John what's your backstory?

I was born in a tiny mountain caucasian village without electricity or tap water. Burned wood to warm up the house.

I had a passion for engineering and started building things from wood and later with electronics. From the ages of 8 to 13, I practiced Judo in a team training athletes for the Olympic Games. I almost pursued a professional sports career, but an injury led me to pursue business and technology instead.

At 13, I left home, moved around the world, and eventually settled in Halden, a small town in Norway, to study. I earned a Master’s degree in AI and Interaction Design/UX.

In 2010, I joined my professor, who had founded one of the first startups in Oslo—an AI monitoring software company. We were working on AI long before it became hyped.

Over the next decade, I co-founded or started more than 15 startups, raised significant funding, joined some of the world's best startup incubators, and lived in various cities including London, San Francisco, Austin, and Oslo. Eventually, I moved to Istanbul to start my bootstrapper journey after realizing that the VC-funded startup scene wasn’t for me. I’ve loved building things on my own terms, free from boards or VC bosses.

You run 24 startups—how do you manage them all?

I'm very productive. Honestly, only Elon is more productive than me. I play more football than anyone I know—even those with regular jobs and plenty of free time. Tennis? More than any of my friends. And as for kids, I have more than most people. It’s the same with products.
I enjoy doing everything, which is why being ultra-productive is essential to make it all work.

It’s not about working on many products to pick the "winner." To me, it’s like having children—enjoying a variety of products for the same audience. Limiting myself to just one would be incredibly boring. I tried it once, and it was the worst period of my life.

My Routine:

• I have an excellent memory. I don’t use notes or project management software, and I genuinely believe it makes me way more productive than those who rely on those tools. Everything stays in my head, and I can switch between projects instantly. Every day, I work on all of them in a random order, based on what’s needed at the time. No planning—just free flow.
• I use AI extensively. I don’t know anyone who uses it as much as I do. I started using AI years ago, long before anyone even knew what “GPT” or “OpenAI” was. I was one of the first to say that AI and agents would change the world. Back then, people thought I was a bit crazy. I hope they don’t think that anymore.
• I don’t do things I can delegate—things others can do just as well as I can. I’ll pay anything to outsource the boring parts of life. For example, I pay someone to come to my house, pick up my car, fix it, and return it. I’ll never drive to the service center myself. I don’t go grocery shopping, and I don’t drive my wife or kids anywhere. I spend time with them, of course, but not behind the wheel. I’d rather play tennis with my wife or build a wooden house with my kids, then let the driver take them wherever they need to go.

Tell us about UnicornPlatform

Unicorn Platform is a website builder designed specifically for busy founders. The ultimate goal is to evolve it into a comprehensive business builder. For example, founders can currently use Unicorn Platform to build and launch directories. These directories aren’t just websites—they’re full-fledged businesses that can generate income. We plan to expand the product range further, adding tools for job boards, launchpads, online courses, and more.

I originally wanted to create something like this back in 2018, but I didn’t have the time. I was deeply involved with my VC-backed startups. Then, in 2022, I decided to purchase the platform I liked most. I DMed the founder, and he accepted the offer. He even flew to my house, and we shook hands on a deal for $800K. We never signed a contract. I trust people. For me, contracts are for cheaters. If you ask me to sign one, it’s because you think I might cheat otherwise. I’ve signed contracts before, and none of those partnerships ever worked out. The best ones are the ones where you click with someone—almost like something out of a mafia movie.

How did you validate the demand for UnicornPlatform and determine its growth potential?

Right after I bought it, things started to go downhill. Growth declined, and later, even the revenue dropped.

There were many issues with the product, the main one being uptime. The platform was going down every week—sometimes every day. As a result, we were losing users. I had to spend more than a year rebuilding the infrastructure to finally stabilize it.

As for growth, I honestly had no clear plan. I just hoped for the best and trusted that I would figure things out along the way.

What distribution channels have worked well for you?

I went on to try all channels for Unicorn growth.

SEO brought lots of traffic. We had zero SEO traffic when I bought the product. Today, I have 200k clicks a year from SEO.

In 2023 I jumped into social media. First, I wanted to hire someone, but after trying different people in this role, I had no choice but to do it myself.

To be honest, I was sure I'd fail, but somehow, it went so well, and I ended up becoming one of perhaps the top 5 voices in the bootstrapped and indie hacker world. This led to growth, and things skyrocketed for all my products, including Unicorn Platform.

Unicorn had 25,000 users when you acquired it. How did you 10x that in two years?

It was mainly SEO, social media, and directory listings. I tried about hundred other things, but they had little to no impact.

How did you build such a strong following on X and LinkedIn?

I tried to be super useful to other busy founders. Overall, I have been doing it all my life. I love coaching people. My dream job when I retire is to be a teacher. So I kept sharing all my advice based on my real experience every day for two years, and it brought over 100,000 followers. Most founders push themselves to do social media, but I enjoy it. I could just do it all day long. I love it as much as I love building products.

How effective has building in public been in acquiring customers?

It was the key, I think.

Even users who land on my sites from SEO have a higher chance of converting if they’ve ever heard me say something on social media.
So, a social media brand is a must. Founders can’t avoid it in the future, where distribution and attention will drive everything.

Best advice for social media growth: create high-effort content.
Most founders want to hack it, but it’s impossible. Only high-effort content works for founders.

Of course, you can post funny reels and get views, but those views won’t convert into SaaS customers.

What distribution channels did you try that didn’t work?

You have the answer in this following post:

You’ve mentioned feedback as a distribution tool before. Could you elaborate on what you mean by that?

I try to be real. I don’t aim for perfection. If my product has issues, I let users talk about it publicly, and then I fix it publicly. It creates trust and bonds. People are tired of perfection. The real world is more compelling.

What advice do you have for founders building distribution channels for their products?

1. Start with just one social media platform until you reach 10k followers.
2. Focus on high-effort posts — quality over quantity.
3. Stick to one or a few key topics. Don’t stray into irrelevant subjects. Stay focused on what matters most.

My biggest mistake was waiting too long to get started on social media. I only began in 2023, but I wish I had started back in 2010.

What specific tools, software, or resources have been most helpful in growing your business?

I use ChatGPT every hour of the day. Discord is amazing for team collaboration, and I use it for everything: chats, plans, tasks, bugs, support, partner talks, and Stripe for payments. The others are my own tools I used.
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Who are some experts to follow to learn how to grow a business?

I’d recommend Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, and Peter Thiel.

What drives you to do what you do?‍

I wanna move the wealth from those who were lucky to be born in the right place or the right family with the right network, to the people with passion all over the world, who were gatekeepers because VC money mainly goes to a closed geographical and ethical circle.

I wanna do all I can to help indie makers and bootstrappers from small villages non-western countries, or poor families to build cool products, be useful for the world, and make a great living out of it.

Your links + socials

‍John LinkedIn

John X
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