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Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

toomas.net

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Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#61

Post by tixocloud »

kfriede wrote: post #56
lettergram wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Depending on your projects, are some of your friends better fit for them than others? How about friends of friends? What I've done is make a list of channels and spend some time with each channel. However, what really worked for me was my network.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#62

Post by shubhamjain »

danieltillett wrote: post #32
shubhamjain wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a bit of coincidence. Unfortunately, our conclusions are poles apart.

Yes that is an interesting point. While on some level I agree with you (in the same way all people die from lack of oxygen to the brain stem), the path that failed startups take to get to the point of failure is very diverse. Every time I think I have seen every possible way for a startup to fail I am surprised with something new. If I was going to go with your thesis, the common thread of failure is to be found very…

More than anything, it proves that you can use quotes and statistics in a manner to confirm your own biases. :) The decision tree has far too many branches to predict where the starting point will lead you but my point was, even when the recipe of successful startup (build something people want, talk to people, start small ... etc) sounds so obvious, the process of accomplishing it is anything but obvious.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#63

Post by [deleted] »

ThomPete wrote: post #57

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 anyt…

[deleted]

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#64

Post by cmahler7 »

ThomPete wrote: post #57

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 anyt…

How is a business anything like the lottery? Thousands of decisions over years vs 1 random event.

Domain knowledge obviously plays a role as well, if you can't code you're going to have a hard time making software. There's a lot of money to be made in AI right, the timing is good but it doesn't matter if you don't know anything about it.

By your logic some random guy off the street would have the same chances of building a successful business as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#65

Post by Dayshine »

jonmb wrote: post #60
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 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?

The UK has public healthcare, so no direct costs to users.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#66

Post by mendeza »

ThomPete wrote: post #57

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 anyt…

I don't think this is lottery winning. We all get paid a lot of money for our skills, they just work and observe that some of their skills can be amplified in value(in the viewpoint of contractors that turn to startups).

There has been a lot of indiehackers that have started as contractors and built startups. I think the biggest value I learned is, "Understand you market" and "find problems that people have" and its brilliant to be a contractor cause you learn both for a living!

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#67

Post by zapperdapper »

jonmb wrote: post #60
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 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?

haha - I'm more like Mr. Shoestring Mustache. MMM has several hundred thousand a year coming in from his blog alone. He also had I think a million bucks in the bank before he retired. He also has a couple of rental properties I believe. I don't have anything like that.

I live in UK so healthcare is free here. Many years ago I had some mental health problems and the NHS here literally saved my life. I am so grateful for that. I also have a private medical plan that covers myself and my partner but it only costs about £1k a year, and I only have that because it can potentially reduce waiting times. I am considering just doing without it though.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#68

Post by dejv »

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…

Second that.

My way was to find maintenance contract where I do programming few hours a week that pays my bills and mortgage + occasionally taking some contract work (about once a year, month - three months long).

Contracts could be very stressful (as I am usually picking on some VC type of startup as they use to pay more), but I know it is going to be over soon so it is easy to just go through it.

I am doing that for more then a decade and it works, the only thing is to figure out what you are going to do with your off time: I used to start startups, side projects, travel the world, but for past few years I am just farming and spending time with my kid.

More people should really think about this alternative.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#69

Post by awb »

ThomPete wrote: post #57

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 anyt…

Not true at all. There are methods and practices that can help with the skill of starting and running a business. I've done it before successfully and the advice in the article is helpful. Luck helps too, but you need to set yourself up to be able to take advantage of the luck you get.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#70

Post by zapperdapper »

edpichler wrote: post #29
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…

Good advice! But, just to remember us, happiness formula is not the same for everyone.

Quite right! This is not for everyone!
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