"With the right perspective, anything can pay dividends."

Simon Hamp took a tried-and-true route for indie hackers: From full-time employment to freelancing to full-time indie hacking.

Most people wait until their revenue covers their expenses before making that final transition from side hustle to main hustle, but not Simon. He's feeling confident and says the funds will come.

Let’s take a peek at his finances. 👇

Money is protection

💰 ”My dad would always say, 'Money is a protection.' It’s a safety net. It isn't the most important thing in the world. —Simon

Simon says he has a healthy view of money, thanks to the struggles his family has always had with it.

He likes to keep an eye on it and understand how he spends it so that he knows what’s happening and where he’s going. But he doesn’t watch it so closely that he forgets to enjoy it.

He says he’ll happily spend on things that he’ll enjoy, like dinner at a nice restaurant or lifetime access to a course. He allows himself to not worry about the bill and, instead, just enjoy the experience.

💰 "I love ramen, but I don't believe in being ascetic just to be profitable. I'm comfortable making a loss because I know the funds will come if I'm on the right track.” —Simon

One of his core beliefs about money is that, if he gives himself the space to think clearly and focus, he will find things that resonate in a way that results in positive financial outcomes.

💰"I think it comes down to not trying to see everything through a lens of, 'Will this have an outsized impact?’ With the right perspective, anything can pay dividends." —Simon

He gives the example of stopping working instead of working through the night. It’s a little counterintuitive, but sometimes going to bed will allow you to get more done than burning the midnight oil.

💰 "It’s probably the hardest thing to do, stopping when there's so much to do and, instead, spending time with friends/family — genuinely in their presence and engaged with what they're doing and caring about. I fail at this a lot." —Simon

But he notes that everything requires balance. Just like he keeps an eye on money spent, he keeps an eye on time spent too.

💰 "I do keep a relatively close eye on where I'm investing both money and time and if I don't see some positive 'return' — revenue, a good response on socials, a good state of mind, etc. — then I'll try to rebalance and refocus." —Simon

Hard numbers

Let’s take a look at how this mentality affects his business.

💰 "I’m full-time on a bunch of side hustles. 😂" —Simon

Simon took a voluntary redundancy during a round of layoffs back in October, 2022. He spent 2023 freelancing with 60-80% of his time for around $15k/mo, but he recently scaled way back, spending only a couple of hours freelancing here and there.

He’s now full-time on his hustles. In total, Simon has made about $50k from them so far. Here's what he's bringing in:

• Laradir revenue: $600/mo

• Estilistas revenue: $100/mo

• Spred revenue: $60/mo

• Open source sponsor revenue: ~$60/mo

• Founder pay: Undisclosed — just enough to pay expenses and invest a bit.

• Personal savings: $4k

• Business savings: $20k

Here are his business expenses

• Marketing: $1250/mo

• All web hosting (servers, domains) and related services: $100/mo

• Other subscriptions (Canva, Calendly, Typeform, etc): $150/mo

And here are his personal expenses

• Debts/mortgage: $2,000/mo

• Rent & bills: $1,200/mo

• Food/restaurants/groceries: $400/mo

• Subs (Spotify, Netflix, etc): $250/mo

• Savings/Investments: $1,000/mo

As you can see, he’s currently burning through his savings — and he’s okay with that.

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Liquidity = buffer

You might have noticed that $20k nest egg in Simon’s business account. He doesn’t believe in making every penny work for him all the time.

💰 "Liquidity is more important than always putting money to use. Too many businesses fail because they’re leveraged to the hilt, teetering on the edge, and one little slip pushes them over. Just leave a little buffer!" —Simon

To him, this money actually is being invested. It’s being invested in his projects by providing liquid funds that he can use to pay himself.

Invest in yourself

Speaking of investments, Simon dabbles with tech stocks and renewables. He has $8.5k invested and he’s up about 3%.

He also has a standard personal pension for his retirement, and he contributes $300/mo toward it.

But mostly, he invests in himself.

He eats good, healthy food. And he attributes his overall good health to this practice.

💰 "I'm not super active, so it can't be that!" —Simon

He believes healthy food translates to less time being ill or out of action and fewer medical bills. Which means more money for him.

And then there’s education. In 2023 alone, he says he spent more than $2,500 on courses and books — mostly technical stuff, but also things like joining Daniel Vasallo's Small Bets.

He loves learning. And like he said above, he’s not scared of spending on it. However, there is one caveat.

💰 "Don't spend thousands on learning before you've built your idea. Just start." —Simon

A false economy

Simon owns a house, so he’s got quite a bit of debt — nearly $200k, including the mortgage, a car loan, and credit card debt.

But of course, the mortgage was also an investment.

💰 "I bought a property over 10 years ago. Its value has increased by almost 50% in that time and I've paid off about 30% of the mortgage. If I sell today I'll make a nice chunk of change, even after considering all my costs." —Simon

The house is a place for his parents to live, as they don’t have much in the way of pensions and they were getting priced out of the rental market.

And Simon’s proud of this choice. He’s noticed a trend of people saying that renting is better than buying and says it’s a “false economy.” According to him, most people who say this are landlords. So you have to decide for yourself.

💰 "Do your sums, know how long you need to be invested for to make it worthwhile, and keep an eye on the market to decide when to get in or out." —Simon

Outsized expectations

Before freelancing and side hustling, Simon worked at a VC-backed startup for 6 years — it's safe to say he learned a thing or two about the impact of VC funding.

He says he saw too many unnecessary pressures being heaped onto the business and the team so, when possible, he’ll opt for bootstrapping.

It was a consumer hardware startup, so he admits that this was a rare case where VC funding was necessary.

💰 "Creating physical products is very expensive!" —Simon

But it came with “outsized expectations”, and instead of focusing on doing one product really well, they were forced to launch many products in a short period of time. That led to shortcuts and poor decisions. And it was a lot of pressure on the employees.

💰 "Ultimately, this meant that the flagship products struggled to reach profitability, which hurt the company more overall. Naturally, that resulted in a pinch, leading to more poor decision making and severe cost-cutting measures (layoffs)." —Simon

And yeah, it wasn’t just the funding that hurt the business. It was also affected by the pandemic. But he says that’s the point.

💰 "Many VCs will expect the return on the original timeframe, almost regardless of the circumstances." —Simon

So he’s a bootstrapper. But he admits that there’s a time and place for VC funding.

💰 "In either case, don't rush into it — plan things out, do your due diligence. If you take funding, you have to be prepared for some hard work that might not end up being net good for your product, your company, your people, or the planet." —Simon

You can check out Simon’s products, Laradir and Spred, or find him on X.

Please note that the above are opinions. This is meant for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be financial advice.

And if you'd like to be featured as a guest in a future interview for this series, let me know in the comments!

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