Here's what you'll find in this issue:

• This founder built a $20k/mo product in half a day.
• 5 vibe coding tools. Some of the latest apps for coding with AI.
• Yesterday's build board winners, including a creator tool that fixes weak titles, low-CTR thumbnails, and bad upload timing.
• 30-second growth tip: Use a crisis to erase your geographic disadvantage.

What would you do if you woke up to a $5,000 cloud bill tomorrow? One viral spike or bot wave can turn usage-based pricing into a real problem. Bluehost VPS provides dedicated compute, full root access and predictable monthly pricing on your hosting plan.

A Half-Day Hackathon Product Now Makes $20K/Month 🎙️

Louis Pereira built AudioPen during a hackathon he organized himself. The whole thing took half a day. Two years later, it’s pulling in $15-20K per month. Interestingly, Louis isn’t technical! He built the entire product with no-code tools like Bubble for the web app and Draftbit for mobile.

AudioPen turns voice rambles into clean text. You talk, it thinks, you get polished writing. Louis only offers annual and two-year subscriptions, no monthly option. Once the product hit a critical mass of users, word of mouth took over as the main growth driver. He’s now aiming to 10x revenue over the next year.

Check out our interview with Louis to learn how Twitter activity in 2023 kickstarted his early growth, what it took to recover from random DDoS attacks that brought down his site, and a whole lot more.

Read the full article →

You've built something real. But once your team starts growing, you’re suddenly drowning in payroll processing, benefits enrollment, and compliance questions you never signed up for.

That's where Justworks comes in. We handle the parts of running a business that don't deserve your attention: automated payroll that actually works, benefits your team will actually use, international hiring without the legal minefield, and tax compliance you can trust. When things get confusing (and they will), our team of small business experts is there 24/7 with actual answers — no automated responses, no AI agents.

Thousands of founders have freed up their time for what actually matters. Whether you're just hiring your first employee or scaling your team, Justworks grows with you, without the growing pains.

Visit www.justworks.com to see how other makers are building without the busywork.

1. Cursor: AI code editor that predicts your next edit and understands your project context.

2. Continue: Create custom AI copilots in VS Code or JetBrains with one open-source plugin.

3. v0: Type a prompt — v0 drafts production-ready React, Vue, or Svelte components.

4. Qodo: Boost test coverage fast — Qodo writes unit tests and smart code suggestions.

5. Junie: Chat, refactor, and generate tests across JetBrains IDEs with context-aware AI.

See all 30 tools in the directory →

Use a crisis to erase your geographic disadvantage.

Monite is an API platform that provides financial building blocks like invoicing and bill pay for other software companies. Co-founders Andrey Korchak and Ivan Maryasin were based in Europe, which used to be a real problem for fundraising. US investors wanted face-to-face meetings, and flying back and forth wasn’t practical for a bootstrapped team.

Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly, Zoom calls became the norm. Investors stopped caring where founders were located. Monite used that window to raise from investors they never would have accessed before. So pay attention to which gatekeeping norms are temporarily suspended in crises.

Read the full growth report →

Every day, indie hackers post updates about the products they're building. Here's what the community voted to the top yesterday!

	1. Cre8Virals: AI tool to help YouTubers grow using real trending data Launching Cre8Virals: Turning YouTube Guesswork Into Data	▲ 6
	2. Rebabble: One‑tap audio recorder to capture only the important moments I built it as a new dad because the best baby sounds are fleeting	▲ 5
	3. Toksta: B2B Influencer Marketing Platform Why I Decided to Build Toksta	▲ 5

Enjoy building in public? Post an update to your product page on Indie Hackers, and it will automatically be added to the daily leaderboard.

Supply goes up, attention stays flat.

—Channing

Did you like today's stories? Did they suck? Which ones?

We're constantly changing things up to make this newsletter more useful, so let us know what you think by replying directly to this email. We read every reply!

Special thanks to Yushavel Calderon for the graphic design, and to James Fleischmann for contributing a post.

—Channing