Ask HN: As a single bootstrapper, how do you deal with the pressure?

If it's the former, then you should try to filter for constructive feedback and let the rest go. BTW, the same is true if they claimed to love your product. Don't get too excited either way. It's just a few opinions and the market will ultimately decide.

If it's the latter, then you need to focus your time and energy on fixing the product vs. "defending" yourself. Also, try getting it in front of a wider audience that's representative of your target market ASAP.

At the end of the day, you should work to be as objective as possible. Disentagle your emotions--put them on a shelf--and focus on the product succeeding (not you succeeding, but the product). If you find yourself feeling some self-reflective emotion, then you know you need to course correct your thinking.

All of this self-reflection (especially at the behest of detractors) is poison that amounts to trying to succeed while dragging an anchor. It hurts in two ways: it diverts your precious time and energy from the product, and it makes you less productive, creative, objective, and enthusiastic when you actually are working on the product.

As for the rest of it (thinking "what if it doesn't work, etc"), that's classic anxiety and it's a close cousin of depression. Ask yourself "what if it does work?" and keep moving. Truth is, more often than not what we work on will not meet our expectations. I've "failed" and pivoted multiple times before finding success and even then, not to the scale I'd hoped. BTW, on the final pivot before success, I've had people absolutely demolish the pivot. Had I listened to them, I would never have succeeded.

In sum, when you are thinking about or working on your product, focus relentlessly on making it better and testing it in front of "real people". That should leave little room for the counterproductive thinking.

Last but not least, good luck! We all need a healthy dose of that.

I am also a bootstraper, however went to college to be technical. However I can tell a majority of the top tier programmers don't have an once of hustle in them. They just want to play it safe. You learning how to be technical proves just how much you hustle you have in you, just keep at it.

At the end of the day clients don't give a fuck about how much technical experience you have or anything else other than your product. If the product is good and provides value for them, their wallets open. There is also vast evidence that having the best technically sound product doesn't mean a victory, people can be better at sales and marketing with a subpar product.

Look for hustlers in your life. If they aren't there, surround yourself with the content hustles post online.

Good luck man, go out there and kill it then just watch people change their opinion of you without saying anything.

Deep down I know most people don't even make it as far as creating something bad. So even if my idea is bad I keep going knowing I'm well ahead of the curve in terms of trying to create something in this world.

I guess my only advice is; learn to live with embarrassment. It just takes some courage - which from the sound of it, you already have.

As to the "Anybody could have done that in a couple of weeks". They probably don't know what they're talking about. Because if they did, they wouldn't be saying that.