Can you introduce yourself and describe your journey into indie-making and entrepreneurship?
Hey! My name is Cam Pak. I'm 27 and live in Oklahoma with my beautiful wife and baby boy. I like to say that I create digital experiences leading to freedom through Christ and community. You will see that reflected in everything I create, because it was Christ and community that helped set me free from fear of man and chronic, debilitating anxiety.
What's crazy is I would have never imagined myself to be an entrepreneur or indie maker. And for the longest time as an engineer, I always felt like I had to have some sort of side project, or I was failing. And that pressure pulled me away from doing any side projects for years. Then, as time went on and I became more seasoned in my career, I started to feel less and less pressure. I started to become more and more competent. And, I started to realize that everyone is just trying to figure it out one problem at a time, haha.
So what got me into indie making is by creating a website for a local church in Oklahoma. After creating it, I felt like at some point another church would ask me to build them one. I started to wonder if it were possible to just templatize the existing code I wrote for the first church. And, it was possible! That's what birthed the idea of https://melos.church, my first indie product, given to the world.
One thing that I want to encourage indie-hackers is... if you feel great pressure to have to have a side project and don't know what to build, don't! Yes, don't go and try to make up some grand idea to build. First, the pressure is a facade. Second, if you don't have an idea, partner with someone that does and help build their idea. We need more collaboration in this space versus developing in silos.
Cameron Pak
What inspired the idea behind your product?
There's a lot of different inspirations into why I created https://faith.tools. First, it's out of the overflow of love for God's people and unity, especially around the Christians in tech scene.
I started creating public-facing Christian tools as somewhat of an indie hacker through Melos.Church after working many years at a large, wonderful Christian app that gives away Bibles to the world. Melos was a tool that helps churches build a church website fast and free. I had even created a list of church digital tools and apps that I recommend for churches. One thing I love to do is bring together and connect things.
I then created Soul Rest, a free Christian meditation and prayer app that brings together many, many Christian ministries and creators of meditative prayers into one place. There again comes the theme of unifying and connecting.
I had been a big fan of a website known as 1000.tools. It's "an exclusive list of the 1000 best tools. Carefully vetted and maintained by humans." And, the website is simple, beautiful, and showcases some really, really cool tech. Well, what if we could have something like that for Christian apps and websites?
Then, the biggest kicker was Anmol, a wonderful young man of God and product designer who lives in India. He posted on Reddit saying,
"Hi everybody, I am shouting on top of my Lungs. Is there any Christian who is working in tech industry? I want to have Christian friends, I am a UX designer, I design mobile apps and websites. Anybody here?"
And, hearing him tell me that story broke my heart. Yes, he was able to get connected to Christian community in tech, but it took him having to go all the way to Reddit and do one final plead.
No one should have to ask a question like, "are there any believers in Jesus who have similar gifts and skills as me?"
I have a heart to help unite the Christian tech creatives, as well as showcase the things they've built
As someone who recently started working a remote job and not at my old job where Christians in tech was in the hundreds, well like 200, but a lot! I wasn't around many Christians in tech anymore.
So, hopping on Twitter and finding that there were so many Christians in tech on there building some amazing apps and tools I've never heard of meant so much to me. Previously I didn't have Christian tech community outside of work, but now I'm starting to realize and see so many brothers and sisters in the faith who love geeky things like writing code and designing apps and websites.
Oddly enough, I've heard of so many Christian entrepreneurs in tech who are doing digital ministry alone
I have seen two sorts of people in the Christian tech space: those who work in silos and those who want to collaborate with the capital-C Church Christians in tech. Sometimes those who work in silos feel that other apps or tools that have a hint of similarity to their product find you as competition.
Friends, if they're not against you, they are for you. If they're not against Christ, they are for Him in this. Unite. I ask and plead that you'd surrender to the Lord's will and lay down any pride, so that we can be in this together, united in faith and vision.
If anyone knows me, they know I love meeting other Christian developers and designers. Ask for some time to chat with me, and I would love that. I want to hear your story.
FaithTech is a major leader in the field of uniting Christians in tech, and I'm so thankful for the ministry they provide.
And… App Stores typically don't feature stories of Christian apps. I get it, they want to be favoriting one religion over another. But… they also highlight and recommend apps that can be really harmful to Christians and just people in general. For example, they'll easily highlight apps for Horoscopes, but they won't feature the Bible app and write about the story behind YouVersion (this is my speculation, but I have never seen a Christian app be featured as App of the Day.) What if we could change that narrative?
So, with all that background, faith.tools was born.
Can you share some achievements that highlight the success of your product?
Within the 30 days of faith.tools being released:
- There's been 8k+ page views
- The initial tweet about faith.tools got 15,064 Engagements, 1,134 Detail expands, 237 New followers, 8 Profile visits, 197 Link clicks. It was wild.
- As of writing this there is 313 apps, tools, and services in faith.tools
- There are 1.2k page combinations for SEO purposes
- Got many great partnerships and affiliates, such as Techless, Dwell Bible app, and even TruPlay Gaming company
- Partnered with Dwell Bible app to give away a year of their service to a lucky winner
- Got indexed and is appearing on Google for some searched
- With inspiration from my friend Jake, created a Twitter/X community with around 125 Christians in Tech. There are entrepreneurs from very humble beginnings to a CEO of a publicly traded company. While fascinating, God has no favorites, so it's super cool to see us all coming together in unity.
- faith.tools won honorary mention in the Baserow Developer Challenge, and working on this project also led me to becoming the US ambassador for Baserow because I loved it so much, haha
What's your tech stack?
Ah, I started with the Freedom Stack, a simple boilerplate codebase I created using Astro, AlpineJS, HTMX, Baserow.io, daisyUI, and Tailwind CSS. You can find it at https://freedom-stack.netlify.app/. Using this codebase is my absolute favorite way to create websites and web apps. Then, I just started creating the initial UI for the smallest component, which was the card to display the app/tool. Notable steps taken were:
- Using Baserow.io as the backend, because it makes setting up a database with instantly available generated API code easy. Plus, faith.tools is running on their generous free tier.
- daisyUI and Tailwind make it super easy to create beautiful UI with little effort.
- I used Cursor AI IDE to help me with code completion and questions I have when developing.
- When learning Astro I took a course on EggHead.io - https://egghead.io/lessons/astro-intro-build-a-full-stack-blog-with-astro
- Asking the Lord for wisdom in prayer and in conversations with good friends in the faith and tech space for how to approach this well
What challenges have you faced?
What is surprising about this is that there isn't really a competitive market in what I am building. The main problem is that Christians in tech tend to develop in silos. And I think that's probably just entrepreneurs in general. Sometimes we see each other as competition rather than brothers and sisters with the same heart, mind, and mission. We're made for community and are better when we work together. So I think the main challenge is to help others see that there is a need for unity within Christians and tech, because once you notice something is a problem, then you can take a step towards change.
One other challenge that was really hard to navigate was how do I make it where I showcase the creators of these kinds of tools and apps that people love and also protect their privacy and don't just create a list of names. I wanted to help create a community, but didn't know how. That's when my buddy Jake had the great idea to start a Twitter / X community and that idea blew up into a wonderful community.
One more challenge is that I had to create a set of guidelines for apps that can be featured inside of the faith.tools website and ecosystem. And the reason why I did that is because the truth is there are a lot of apps created by Christians or for Christians that look generic or are filled with ads to the brim or exist but are very old and stale. So I wanted to curate the best of these apps to make it easy for people to find apps that would help them in their faith journey. It's hard telling someone "no", but boundaries are created for a reason and they're to help.
Can you share a pivotal moment or milestone in your journey that significantly impacted your product's success?
I think the biggest pivotal moment was when Jake had the idea to start the Twitter / X community. I think that's what helped faith.tools get on the radar of many Christians in tech, as well as kind of establishing it as a place of authority in this field.
There also is a failed attempt when I tried to make community. I used another tool, which was an amazing tool that is pretty much LinkedIn for Christians. But it was really hard to have everyday chit chat and fun conversation. It felt more like we were updating one another rather than having conversation. So when Jake gave me this idea, it was exciting. And we started to see some fruit from this pivot.
What strategies have you used for growth and engagement?
Strategies that have proven most effective would be to reach out to people individually and have word of mouth recommendations. To really treat and take care of the community that you're in. And to not see them as a number, but see them as a person. To take time to get to hop on video calls and get to meet members of the community and hear their story. And just to be consistent in character and actions, which helps people see the stability and helps them grow in trust as I develop a tool like faith.tools alongside them. I guess... care more about the people than the products and then great products will come out as a result.
So for the future of how faith.tools will rank on Google, God-willingly, more and more is through content, content, and content. Not adding more and more apps, but rather writing blog posts about the apps/tools, about the creators behind the tools, and collaborating with other writers to have their work featured.
How do you see your product evolving in the future?
Oh man, the future is big. I see things like more partnerships, sponsorships. Perhaps you might see faith.tools at a conference. I see things like teaching and encouraging builders, young builders to create and to learn and then helping facilitate collaboration among groups that once were working in silos but now are working together and are better because of it. I see a potential of something like SetApp but for Christians, where you pay once per month and have a subscription to many apps that are very helpful tools. And, I see the community growing and having lots of fun together. I see things like app of the week. More giveaways. And, I imagine there will be things that God does that blows my hopes and expectations out of the waters.
What advice would you give to aspiring indie makers and creators looking to launch their own products?
My main advice is that you do not have to build a side project. Let go of the pressure and anxiety of that. And build because you have an idea that you can't shake and it keeps popping into your mind and have fun building it. If you don't get an idea, then offer to collaborate with someone who has a great idea already. Help them out and see that life is better together.
One more advice is, first make it work. Then ask for input, advice, and feedback. Then, make it better.
If you've given the whole faith thing or religion thing a try and it didn't work out, I'd recommend getting to learn about the story of Jesus. Who He is, how He loved, and what He did. I can promise you it's far better than anyone who claimed the name of Jesus but said or did hurtful things. Freedom is available.
If you enjoyed this creator story, be sure to follow their journey and check out the products and tools that they're creating!
