1. How and when did you make your first dollar online?
I made my first dollar online through my first startup Hotspot (a marketplace that connects travel influencers and hotels) in 2019.
2. How long did it take between the idea and this first dollar?
We had the idea while traveling in Mexico in November 2018. Me and my co-founder Filip we’re still working full-time jobs at the time so it started as a side project.
Filip started working full-time on it in June 2019 and a couple of months later we found our first customers. I quit my job in January 2020 to join the project full-time. Unfortunately, COVID-19 hit in March 2020 and we quickly lost half of our customers.
In the summer of 2020, we decided to pivot and started building Tally.so (the simplest way to create forms).
3. What best actionable advice would you give someone who wants to start TODAY?
- Start as a side project or make sure you have the financial runway to pay your bills for at least a year
- Do things that don’t scale: do everything that it takes to get your first customers and worry about scaling processes later (we got our first customers by sending hundreds of cold DMs)
4. What resources would you recommend to a beginner?
Us, as bootstrappers, we find the most relevant advice about running and growing our startup on Indie Hackers, Reddit, and Twitter.
Follow fellow founders that are just a few steps ahead of you for the most actionable advice!
5. Who would you recommend to follow?
About Marie
Building Tally.so in public with @filipminev
– Marie
Try Tally, the simplest way to create forms