What kind of business can I *actually * build on my own terms?
Paid communities + moving beyond tech as a USP
After speaking with many of you about building on your own terms, it's interesting how many people are simply looking for examples and answers to the question, ‘What is a business I can actually build without raising boatloads of money?’
I believe there has never been a better time to build on your own terms. However, unlike the past generation of indie hackers focused on building micro-saas tools, in 2025, I don’t think trying to build some differentiated piece of tech is a good idea.
Even if you are able to assemble a dedicated research team with huge amounts of funding, the tech you build will likely be built better by someone with more money.
Instead, pick something you can compete on. What big tech companies lack in generic customer service and bland product experiences, you can make up for with bespoke products and services. Start with a problem tied to a very personal and often niche use case, and go from there.
One example: building paid communities of human beings around a niche. I recently came across two interesting ones: Bookworm Reads and Health Tech Nerds.
Bookworm Reads was launched by Amelia Goodman, a friend from my university days. Amelia has created a very cozy space online for people to log, rate, and discuss books. Sure, there are many apps like this out there, like Amazon-owned Goodreads, so how does Bookworm Reads compete? Not necessarily on raw tech horsepower, but instead on community and UX. The people are what make the bookworm community special, along with its distinctly funky layout.
Another example is Health Tech Nerds, a community one of our readers Phil pointed out to me recently. This is a 5k+ -strong online community of passionate health tech execs. I joined recently to check it out and was amazed at the online slack community that’s pulsing with intros, growth tips, operational insights and spontaneous meetups. Once again, I believe the key behind Health Tech Nerds is not the tech, it's the nicheness of the people in the community.
Are these communities good businesses? I think the answer is a resounding yes, as they take limited capital to get started, can be set up solo, and benefit from recurring revenue business models.
And, those that tap into larger categories, can get very large. Just look at Letterboxd, which bootstrapped an app for a community of cinephiles to a $50M exit with over 10M users!
What other communities are worth adding to this list? Comment below, let us know your feedback and fill out our very own community interest form here👀