About Me

Heyyyyooo! 👋

I’m Mike, nice to meet you

Hello, friend!

I am Mike Arnone, the face behind the Freaking Cool Indies podcast & newsletters. I create content to guide indie devs on their journeys to transform from Indie Devs to Indieprenurs.

My Journey

Ever since picking up the NES controller at my cousin’s house and beating Glass Joe for the first time, my life was forever intertwined with video games. From reading EGM magazines, to getting my first black eye after I stole a star from my brother in Mario Party, I never looked back.

Indie games entered my zeitgeist with newgrounds and ebaumsworld, but really took of with games like Castle Crashers. Metroidvania’s are easily my favourite genre with my top 3 being:

Hollow Knight
Guacamelee! 2
Yoku’s Island Express (trust me on this one)

Why Freaking Cool Indies?

In my professional career, I am a Sr. Manager of Customer Success for an educational podcasting company. As employee #17 and seeing the company grow to 100+ people, I have picked up a few things along the way, and I want to combine that knowledge with my love of indie games.

Indie games, and indie devs have given me so much, and I really want to do my part to help pay it forward & help anyway that I can. Thankfully, that is business, an area that often feels foreign to most games devs. I want to guide you on your journey from an indie dev to an indiepreneur.

Me Outside of Indies

Outside of FCI, I am a life learner. I love to learn new things & put them into test. Over the past few years I’ve dedicated myself to learning the craft of running which led me to running a marathon and completing a 70.3 Ironman triathlon. I am a huge fan of boxing and basketball. And most importantly, I am the father of the best doggo in the world, Whiskey.

Join the Community

I am a very optimistic individual, a half glass full kind of guy. Those are the people that I want to attract with Freaking Cool Indies. A community of indie devs who believe they can overcome the barriers of marketing & truly make their game something special. Those who are willing to give it a try, and those who don’t quit.

There is a reason I called it, Freaking Cool Indies, because if you are reading this, YOU are a Freaking Cool Indie.