“Work on your business; not in it.”

Eric Lam is a full-time indie hacker who always has multiple projects and experiments going simultaneously. It's how he diversifies his revenue and prevents his "nightmare" — going back to a desk job — from becoming a reality.

I caught up with him to understand how he runs such disparate experiments. 👇

Starting with intrapreneurship

James: Let’s start from the top.

Eric: I wrote music for a major tv show called the Dr. Oz Show. It was on Fox and I made royalties for about 6 years. After the royalties started drying up, I went to work at a major music company. I immediately felt poor and started trying to come up with ideas.

James: Anything good?

Eric: The first idea was a YouTube channel where we had our songwriters teach masterclasses and eventually sought to approach product companies like Fender for sponsorships.

James: Did it take off?

Eric: The CEO funded the idea and I got moved to be an intrapreneur at the company. It was a great learning experience but the interoffice politics of the company kneecapped us from having a real impact, which is my ultimate goal.

James: So what happened next?

Eric: A few years later, the pandemic hit and I decided to skill up. I spent almost all of my free time learning how to code and diving into SEO.

I took that new knowledge and went to work in Venture Capital, then parlayed it into a role as Head of Strategy at a startup. Finally, I left to do my own thing full time.

Aim for low time commitments

James: What are you building now that you're on your own?

Eric: I built and sold vocalpresets.com within 12 months. It was at $2.5k MRR when I sold it.

James: Why did you sell it?

Eric: I didn’t like the target customer, to be honest. My customers would steal credit cards and buy everything on the site then I'd get chargebacks. It was a headache.

James: How did you sell it?

Eric: I sold it via Instagram DM. The new owner and I found each other on a website selling marketplace and we moved to Instagram DM to complete the transaction because the website sales marketplace provided zero value so we felt they did not deserve the astronomical fee they charged just to hold escrow.

James: What else have you built?

Eric: I created Sleepy Sound, which is at $32k/MRR. I’m in a dispute over it with my distributor, though, after they tried to steal from me.

I also have my newsletter, Exploding Ideas, which was doing $10k MRR but I have scaled it down dramatically as I'm looking to pivot it to do more B2B services.

James: How many subscribers do you have?

Eric: 10,800. I grew to that number by using Reddit. I talked about how in this video. And here's my mix of revenue channels.

James: Any other projects?

Eric: I also own a bunch of websites that are growing in other markets like SFTaxAppeal.com and LATaxAppeal.com.

James: That's quite a haul. How do you find the time to run so many businesses?

Eric: This is what I do full time. And my businesses don’t take much time.

James: That's rare. Why don't they take much time?

Eric: I build them so I'm not working in the business.

James: Say more.

Eric: For example, vocalpresets.com was a software presets site. The work was done at the start, so all I had to focus on was marketing. I worked on that about 5 hours per week. That’s how most of my businesses are.

James: Smart.

Eric: Most people are focused on working in the business, because as an employee, that’s what you’re taught. But the key is to really focus on working on the business.

Digital websites can be built in a way where you don’t need to provide fulfillment. They’re self-serve so they lend themselves to fitting into this mold.

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Prepare for volatility

James: Am I right in assuming there's a reason that your products are so diverse?

Eric: Yes, it's about optionality. I need options. If one of my businesses gets crushed, I don’t want to go to 0. I am always testing new ideas so that, if needed, I can pivot or do something else.

James: How do you test your ideas?

Eric: I trial-and-error everything and the experiments either work or they don’t.

My strategy is relatively simple:

1. I optimize the site for a keyword that has high demand and low supply. You can find that in Ahrefs or Semrush.

2. I write 40 educational articles using AI.

3. I have my team of backlinkers get 5+ or so dofollow links from reputable websites.

4. I do that over the course of two months. After two months, I see if I've been able to move the needle and get organic clicks. If yes, there may be an opportunity. If no, I cut my losses.

James: What do you do if there's an opportunity?

Eric: I use SEO, reddit, or some other form of organic marketing. If I can crack the market organically and get free leads, I'll keep growing them and testing them until they show promise.

And if the sites get leads, there’s at least resale value.

James: Makes sense.

Eric: I also live well below my means to absorb the volatility of going down a unique path.

James: Is that necessary when your revenue is diversified?

Eric: There’s always a storm brewing on the horizon. I guess I'm paranoid.

Whenever things are going great I get extremely anxious because of the paranoia.

James: Where does that come from?

Eric: I started my career making very little money. It was a little traumatizing, as strange as that sounds.

I’m paranoid that I'll have to go back to that desk job and make very little again one day. I have nightmares about it.

James: What do you do with the excess money?

Eric: Save it and/or bankroll it into other projects.

Learning to learn

James: With such a diverse career, you must be good at learning new things. Do you have any formal training?

Eric: I have no real formal training with coding or business.

James: So what's your process?

Eric: Dive in. I start by watching youtube videos and trying to identify people whose communication styles I can understand. Then I consume all their free content and purchase paid content if it makes sense (like for coding).

I take it one step at a time.

James: So how, specifically, did you learn to code?

Eric: I watched codewithmosh and Hitesh Choudhary videos. That and a lot of Googling. I dedicated 3-4 hours per day to learning.

Work on the business (not in it)

James: Have any of these new skills become a core expertise?

Eric: I'd say my core expertise is high-level thinking.

James: What do you mean by that?

Eric: I mean formulating a vision and seeing how all the components (marketing, sales, design etc.) combine together to move toward that vision.

It’s also knowing which components need to be optimized if the goals are not being hit.

James: How did you get good at that?

Eric: You learn it by reading a lot from startup founders and testing your own ideas in the market.

James: What's your high-level thinking process?

Eric: It’s hard to summarize the process succinctly. And it's worth noting that some people are better suited to lower-level thinking (which is another useful skill).

But it goes back to working in your business” vs. working on your business.

Someone who makes smoothies for a living is working in the business. That usually employs lower-level thinking. But the smoothie business owner employs much more high-level thinking. They're working on the business, for example, figuring out how growth into adjacent markets will benefit the bottom line, then building a realistic plan to do it.

James: Any other tips you can share on this?

Eric: If you are surprised by something or can’t explain something, you messed up. This is true for both positive and negative outcomes.

James: How so?

Eric: It means you’ve messed up because you are not being thoughtful about your business. When you get blindsided by something, it’s almost always due to an oversight.

But it happens to every business at some point.

You don't need money to start

James: Before we wrap up, what advice do you have for indie hackers?

Eric: You don’t need money to start. If you feel like you need money to start a business, you’re not broke enough; mentally or financially.

Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom to light the fire to get started.

James: What's the best way to get started if you're low on funds?

Eric: When startups first get started, they often do some risky/unsavory things. You need to adopt the mindset of, “You gotta do, what you gotta do.”

James: What are some examples?

Eric: Almost every no code website builder has a free trial. Create a bunch of email addresses and test out different ideas on free trials.

Cold call people, cold email them. Both of those are free.

James: And if they're low on time too?

Eric: If you don’t have time, make it. Wake up earlier, or go to bed later. It’s up to the individual to figure it out for themselves.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world and, unfortunately, business tends to be a zero sum game. Even blue-ocean markets ultimately become saturated and zero-sum unless you can monopolize it or create strong enough moats that don’t immediately erode.

James: Anything else? Eric: Be positive and be resourceful. It's tough, but getting past Step 1 is a learning experience that will help you with the roadblocks you’ll hit once you do get your business off the ground.

James: Where can people find you?

Eric: You can find me on Youtube, X, or check out Exploding Ideas

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