What's up, everybody? This is Cortland Allen, and you're listening to the

Indie Hackers podcast. On this show, I talked to the founders of profitable internet businesses,

and I try to get a sense of who they are, how they became the people they are today, and how they make

decisions at their companies. The goal, as always, is so that the rest of us can learn from

their examples, their learnings, and their mistakes, and go on to build our own successful

companies. Today I'm talking to David Smook, the creator of a very popular tech publication

called Hackernoon. David is one of my role models, and I think it shines

through in this conversation because I end up asking him an almost relentless barrage of

questions about how to be successful at producing content online and pretty much mine him for all

the information that I can. So I think you'll learn a lot from this episode. I sure did. David is an

interesting character. He's got very explicit

and carefully considered beliefs about pretty much every part of his business. And so far,

it's worked out very well for him. Now, before we jump into the episode, I just want to quickly

mention the website, NDHackers.com. We've got full transcripts of every podcast episode, if you want

to read along, including this one, just go to NDHackers.com slash podcast.

We also have a thriving community of developers and entrepreneurs who are helping each other start their own companies and overcome individual challenges.

Again, that's NDHackers.com.

Now, without further ado, David Smook.

David, how's it going? What's new? Hey, Cortland. First, I just wanted to say thanks for having me on indie hackers. You've done a great thing and it's really cool that, you know, I'm now a bootstrapped person that's capable of being on this show. Oh, no, you clear that bar easily. I think you're one of the more successful bootstrapped founders that I've gotten the chance to talk to.

I don't think that's true. I don't know. I've seen some good stuff out there. I'm still playing catch-up in my mind. yeah, it's funny. I think that feeling never really goes away. There's nothing that I've done in life where I couldn't look ahead and see somebody who's doing more than I am, faster than I am, better than I am.

Yeah, if I was born taller and more good-looking, I think I would think differently.

Yeah, you and me both.

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