Right! Did you notice the phrase “at the moment”? A snapshot in time that makes the narrative sound optimal.
No mention of how it reached that point. No mention of what advertising routes were tried in the past.
Another trick I’ve seen is for solopreneurs to create a “HoldCo” that holds their individual businesses, then to find creative ways to spend marketing dollars out of the parent company so they can keep it off the books of their individual businesses. You have to look for this when someone has a large personal brand presence that markets the app. For example, how much is he spending to grow his Twitter and newsletter following, which isn’t counted as an expense out of the individual businesses but is a huge (perhaps the largest?) driver of leads for them.
From evaluating potential small business acquisitions I quickly learned that operators are very good at juicing their profitability numbers as they prepare for a potential sale, for example. You’d often see great stories of customer growth and high profit numbers, only to discover that the profitability was a recent change after they turned off the growth tools. You might also discover that their customer acquisition costs were hidden away in one of the owner’s other ventures. For example, a roofing company that looks great until you realize their entire customer base comes from “referrals” from the owner’s other company which installs solar panels on people’s roofs.
Again, it’s possible that this is pure, organic, word-of-mouth growth all the way to $45K MRR, but I’ve seen enough of these stories to know that word of mouth and a moderate Twitter following generally isn’t enough to do it.
All I’m saying is to keep an eye open for what you’re not being told in these stories. When someone is part indie hacker and part social media influencer, everything they write is designed to consider you a potential customer, potential follower, or potential acquirer of their business (as with his previous sale). That doesn’t mean that their information is unhelpful, it just means that you’re getting a partial sales pitch with everything you read. Keep that in mind.