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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

#131

Post by ThomPete »

chasote wrote: post #115
ThomPete wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are no holes in my logic. You are basically supporting my point. If very talented people come out with failures what separate those who are successful? And we are back to luck and timing. Talent is important but it's not defining for being successful.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#132

Post by ThomPete »

draw_down wrote: post #99
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…

Conclusion: sell the autobiographies, don't try to live them.

Exactly. Write a book about how to make money which has one advice. "Write a book about how to make money"

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#133

Post by ThomPete »

hackbinary wrote: post #113
jermaustin1 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Built on apples sucess not next.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#134

Post by ThomPete »

_jal wrote: post #122
jermaustin1 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Other folks have pointed out that NeXT had a successful exit and the software lives on, to which I'd add a nice continuing career path for many of its employees (with Apple). Can I ask what metrics you're judging by?

Those folks are missing the point. Next was bought and brought into apples ecosystem thats were the found sucess none of that was part of any plan. Again luck and timing, ifJjobs hadnt been introduced the chances of Next being incorporated into Apple would be much less likely.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#135

Post by ThomPete »

cmahler7 wrote: post #81
open_bear wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'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.

Ever heard of the Paypal mafia? Litterally any largely sucessful company has one. Their access to the ecosystem gives them better chances than most.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#136

Post by tim333 »

charlieflowers wrote: post #123
tim333 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about preexisting conditions? Would anything prevent someone who was just diagnosed with cancer (but not bed ridden) from migrating to the UK, paying this $300/year, and receiving full coverage?

Think it's ok - not sure http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=50455.0

You might have problems getting residence

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#137

Post by donmatito »

mrisoli wrote: post #95
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…

Exactly! What I love about IH is that it doesn't define success as 6+ figures revenue streams, many of them are in early stages or making <$1k/month and are people happy with what they are building even if it is not their main job yet. Which is good to divert from the nonsensical thinking that only unicorn status/IPOs/acquisition equate to success often spoken in the startup world.

Me too :-) Lots of people around me were dismissive of the early days of Smooz, that it would never be a "real business". My big goal is 1000€ / months. Not a billion-dollar company : just a life step I'd be really proud of

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#138

Post by donmatito »

tixocloud wrote: post #58
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.

Well, direct sales is a bit difficult because my core target is "Agencies that use Slack, of which clients use Slack". So I need to convince a layer of users (let say 10% conversion) and they have to convince another layer (10% again) => 1% conversion rate.

What worked was publishing some articles on Medium and optimizing a bit for SEO, so that the handful of people who actually has the problem, can find me. The Slack app Directory helped quite a bit at first, but I should take better advantage of it now that they have add features.

But really, the main growth factor is : almost no churn. People are super satisfied. So even if I don't spend much time finding customers, the very low growth keeps adding up...

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#139

Post by matthewking »

charlieflowers wrote: post #123
tim333 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about preexisting conditions? Would anything prevent someone who was just diagnosed with cancer (but not bed ridden) from migrating to the UK, paying this $300/year, and receiving full coverage?

They call this "health tourism" and its a fairly regular subject that comes up whenever NHS budgets are discussed, in reality though I believe latest figures put it at about £300m /year (0.3% of the NHS budget).

I don't know how easy it is to do what you describe but some people evidently do it. I imagine if you're an EU citizen you can come right in but if you're non EU you might have some more difficulty.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#140

Post by tixocloud »

donmatito wrote: post #138
tixocloud wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, direct sales is a bit difficult because my core target is "Agencies that use Slack, of which clients use Slack". So I need to convince a layer of users (let say 10% conversion) and they have to convince another layer (10% again) => 1% conversion rate. What worked was publishing some articles on Medium and optimizing a bit for SEO, so that the handful of people who actually has the problem, can find me. The Slac…

Yeah, that's an interesting core target and quite pleasantly surprised that agencies themselves are using Slack. I would've guessed that the clients themselves would be the ones who would use Slack and then maybe you can work with agencies on setting Slack up for them like a concierge service of some sort.
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