Alfredo

The moment every indie hacker fears has come... I have less than $80 left in my bank account and I'm stuck in Brazil (far from home) I'm going to share how I got here so you can avoid it... . . . . . I'm a 27 years old Spaniard who loves creating and shares life with a wonderful girlfriend/business partner Since I was a child, I dreamed of traveling the world while working from a laptop on my own terms (digital nomad as a term didn't exist yet) So I started researching about ways to make money online. After skipping forex and other scams, I discovered SEO around 10 years ago There were people making a bunch of money ranking content websites and selling display ads inventory or reviewing products from Amazon with affiliate links. So I wanted the same During my time in college I created around 10 websites but I was thinking more about having fun than business so only a couple of them ended up giving some money (didn't get to ramen profitability at this time) In 2022 I finished my MBA studies and got a job as an expat in Turkey, so I left my parents house At that time my relationship with @celiaripoll_ was strong and we both wanted to live together. To make that possible, we had to start a business so she could move with me while working remotely Her passion was design, so we launched lalolastudio.com to offer one-off brand/web design services to Spanish clients. I got her leads with local SEO and she operated the business After 1 year working as an employee, I realized that lifestyle wasn't for me The design studio had already gained some traction. So I left the job and secured 1 SEO client that was paying me 600€/month, not much but enough to give me some stability Since I was already handling SEO for lalolastudio.com and Celia was getting leads automatically, I could focus on what I loved most: creating money-making websites In 2023 we decided to move to South East Asia to afford living together while exploring new countries At that time, we had no more than 5k in our bank accounts combined, but we were fearless and excited to keep growing together With the expenses of constantly moving, we were living paycheck to paycheck but I was working hard to grow my websites (with $0 to invest in links, SEO is painfully slow) Around summer 2023 my websites were about to pass $1k/month mark so I left my one SEO client who was very time consuming to focus on my content sites But the worst was about to come... Just one month later after saying goodbye to my only stable income (around September last year) Google decided to change its algorithm and all my websites went to 0 overnight We were moving to Buenos Aires at the time Luckily, Google didn't kill lalolastudio.com traffic so we had enough cash-flow from that business to pay for food and next month rent in a low cost of living country like Argentina Despite the setback, my motivation was intact, with my SEO skills I was confident I could make something work again I realized that building a "real startup" was more sustainable long-term than relying solely on content websites that rank on Google. So, I began working on creating more useful B2B SaaS tools and iterating quickly until something clicked, inspired by @levelsio In 2024 I started learning to code while building my first SaaS but a series of misfortunes began to unfold: 1. I got dengue in Buenos Aires (March) 2. Due to low defenses during dengue, I contracted herpes + adenovirus in one eye 3. I've been fighting with an eye ulcer for 4 months since then To add to the stress, our visas in Argentina expired, forcing us to buy new flight tickets and move to Florianopolis, Brazil, in June At this point, we had less than $3k in our bank accounts. I can't even call them savings because it was simply Lalola Studio cash flow Summer arrived in Spain, which meant leads stopped coming to the agency, and Celia couldn't close new contracts. A critical situation for one-off service agencies It was a vicious circle, the less money we had, the more pressure I felt, the less my eye could heal, and the less I could work And here we are, I have less than $100 in my bank account and Celia has around $400 I want to be fair: we're not panicking (just yet) because we still have some payments coming in from brand designs made by @celiaripoll_ that add up to a couple of thousand € And if everything goes tremendously wrong, we have parents who would welcome us into their homes, and I still have a high-value skill (SEO) that I can desperately sell But still, I don't want to see myself in this situation again, checking the bank account and skip eating out to ensure we can pay the next rent in a couple of weeks And the pressure of not being able to get sick because I need to make money to pay my bills. That’s ridiculous and not why I started this life ... Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining Both Celia and I still feel incredibly lucky, and I'm deeply grateful for my life and all the experiences we've had. We've had the opportunity to live in amazing places like: 🇹🇷 Turkey 🇵🇭 The Philippines 🇹🇭 Thailand 🇦🇷 Argentina 🇧🇷 Brazil (now) We don't have money but we love each other and we still can enjoy nature which is mostly free Everything has been worth it, and the freedom we've experienced is what I value the most. I wouldn't change any of my decisions Just wanted to share this as a public announcement that I'm committed to fix this situation I had a minor surgery last week that seems to have resolved my eye problem (for now at least) I'm still super positive and I deeply believe that we'll eventually make it if we keep up the hard work The knowledge I've gained during this time about business and marketing makes me feel more confident than ever that I'm moving in the right direction And I really want to look back at this tweet a few years from now and see how everything has changed Take care and keep building

someone hacked my account and changed the email address and I'm unable to revert the change so the hacker email stays in my account and I will lose access as soon as the active session in my laptop is ended how is this possible? @X @nikitabier @Support

Founder-fit Mode

Could you explain like I'm 5?

If you're looking for Micro SaaS ideas built by solopreneurs that are generating +$5K MRR in profit reply with 'saas ideas' and I'll DM you 7 ideas along with their earnings

5 months ago, I boosted the DR of one of my sites to 50 with a link building service from Fiverr. Search impressions and clicks did not increase. In fact, it looks like it decreased. Lesson learnt: Do not buy backlink building service from Fiverr!