Bootstrapping vs venture capital & lessons from a veteran - Spencer Fry, Podia

Today I’m joined by Spencer Fry, founder of Podia, a platform helping creators make a living online through selling courses, digital downloads, webinars and more. 7 years in, they have a 35 person team and have an awesome product for creators. But this isn’t Spencer’s first rodeo, bootstrapping and exiting 3 businesses between 2003 and 2014, notably Carbonmade and TypeFrag. What’s interesting about Spencer is that he's actually raised funding for Podia, and I wanted to find out why a seasoned bootstrapper like Spencer went down this route, and if it’s a an option that more indie hackers should consider.

👉 50 minute version of this conversation.

What we covered in this episode:

Why Spencer raised funding for PodiaWhy you should look at funding as a toolBeer ≠ funding3 interesting predictions on the creator economySpencer’s article with those predictionsBonus: Spencer’s famous vodka pasta dishOpportunities to build in the creator economyWhy entrepreneurs are different gravySolo founder vs co-founder

Recommendations

Book: Ben Horowitz Book 1 / Book 2Podcast: Axios Today / All In PodIndie Hacker / entrepreneur: Tobi Lutke

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Sponsor - Ahrefs

Thank you to Ahrefs for sponsoring Indie Bites. Ahrefs is the most complete and valuable SEO tool on the market. Bootstrapped companies such as VEED and Transistor have used Ahrefs extensively to understand how to craft their SEO strategies, which have been such a pivotal part of their growth.

If you want to get more traffic from Google on your side-project, I’d recommend first trying out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free. You’ll see what keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover what changes you need to improve your search ranking. You should also check out their YouTube channel to understand both the basics of SEO and some more advanced techniques.

To try out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, head to ahrefs.com/awt.