知道，需要在心理上移除安全铰链

You you need the sense of urgency. That you need that fire, you know, you need to to remove the mentally remove the safety hinges

是的。

Yes.

并且明白如果你不成功，最终会陷入你不愿面对的处境。对吧？所以

And know that if you if you don't make it, you're going to end up in an arrangement that you'd rather not be in. Right? So

这就是为什么我不喜欢那种攒了一大笔钱就辞职的想法。比如说，我银行里有

That's why I don't like the idea of, like, quitting your job with a huge nest egg. Like, I've got

我同意。

I agree.

20万美元。感觉就像，你接下来三年会无所事事地混日子，直到最后六个月才真正开始做正事。

$200,000 in the bank. It's like, you're just gonna fuck around for three years and do nothing. And in the last six months, you're gonna do the real thing.

我不太谈论这个，因为听起来有点像特权，但我觉得我的启动资金太充裕了，我认为这就是问题所在。一开始

I don't speak about it much because as well it sounds like privilege to, I sort of speak, but I thought I think I had too much runway, and I think that's what food Same. In the beginning

我也是。

Same.

太过理想主义，梦想太大，然后还算幸运，没有全部浪费掉，在为时已晚之前意识到了问题。

To be too idealistic, to dream big, and then sort of luckily, sort of I didn't waste it all, and I sort of realized before it was too late.

当我们运营FeedbackPanda时，就是我们在两年前卖掉的业务，三四年吧，2019年卖的，具体记不清了。当时对我和丹妮尔——我的合伙人、联合创始人兼生活伴侣来说，那家公司几乎锁住了我们所有的财富。我们真的没有什么所谓的储备金。这也是为什么我们在那个时间点卖掉公司，因为我当时快要精疲力尽了。

When we ran FeedbackPanda, the business that we sold two years ago, three, four, I don't know, in the 2019. How long is Three that years ago. When we ran that for Danielle and I, my partner and co founder and life partner, was pretty much all we had in terms of wealth that was locked in that company. Like we had no nest egg to speak of really. And that's also why we sold the business at the point when we did, because I was close to burnout.

如果我无法继续工作，企业就有实质性的蒸发风险。这就是为什么我们在月经常性收入约5.56万美元时出售了业务。我们本可以将其发展到100万，本可以以四五倍的价格退出，但我们没有，也做不到。

There was like a material risk of the business evaporating if I couldn't function anymore. So that was one of the reasons why we sold the business at $55.60 ish K MRR. We probably could have grown it to a 100. We probably could have exited like four or five times the amount we did, but we didn't. And we couldn't.

显然这次退出彻底改变了我们之后的生活。但在当时，在运营业务的关键时期——第二年末，我们感受到的是一种紧迫感，但不是令人愉快的那种，明白吗？不是能让我们有余力开展新副业的那种。我们必须立即处理这个问题，因为如果我们中任何人停止工作，整个事业就会崩溃，随之消失的还有我们所有的财富。

Like obviously the exit itself changed our life after that forever. But at that point, when we were running that business right in the middle of it, at the end of the second year, there was a sense of urgency, but not a fun one, right? Not one that allowed us to create something new on the side or anything. We have to deal with this now because if either of us doesn't work anymore, the whole thing just gonna fall apart. And with that goes all the wealth we have.

这很冒险，因为在此之前我一直过着月光族的生活。我曾在德国担任软件工程师，那是一份普通的正常工作，收入不错但我没有储蓄。我也从未接受过任何理财教育。

And that was a risky thing, because I've been living paycheck to paycheck before that. I was a software engineer. I was in Germany. We, you know, like it was, it was just a regular kind of job that I had and it paid well, but I didn't save. I was also not taught or ever educated on how to deal with money.

这是我不得不从伟大的托尼·罗宾斯那里学习的课题。让我在此坦白：我直到35岁（实际33岁）才第一次阅读金融书籍，学习如何管理金钱。是的。

That is something that I had to learn from the great Tony Robbins. Let me just admit it right here. Right? Like there was, I had to read financial literature at 35, 33 for the first time in my life, understanding how to deal with money. Yeah.

如果你到这个年纪还不懂理财，就会做出各种奇怪愚蠢的选择，导致月月拮据。因此我很庆幸我们拥有那个业务，也很庆幸成功出售了它。现在从这个舒适的位置，我能做出更明智、更具长远眼光的决策。我听说这被称为'后经济心态'——当你无需为明天的房贷或杂货账单担忧时，你就能做出长期决策，对吗？

And if you are that old and you don't know how to deal with this, then you make weird and stupid choices that lead you to living from paycheck to paycheck. So I'm fortunate that we had that business and I'm fortunate that we sold it. And that now from this cushy kind of position, I can make much smarter choices, much more long term choices. I heard this being called like the post economic state of mind. If you don't have to make a choice about tomorrow, the next mortgage payment or your next grocery bill, then you make choices that are long term, right?

进行这些或大或小的投资，着眼的是数十年而非数周的时间维度。这确实天差地别，但当时我们压力巨大。我个人——作为公司唯一的技术人员——总觉得如果我不在凌晨三点起床修复数据库问题，客户就会流失，所有人都会离开。

Make these bets, small or big, whatever it is in decades, not in weeks of time, timeframes that you have. That definitely makes a whole lot of difference, but we were under pressure. I was personally me, right? It was my, me being the only technical person in the company felt like if I'm not waking up at three in the morning fixing some database issue, then our customers are gonna quit. Everybody is gonna quit.

这种持续数年的精神压力相当巨大，这也是我们出售的原因。但

Like the mental pressure of that for years was quite substantial, which is why we sold. But

我很喜欢这个故事，因为我觉得我们都经历过类似的压力巨大的处境。我认为实现后经济状态这个目标几乎是每个独立开发者的共同追求。是的。我从中得到的另一个启示是：永远不要因为过于谦逊而不去读书，无论你是35岁、45岁还是55岁。如果你需要学习金融知识，就去学习金融知识。

I love that story because I think we've all been in a similar situation where we're under a lot of pressure. And I think this goal of getting to a post economic situation is kind of the goal for every indie hacker. Yep. And the other takeaway I have from that is never be too too humble to read a book, whether you're 35, 45, 55. If you need to learn about finance, learn about finance.

我想我们需要结束了。Daniel，你需要走了吗？

I think we need to wrap up. Daniel, you need to go?

是的。我需要走了。呃，很遗憾，我日程上确实还有别的事情。是的。

Yes. I need to go. Yeah. I I unfortunately, I do have something on my calendar. Yeah.

好的。我很快总结一下。非常感谢Arvind和Daniel来参加节目。你们想告诉听众去哪里可以了解更多你们的动态吗？

Yeah. I'll wrap it up real quick. Thanks so much, Arvind and Daniel, for coming on the show. You wanna tell listeners where they can go to learn more about what you're up to?

嗯。Twitter。

Yeah. Twitter.

Twitter，一样。Twitter，Twitter。好吧。

Twitter, same. Twitter, Twitter. Alright.

谢谢大家。

Thanks, guys.

谢谢。

Thank you.