Premium library of professionally designed Tailwind components, templates and UI kits.
~$2M in first 5 months
diff ~/p/adam-wathan ~/p/steve-schoger
Adam Wathan vs Steve Schoger
Products, revenue & stack compared side by side.
Adam Wathan vs Steve Schoger at a glance
Both Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger have sold at least one product. They overlap in Open Source Makers, Educators & Course Creators and Design Tools. Adam is based in Canada, Steve in Kitchener, Canada. Adam Wathan has 7 products listed on IndieMakerList vs Steve Schoger's 4. They have worked together on Tailwind Plus (formerly Tailwind UI), Refactoring UI and Heroicons. Adam has sold 3 products and Steve 1. Adam self-reports Mid-seven figures/yr (2020); Steve hasn't shared a revenue figure publicly. They share 1 tool in their stacks: Tailwind CSS. On X, Adam has about 302K followers and Steve about 128K.
Side-by-side comparison
- Based in
- Adam Wathan: Canada
- Steve Schoger: Kitchener, Canada
- Started
- Adam Wathan: 2016 (10 yrs indie)
- Steve Schoger: —
- Revenue (self-reported)
- Adam Wathan: Mid-seven figures/yr (2020)self-reported, as of 2020 · source for Adam Wathan's revenue
- Steve Schoger: Not public
- Products listed
- Adam Wathan: 7
- Steve Schoger: 4
- Product status
- Adam Wathan: 4 active · 3 acquired
- Steve Schoger: 3 active · 1 acquired
- X followers
- Adam Wathan: 302K
- Steve Schoger: 128K
- Categories
- Adam Wathan: Open Source MakersDeveloper ToolsEducators & Course CreatorsDesign Tools
- Steve Schoger: Design ToolsEducators & Course CreatorsOpen Source Makers
- Style
- Adam Wathan: bootstrappedbuilds in publicexited
- Steve Schoger: duoexited
- Courses & resources
- Adam Wathan: 5
- Steve Schoger: 2
Revenue figures are self-reported by each maker and not audited; dates and scope differ. Highlighted categories are shared by both.
Top products
Refactoring UI
refactoringui.com
Design book and video course for developers, co-written with Steve Schoger.
~$600K in 2020
Utility-first CSS framework for building custom designs directly in your markup, installed 110M+ times per week.
Headless UI
headlessui.com
Unstyled, fully accessible UI components designed to pair with Tailwind CSS.
Refactoring UI
refactoringui.com
Design book and video course for developers, co-created with Adam Wathan.
~$600K in 2020
Premium Tailwind components, templates and UI kits he helped design at Tailwind Labs.
Heroicons
heroicons.com
Free, MIT-licensed SVG icon set designed for Tailwind Labs.
H
Hero Patterns
heropatterns.com
Free collection of repeatable SVG background patterns.
Tech stack
1 shared tool, marked with ★: Tailwind CSS. See the indie maker tech stack.
Tailwind CSS (shared)LaravelReactVueNext.js
Figma Tailwind CSS (shared)Claude Code
How they build
- 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.
- Design is learnable: specific tactics beat vague talent.
- Start with function and hierarchy before visual polish.
- Show, don't tell — before-and-after examples teach fastest.
- Use constrained systems for spacing, type and color instead of picking values ad hoc.
Learn from Adam and Steve
- [book] Refactoring UI · $99–$149
- [book] Refactoring to Collections
- [course] Test-Driven Laravel
- [podcast] Full Stack Radio
- [youtube] Tailwind Labs on YouTube
- [book] Refactoring UI · $99–$149
- [youtube] Steve Schoger on YouTube
Adam Wathan vs Steve Schoger FAQ
Who makes more money, Adam Wathan or Steve Schoger?
Adam Wathan self-reports Mid-seven figures/yr (2020). Steve Schoger's revenue is not public, so a direct comparison isn't possible.
Who has built more products, Adam Wathan or Steve Schoger?
Adam Wathan has 7 products listed (including Tailwind Plus (formerly Tailwind UI), Refactoring UI and Tailwind CSS); Steve Schoger has 4 products listed (including Refactoring UI, Tailwind Plus (formerly Tailwind UI) and Heroicons).
What tech stack do Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger use?
Adam Wathan uses Tailwind CSS, Laravel, React, Vue and Next.js. Steve Schoger uses Figma, Tailwind CSS and Claude Code. Tools they have in common: Tailwind CSS.
Where are Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger based?
Adam Wathan: Canada. Steve Schoger: Kitchener, Canada.
Who has been an indie maker longer, Adam Wathan or Steve Schoger?
Adam Wathan started in 2016 (10 years indie); Steve Schoger's start year isn't listed.
Are Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger bootstrapped?
Adam Wathan is listed as bootstrapped; Steve Schoger isn't tagged as bootstrapped on IndieMakerList.
Full profiles
Read the full story, timeline and links on Adam Wathan's profile and Steve Schoger's profile.
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