Yannick Veys

Yannick Veys is a Belgian entrepreneur and co-founder of Hypefury, the Twitter growth and scheduling tool. He started making money online at 14 with MP3 download sites, quit a banking job at 22 (and got sued for it), built over 100 passive income websites, managed $50M+ in ad spend for Fortune 500 companies, co-founded the marketplace startup Zoofy (reaching $3M in revenue), and earned his pilot license along the way. He joined Hypefury by offering to work for free for two months after finding co-founder Samy Dindane on Indie Hackers, and bootstrapped the product through two near-death platform crises.

Key Patterns

• He builds assets (websites, products) rather than trading time for money (freelancing, consulting)
• Traffic without buying intent is worthless; he learned this through a painful proxy site failure and applied it everywhere after
• Every career stage (banking, agency, freelancing, Zoofy) deposited skills that compounded into later ventures
• He survived platform dependency crises by positioning Hypefury as aligned with Twitter’s interests, not opposed
• He prices with courage: raising prices caused 15% churn but 50% MRR growth, and he wished he’d done it sooner

Early Online Ventures

First Dollar Online at 14 - MP3 Sites and a Check in the Mail — At 14 in 1998, he built MP3 download sites and received a physical check from internet ads before Google existed Quit Banking, Got Sued, Paid €15,000 — He quit a banking job at 22, got taken to court, and was forced to pay back 15,000 euros in scholarship fees Gaming Server Side Hustle - Paid Back the Debt in 6 Months — A gaming server side hustle appeared immediately after quitting and paid back all the debt in 6 months The Mystery CEO Call — A mysterious CEO call led him to a digital marketing agency where side projects were encouraged and SEO was a gold rush Freelancing, Maserati, Not Happy — Freelancing at 10-15K/month with a Maserati, but managing other people’s budgets felt hollow Pilot License, Then Teaching at the Flight School — He got his pilot license during freelancing and later became a theory instructor at the same flight school

SEO and Traffic

1 in Google, Made No Money — Ranked #1 in Google for anonymous surfing but lost money because the audience had zero buying intent The Finance Website - €30K from Buying Intent — A finance website using his banking knowledge earned 30K euros over 10 years by targeting keywords with buying intent 4-Hour Websites That Made €10K+ Each — He built 100+ tiny websites, some in just 4 hours, that each earned 10K+ euros over 5 years 100K Words in 30 Days - The SEO Experiment That Broke Down — A 100K-word writing challenge that broke down by day 5 when ideas dried up, teaching him that volume without a plan leads to burnout $50M in Ad Spend Before Going Solo — Managing $50M in ad spend for Fortune 500 companies taught him exactly when NOT to use paid marketing

Hypefury and SaaS

The Indie Hackers Post - I’ll Work for Free for 2 Months — He found Samy on Indie Hackers, flew to Paris, and offered to work for free for 2 months with no backup plan Building in Public - The Competitor Betrayal That Backfired — Building in public attracted a competitor who copied their product, but the competition actually grew the market The Co-Founder Relationship - Like Marriage Therapy — He and Samy chose each other for zero skill overlap and total values alignment, like a deliberate marriage The Bad First Hire They Kept Too Long — Their first hire was their worst; they kept the wrong person too long before learning to hire from their network Tripled Revenue Without Writing a Line of Code — They tripled monthly revenue without shipping a single feature by launching a paid community around the product $1K Salary at $22K MRR - The Portfolio as Runway — At $22K MRR they took only $1K/month salary each, funded by passive income websites as runway

Platform Dependency

Surviving the Twitter API Apocalypse — Twitter banned third-party clients and charged $42K/month for Enterprise API; Hypefury survived by positioning as a creation tool X Charging $1-Account - The Death of the Free Plan — X started charging $1 per connected account, killing Hypefury’s free plan growth engine overnight Acquiring Black Magic for $128K During the Shakeout — They acquired competitor Black Magic for $128K during the API shakeout when smaller tools couldn’t survive alone

Pricing and Growth

The Price Increase That Spiked Churn to 15% But Boosted MRR 50% — A price increase spiked churn to 15% but boosted MRR by 50%; the customers who left were never long-term anyway The Affiliate Stealing Their Own Traffic — An affiliate ran Google Ads on the Hypefury brand name to steal commissions on existing traffic The One-Click Affiliate Button — A single in-app button replaced multi-step affiliate signup, dramatically increasing referral participation The 101 Viral Thread Hooks Giveaway — A free “101 Viral Thread Hooks” ebook giveaway stacked engagement, social proof, DMs, and email capture in one tweet From 600 to 5,000 Followers - Eating Your Own Cooking — He grew from 600 to 5,000 Twitter followers using Hypefury himself, becoming the product’s own case study Zoofy - From Amsterdam Emergency Plumbers to €3M Revenue — Before Hypefury, he co-founded Zoofy (Uber for service pros), grew it to 3M euros revenue, then sold his shares Banned from Reddit for Being Too Clever — He got banned from Reddit for disguising a Zoofy promotion as an innocent question about hiring plumbers