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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

#111

Post by lettergram »

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?

I find a good product needs some, but minimal marketing. Customers will recommend it to friends if it's a good fit and it'll continue to grow that way, and obviously try to get some SEO. To get started, I'll regularly post on Reddit, HN, Slack, Facebook, etc. (typically providing some insightful comment, using one of my applications) and I'll get signups. One of my particular posts recently got me 50 sign ups for my website, to put it into perspective.

Those people are also my target customers though, so it makes it easy.

When "marketing" to companies, a cold call, email, or intro from a friend usually can pique their interest. Then you just need a really good demo / app. Even then, they likely wont bite; hence I'm moving away from that business and mostly to consumer apps.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#112

Post by arthurwinter »

bigtunacan wrote: post #88

The 4-Hour Workweek is the first book listed and I have heard of it so many times I finally decided to read it. I picked up an old copy from the local library and I'm a little over 1/2 way through. So far I have not been all that impressed. Just in general it seems so light on anything really concrete and more just a motivational book. Where it does have concrete things though they are just really out of date (One ex…

It was a groundbreaking book _at the time_. For me, certainly. But I hear it mentioned in nearly every SMB interview podcast I listen to.

Many things are outdated now or simply more mainstream, as it's been read by almost everyone and part of the culture of many.

I consider it a book marking an "era", at least to myself, much like "The Web Startup Success Guide" or "Micro-ISV" by Bob Walsh.

You can't ask Tim to "update" the concrete steps, as those are the ones that worked for him at the time, and now he's doing very different things and he's a very different person.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#113

Post by hackbinary »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #91
cmahler7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point, 80% of entrepreneurs can't make it one year, so what are the odds of Steve Jobs starting multiple multi-billion dollar companies over multiple decades, with tens of thousands of decisions, through pure luck? You're saying that skill and knowledge play no part in success. A mentally handicapped person would have as good a chance at success as Steve Jobs by your logic, because it's all luck.

Steve Jobs only started Apple and NeXT. Pixar was already a division of Lucas Films and had leadership prior to Jobs that aided in it's success post Lucas Films. That said, of the 2 companies he explicitly founded and ran, only Apple was successful. NeXT was a spectacular failure.

Was it? Apple bought NeXT for their OS which eventually became OS X. Copeland was a dismal failure, and that is why Apple bought NeXT. Jobs' became the interim CEO, did the initial iMac, and iPod and the rest is history.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#114

Post by danieltillett »

shubhamjain wrote: post #62
danieltillett wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe we are both right and it is impossible to find a common thread (beyond tha banal) for either success or failure.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#115

Post by chasote »

ThomPete wrote: post #109
mendeza wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No one is claiming it's purely lottery winning simply that even among the very talented people there are many failures so the only thing that really stand out is the luck and the timing aspects. Talent is mostly a hygiene factor.

It's the "only" part that keeps tripping me up. Very talented people come out with products that don't fit the market demand properly and therefore don't succeed. That isn't luck. I'm not saying that is the "only" reason for failure but just a quick hole in your logic here so there are probably many more.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#116

Post by valuearb »

open_bear wrote: post #73
cmahler7 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 buil…

Survivorship bias: because for every Steve Jobs and Bill Gates there are millions of folks, whose business ended without any success (something like 80% of businesses close during the first year).

That 80% isn't a measure of failure. Many times a failed startup can be bootstraped into a substantially better job.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#117

Post by valuearb »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #91
cmahler7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point, 80% of entrepreneurs can't make it one year, so what are the odds of Steve Jobs starting multiple multi-billion dollar companies over multiple decades, with tens of thousands of decisions, through pure luck? You're saying that skill and knowledge play no part in success. A mentally handicapped person would have as good a chance at success as Steve Jobs by your logic, because it's all luck.

Steve Jobs only started Apple and NeXT. Pixar was already a division of Lucas Films and had leadership prior to Jobs that aided in it's success post Lucas Films. That said, of the 2 companies he explicitly founded and ran, only Apple was successful. NeXT was a spectacular failure.

NeXt made money for its iriginal investors and provided the OS for every iPhone and iPad ever made.

Hardly a failure, let alone a spectacular one.

Pixar was a tiny struggling business spun out of Lucasfilm and sold to Jobs any employees.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#118

Post by valuearb »

ThomPete wrote: post #106
cmahler7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point, 80% of entrepreneurs can't make it one year, so what are the odds of Steve Jobs starting multiple multi-billion dollar companies over multiple decades, with tens of thousands of decisions, through pure luck? You're saying that skill and knowledge play no part in success. A mentally handicapped person would have as good a chance at success as Steve Jobs by your logic, because it's all luck.

You are missing the point and having a wrong understanding of what talent means. There are many extremely talented people doing exactly the same not succeeding. You have the same in everything from music to movies and art. The primary defining factor are things which has nothing to do with the talent but with timing and luck. So the primary insight is to play the game to have a chance to win.

Yea, you don't understand what talent is in this context, and that it's not equally distributed.

There are hundreds of thousands of people who have gotten the same training on valuing companies as Warren Buffett has. But no one comes close to his long term results because the talent of doing an accurate valuation is not as important as the psychological abilities needed to make smart investment decisions, as well as the ability to determine enduring competitive advantages. So few of these talented people actually have remotely the talents of Warren Buffett.

For entrepreneurs just a few of those key talents include recognizing opportunities, the balls to actually quit a job to pursue opportunities, and an innate ability to understand how to find or build significant competitive advantages.

People with those skills won't succeed 100% of the time, but they succeed far more than people who only have one or two of them.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#119

Post by tim333 »

bigtunacan wrote: post #87
zapperdapper wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

In terms of the healtcare; is it free only for native citizens? What if someone were to move there from another country such as the United States?

Free for EU citizens. For people from the US there is a small charge if you move here https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/how-mu...

It doesn't cover tourists anymore in theory. They'd treat and then bill you but you could probably go home and not pay.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#120

Post by a3n »

cmahler7 wrote: post #64
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 buil…

A new business run by reasonably competent people is like a lottery in the sense that everything takes a certain amount of luck. Stated another way, there are sometimes obstacles that you can't see, directly, and so you don't know why you're failing. "Bad luck."

If you're really lucky, then luck doesn't affect your business.

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