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

• This founder grew to $15.8k/mo mostly through word of mouth
• 5 vibe coding tools. Some of the latest apps for coding with AI.
• Yesterday's build board winners, including three new product launches from indie hackers.
• 30-second growth tip: Make your product visible to non-users every time it's used.

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Phuc Le spent years building products for other people. Then he got frustrated with how expensive and subscription-heavy SEO tools were, so he built his own using the DataForSEO API. SEO Utils is a desktop app for keyword research, rank tracking, and site audits, sold with one-time pricing instead of monthly fees. It brings in $10.4K/month. Ring Tonic, a call tracking platform that lets businesses see which marketing channels drive phone calls, adds another $5.4K MRR. He handles everything solo.

Ring Tonic came directly from SEO Utils users asking for a call tracking tool with the same philosophy. Simple, affordable, developer-friendly. Users can plug in their own Twilio API key instead of paying high monthly fees. Both products grew from real usage and direct feedback in Facebook groups rather than assumptions.

There's always plenty to learn from founders who build multiple successful products, and Phuc Le's story is no different. Check out our interview with him to learn about the stack that lets him ship fast as a solo founder, why frequent changelogs in Facebook groups built more trust than any marketing campaign, and much 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. Augment Code: Context-aware AI agent that navigates huge repos and writes fixes like a senior dev.

2. Cody: AI assistant that understands your entire codebase to write and fix code faster.

3. GitHub Copilot: Suggests code and entire functions in real-time within your editor.

4. Pieces: Store snippets of code offline and use a “long-term memory agent” to search, fix, reuse.

5. Windsurf: AI-powered IDE that anticipates your next move, acquired by Cognition in July 2025.

See all 30 tools in the directory →

Make your product visible to non-users every time it's used.

Fireflies․ai is an AI meeting assistant that transcribes calls and generates notes. One reason it spread so fast: every time a customer uses it, their entire meeting sees it too.

When Fireflies joins a Zoom call, it shows up as a visible participant. Everyone in that meeting just got introduced to the product without anyone pitching them. The customer didn’t share a link or send a referral. They just used the tool, and awareness happened automatically.

This is the same mechanic that made Calendly and Dropbox spread. Every scheduling link, every shared folder, exposed new people to the product through normal use.

If you’re building something, ask: can non-customers see this product in action? Can you design it so that using it naturally puts your name in front of other potential buyers? The best referral programs aren’t programs at all. They’re baked into the product itself.

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. Betterlytics: Simple, privacy-first, cookieless web analytics "200 OK" doesn't mean your site is working	▲ 8
	2. Anycrap: A digital store that creates fictional products on demand I analyzed 130,000 fake product names people typed into my website. Cats dominate everything	▲ 7
	3. Focido: Social to-do with real human motivators When you freeze before a task, who gets you moving: AI or a person?	▲ 4

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

The best investing advice and the best founder advice are the same advice.

—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