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Business Roadmap
Indie Hacker Roadmap
Build a profitable software business as a one or two-person team. This roadmap is biased toward the modern AI-native indie playbook: ship fast, charge real money early, distribute on social.
7 stages Lifetime All levels Solo founders & 2-person teams targeting bootstrapped SaaS
By the end you’ll be able to
- 1Validate ideas before building
- 2Ship MVPs in days, not months
- 3Charge real money from day one
- 4Acquire customers without paid ads
- 5Run a sustainable, profitable business
01
Stage 1 2-4 weeks
Idea Validation
Talk to people, not blank pages
Ideas are cheap; problems are gold. Find a problem you (or 10 strangers) feel weekly. Charge $1 before you write a line of code it's the only proof of intent that matters.
Skills to develop
Problem interviewsPre-sale validationChoosing a nichePricing intuition
Resources
- BookThe Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
- VideoIndie Hackers PodcastFREE
02
Stage 2 1 week
Pick a Tech Stack
Boring is good; ship fast
Indie products fail from lack of distribution, not lack of stack. Pick something proven (Next.js + Supabase, Astro + DB, RoR if that's your background) and ship.
Skills to develop
Next.js or Astro for the front-endSupabase or Postgres on Neon for dataStripe for billingResend for email
03
Stage 3 1-2 weeks
MVP in a Week
Lovable, Bolt, v0 AI-native MVP
AI tools changed the MVP timeline. Lovable or Bolt for full-stack scaffolds, v0 for components, Cursor or Claude Code to refine. Aim for a week from idea to live URL.
Skills to develop
Lovable / Bolt for scaffoldingv0 for componentsCursor / Claude Code for refinementVercel for deploy
Resources
04
Stage 4 1 week
Charge Real Money
Stripe, $/mo, day 1
Free users tell you nothing. Charging clarifies what people actually value. Stripe Checkout or Lemon Squeezy gets you paid in an afternoon.
Skills to develop
Stripe Checkout & SubscriptionsLemon Squeezy / Paddle for VATPricing tiersTrial & free-tier policy
05
Stage 5 Ongoing
Distribution
Where indie hackers actually win or lose
Most indie products fail from invisibility, not bad code. Pick 1-2 channels (X, LinkedIn, Reddit, SEO, YouTube) and post consistently. Build in public is still the cheapest distribution.
Skills to develop
X / LinkedIn build-in-publicReddit / Hacker News etiquetteCold outbound that doesn't suckSEO basics
06
Stage 6 Ongoing
Content & SEO
Programmatic + editorial
SEO compounds. Pair editorial articles (long-form, 'best X for Y') with programmatic pages (directory, comparison) for compound traffic. AI helps with first drafts but real content wins.
Skills to develop
Keyword researchProgrammatic SEO patternsEditorial SEO articlesBacklinks via guest posts & directories
07
Stage 7 Ongoing
Operations & Sustainability
Don't burn out
Indie is a long game. Set boundaries, automate the boring (support FAQs, billing, deploys), and protect your inputs (sleep, exercise, focus blocks).
Skills to develop
Auto-replies & help docsBilling automationTime blockingBurnout prevention
Ready to build with what you've learned?
We pair these roadmaps with hands-on engagements pair-programming, code review, and architecture support.