Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of like that old story about the war planes needing armour in the places where returning planes hadn't been shot.
This is genius. Where does this old story come from? Never heard it. EDIT: thanks for the answers! This analogy is pretty good for simple cases (improvement on planes' armor). But if you optimize only this variable, your war plane will be heavier and you'll have a lot of other problems and fail, too.
Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
21–30 of 158 posts
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#22I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…
I can’t add anything concrete, but anecdotally the reasons I have personally seen are very diverse. To misquote Tolstoy all successful startups are all alike; every failed startup is a failure in its own way.
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#23I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…
I think it would be less insightful than you think to hear from failed companies.
I wouldn't be surprised if 50%-90% of startups begin life as side-projects and the founder(s) get lazy and decide to fold before even really attempting to get off the ground.
Out of the remaining startups that either succeed or fail after substantial effort, I'd be most of the failures can be attributed to rather mundane, predictable circumstances (most of which are mentioned in TFA):
- Building a product or features no one wants
- Taking too long to ship and offering a discounted beta in the meantime
- Wasting time & resources on non-revenue tasks because "business"
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#24I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…
Startup success is Anna Karenina Principle[1] flipped. I wrote about it some time back[2]. Every startup dies either because it failed to build something that people would want to pay for, or failed to create a profitable business around it (or, maybe the founders just got burned out). Successful businesses, on the other hand, find their own path to make it to the top. That doesn't mean you can't learn from articles…
We are obviously thinking along the same lines :)
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of like that old story about the war planes needing armour in the places where returning planes hadn't been shot.
This is genius. Where does this old story come from? Never heard it. EDIT: thanks for the answers! This analogy is pretty good for simple cases (improvement on planes' armor). But if you optimize only this variable, your war plane will be heavier and you'll have a lot of other problems and fail, too.
You've already received the right responses (Abraham Wald), but this is my favorite excerpt/article about it [1].
[1] https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an-excerpt-from-how-not-to-...
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#26All good advice, but I'm going to propose something that may be a bit contrary to current wisdom: if you really want a decent lifestyle/work-life balance don't start a business! So what's the alternative? Go contracting. Reduce your expenses to the bone, and limit the contracts you do. I now only take 3 month contracts and I do one a year. I make about £24K from that - I know many developers making double my rate. Th…
How did you get started with contracting? And do you find yourself having to commute a lot?
I haven't found a huge number of jobs near each other in the UK outside of London.
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#27All good advice, but I'm going to propose something that may be a bit contrary to current wisdom: if you really want a decent lifestyle/work-life balance don't start a business! So what's the alternative? Go contracting. Reduce your expenses to the bone, and limit the contracts you do. I now only take 3 month contracts and I do one a year. I make about £24K from that - I know many developers making double my rate. Th…
Well here in the states we gotta have health insurance at like 600 bucks a month if you are single and over 40.
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Startup success is Anna Karenina Principle[1] flipped. I wrote about it some time back[2]. Every startup dies either because it failed to build something that people would want to pay for, or failed to create a profitable business around it (or, maybe the founders just got burned out). Successful businesses, on the other hand, find their own path to make it to the top. That doesn't mean you can't learn from articles…
We are obviously thinking along the same lines :)
Quite a bit of coincidence. Unfortunately, our conclusions are poles apart.
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#29All good advice, but I'm going to propose something that may be a bit contrary to current wisdom: if you really want a decent lifestyle/work-life balance don't start a business! So what's the alternative? Go contracting. Reduce your expenses to the bone, and limit the contracts you do. I now only take 3 month contracts and I do one a year. I make about £24K from that - I know many developers making double my rate. Th…
Good advice! But, just to remember us, happiness formula is not the same for everyone.
Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers
#30Yeah this is the best for me: > Ship. Ship. SHIP. The overwhelming failure case among people who read interviews like this one is that they spend 98 units of effort reading about running a business for every 2 units of effort running a business. Flip that on its head. I wonder how many successful entrepreneurs actually spent time reading advice blogs when they were starting.
Not yet successful, but I recently launched a product that I'm sure wouldn't be launched yet if I hadn't read the recommendation to ship early.