SPECIAL: The Tools in the Solo Creator Toolbox

**Sam Parr** (0:00)
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If your goal is to optimize for wealth creation, some of these apps or relatively smaller ideas are actually significantly likelier to make you wealthy and perhaps be more fun along the way.
What's happening, podcast listeners? This is Sam Parr. I'm currently walking around SoHo in New York.
It's Friday after work and I'm doing something I never do. I'm listening to a podcast that I was on. You see, a couple weeks ago, Shaan and I appeared on the Indie Hacker's podcast with Courtland. And it was awesome. It was really good. And I'm listening to this right now and I was like, I think our audience are you people, MFM. I think you guys would love this. And so I'm sitting here on my phone, walking from SoHo up on the water up to my apartment. And I said, you know what the hell we're going to air this. So I'm doing it right now. We're launching it. I hope you enjoy it.
Let us know what you think about this. My Twitter handles the Sam Parr, Sean is Sean VP. And on your Spotify, there's this new feature. They got this little bell. Click that bell for me. That way you'll get notified when new features and new episodes come out and let me know if it works.
We'll talk to you soon. Have a good day. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my walk. Listen how loud that is. Can you hear that? This freaking city. It's so loud. Oh my gosh. Well, enjoy the podcast. See you.

**Courtland Allen** (2:20)
What's up everybody, this is Courtland from indiehackers.com, and you're listening to the IndieHackers Podcast. More people than ever are building cool stuff online and making a lot of money in the process. And on this show, I sit down with these IndieHackers to discuss the ideas, the opportunities, and the strategies they're taking advantage of, so the rest of us can do the same.
All right, I'm here with Shaan Puri and Sam Parr, two of my favorite podcast hosts. You guys host the excellent show, My First Million. Welcome to the IndieHackers Podcast.

**Sam Parr** (2:51)
All right, let me ask you a question. What was the valuation of Stripe when you sold to them?

**Courtland Allen** (2:56)
I think it was like $9 billion in like April 2017

**Shaan Puri** (3:00)
Three part question that results in Sam knowing your current bank balance, so here we go. That was part one.

**Courtland Allen** (3:04)
Okay, I'm not gonna answer the third question. I know what the third question is, I'm not gonna answer it.

**Sam Parr** (3:07)
What's the valuation now? Nine, 90?

**Courtland Allen** (3:10)
It's $95 billion now, I think.

**Shaan Puri** (3:13)
And by the way, it wasn't even risky back then. Did it feel risky when you?

**Courtland Allen** (3:17)
No, no, no, no. It didn't feel risky at all at the time because Stripe was obviously a good company already, but also that wasn't even on my mind. I wasn't thinking like, what's the valuation of Stripe? I was more just thinking like, hey, I'm running this like really tiny scrappy website. Like, how do I make enough money to pay my rent? And so I was just trying to get sponsors.
And I had this giant list of like the perfect sponsors for Indie Hackers and Stripe was number one on that list. Like after I built up enough sales skills, I was gonna reach out to them.
But before I got to that point, Patrick, the CEO emailed me and was like, hey, can we buy Indie Hackers? And so I was like, yeah, of course. It's much better than getting a sponsor.

**Sam Parr** (3:48)
They, Shaan, Courtland, do you know Courtland has a brother?

**Shaan Puri** (3:53)
Yeah, I found this out the other day that you have a twin brother.

**Sam Parr** (3:56)
Yeah, but they don't look identical, but yeah, they look similar. But he came to Austin like a month ago or three weeks ago, and he came over on like a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and we had a good time. And then he ended up coming over on Friday and we ate dinner.