In my experience there is only three options to bootstrap successfully. You can sell, your cofounder can sell, or you can afford to hire someone who can sell. The idea that if you build it they will come needs to die, these situations are extremely rare.
After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
101–110 of 153 posts
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was 13 I had a paper route. It was almost all modern except three or four households that still used the collection model. The paper company would take their subscriptions out of my pay and send me to collect and keep it and any tips. I decided it was easier to just take the pay cut than knock on those doors. The whole concept still makes me intensely anxious and I would sooner quit a job than begin dealing wi…
Glad to know I'm not the only one. I had to give up my paper route (mid 1980s) because I was too shy to collect. I could get up at 5:30 a.m. every day and spend an hour biking hard to deliver the papers rain or shine, but I collections freaked me out, even though all my customers were nice people. The crazy thing is that it never occurred to me to discuss this with my parents, nor (AFAIK) did they ever consider havin…
My anxieties have made me super sensitive to those of my kids. I am careful not to project onto them. I'm also always paying close attention to discover any moments of "you just need someone to notice you're struggling."
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#103This is a difficult post to respond to Firstly, your issue doesn't seem to be anything other than social anxiety If you have to 'lose sleep' after contacting someone on LinkedIn about your product, then you are just not suited to doing a startup Secondly, there is nothing to feel bad about Vast majority of people are not suited to starting a company or working in a small startup Lots of good jobs in middle and large…
> Thirdly, the scale of stuff you are talking about is miniscule > I walked away from a Green Card to start my company > If I didn't succeed, I would have lost access to the developed world FOREVER What? I'm British; before HN I'd never heard of a 'green card'. Maybe it's a policy that the USA won't let you in if you walk away from one once; maybe Canada cares about that too. But I assure you, the majority of the 'de…
It doesn't matter what 'the developed world thinks'.
For someone who wanted access to a Green Card, to have to give it up is fairly substantial.
And FYI anyone in the developed world, were they to know what a 'Green Card' actually was, would find it probably invaluable. The optionality that comes along with being able to move freely and work in the US is a big deal even if it's not apparent at the start of one's career.
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Want some cake with it too?
I don't really see how trying to find a way to sacrifice one's cushy job and income instead of free time is "having your cake and eating it too"
I believe the parent comment is actually implying the opposite.
You said, "it really underscores the reality that most of these founders have rich family or friends to fall back on", someone else replied saying that they've been bootstrapping a business on the side and you come back with, "I just can't do the weekend warrior thing".
You can't say "well only rich people can start a business!" and then dismiss bootstrapping as an option just because you personally can't "do the weekend warrior thing".
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#105I don't know that I'd agree that you lost a year of your life. Rather, I think it took you a year to learn a valuable lesson and to learn it relatively early in life. For most of us "tech types," building stuff is the easy part. Telling other people about it, about why they should use it, why it's better than the other guys' -- that's the part we struggle with. You tried something difficult and learned something valu…
Spent a year doing something different. That has to be worth something.
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Glad to know I'm not the only one. I had to give up my paper route (mid 1980s) because I was too shy to collect. I could get up at 5:30 a.m. every day and spend an hour biking hard to deliver the papers rain or shine, but I collections freaked me out, even though all my customers were nice people. The crazy thing is that it never occurred to me to discuss this with my parents, nor (AFAIK) did they ever consider havin…
My anxieties have made me super sensitive to those of my kids. I am careful not to project onto them. I'm also always paying close attention to discover any moments of "you just need someone to notice you're struggling."
Same. Sorry you're in the same boat, but it's nice to hear that it's not just me :/
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#107This is a difficult post to respond to Firstly, your issue doesn't seem to be anything other than social anxiety If you have to 'lose sleep' after contacting someone on LinkedIn about your product, then you are just not suited to doing a startup Secondly, there is nothing to feel bad about Vast majority of people are not suited to starting a company or working in a small startup Lots of good jobs in middle and large…
> Thirdly, the scale of stuff you are talking about is miniscule > I walked away from a Green Card to start my company > If I didn't succeed, I would have lost access to the developed world FOREVER What? I'm British; before HN I'd never heard of a 'green card'. Maybe it's a policy that the USA won't let you in if you walk away from one once; maybe Canada cares about that too. But I assure you, the majority of the 'de…
I'm a spaniard, and while I agree that green cards are obviously unknown here, I would tell you to get a closer look at the requirements for someone from the third world to come work to your country - they EU is awesome, but out of that it's all atrocious.
I had a girlfriend that moved here from the US of all places, and almost 5 years of avoiding pitfalls later she still can't be sure she'll be allowed to stay...imagine the chances of someone from, say, somalia making the jump.
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#108I spent 9 years on a groupware crm. Made $5,000 total on it mostly begging for users to make a "donation". Drove myself and my family into the poor house for something people enjoyed using for free but wouldn't pay for... made plenty of mistakes. I thought if I didn't quit on it I wouldn't fail, but looking back it started failing the second I launched it as a generic product... you need a big marketing budget to lau…
How did you stick with that for 9 years? That's a pretty solid effort, but that just sounds soul crushing.
I tried and didn't succeed at a product where I spent my savings too. It's just the reality of a lot of startups. It's unsexy, but it's the reality.
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#109From what I've seen there seems to be three main paths to being a successful indie entrepreneur: 1) The "Maker" Path: you slowly improve your own skills and reputation as a developer (or designer) until they give you a big enough advantage that you can translate them into a successful product. This usually means first growing an audience through blogging, conferences, courses, etc. 2) The "Marketing" Path: you become…
The struggle is guaranteed, the success is not.
Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.
#110This is a difficult post to respond to Firstly, your issue doesn't seem to be anything other than social anxiety If you have to 'lose sleep' after contacting someone on LinkedIn about your product, then you are just not suited to doing a startup Secondly, there is nothing to feel bad about Vast majority of people are not suited to starting a company or working in a small startup Lots of good jobs in middle and large…
When I was 13 I had a paper route. It was almost all modern except three or four households that still used the collection model. The paper company would take their subscriptions out of my pay and send me to collect and keep it and any tips. I decided it was easier to just take the pay cut than knock on those doors. The whole concept still makes me intensely anxious and I would sooner quit a job than begin dealing wi…
What is the collection model?