Courtland Allen had four startups fail, one a Y-Combinator alum, before creating Indie Hackers. Those failures had demoralized him and he had given up on the traditional Silicon Valley path to success. But within 8 months of launching Indie Hackers, Stripe acquired the company. Courtland Allen had four startups fail before he created Indie Hackers, a community for independent developers. But this time was the jackpot: less than 8 months after the site went live in 2016, Allen received an email from Stripe CEO Patrick Collison with the subject line "Acquire Indie Hackers," he told Insider. Allen, a Y-Combinator alum, said his main piece of advice is to focus on projects that solve problems you know well and are excited to work on. Another token of wisdom that Allen, who loves to code, learned from his failed startups is that great coding isn't all that a startup needs to be successful.