27: James is gone; Dago is back
We are fucking back. This indie life is back. I'm back on Twitter and it's time to have fun again, guys. So there's gonna be a couple changes. Most noticeable one is James is gone.
Dagobert Renouf:We realized that, basically, he doesn't listen to my updates and I don't listen to his. Like, we're just like 2 selfish jerks, you know, doing an update after another, and it felt kind of empty in a way. So he basically wanted to take a break from it. So for a while, we wondered, should we continue this podcast? And he kept pushing me to do it alone because he thought I could do something with it.
Speaker 1:He had so much work to do on the side and you know how like it was important to him to find stability. And at first I was like really scared of doing it without him, but it's been a couple of weeks now and I got some new ideas for the pod and I'm actually very excited for it. Basically, I quit my job and the only revenue I have is my Twitter course, which still brings 500 a month, and I need to bring 4 k a month to survive. So I have 8 months of unemployment benefits from this crazy French system that we have that is awesome. I have 8 months to figure out how am I gonna make money and how am I gonna make 4 k a month.
Speaker 1:For a while, I thought I'm gonna build another startup, but you know what? I don't really want to. I don't want to start a startup again. I don't want to have to do this whole grind of, like, finding product market fit, trying to do ideas and hoping one day I get successful. I'm tired of it already.
Speaker 1:I I went through that for 5 years with my own startup, with my ex wife. And now and even with my job, I was working for a startup for 8 months. And we were, again, fighting against, you know, the uphill battle and just like trying to get revenue and getting customers and finding product market fit and, like, I'm so exhausted and tired of that shit, man. So I have 8 months to make 4 k a month. You know what I'm gonna do?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna double down on this podcast, 1 episode a week, take sponsors, try to make money from that. I'm gonna finish the book I started writing about all the mistakes I made with my startup the first time and and start selling it. And I'm gonna update my Twitter course to update it to be like how to dominate x, which sounds pretty pornish, but I think it's cool. And I think with everything, I can get back up to at least 4 k a month, hopefully more than that. But basically, in my next few months, my focus is survival.
Speaker 1:I wanna go back to indie hacking full time and I don't wanna go and I wanna have to leave for a job again. So my focus is survival and make money. And the quickest path for me is content, podcast, my book, and my courses. So that's what I'm going to do. So that's why this podcast will be weekly now.
Speaker 1:Now another change that's going to happen is I was wondering, is it going to be boring if I just do a solo podcast? People told me you should have guests and people told me, oh, you could try solo. And, you know, I wanna do both. Like, I actually don't enjoy podcast where it's only guests. And, like, basically, the host is just the host.
Speaker 1:Like, and he doesn't talk about his shit. But I wanna share my journey. You know how much I love sharing my journey, even the dirty and, like, very dark side of it. That's really what I love. I was one of the first to really be like, yeah.
Speaker 1:I burnt out. Like, my health is shit, and then I'm gonna divorce my wife and it's terrible. Like and people really resonated with that. And the reason I think people resonate with with that is that, you know, when you go on social media, all you see is success stories. All you see is that, you know, the very good and successful founders, like, for example, you know, Peter Lovells, he's gonna share his new success thing.
Speaker 1:And, you know, he's so amazing at it. That's, like, very inspiring. That's very cool. But, also, eventually I mean, that's cool, but, like, you see so many founders just do that. They just talk about the positive.
Speaker 1:And what happens when you only talk about the positive, at least for me, is like I open Twitter and I feel like shit. I feel like shit. And not just Twitter, like any social platform. LinkedIn is even worse, but like you just open these places where you are supposed to be in community, supposed to be social with other friends on the same journey as you are the intimakers and shit. And you know what happens is you only see people with success stories.
Speaker 1:Since my burnout, so many founders have reached out to me and I talk with them about their own struggles. And the reason I'm so excited to come back to this podcast is I already lined up basically 5 guests who are, like, big indie makers. Like, I have Marie from Llama Life who literally, like, an hour ago, I was on the phone with her and because she's, like, thinking she might burn out and she thought she could talk to me about it because it's very stressful. Because, like, even though she has success with her app and she has, like, thousands of users and paying users and she's, like, doing well, well, you know, she started hiring. She can't handle everything, and she's spending all of most of her time doing shit that she doesn't like, like accounting and shit.
Speaker 1:And so she ends up feeling bad and it's very stressful, you know. Then I talked to Nico, you know, the guy who does talk notes and other French guy. And he basically told me that for the past 2 years, he basically lost sleep. Like, he's so stressed out about having 2 or 3 days in a row without new income, without new sales that he just like loses sleep over it. And he started losing his fitness because like he's pretty built, like, he looks pretty athletic, but he stopped working out for, like, a couple of years because of the stress.
Speaker 1:And and that's exactly what I've been through. You know, I used to work out and weight lift 1 hour a day. And 3 years ago, I stopped because I was so stressed about my startup. So, anyway, I'm talking with many indie founders or indie creators because it's not just about startup. It's also like creating content and all these ways you can be indie and building your solo business.
Speaker 1:And like, we most of us are going through very dark shit. Like most of us are like struggling. And so once I started connecting with them, it made sense. Like, I'm not gonna do a part with just interviews and I'm just gonna do a part with just solo episodes. What I'm gonna do is every week, I'm gonna either interview a founder about the difficult bits of entrepreneurship or I'm gonna share with you like a deep thought or deep reflection that I had about the same thing.
Speaker 1:But the focus is the same. Every week, we're gonna talk about the things that most people don't talk about. We're gonna talk about what's stressful, what's giving us anxiety, what's making us afraid, what, you know, all and like also the impact on our personal life, like my divorce and shit. Or like Nico was telling me how he now is in a relationship, but it only works because it's like long distance. So because of that, he can kind of like manage it.
Speaker 1:But if he was living with like a girlfriend or something, he wouldn't be able to because, like, he's so focused on his indie business and he's, like, consuming his entire life. So, like, all of this shit, man, that is so stressful and that nobody talks about, this indie life podcast now, this is gonna be the focus. Sometimes it's gonna be just me. Sometimes we're gonna have guests. It really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:What matters is we're all in this together, and we're gonna, like, really regroup. And I I wanna be like a community. I want us to be a community of founders and, like, creators and not just people trying to share wins on Twitter and get likes. You know? Like, we're all in this together.
Speaker 1:So let's kind of, like, be honest and authentic about it altogether and, you know, share everything. So that's really the goal of this pod. And so with the same idea, I have opened up the Hindi hotline. So if you go to hindi life part dot com, you see a link for the Hindi hotline in the header, in the main navigation. And you can basically send me anything that you want.
Speaker 1:So you can record an audio or a video of yourself. I'm not paying for the form thing yet, so you are limited to 10 megabytes uploads. So try to be concise. Once I make more than 500 a month, I will pay for the upgrade so you guys can send 1 gigabyte videos if you want, but just a heads up. You can also send potentially a text, you know, question, whatever.
Speaker 1:But, like, it can be a question. It can be anything, basically. If you have something on your mind, something bothering you, you can even do something anonymously if you want. I will need you to send me your real information so I can verify that it's true. But I will add a checkbox so you can, like, share anonymously if you don't want anyone to know who you are or whatever.
Speaker 1:But if you're going something through with, like, your life as an indie creator, I mean, whatever it is, like, if it's something in your personal life, it's if it's something with your business or even if it's a win because it's not about being depressing. It's about just being real. So it can be anything that matters to you. You know, go ahead, record yourself, send me something. And in the next episode I mean, in the next solo episode, I will kind of, like, you know, listen to the messages, like and I will show them to everyone, and then I will react to it and start to, like, use it as a talking point.
Speaker 1:So you can do that. And the last thing is we're gonna take sponsors. Because now that I'm very clear that I'm gonna focus on content creation, tired of startups. I just wanna be indie and do my business for now. It makes sense that, you know, I need to make money with this part.
Speaker 1:I used to think if you guys have been following for a while, you know that James and I used to have a fight about having sponsors. I didn't want them and he wanted them. And the reason why I didn't want them is, like, it felt dirty. Because at the time, the goal of this part was really I just wanted to get some free promotion for my startup Logology. I wanted to use it at this opportunity.
Speaker 1:But and I felt like it was kind of dirty and, like, I don't wanna, like, give people the impression that I'm in this for the money. I wanna look like this pure founder so people just have, like, a better opinion on me, and then they just go to my website and buy my product because I'm so virtuous and shit. But, you know, I burnt out and I realized it was the stupidest thing to not take money or anything. Like, this is a business, guys. Obviously, I'm not gonna take sponsors that I'm not inspired by.
Speaker 1:I only want, like, apps and, like, products that I really feel like I love and that you guys could love. So I'm gonna be very transparent about it. And I'm gonna use, like, the usual very real and authentic tone that you know me for. Like, I'm not gonna bullshit anybody, but I'm gonna admit, like, man, I I gotta make money. So, yeah, this part, you know, starting to get a pretty big audience where I got 750 people listening.
Speaker 1:If you take into account people on Twitter and peep because I post the full episode now on Twitter and people from all the platforms and YouTube, we're at about 750 per episode. So that's not bad. And I'm like, you know, let's make some money. Like, I need to make some money. I need to be sustainable.
Speaker 1:Don't wanna go back to a job again. Let's be sustainable. But like And so I told James that because I was like, dude, like if we make money, like, if I get sponsors, like, maybe you can come back. And he was like, yeah. Maybe.
Speaker 1:Like, he really doesn't wanna do it anymore. So, like, even money couldn't bring him back in. So, you know, I guess he has his own his own journey, but we'll see. He might come back or, like, we will see in the future what happens. But, anyway, yeah, the last thing is we are getting sponsors.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, I guess that's it for, like, you know, kind of like the summary of what's gonna happen. And now to be a bit more in-depth about, my update. So as you know, I had burnt out, you know, in February 2023. Massive burnout, led me to meditate a lot, figure out, you know, what had gone wrong. I then also realized the problem was also in my personal life and my relationship with Lucy, so I ended up divorcing her.
Speaker 1:It's still, like, in process, but I think the divorce should be, like, official in, like, 2 or 3 months or something. Since then, you know, because I was so unable to work on my startup or, like, anything or Twitter, that was very challenging for me to go back to Twitter because it's so exciting. And for me, that was just making my heart rate goes way too fast. So I had to stop literally. Like, physically, I had to stop.
Speaker 1:So because I couldn't do anything with my indie business, I had to go back to a job. So end of June 2023, I went back to a job. What happened is, it was kind of like the perfect job for where I was at. Like, I was basically a product manager at a startup in Paris, but I was working fully remotely. So I was working from my apartment in Lille, making a good salary and also accumulating the unemployment benefits, you know, from the French government that is very useful in our situation.
Speaker 1:So that is something I knew I was doing too. So I was taking this job also because I know I was building up to that to eventually come back if I wanted to. And so I spent basically 3 months that were really cool. I mean, no 6 months that were really cool. I was really into the product.
Speaker 1:They gave me so much responsibility. They trusted me. They really liked me. It wasn't there wasn't that much pressure. I could do some marketing for their app.
Speaker 1:I could do some also product for their app. I could do basically any anything I wanted. They just supported me. They just wanted me to help their start grow. But, you know, once I then eventually I moved out of my place with Lucy.
Speaker 1:And that was a very challenging time because, like, once I broke up with her and I moved out, I didn't have a new place. I actually spent 2 months hopping off Airbnbs in my city, like in my hometown of Lille, France. So, by the way, if you wanna come visit, I can tell you where the good Airbnbs are because I basically spent, like, 2 months just, like, hopping from one to the next. I also had a good friend who helped me, so that was really cool. You know, when I really cause sometimes I literally couldn't, like, go to Airbnb and I had to go somewhere.
Speaker 1:So I had a friend that was awesome, really helpful. And during that time, you know, I really rebuilt myself. I also started going to a co working space, local. That is very awesome because it's a lot of entrepreneurs and digital kind of like creators. So it also helped me have relationships in real life because it's awesome to have friends on Twitter and social media, but like, even though it's real friends and I know because when I connect with people I see we have built a real friendship.
Speaker 1:I mean, when it's in real life, it has a better impact on my health. I noticed like, just like now I go to this place like 2 like 3 or 4 times a week. We do like kind of like a party together every couple of weeks. Like, we are going to karaoke next week, for example. And it's like, wow.
Speaker 1:Real life, man. Real friends, people you can eat lunch with, you know, go to parties with. And that is just the best. So, yeah, basically, I spent all of this time, you know, away from Twitter and away from everything, rebuilding my health, rebuilding my social circle, making friends, having sex too. You know, I started having sex again.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was having sex with Lucy, but, like, having sex with a new person after, like, 13 years, like, it's also something that's kind of like, wow, this is kind of, like, new. So, like, that was something that was that I went through that was also kind of, like, helping me move on. And also a last thing is, eventually, I found my own place. So once all of that was done, and that was very recent, like, I only found my own I only moved out to my own place on January 8th. And, you know, then it took me a while to, like, kind of, like, get set up.
Speaker 1:And then I took, like, 1 week of paid vacation with my job. I have to mention paid vacation because it's so amazing to have paid vacation when you're in the, I'm paid in vacation. It doesn't make any sense, you know, but like, you know, that was that. And that was, I think, end of January, early February that I took this week off and I had finally started to settle. You know, I was really moving on from, you know, devote from breaking up with my wife.
Speaker 1:I had really started really grieving on everything, and I was feeling better about it. And, also, I had to rebuild some financial savings. I had started and I think end of January is when I officially unlocked an unemployment benefits because it takes you 6 months of work to unlock them. And then you have like 1 month of unemployment benefit for every month you worked. So if you live after 6 months, you get 6 months.
Speaker 1:If you live after 8 months, you get 8 months. If you live after 2 years, you get 2 years. But I think now they're limited to a year and a half, but basically between 6 months and a year and a half, you're going to get one day of an employment benefit from one day of work. So once I unlocked that, I had some savings. I was moving on from my past relationship.
Speaker 1:I had some friends again. I have my own place, which I love. Maybe one day I'll give you a tour, but, like, this is my new couch. I love this couch. It's so comfortable.
Speaker 1:Like, you guys should try it. But, you know, anyway anyway, I have my own place. It's awesome. And so I took this week break, and I was still pretty involved in the startup, like, I was working at, like, in this job at this time. But then after taking this break, I just slept so much and I just spent I just stayed here, like, and I just slept in my amazing $3,000 bed that I told you about couple of times because I got to keep the bed, you know.
Speaker 1:Lucy has the shitty sofa. I got the bed, but she got the TV. So, you know, that's the game. Anyway, but I can't watch TV anymore because of my fucked up eyes since the burnout. So I kind of win.
Speaker 1:No. I'm just kidding. But, you know, we made it very fair and very balanced, so it's all good. I'm just joking. But yeah.
Speaker 1:So after this week of vacation, I was like, I'm ready. I was like, okay. I'm cool. I'm coming back. There's no need for me to be doing this job.
Speaker 1:Like, it's it was awesome. It was kind of like a recovery job, but I'm mostly recovered now. You know? Let's let's fucking go. I don't I don't wanna waste any minute not doing something I love fully.
Speaker 1:So it was a cool job, but it's not my vision. It's not my product. I can't do everything I want, so that's not what I want. You know? And I kind of got addicted to how real it is to be indie.
Speaker 1:Like, even though I burnt out and it was so fucking tough, man, the reality of it, I love the taste, you know, of reality. The taste of you're naked. You're basically naked, and and it's cold, and it's raining on your face and there's and there's like a tiger looming. And you're like, you know, you gotta be you gotta make it. Like and this thrill, man, I'm like, I'm addicted to this thrill.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest. Like, to me, this is like the only way to live. This is only real life. So I had to come back, you know? So eventually, I talked to my boss about it, and my plan was I don't know.
Speaker 1:I had this idea that they really needed me, so I thought, okay. And, like and I had made so many plans for their products to change the product. I had set a lot of things in motion because, again, they gave me a lot of responsibility and I had set this big plan to kind of like revamp the product and by the summer would have like a new version and new marketing and everything would be awesome. And I was very invested in that. But then after this week off, I was like, I need to leave, you know, because even though it's awesome, it is not my real life.
Speaker 1:And so I brought it up to my boss saying, you know, I really don't wanna let you guys down, but I'm gonna leave. So what I offer is that I can save it I can stay for, like, 3 to 6 months so we can set the we can see the project through and, you know, I don't leave, like, Nassau, like in the middle of it. And and in my head he was gonna think, oh, okay. In my head he was gonna convince me to stay, you know? And and so and he said, oh, no.
Speaker 1:I don't give a shit. You can go in 2 weeks. And so that was such a blow to my ego. I'm like, wait, I'm not like you don't like me? Like, I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker 1:What do you mean? You know? And but I actually, he wasn't mean about it. He was actually very nice, and he said, no. But, like, it happened to me before.
Speaker 1:And, like, I know when you're already thinking of the future, you're not really in this anymore. Like it's already over. And like you're not gonna be a 100% and I don't want somebody who's not a 100%. So no hard feelings but, like, just fucking leave. You know?
Speaker 1:And I was like like and I was kind of like he kind of like swept the rug under my feet. Right? Because my plan involved having 3 more months of salary, at least maybe 6. And therefore 6 3 more months of unemployment benefits or, you know so my whole plan was kind of like thrown out. And but, like, I slept on it and that was like 3 weeks ago.
Speaker 1:And then I was like, that's awesome. I was like, I'm ready. I'm ready. Like, it's okay. Like, it's it's a little bit, like the the cold shower is a bit colder than I wanted, but it's cool.
Speaker 1:I wanted to take a cold shower anyway. I wanted to go out. I wanted to try again, so I am good. So yeah. And also a couple of people told me, but aren't you scared of burning out again?
Speaker 1:And I am, which I think is a good thing because last time I wasn't. I was literally working 70 hours a week and like, I can't burn out. Now I'm like, I can burn out. I know. So I am scared of it.
Speaker 1:Yes. But at the same time, I'm noticing one thing. The reason why I burnt out one of the biggest reasons I burnt out last time is that I was pulled in 2 different directions all the time. I had to be on social media all the time, go viral every day, kind of, like, go big and, like, this whole kind of like community thing, connecting with others, like engaging with others, like and on the other side, I had to build an entire product, which is like being heavily focused, have like very clear ideas. And like these two ways of thinking are so opposite.
Speaker 1:I was struggling with context switching. Always switching context was impossible for me. I cannot do it. And, you know, so that was that. And the other thing that was happening is that there was Lucy and I, so my ex and I.
Speaker 1:And because there's 2 of us, we had to create a legitimate company to partner. So it's like official. And because of that, in France you have way more taxes when you do that. So basically to just make a basic living, the 2 of us, we had to make 10 ks a month in revenue. But now that I'm alone to make a basic living, it's I don't even need to make 5 k a month.
Speaker 1:I have to make 4 k a month because well, yeah, because I'm alone, like life is a bit more expensive. Like my place like a place for 1 person is more expensive than a place for 2 cut in half, you know? But because I'm alone, I can have the what is called the auto entrepreneurial status, which is kind of like freelancer, and it means I have less taxes on revenue. So with 4 k a month, I live perfectly good the same as when I would make 10 k a month with Lucy on Logology. And the thing is I was the one responsible for bringing the money.
Speaker 1:She was doing all the logo and design work, but, like, I had the pressure on my shoulder to, like, bring the money and bring the customers every month starting from 0 and having to go to 10 k every month. That was so hard, man. Plus, having to do social media product, plus our relationship wasn't as fulfilling to me as I like to believe so back then. So there was all of this tension and all of this pressure. So a lot of things, you know, piled up to make me burn out.
Speaker 1:And now I need to make only 4 k a month and not 10. I don't have the pressure that I used to feel in my relationship. I am feeling way lighter. And, you know, I am gonna focus on only one thing. I'm gonna focus on content creation with podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm also starting a newsletter. Please subscribe. It's gonna be about a deep thought about entrepreneurship every week. My meme my best meme of the week and like a small update about my journey, you go to my Twitter profile and you can see the link in my bio to the newsletter. But, anyway, I'm only gonna do content now.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know for how long. I might start a startup again eventually. You know, I'm not against it. I'm just saying, as I said earlier, right now, I'm tired of startups, tired of stats. Just wanna survive.
Speaker 1:Just wanna make some good money with things that are easy for me. So I'm gonna do podcast, Twitter. Also diversifying on other social platforms. You can find me on all of them if you want, the newsletter, and that's it. Like, I'm gonna and write a book, but, like, everything is about content creation.
Speaker 1:Everything is the same kind of thing. It's not like coding and product and marketing. It's only one thing. It's only hiding, thinking, and connecting with people. So, like, to me, that's way easier.
Speaker 1:So that's my update of the week or or more so like of the last 6 months, but stay tuned for more. I'm very happy to be back. I hope you guys are happy too. Again, if you have things you wanna share, you go to the Hindi outline on the website or you just send me something on Twitter. Just send me a DM.
Speaker 1:Even if I don't follow you, I will see it because I'm gonna check my inbox. So don't hesitate to write to me. We can talk about all this stuff, or you can also leave a comment under the tweet of this podcast if you're watching it on Twitter. But, yeah, that's it for me. Have an amazing week, everyone, and I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1:And I think next week will gonna be a first episode with a guest. So I don't know who it's gonna be yet, but we're gonna talk about all the dark side of entrepreneurship and being indie. And I'm very excited for it and I hope you are too.
Creators and Guests
