The build many “startups” quickly hype gives me strong get rich quick vibes.
It works for the influencers because their audience is big enough, but for everyone else it’s very unlikely to work and they will just pay for the courses and boilerplates the influencers are shilling.
Most things that create significant sustained value will take a lot of time.
It’s sad to read the blog posts of people spending so much time building crappy products no one will ever use, and still trying to sell you on their latest idea.
It’s sad that this is what indie hacking has become.
Tell me about it. I've been plucking away at an online business since 2004. It makes just barely enough money that I'm not quite willing to shut it down but not enough to get excited about or quit my regular job. Hate it.
It’s really hard to change project and recognize the blurredd line between “it doesn’t work” and “I didn’t put enough effort into it”.
My first product worked, but very average. My second project worked excellently, there was quasi-immediate traction. That second thing was resolving an actual business issue.
It’s stagnating now. It’s probably because, even though I don’t feel it, I’m bored (it’s been 7 years). I have difficulty waking up in the morning.
You need to innovate. If not just for your brain and sanity, the market didn’t recognize your first product. Evaluate whether you should trust the sign that the market gives you.
Stating with problems actually belonging to B2B customers that they have tried and failed to solve and are willing to pay for good a long way instead of being a solution in search of a problem.
Being a solution in search of a problem is being everything on one hypothesis of what you built being correct instead of problem based thinking that would line up multiple hypotheses to then select one to start with.
Startups are a learning engine and most don’t get setup to learn and iterate based on customer feedback.
Influencers sell ads around content. Whatever is in that box surrounded by ads doesn't really matter other than being fresh and getting clicks. It's generally more interesting to see videos about different types of projects because it's always new and different people like different things. There's a difference in doing things for content and doing things for real, almost for any content type. Camping content, woodworking content, programming content etc, is optimized for views, not for the actual thing, usually.
I know someone in the UK who has been in a very poor situation and told them they can make a bit of money by building a small side project and charging for it.
About 6 months later, I caught up with them and they made over £700,000+ by just learning to code, taking advice from others, discipline, and turning around their dire and desperate current situation they really wanted to get out of.
Depending on the situation it actually changes lives.
I think you are misunderstanding my point, I'm specifically referring to the "build 12 companies in 12 months" version of indie hacking that is really vocal on twitter and other places.
They usually build a landing page or bad prototype, wait for people to come, then move on to "the next startup" if it inevitably doesn't work. Their ideas usually don't have enough potential to sell, and if they do they don't take them far enough to actually realize even a fraction of the potential.
I love bootstrapped companies, I'm all for building side projects and turning them into jobs, but this movement has moved away from that and is now about selling the dream instead of the work.
It sounds like the person you know did not do this and actually created something valuable, that's amazing and I congratulate them. I would like the indie hacker movement to move back to celebrating these success stories instead of the influencer BS.
Edit: and maybe I am a bit bitter as I loved the indie hacker movement. I found it to be incredibly inspiring, and I truly miss the stories of people doing lots of hard work, solving difficult problems, and building incredible products and companies.
There is some truth in that, but if you only spend 1 month on a project it will be really difficult to realize any potential there might be.
It shouldn't be about the time spend but how quickly you can validate assumptions, those are different things.
My point is: It's not "that easy". I'm pro indie hacking, but it's hard work and difficult to create a profitable business that you can live off. Spinning off crappy quick projects only works if you have a big audience you can sell to, and most don't have that, so they will have to put in a lot more effort and time.
I’ve had multiple side projects over the years, and every time I got a little bit further with them towards a commercial success. My latest project is the one I’ve been working on the longest.
It’s been almost 4 years now I think, and within the past year, I’ve started getting traction commercially. (But the first paying customer was after two years or so.)
I guess what I’m saying is that it’s okay to abandon ideas when you feel like they don’t work. Your gut feeling may be right.
You learn something from it, you move on and eventually you hopefully find something that sticks. It’s almost like love.
Also, if you want to avoid wasting your time, you have to do everything to find paying customers as fast as possible.
It’s embarrassing to go out with a product that you know isn’t perfect, but if you are meeting a need in the market, people are willing to pay even for an imperfect product.
And it’s much easier to improve a product that has a market, then to find a market for a perfect product that has none.
I've run a few businesses over the years and the return of investment of self sufficiency is barely worth it in the long run. It's very difficult to replicate the benefits of working for an SME (forget big tech) which it comes to security. You never have to worry about MRR because it's static and only increases.
Also some advice on hyper-optimising for cheap hardware. Don't. Buy something with a warranty from a respectable company. Or buy two of everything else. Downtime will cost you customers. I say that having spent most of those years running off cranky ex corporate thinkpads. They will let you down and you will need an exit plan. At this point I'd rather just buy an off the shelf MacBook config I can walk into the local Apple store and just buy another one if I break it or lose it. No waiting 4-5 days for another ebay thinkpad to turn up and hope it works ok. I run off a base model 14" M1 MacBook Pro now.
>I've run a few businesses over the years and the return of investment of self sufficiency is barely worth it in the long run.
Most people aren't looking at it from the perspective of making a killing. They just want to get away from having a boss. For whatever reason they don't fit the corporate mould. Running their own show represents freedom.
Whoever is paying you is your boss. There is no escape, only a change in the illusion. If you're a sole trader, it's your customers. If you're a corporate wage slave, it's your line manager. If you're a startup it's whoever gave you capital. Even if you're CxO it's the other board members and investors.
If you’ve got a MacBook Pro budget you can buy 2 prev gen Thinkpads. Have the 2nd as a backup. I have a 7 year old Thinkpad as a backup and it’s great, more than good enough to last while main laptop is fixed or replaced. Was even able to upgrade RAM and storage vs everything is soldered on the mainboard like it’s on MacBooks.
Or buy latest gen thinkpad with 3 year warranty and optional on-site repair.
His business seems to run on AWS Lambda, which is about as far away from running on cheap (unreliable) hardware as possible? The laptop he mentions is just for working.
That's the cheap hardware I'm talking about. What is in your hands is the most important thing of all because without it you can't serve your customers or increase ROI.
I keep hacking away on Yazz for over 10 years now.... even if there is zero payoff I keep hacking... and that is what hackers do... we are not doing for the money... https://github.com/yazz/yazz
Focusing on more than one thing is easily the best way to get nothing done.
Certification: Cisco, Red Hat, AWS, Azure. Pick one and finish it. Then do more. Having basic certifications in all of them sounds like a good idea, but employers don't seem to care. Keep going with whichever one you pick.
Programming languages: don't spend a month on every language you can find, or every framework you can find. It's great to know more than just one language or framework but it's more important to actually make interesting shit in whichever one you pick.
I'm gonna be that guy and say cerfications are not very helpful if you are building your own SaaS. This is coming from me, a guy who has a few profitable SaaS and has never done a single certification course. Learning by doing, "just in time" learning, and looking up stuff you need in docs / youtube videos when you get stuck seems to work fine.
However, I can definitely agree with the comments on tools / frameworks though. Don't focus on the "newest thing", just work with what you know you are fastest with.
Love warren buffett’s quote on this topic. "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything." But totally agree it’s v difficult to decide what to say no to especially if you’re still honing PMF at a startup.
This is kinda misleading though. If you say no to everything then you literally won’t do anything. That can’t make you money unless you’re a trust fund kid. So obviously you have to say yes to some thing (s). The true essence of the message is that you have to say no to most things but still say yes to that one thing. Good luck with that!
I worked at a well known B2B some years back that seemed to be successful in part because they allowed the customers to do whatever they wanted AFA custom JavaScript applet work, and then made a killing on support plans dealing with landlines those customer’s devs created.
I think both ways work. Focusing on a single product failed for me, focusing on many small bets worked.
Many small business ideas which can be built quickly are really hard to scale beyond a certain point so having many is the only way to build reasonable income. These small bets also need to require low effort to build and support (eg. think b2c with advertising income or a product with little support costs).
Of course if you can scale up a single business, good for you, you can focus all your energies there and provide a great service.
I agree both ways work! I'm curious what about the many small bets worked in your case. It would be great to have a framework for "when to focus" and "when to diversify".
Ironic but where do people discuss niches/undersaturated markets/trends/rushes these days?
I've always felt it was a part of the HN spirit with lots of threads, but it's completely died down, maybe because of the economy?
I'm well aware it's luck and lottery, but it's a hobby for many of us anyway, finding a market for our tinkering.
Even Indiehackers seems saturated with a lot of the spam and very little profitable. Like this gibberish wix template making 100k a month on the frontpage https://www.indiehackers.com/product/gibble-ai.
Is the discussion IRL only now, or are we just in a downturn?
IMO many viable niches are not being discussed online at all.
I’ve recently stumbled on an exciting niche that’s showing a lot of traction. The customers know very well how to use technology but the notion of joining forums / discussing their frustrations anywhere online just doesn’t seem to be something they consider doing. It’s all word of mouth.
My “luck” completely shifted when I stopped trying to find these users online and instead physically walked into a shop and started asking for opinions.
All that to say: I’m coming to feel that niches can more easily be found offline, even for SaaS type businesses. Just walk up and ask a business owner what they find annoying!
A lot of entrepreneurial types are very much running around in the same circles jumping on the same trends and seeing life from the same perspective.
I remember being part of an incubator where there were 4 coffee distribution companies at the same time, pretty funny. Many others were doing online services for other tech people like some ouroboros.
At the same time designers and hacker types are often a bit introverted and isolate themselves with their work.
This creates a very deep disconnect between "the vast majority of people" that aren't very vocal online about problems, even more so the huge elderly demographic, but even zoomers are not tech savvy these days. So there should really be lots of opportunities out there if you don't focus on the tiny hot niches or techy spheres that so many people here target paradoxically.
Ie. combining "techy, nerdy or design skills" while forcing yourself out there is honestly a potential superpower - the other way around is not feasible for most, ie. the sales type learning tech that takes years and years to learn. Off course you can also always team up.
Readit News
It works for the influencers because their audience is big enough, but for everyone else it’s very unlikely to work and they will just pay for the courses and boilerplates the influencers are shilling.
Most things that create significant sustained value will take a lot of time.
It’s sad to read the blog posts of people spending so much time building crappy products no one will ever use, and still trying to sell you on their latest idea.
It’s sad that this is what indie hacking has become.
My first product worked, but very average. My second project worked excellently, there was quasi-immediate traction. That second thing was resolving an actual business issue.
It’s stagnating now. It’s probably because, even though I don’t feel it, I’m bored (it’s been 7 years). I have difficulty waking up in the morning.
You need to innovate. If not just for your brain and sanity, the market didn’t recognize your first product. Evaluate whether you should trust the sign that the market gives you.
Launch a second product.
At the end of the day if you want to gamble, buy a lottery ticket, then at least you are being honest with yourself.
It takes tremendous effort launching products that have integrity, and its something that should be respected, the journey is what its all about.
Being a solution in search of a problem is being everything on one hypothesis of what you built being correct instead of problem based thinking that would line up multiple hypotheses to then select one to start with.
Startups are a learning engine and most don’t get setup to learn and iterate based on customer feedback.
I know someone in the UK who has been in a very poor situation and told them they can make a bit of money by building a small side project and charging for it.
About 6 months later, I caught up with them and they made over £700,000+ by just learning to code, taking advice from others, discipline, and turning around their dire and desperate current situation they really wanted to get out of.
Depending on the situation it actually changes lives.
They usually build a landing page or bad prototype, wait for people to come, then move on to "the next startup" if it inevitably doesn't work. Their ideas usually don't have enough potential to sell, and if they do they don't take them far enough to actually realize even a fraction of the potential.
I love bootstrapped companies, I'm all for building side projects and turning them into jobs, but this movement has moved away from that and is now about selling the dream instead of the work.
It sounds like the person you know did not do this and actually created something valuable, that's amazing and I congratulate them. I would like the indie hacker movement to move back to celebrating these success stories instead of the influencer BS.
Edit: and maybe I am a bit bitter as I loved the indie hacker movement. I found it to be incredibly inspiring, and I truly miss the stories of people doing lots of hard work, solving difficult problems, and building incredible products and companies.
Surely worth a post on its own.
Or was this person already an expert in a certain business domain, which helped to come up with a business idea in that domain?
It shouldn't be about the time spend but how quickly you can validate assumptions, those are different things.
My point is: It's not "that easy". I'm pro indie hacking, but it's hard work and difficult to create a profitable business that you can live off. Spinning off crappy quick projects only works if you have a big audience you can sell to, and most don't have that, so they will have to put in a lot more effort and time.
It’s been almost 4 years now I think, and within the past year, I’ve started getting traction commercially. (But the first paying customer was after two years or so.)
I guess what I’m saying is that it’s okay to abandon ideas when you feel like they don’t work. Your gut feeling may be right.
You learn something from it, you move on and eventually you hopefully find something that sticks. It’s almost like love.
It’s embarrassing to go out with a product that you know isn’t perfect, but if you are meeting a need in the market, people are willing to pay even for an imperfect product.
And it’s much easier to improve a product that has a market, then to find a market for a perfect product that has none.
Also some advice on hyper-optimising for cheap hardware. Don't. Buy something with a warranty from a respectable company. Or buy two of everything else. Downtime will cost you customers. I say that having spent most of those years running off cranky ex corporate thinkpads. They will let you down and you will need an exit plan. At this point I'd rather just buy an off the shelf MacBook config I can walk into the local Apple store and just buy another one if I break it or lose it. No waiting 4-5 days for another ebay thinkpad to turn up and hope it works ok. I run off a base model 14" M1 MacBook Pro now.
Most people aren't looking at it from the perspective of making a killing. They just want to get away from having a boss. For whatever reason they don't fit the corporate mould. Running their own show represents freedom.
http://reactionwheel.net/2019/01/schumpeter-on-strategy.html
If you’ve got a MacBook Pro budget you can buy 2 prev gen Thinkpads. Have the 2nd as a backup. I have a 7 year old Thinkpad as a backup and it’s great, more than good enough to last while main laptop is fixed or replaced. Was even able to upgrade RAM and storage vs everything is soldered on the mainboard like it’s on MacBooks.
Or buy latest gen thinkpad with 3 year warranty and optional on-site repair.
Really depends on what your needs are.
The downtime he speaks of is developer downtime. He isn't implying he served from used Thinkpads before, or that he serves off of MacBooks now.
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
Certification: Cisco, Red Hat, AWS, Azure. Pick one and finish it. Then do more. Having basic certifications in all of them sounds like a good idea, but employers don't seem to care. Keep going with whichever one you pick.
Programming languages: don't spend a month on every language you can find, or every framework you can find. It's great to know more than just one language or framework but it's more important to actually make interesting shit in whichever one you pick.
However, I can definitely agree with the comments on tools / frameworks though. Don't focus on the "newest thing", just work with what you know you are fastest with.
Always loved this advice from Steve Jobs, but it can be hard to put into practice in a startup.
From my own experience, I’ve found there is a strong temptation (and also external advice) to try many different things in trying to get traction.
Many small business ideas which can be built quickly are really hard to scale beyond a certain point so having many is the only way to build reasonable income. These small bets also need to require low effort to build and support (eg. think b2c with advertising income or a product with little support costs).
Of course if you can scale up a single business, good for you, you can focus all your energies there and provide a great service.
I've always felt it was a part of the HN spirit with lots of threads, but it's completely died down, maybe because of the economy?
I'm well aware it's luck and lottery, but it's a hobby for many of us anyway, finding a market for our tinkering.
Even Indiehackers seems saturated with a lot of the spam and very little profitable. Like this gibberish wix template making 100k a month on the frontpage https://www.indiehackers.com/product/gibble-ai.
Is the discussion IRL only now, or are we just in a downturn?
I’ve recently stumbled on an exciting niche that’s showing a lot of traction. The customers know very well how to use technology but the notion of joining forums / discussing their frustrations anywhere online just doesn’t seem to be something they consider doing. It’s all word of mouth.
My “luck” completely shifted when I stopped trying to find these users online and instead physically walked into a shop and started asking for opinions.
All that to say: I’m coming to feel that niches can more easily be found offline, even for SaaS type businesses. Just walk up and ask a business owner what they find annoying!
A lot of entrepreneurial types are very much running around in the same circles jumping on the same trends and seeing life from the same perspective.
I remember being part of an incubator where there were 4 coffee distribution companies at the same time, pretty funny. Many others were doing online services for other tech people like some ouroboros.
At the same time designers and hacker types are often a bit introverted and isolate themselves with their work.
This creates a very deep disconnect between "the vast majority of people" that aren't very vocal online about problems, even more so the huge elderly demographic, but even zoomers are not tech savvy these days. So there should really be lots of opportunities out there if you don't focus on the tiny hot niches or techy spheres that so many people here target paradoxically.
Ie. combining "techy, nerdy or design skills" while forcing yourself out there is honestly a potential superpower - the other way around is not feasible for most, ie. the sales type learning tech that takes years and years to learn. Off course you can also always team up.