Nico Jeannen

Nico Jeannen is an indie hacker who came from performance marketing: he managed more than $1M in ad spend, then taught himself to code and started building his own products. He says he has grown and sold three startups for a combined $290,000, largely by using paid ads as his main growth channel.

His best-known exit is Talknotes, an AI app that turns voice recordings into structured notes and texts. It started slowly after a directory and X launch, picked up after a Product of the Day finish on Product Hunt, and reached about $7,500 MRR within roughly 11 months before he sold it for $200,000 on Acquire.com. Its success despite a close competitor became a popular indie example that crowded markets can support several winners.

Nico now builds AdKit, pitched as an Ahrefs for ads, which includes an MCP server that lets AI agents research and manage Google, Meta, LinkedIn and other ad campaigns. He shares candid lessons about ads, launches and AI products with a large following on X.