Frequently Asked Questions

Indie Valley is Netflix for real founder stories. Real teams build in the open, their revenue is verified — a live Pulse line pulled read-only straight from their own payment processor, refreshed daily, impossible to screenshot-fake — and you follow the people and watch the work unfold like a series. Think Substack (creators earn), X (easy to scroll), Reddit (a real community, no AI-slop) and Netflix (bingeable, you follow specific teams), with a nod to HBO's Silicon Valley — everyone the author of their own story. The difference: anywhere else you can follow people, but you can't follow people whose numbers are real. Here you can. That's why you can finally trust the lessons — and why you stop feeling like you're building alone.

We borrow the best of each on purpose: creators earn like on Substack, it's easy to scroll like X, it's a community you can trust with no AI-slop like Reddit, and you binge and follow specific teams like Netflix. Then we add the one thing none of them have — verification. On X or Indie Hackers anyone can post a screenshot; here a team's revenue is pulled read-only from their own payment processor, daily, so it can't be faked. You're not reading "trust me, it worked." You're watching "they did X and the line moved." That single spine is why none of the others can be this.

It's for anyone building, or even thinking about building — solo or team, side project or full-time, $0 or $50k MRR. And it's just as much for people who simply want to watch real builders and not feel alone; followers are first-class here, not second. You don't need a startup, or any revenue, to belong, and you don't have to choose — watching real teams and listing your own are both wide open. If you've ever built in the noise and couldn't tell whose numbers were real, you're home.

You browse real teams, follow the ones you fall for, watch their verified Pulse move and read the story unfold, drop a Gem when something's worth it, and jump into the comments. It's binging a series you're rooting for — the verb here is watch and follow. Most of that you can do without even an account. One next step: start watching a team you find interesting, or list your own — listing is free and takes about five minutes.

Yes — the heart of it is free. Browsing, following teams, every team's open posts, and every team's verified Pulse (their MRR and revenue) cost nothing, ever. Following is the main thing you do here, and it's free forever. Fall in love with a few teams before you spend a cent. What's paid is going deeper: full episodes, the Feedback channel to teams, deeper Pulse metrics like paying-user counts, and the Cliffhangers vote — all bundled into the Indie Pass. And Gems, our "this was worth it" reaction, are always free.

An episode is a chapter of a real build story — a self-contained mini-story with a cover, a title and the inside account of what happened, tied to a marker on the Pulse line so you literally see "they shipped this and the line moved." Posts are the free, X-style open updates anyone can read and share. Episode teasers (title, synopsis, cover) are free for everyone; the full episode unlocks with a Greenlight. So the open layer pulls you in, and the deeper chapters are for the people who want a front-row seat.

The Indie Pass is your subscription to Indie Valley — our software and content. It comes in three tiers of one product that stack like a ladder: Indie Pass, Indie Pass + AI, and Spotlight. You're subscribing to Indie Valley; Paddle handles checkout, billing, tax and invoices as our authorized reseller and Merchant of Record.

There are three tiers. Indie Pass ($10/mo at 10 Greenlights — $1 each, slide between 5 and 50) gives you full episodes, the Feedback channel, deeper Pulse metrics, the Cliffhangers vote, and the Friday newsletter. Indie Pass + AI (+$10) adds the Monthly AI Premium Digest. Spotlight ($1000/mo flat, strictly limited) is the all-in tier: 50 Greenlights, AI, and a Featured slot for one of your own published projects. Most people should just start with the base Indie Pass — add AI only if you want the digest, and Spotlight only when you want to feature your own project. You can change tiers anytime.

A Greenlight is the way you say yes, I want to see this made — like a studio greenlighting a show. It's an access feature inside your Pass: it unlocks that team's episodes, the full behind-the-scenes story, and seats you in the room. It also counts toward how Indie Valley distributes its Creator Rewards. It has no cash value and can't be transferred.

$1 per Greenlight per month. Start at 5, go up to 50 — at 10 Greenlights that's $10/mo. Add AI for $10 more, or go all-in with Spotlight at $1000/mo. Paddle, our Merchant of Record, handles billing and any local tax, and shows the exact total before you pay. Why $1? Because it's the smallest honest amount to say "yes, I want to see this made." There's no catch and no locked "real" tier hiding behind it — $1 is the whole price of getting in the room. You're not buying a product off a shelf; you're getting a front-row seat to the stories you're following.

No — and this matters, so we'll say it plainly. Clicking Greenlight does not send any money to a team; you pay a subscription to Indie Valley, and there's no buyer-to-creator transaction at all. It's not a tip, donation, crowdfunding, fundraise, investment, security, equity, loan, wallet, currency, voucher, or store credit — it has no cash value, isn't redeemable for anything, and earns you no financial return. It buys you access and a voice, nothing more.

Yes to the first two. A Greenlight isn't glued to a project — point it at one team today, change your mind and re-point it at another tomorrow. You can also hold free Greenlights you haven't pointed at anyone yet; that's a perfectly normal state. The two limits, both for honesty's sake: you can't transfer a Greenlight to another person, and you can't cash one out — it isn't money, so there's nothing to withdraw. It's your front-row seat to move around as your taste changes.

No — that's a simple anti-fraud rule, so your Greenlights always point at someone else's work. If you want to lift your own project, the Spotlight tier is the way to Feature it instead.

Nothing's lost. A Greenlight isn't stuck to a project — if a team you've Greenlighted goes quiet, or is removed for faking its numbers, that Greenlight simply frees up and you re-point it at someone new. You keep your Pass and every Greenlight in it. This is exactly what verification is for: fakes get caught, and your access is never tied to someone else's honesty.

A Gem is a free "this was worth it" reaction you earn by reading — it never involves money. A Greenlight is an access feature inside your paid Pass that unlocks a team's episodes. Think of Gems as applause and Greenlights as taking your seat in the room — same warm intent, very different things.

Yes, and listing is completely free. You don't need revenue — or any revenue — to belong here. Pre-launch, pre-dollar, flat or falling: you're welcome, and the lines that dip are some of the most-followed stories on the platform. Setup takes about five minutes. You choose what to connect for verification (read-only, your call), you control what's public, and you can disconnect or remove things anytime. You don't have to be winning to start — you just have to be real.

Discovery ranks by trust and value, never virality — so real verified numbers rise, and you don't need a viral thread to be found. A quiet team with honest numbers can outrank a loud one with none. Your free public posts feed discovery and pull people in, and because the work speaks for itself, the right builders and supporters find you for what you're actually making. We won't pretend a young platform is a megaphone overnight — but here, reach is earned by being real, not by being loud.

The connection is strictly read-only. We read the revenue figure that powers your Pulse — and nothing more. We can't charge, move or touch a single cent, we can't see or touch your customers' data, and we can't change anything in your account. We never audit your books. You choose exactly what to connect, and you can disconnect in one click anytime. The thing that makes you credible to everyone watching costs you almost nothing in risk. We support the major processors — Stripe, Paddle, RevenueCat, Superwall, Creem, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Dodo and more.

The dips are the story. Flat and falling months are the most human, most-followed, most-trusted parts of any real series — because the numbers are honest, there's no shame in them. We're not a winners' wall; we're the real path, including the parts that burned the budget. And you're not posting into a void of strangers — the room is builders who've been exactly where you are. The hard months are when people lean in, not away.

Through Creator Rewards, a discretionary program Indie Valley funds out of its own revenue, at a level we set at our discretion — not a fixed share of any subscriber's payment. Allocation reflects the value a project brings — its contribution and consistency, its standing in the program, and the Greenlights it earns as one input among several, weighted at our discretion and never determinative.

No — there's no tip jar and no pass-through. When you buy an Indie Pass, that money buys you access: full episodes, Feedback, deeper Pulse. It does not flow through to a creator, and clicking a Greenlight sends no money to anyone. Creator Rewards are a separate, discretionary program we fund from our own revenue, at a level we set — not an escrow, not a cut of your payment, not a hand-off from buyer to builder. Your Pass pays for what you get. Rewarding creators comes out of our own pocket.

A project's rewards start accruing from its first Greenlight and show under Settings → Creator Partner right away. Cashing out needs a quick payout setup — bank details via Wise plus a tax form — that goes live as the platform grows; until then, rewards keep accruing. We won't pretend it's instant cash.

No. Amounts vary and nothing is guaranteed — they depend on the size of the pool, your standing in the program, and your eligibility. We'd rather be honest than oversell: this grows as the Valley grows. The full terms live in the Creator Agreement.

Bring your whole Cast & Crew. As the owner, you approve teammates who can publish episodes and posts, while you keep control of project settings and billing. And don't worry about a content treadmill — setup is a light five-minute listing, and after that you publish when something actually moves, not on a schedule. Your verified Pulse keeps the story alive between updates with zero effort on your part. It's your studio, your crew, telling the story together.

Anytime, with no lock-in. Disconnect your payment processor, remove a project, or close your account whenever you like — there's no exclusivity, and you're free to build wherever else you want too. We ask teams to be open and verifiable, so it's only right that leaving is just as easy as joining.

The Pulse is a live revenue line pulled read-only straight from a team's own payment processor, refreshed daily — and it's free for everyone to see. It's the spine of the whole place. After years of fake MRR flexes and screenshot bragging, this is the relief: you're not reading "trust me, it worked," you're watching "they did X and the line moved." That's why you can finally trust the lessons — the number behind every story is real.

Faking is structurally impossible here, not just policed. There's no manual number to inflate — the figure comes only from a connected payment processor, so there's literally no text field to type a fake revenue into. And ranking is by trust and value, never virality, so there's no like-farming or thread-juicing lever to pull. To fake revenue you'd have to push real money through a real payment company on a real account in your name — at which point you've actually built a business. The cheat is the product.

You can list without connecting anything — but anything not verified stays clearly labelled as self-reported, never dressed up as verified. There's no in-between and no hiding behind a missing connection: un-verified projects rank lower in discovery, so honesty is visible by default. The teams with the most to prove are the ones who connect. What you see marked verified is real; what isn't, says so.

You're in control, and the connection is read-only. We read only the metric that powers your Pulse — we can't see or touch your customers' data, can't move money, and can't change anything in your account. Your MRR and revenue are public (that's the point), but deeper detail like paying-user counts stays gated to your supporters. You choose what to connect, you can disconnect in one click anytime, and we never audit your books. The credibility is public; your private business stays private.

By trust and value, never virality — so you can't hype or thread your way to the top. There's no manual number to inflate (the metrics come from connected processors), and no like-farming or follower-count lever that moves the ranking. Real, verified, consistent value rises; noise doesn't. It's the opposite of a clout feed — the quiet team with honest numbers can beat the loud one with none.

Spotlight is the all-in top tier of the Indie Pass: a flat monthly bundle that includes a set number of Greenlights, AI Trend Analytics, and one Featured slot for one of your own published projects. There's no slider — it's a single flat price. Only a limited number of Spotlight slots exist, with the live count and price on Indie Pass.

Subscribe to Spotlight, then pick which of your own published projects to Feature from My Startups — it's auto-approved, since it's your own project. The placement links to that project's page inside Indie Valley and is shown to visitors. It carries no audience or performance guarantee — just visibility on-platform.

Because a Featured placement only means something if it's scarce. We cap how many Spotlight slots exist so the stage stays meaningful, and the live count is always shown on Indie Pass. When they're gone, they're gone until one frees up.

Paddle does. Paddle is our authorized reseller and Merchant of Record — it handles checkout, billing, tax and invoices, so your statement shows Paddle on our behalf. Your card details go to Paddle; we never see or store your full card number. We keep only what's needed to run your account and your access, and we spell it all out in our Privacy policy. We ask teams here to be verifiable and transparent — so we hold ourselves to the same standard with your data.

Almost certainly. Billing is in USD, but at checkout Paddle shows your local currency and handles conversion and any local VAT, GST or sales tax automatically, in the vast majority of countries. Wherever you build, you can join — that's the whole idea of a global builder community.

Anytime, and it's always your choice. Move between tiers or adjust your Greenlights whenever you like, and the exact next charge is shown before any change takes effect. No surprise upsells, no silently bumped tier, no quiet price creep — nothing changes on your bill unless you choose it. You're always in the driver's seat.

It's a monthly auto-renewing subscription, and you can cancel anytime with no fee. Your access runs to the end of the period you've already paid for, then simply stops. No lock-in, no phone calls, no exit toll.

Because you get immediate digital access, there's no general money-back guarantee or pro-rated refund for time already used. As a goodwill measure, though, if within 48 hours of your first-ever Indie Pass subscription you decide it's not for you, email [email protected] and we'll arrange a refund through Paddle (first subscription only — not renewals, upgrades or add-ons). Beyond that we review refunds case by case for things like a duplicate charge or confirmed fraud, processed by Paddle to your original payment method. The full details are in our Refund Policy.

Your statutory rights always apply. In the EU/EEA and UK you normally have a 14-day withdrawal right — but because the Indie Pass gives immediate digital access, you agree performance begins right away and lose that withdrawal right once it has, to the extent the law allows. The Refund Policy spells this out.

One address for everything: [email protected]. A real person reads it and will help with anything — billing, your account, your story. Indie Valley is operated by Aleksei Stepankov (Individual Entrepreneur), with Paddle as our Merchant of Record for billing. We ask the teams here to be verifiable and to show real numbers — so it's only fair that we're easy to find and accountable too.