SpyFu

?? "I'll never, ever, EVER buy you an iPhone", I told my son. "But, if you can earn enough PROFIT as an entrepreneur, you can buy one for yourself." So, using AI, he built an app, and published it to app store. ?? And he's making REAL sales in the wild (not friends and family). My favorite part of this video as a Dad is about 12 minutes in where he talks about what it was like to make that first sale to someone he didn't know - a random Canadian?? -"I felt USEFUL", he said with the smile of profound realization. I love that I got that moment on camera.???? ? A little more backstory: When my son turned 12, we gave him his first phone.? It happened to be that what we had laying around was an iPhone 6.? Which seemed fine ??♂? - plus it would fit his hands better because it was smaller than modern iPhones. Here's the thing.? The iPhone 6 is 11 years old.? So, the kids at my son's school have never seen such a historical artifact. ?? Every time he'd take it out of his bag, anybody around would point at it and be like "Whoa, what is *that* thing -- it has a button?"? When he'd tell them it's an iPhone 6 they'd invariably laugh. ?? ?? You've been there.? I grew up with very little money - I've been there A LOT ;)? This was probably Sawyer’s first time.? And he felt strongly that he needed a new iPhone - the iPhone 16 to be exact.? And he was persuasive.? He even tailored his persuasion to his audience. “Dad, it’s not that kids make fun of me, or that it’s pink – I can’t even install ChatGPT on it!” I love my kids, and I would do anything for them.?? But, a bit of suffering with the right mindset can be a challenge, and overcoming - man, what a sense of pride and self-worth.? So, yeah.? I told him I’d never, ever under any circumstances buy him an iPhone.? Ever.? But, that he could use profit - not allowance money, or money people give him for his birthday, or anything he has saved.? It had to be profit earned from an entrepreneurial venture.? Not revenue.? Profit.? I think he was a little shocked.??? But, then I told him he was a born creator - born to build, and that he was great at it.? And that when he gets that iPhone 16 - it will be because he earned it, by creating value in the world.? I also told him - everybody that’s making fun of you right now, they’re walking around with their mom’s phone in their pocket - they didn’t buy their own phone.? But, you will.? Because you have that in you.? That’s who you are. So, for him - he had the right mindset.? It wasn’t suffering anymore - it was a challenge, an opportunity to prove himself.? I couldn’t be prouder, of course.? The perseverance is a LOT harder than it sounds. It’s easy to get an app built.? That’s like 2 days.? Getting it production ready and usable?? Installable and tested on every iOS device and into the app store - lots of steps. The video tells his story. Link to his app in the comments. #BuildInPublic #StartupLife #IndieHackers Cline AppScreens

This still blows my mind: ?? SpyFu has 2x as much organic data as SEMRush and Ahrefs - and 20x as much paid data.? And it’s not just US data – we beat them in every country.? ?? For most of our existence, we’ve lagged behind on raw data. Here’s why… I almost didn’t launch SpyFu. Remember - before there was SpyFu, there was no SEMRush or Ahrefs, there were no competitors, period.? There was no way to do what we do.? SpyFu was pure innovation. But, besides the market, there was one HUGE uncertainty: I figured there was about an 80% chance that Google would eventually send a cease and desist and it’ll all be over.? ?? But you know - to the delusional mind of an entrepreneur, that 80% chance of failure looks like a 20% chance of victory! LOL. Optimism is my biggest blindspot.? ?? When we did launch, it sparked an entire industry as you know it today.? Our strategy was to innovate and provide value, but also specifically try to fly under Google’s radar. ? I did not want to be bludgeoned by the long arm of Google’s legal machine.? We launched scraping Google about 20 million times per month. About 10 months later, our first competitor emerged: KeywordSpy.? KeywordSpy said “Well, SpyFu did 20M keywords and didn’t get sued - so, let’s do 50M.? Plus, we’re based in Singapore, so…”???? A couple years later SEMRush said “KeywordSpy did 50M keywords - so, let’s do 100M – and we’re in Russia, what is Google possibly going to do to us in Russia?” ??♀? Then Ahrefs came along, and they were like “Well, SEMRush did 100M - we’ll do 250M, and we’re Ukrainians, so…” ??♂? Meanwhile, I’m like - making the most money I’ve ever made in my life, like: “Yo, guys. I’m the only one in the same country as Google - if they’re going to crack down it’s going to be on me first."? ?? "Can we just maybe not consume the same number of resources as the entirety of Europe?" ?? ? We’d increase our data collection - to keep pace, but we were never in the lead, and often we’d be about 1/10th the raw data of our competitors.? The strategy was still about the same.? Because - even though in hindsight Google has been incredibly cool about allowing tools in their ecosystem (think of companies like Facebook, Twitter/X, etc by comparison) - there have been lots of turbulence. They’ve continuously made it more and more difficult and expensive to collect data – even last month they made a massive change that dramatically affected lots of tools (not us, fortunately) - and a lot of people thought it might be the actual end.? A couple years ago, we changed strategy:? And it’s to be the best, period - starting with the data. ?? Quietly, we rebuilt SpyFu from the ground up with the goal of 100x-ing our data collection. Capable of 10 Billion SERPs per month updated in real time every second in every country and every language in the world. So, that's what you are seeing in this video. Optimism is still my biggest blindspot :)

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