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Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

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Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#51

Post by donmatito »

What I find interesting with Indie Hackers is that it covers a wide range a personal/business situations. It goes from real lifestyle business, to beer-money-making side-projects.

I feel that there is a world of difference between a side-project that is free, to one where you ask customers for their credit cards. Of all professional experiences, I have never learnt as much as I did taking a side-project idea from idea to MVP, then to beta users, then to paying customers, scaling server issues, and marketing strategies. It's not so much about the money, than the fact that you learn so much on so many dimensions.

Sincere thanks + shameless plug, the interview about Smooz was fun, a good self-reflection exercise, and a good source of traffic too (https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/smooz)

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#52

Post by 6stringmerc »

zapperdapper wrote: post #20

All 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…

You've perfectly summed up my goal of making the transition back into Software Development. I'd like to be a well compensated, project based employee when possible. Then, I can have the skills and interest to work on my personal projects and if they provide gratification or income, then I will be hitting the desired work-life-creativity balance that is a bit tricky to land and maintain (in my experience). Thanks for your perspective!

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#53

Post by matthewking »

zapperdapper wrote: post #48
matthewking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do with the other 9 months of the year? side projects? travel? Id be interested to hear how your lifestyle is with all the free time. I've considered this approach myself too but more 6 months on, 6 months off. Scala in particular seems to pay extremely well (£600-£650 /day) so easy to make the money to live a comfortable lifestyle in 3 or 6 months per year. I think other dev contracts are usually around…

Hi Matthew, my rate is £400 a day, I'm a tech writer. Most contract developers I know are on a lot more than that. Double mostly. They do Java/Scala/Perl. That is probably just the niche I have been in though. My very first contract wasn't particularly high £260 a day, but you get known and you can charge more once you've got people who will vouch for you. With regards the 9 months. I write code (Python), read (a lot…

I've worked a 6 month contract before, 3 months would have been ideal I think as after that it was starting to drag on a bit but I don't see many contracts that short. Unfortunately the company didn't really utilise my time very well until I was almost at the end of the contract. Id rather hit the ground running but I guess each contract varies.

It's hard to know what we'd all do with so much free time and I think some people would be a bit lost, but it certainly sounds like you make the most of it and live a nice lifestyle. Particularly all the outdoor activities is something id like to spend more time on myself.

Thanks for sharing!

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#54

Post by samsolomon »

soneca wrote: post #45

I believe this list is missing what I consider to be the most important factor for success, an underlying strength that the most successful business I read on IndieHackers (and elsewhere) have that is systematically underestimated as a reason for success: previously acquired audience . I believe audience is the most important currency in today's world, especially for digital products. Audience may be followers on Twi…

This is a good point and an excellent comment.

While the items mentioned on this list are certainly valuable, every 1,000 followers you have amplifies your chances of success. Even if the product doesn't work out, there are more people to hear about it—perhaps, you can fail faster.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#55

Post by zapperdapper »

matthewking wrote: post #53
zapperdapper wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Matthew, my rate is £400 a day, I'm a tech writer. Most contract developers I know are on a lot more than that. Double mostly. They do Java/Scala/Perl. That is probably just the niche I have been in though. My very first contract wasn't particularly high £260 a day, but you get known and you can charge more once you've got people who will vouch for you. With regards the 9 months. I write code (Python), read (a lot…

I've worked a 6 month contract before, 3 months would have been ideal I think as after that it was starting to drag on a bit but I don't see many contracts that short. Unfortunately the company didn't really utilise my time very well until I was almost at the end of the contract. Id rather hit the ground running but I guess each contract varies. It's hard to know what we'd all do with so much free time and I think so…

Yeah, it's not for everyone. It wasn't an overnight transition for me - I just reduced expenses and reduced time working accordingly.

Yes, I must admit I got absolutely sick to death of sitting in a stuffy office every day staring at a screen. No wonder I nearly topped myself!

All the best!

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#56

Post by kfriede »

lettergram wrote: post #38
rb808 wrote: post #10

Yeah 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.

It's interesting. I can't stand reading about startups, advice, etc. I regularly watch my friends, people on HN or Reddit fall into the folly of discussing different strategies or trying to create the "perfect team" or "perfect business" prior to launch. I create products regularly, and many of them make a profit (not a ton yet, but all growing). My consumer facing apps include https://easy-a.net/ or https://projectp…

On the subject of not reading advice, do you have advice on how you get the word out to your side projects? How do you "market" them?

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#57

Post by ThomPete »

In other words. Reading about success to become successful is like reading the autobiography of lotterywinners. There are no secrets to success other than luck, timing and actually shipping your product (or play the lottery).

Contrary to the lottery though much fewer people ship and there are much more winning lottery coupons.

There is nothing to learn about how to build a successful product.

If you want to read anything read about specific obstacles you get into.

Great read!

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#58

Post by tixocloud »

donmatito wrote: post #51

What I find interesting with Indie Hackers is that it covers a wide range a personal/business situations. It goes from real lifestyle business, to beer-money-making side-projects. I feel that there is a world of difference between a side-project that is free, to one where you ask customers for their credit cards. Of all professional experiences, I have never learnt as much as I did taking a side-project idea from ide…

Thanks for sharing your story as it resonates deeply with me, especially the family life part of things. The idea is also pretty good as well. I'm also curious about your direct sales efforts and what happened there that made it not so successful? I have my assumptions but I'd love to hear your side of things.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#59

Post by tixocloud »

l33tbro wrote: post #50
jasongrishkoff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one of those folks featured on IndieHackers ( https://www.submithub.com ), I can say that I didn't read a single interview, advice blog or anything of the sort. I just focused on rolling out an MVP that streamlined the problem I was trying to solve. I confess that to this day, I haven't read any of the other interviews on IndieHackers :-D. Oops, hope you're not seeing this Courtland <3

I struggle with this so much that I even managed to unearth a buzz term (1) for this syndrome of reading too many advice blogs. That aside, I think a lot of this is relative to where one is at in terms of education, network, support structure, access to capital, and a raft of other factors Eg, if you're an MBA with a deep and narrow understanding of a certain niche, you're not going to lean on startup blogs in the sa…

It's a real thing and I've been involved in teams where we continue to spend so much time doing research instead of talking to prospects and launching something. We went so far to convince ourselves of why our solution sucks. If you don't have belief in your solution, why should someone else pay money for it?

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#60

Post by jonmb »

zapperdapper wrote: post #48
matthewking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do with the other 9 months of the year? side projects? travel? Id be interested to hear how your lifestyle is with all the free time. I've considered this approach myself too but more 6 months on, 6 months off. Scala in particular seems to pay extremely well (£600-£650 /day) so easy to make the money to live a comfortable lifestyle in 3 or 6 months per year. I think other dev contracts are usually around…

Hi Matthew, my rate is £400 a day, I'm a tech writer. Most contract developers I know are on a lot more than that. Double mostly. They do Java/Scala/Perl. That is probably just the niche I have been in though. My very first contract wasn't particularly high £260 a day, but you get known and you can charge more once you've got people who will vouch for you. With regards the 9 months. I write code (Python), read (a lot…

I like this - the idea has a Mr. Money Mustache vibe to it. His blog is great, if you haven't seen it already.

My question for you is how do you manage healthcare costs?

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