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Adam Wathan vs Meng To

Products, revenue & stack compared side by side.

Adam Wathan avatar

Adam Wathan

Canadian creator of Tailwind CSS and founder of Tailwind Labs, now at Shopify

@adamwathan Canada
Meng To avatar

Meng To

Designer behind Design+Code, teaching designers to code, now building the AI builder Aura

@MengTo Singapore

Adam Wathan vs Meng To at a glance

Both Adam Wathan and Meng To are bootstrapped. They overlap in Educators & Course Creators and Design Tools. Adam is based in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, Meng in Singapore. Adam started in 2016 and Meng in 2014. Adam Wathan has 7 products listed on IndieMakerList vs Meng To's 6. Adam has sold 3 products. Adam self-reports Mid-seven figures/yr (2020); Meng hasn't shared a revenue figure publicly. They share 2 tools in their stacks: Tailwind CSS and React. On X, Adam has about 302K followers and Meng about 189K.

Side-by-side comparison

Based in
Adam Wathan: Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
Meng To: Singapore
Started
Adam Wathan: 2016 (10 yrs indie)
Meng To: 2014 (12 yrs indie)
Revenue (self-reported)
Adam Wathan: Mid-seven figures/yr (2020)self-reported, as of 2020 · source for Adam Wathan's revenue
Meng To: Not public
Products listed
Adam Wathan: 7
Meng To: 6
Product status
Adam Wathan: 4 active · 3 acquired
Meng To: 6 active
X followers
Adam Wathan: 302K
Meng To: 189K
Categories
Adam Wathan: Open Source MakersDeveloper ToolsEducators & Course CreatorsDesign Tools
Meng To: Educators & Course CreatorsDesign ToolsAI Builders
Style
Adam Wathan: bootstrappedbuilds in publicexited
Meng To: bootstrappedserial maker
Courses & resources
Adam Wathan: 5
Meng To: 2

Revenue figures are self-reported by each maker and not audited; dates and scope differ. Highlighted categories are shared by both.

Top products

Adam Wathan avatarAdam Wathan

Refactoring UI logo

Refactoring UI

refactoringui.com

Design book and video course for developers, co-written with Steve Schoger.

~$600K in 2020
Tailwind CSS logo

Tailwind CSS

tailwindcss.com

acquired

Utility-first CSS framework for building custom designs directly in your markup, installed 110M+ times per week.

Headless UI logo

Headless UI

headlessui.com

Unstyled, fully accessible UI components designed to pair with Tailwind CSS.

See all 7 products by Adam Wathan →

Meng To avatarMeng To

Design+Code logo

Design+Code

designcode.io

Subscription learning platform with courses on design, front-end and iOS development, and AI-assisted design.

Aura logo

Aura

aura.build

AI website builder for designers that generates, remixes and exports landing pages and UI templates.

Spring logo

Spring

github.com

Open-source Swift library that simplifies iOS animations.

Angle logo

Angle

angle.sh

Library of thousands of customizable device mockups for Figma, Sketch and XD.

See all 6 products by Meng To →

Tech stack

2 shared tools, marked with ★: Tailwind CSS, React. See the indie maker tech stack.

Adam Wathan avatarAdam Wathan

Tailwind CSS (shared)Laravel React (shared)VueNext.js

Meng To avatarMeng To

SwiftSwiftUI React (shared)Figmathree.js Tailwind CSS (shared)

How they build

Adam Wathan avatarAdam Wathan

  • Build tools for your own projects first — Tailwind started as stylesheets reused between side projects.
  • Give away a great open-source product and sell premium resources around it.
  • Teach in public with books, courses, podcasts and live streams to build an audience.
  • Be candid about the business, including the hard parts.

Meng To avatarMeng To

  • Designers don't need to code like engineers but should understand how code works.
  • Prototype in the real medium so design work makes it into the final product.
  • Teach by building real projects step by step.
  • Keep adapting the curriculum to whatever tools designers are adopting next.

Learn from Adam and Meng

Adam Wathan avatarAdam Wathan

Meng To avatarMeng To

Adam Wathan vs Meng To FAQ

Who makes more money, Adam Wathan or Meng To?

Adam Wathan self-reports Mid-seven figures/yr (2020). Meng To's revenue is not public, so a direct comparison isn't possible.

Who has built more products, Adam Wathan or Meng To?

Adam Wathan has 7 products listed (including Tailwind Plus (formerly Tailwind UI), Refactoring UI and Tailwind CSS); Meng To has 6 products listed (including Design+Code, Aura and Spring).

What tech stack do Adam Wathan and Meng To use?

Adam Wathan uses Tailwind CSS, Laravel, React, Vue and Next.js. Meng To uses Swift, SwiftUI, React, Figma, three.js and Tailwind CSS. Tools they have in common: Tailwind CSS and React.

Where are Adam Wathan and Meng To based?

Adam Wathan: Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Meng To: Singapore.

Who has been an indie maker longer, Adam Wathan or Meng To?

Adam Wathan started in 2016 (10 years indie); Meng To started in 2014 (12 years indie).

Are Adam Wathan and Meng To bootstrapped?

Yes, both are listed as bootstrapped founders on IndieMakerList.

Full profiles

Read the full story, timeline and links on Adam Wathan's profile and Meng To's profile.

More comparisons

All indie maker comparisons →