Checkin in after being laid off this Summer.

So, back in July, I posted about being laid off from my job.

At the time, there was a massive wave of layoffs in the SaaS startup world, and I had assumed that I would be shit out of luck for a full-time job for 6-8 months.

I dug out my running list of “billion-dollar ideas” and started networking.

I connected with a few of you and was blown away by the positive energy I was getting.

Though I didn’t think much would come from it, I had a second track, focusing on putting out my resume and doing interviews.

But, boy, was I wrong. That first week I had like 15 interviews, with ten follow-up invites.

I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of going back and working on someone else’s dream, but that’s the “safe” thing to do.

The last interview of that week was with a company whose product seemed pretty uninteresting to me, but I was still willing to chat.

In the conversation, I described to the CEO one of the biggest challenges I’ve had previously and the bat-shit-crazy way I had to go about trying to solve it (as a non-technical person).

His eyes lit up, and he told me that the product the company is currently offering is not the “billion dollar idea,” but they were working on a pivot to something entirely new.

What he went on to describe was the exact description of one of the ideas I had on my own “running list.” I was super pumped because I had first-hand experience with the problem and a ton of understanding of the market.

It’s been almost three months now, and we are starting to bring it to market. While this probably doesn’t fit the exact “indie hacker” definition, I think, in a lot of ways, it is.

Essentially, we are starting from scratch, with little funding and a one-man marketing team (me). I’ve been hacking the shit out of our GTM strategy, and this will be the growth hacking playbook on steroids.

I plan on continuing to document this journey, as many folks out there with great ideas and technical skills are still in the dark regarding generating awareness and demand. Since I will be approaching this with zero budget and zero name recognition, you will all be able to relate!

PS: If you want to learn more about what we are doing, you can check out Parative - and feel free to reach out.

I am going to try to give weekly updates.