Key Values is a platform where companies are profiled with descriptions of their company values. These profiles describe features such as work-life balance, company culture, daily routines, and strategy.

Lynne Tye created Key Values with the goal of building a small business that would make money through connecting job seekers to companies with a culture that matched their own personal values system. Key Values has become highly successful, and Lynne is making enough money from the business to live comfortably.

In a previous episode, Lynne and I discussed her founding story and the engineering of Key Values. Today’s episode picks up a few years later, with Lynne having found significant success with her own company.

Lynne’s software business is an example of a growing trend: “Indie Hackers”. This trend was identified by Courtland Allen, founder of the Indie Hackers platform. Courtland is close friends with Lynne, and Lynne’s desire to start her own software company was influenced by her conversations with Courtland.

At a certain point, Lynne was considering raising money and growing Key Values. She was accepted into Y-Combinator. But she decided to stick with the Indie Hackers route, and grow the business independently. Lynne joins the show to talk about the process of starting a software business, and the pivotal decisions she has made around financing, growth, and her own psychology.

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