Selling his product for $65k and reinvesting it into the next product

Nicolas Jeanne built an app, launched it, and sold it three months later. Now, he's living off those earnings while he reinvests every penny of his new product's revenue.

I caught up with him to talk about the acquisition, reinvesting, and living cheap despite being able to live comfortably. 👇

Walking the (cheap) walk

💰 "Lots of people feel entitled to things. But having a comfortable lifestyle is not something you 'deserve'. If you need money, move to a cheap country, get a cheap room, and eat cheap food until you have the finances to get comfortable." —Nicolas

Nicolas doesn't just talk the talk. He moved to Bali to save money. He pays $500/mo for a room and coworking combined. And his meals average around 4 bucks a pop.

By my way of thinking, he's got plenty of money for a comfortable life already, but he's got big goals and thinks living comfortably would only get in the way.

We'll talk about goals in a minute. Let's take a look at where he is now.

The numbers

He's working full-time on an app called Talknotes, but this isn't his first rodeo. He's got a small portfolio bringing in cash.

• Talknotes revenue: $1700/mo
• Other app revenue: ~$1000/mo
• Business bank account: $100k

His business account is pretty flush because he keeps all of his savings there — he keeps barely anything in his personal account. And, of course, the acquisition didn't hurt. He lives off of that $100k and reinvests all of his revenue back into his company.

💰 "I believe someone’s income is equal to the value they create in the world." —Nicolas

Here are his business expenses... well, at least some of them:

• Ahrefs: $99/mo
• Convert.com: $99/mo
• Adspend: $1000/mo

He doesn't really keep track of his expenses, so he said he's probably missing a few.

Regardless, though, the lion's share of his costs come from marketing experiments. He's constantly testing things to see what works. His latest tests have ranged from pitting direct sales against free signups to adding a live demo on the homepage to testing headlines, etc.

He's also playing around with SEO and ads — and as you can see above, he's investing a considerable portion of his revenue into the latter.

Here are his personal expenses:

• Room + coworking: $500/mo
• Food: $500/mo
• Misc: $100/mo

He doesn't really go out, unless it's to meet up with other indie hackers. And his only hobbies are travel and scuba diving, which are expensive and time-consuming, so he mostly avoids them.

His preference is to just work hard now while he has the energy, then enjoy the finer things in life later when he has the money.

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Living the cheap life

No one needs to be given a reason to go to Bali... It's Bali.

But Nicolas had a couple anyway. First and foremost, it's cheap. And as we've already covered, so is he.

He's currently got a sweet deal where he has a place to stay, good internet, and coworking for $500/mo. As he says, "Good luck finding that in Europe or the US."

Not only is it cheap, but it's super efficient. He just walks downstairs to his shared office and gets to work. Sure, he'd like a private office, but...

💰 "Lower your standards, if you can divide your cost of living by two you just won an extra year to work on your project. If you don’t have a family to take care of, it’s a good time to take risks." —Nicolas

The second reason is that he does his best work there. In France, where he's from, he says the weather is awful half the year, and it affects his productivity. He prefers to be where the sun is out all year long.

Indie hacker weddings

So as Nicolas tells it, he doesn't do much else, other than work. But he did take a vacation this year and he says it was "300% worth it".

He went to Korea for the wedding of fellow indie hacker, Marc Louvion. Nicolas had just come out of a big "shipping rush" so he thought this would help to cool him off. And it did.

He said he probably spent about $2000 total for 10 days and, when he got back to Bali, he was energized and ready to get to work.

Finding an exit

I mentioned earlier that he sold his app.

He had a doozy of a Product Hunt launch that made him $20k within 3 months. He put the product on Acquire.com and voila: $65,000 showed up in his bank account.

It's the reason that he could be living comfortably. But like I said, he's got more pressing goals than comfort — he's looking for a bigger exit.

Invest in your business, not someone else's business

💰 "Until I make a good amount of money, I'd rather focus on creating value and making money." —Nicolas

What's a "good amount of money"? His goal is to sell a company for $5M. Then he wants to invest that and live off the interest, which he believes will be roughly $10k/mo.

Until he hits that goal, he has no interest in investing.

Living abroad, he says he'd have to figure out taxes and lots of red tape. He'd also have to figure out how to invest in the first place, as he doesn't know much about it yet and he always makes a point of understanding a thing before taking action — particularly with his money.

And that would be time spent on something other than his business. No thanks.

Plus, keeping everything liquid means that he can be very flexible and reinvest in his business.

Your VC is your boss

So Nicolas will happily take money at an exit. But what about funding?

Not so much.

💰 "VC funding is selling your liberty for money, so it’s no different than having a job. The moment you report to someone other than your customers, you’re an employee. So, no. Not interested." —Nicolas

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You can find Nicolas on his personal blog and X. Or check out his latest app, Talknotes.com — he just bought the .com and he's excited about it.

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!