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After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

indiehackers.com

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Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#111

Post by quietbritishjim »

jariel wrote: post #103
OJFord wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 care…

The parent comment was responding to the grandparent comment's apparent claim that a green card is equivalent to the whole developed world. There's no dispute that a green card is valuable.

A more useful correction to the parent comment: GP probably just meant that the green card was what currently gave them access to the whole of the developed world, not that it's the only way to access some of the countries in it.

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#112

Post by ta1234567890 »

macromaniac wrote: post #91
ta1234567890 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note, social anxiety can be awefully crippling, I personally struggled with it for decades. The main tool that helped me overcome it was the book The Charisma Myth. Can't recommend it enough, it literally changed my life. It does take some work and dedication though.

Thanks for the recommendation, Ill give it a shot. It feels good to know other people have beaten it. Social anxiety has prevented me from working with others in any form (feedback, delegation, marketing). I remember first day of speech in college when it was my turn to speak. I got up, walked out the door, and dropped the class. It was hard to even work up the courage to post this comment. But i did. Baby steps.

> But i did. Baby steps.

That's the spirit!

And it will definitely be baby steps at a time, you just need to keep going.

The Charisma Myth book has plenty of interesting research and content, but by far the most important things are the exercises. At a basic level they are about being very aware of your internal state and then learning how to change it. When I first started going through the exercises, it kinda felt like I was learning a new language, and it opened a whole new world of possibilities.

Btw, if you just want to test it out before buying the book, check this summary[0] out and follow the "Three quick tips to boost charisma" mentioned in the second bullet of chapter 1.

0: https://github.com/mgp/book-notes/blob/master/the-charisma-m...

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#113

Post by tomc1985 »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #104
tomc1985 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bootst…

I wasn't dismissing bootstrapping. That's how I intend to do it. All I said was that weekend warrioring wasn't for me. I have a plan that allows me to optimize for already-spoken-for free-time; that's what this entire thread is about

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#114

Post by supernova87a »

I wonder if our pop culture and awareness/focus on unicorns and startups is leading some people to think they have a high chance of success when in fact it's like playing the lottery.

Seeing all these TV shows, movies, HN posts about people starting their own company, etc. I think people greatly overinflate the chances that you make it even somewhat mediocre big -- if you even have an idea that's any good.

Like one of the big logistics companies advertising that, hey you can be a truck driver in control of your destiny -- when in fact, it's paying up front for the training, taking out a loan for the truck, and being in debt for years. Or kids enrolling in music school hoping to become a celeb.

Except here, you do it to yourself through hopes and dreams.

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#115

Post by colonwqbang »

jacekm wrote: post #94
phs318u wrote: post #84

The regret you feel having lost a year would probably pale in comparison to the lifelong regret at not having tried to achieve your dream. There's plenty more positives you can take from this experience. 1. You learned how crippling your social anxiety can be (perhaps you already knew?), so maybe you can take some steps to work on that. 2. The door of indie developer is now firmly closed, which means you can explore…

Exactly. "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do".

Said only by people lucky enough never to have made any truly grave mistakes in their lives.

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#116

Post by mtm7 »

Looking at the things he's built [0], it seems like he focused on what he could build rather than what people wanted. A lot of developers do this.

Without an existing audience or funding for ads, he had to do cold outreach, which I don't blame him for disliking.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25105735

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#117

Post by bagacrap »

Invictus0 wrote: post #78
itake wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see that takeaway at all. He didn’t fail because of lack of money. His life is not worse due to spending his savings. He still has a highly valuable skill set and can easily replace that with 1-3 years of working at a company. If he has $500k, spent $20k living cheaply for a year, I’d bet he would be in a similar position that he is in now and choose to re-enter the workforce after a year of failure.

I think if he had started with more savings, he would have been less bitter about the failure. He still would have been able to take his girlfriend out for dinner.

This complaint made no sense to me. What was his girlfriend doing? Why does she rely on his largess to go out? Is she also a failed indiehacker, or was she using her own income to cover rent and all shared expenses? I think it's irresponsible to take a big risk with someone else's finances, and becoming bitter as you lose that gambit just makes you seem out of touch with reality.

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#118

Post by Aeolun »

axetheone wrote: post #73
blaisio wrote: post #38

> I had around $12K in savings. Enough to cover a year of expenses and a bit more. I stopped spending money on almost everything. Yeah, that sucks. I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I think one thing for the community to take away is you need to be in a good position financially before you can start a startup - unless you can get funding. Especially for indiehackers who don't usually take outside investment, $12k i…

No doubt about this, when I reached that part of the article I was startled with that relatively low amount of savings and the courage on starting a venture like that... It can not be understated on how having enough money saved up really helps not only enduring periods with no money but also a much lower anxiety associated with that (you need to be in a good mental shape in order to do things after all).

Depending on what point of your life you are at, $12000 could be quite a chunk of money.

When I was 21 that would last me probably 20 months.

At 25 it’d be down to 12.

At 32 (with a family) I wouldn’t last more than 3 months.

Luckily savings more or less keep up with spending :)

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#119

Post by nullsense »

bengale wrote: post #101

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.

I don't think the founder in question thought that if they built it that people would come. They just didn't anticipate the difficulty of trying to do something (the marketing activities) that they didn't have the right constitution for.

Before you ever try it you think that if you just consume the right books, blog posts and podcasts then you will be armed with all the information you need to succeed. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. You can only get the information on whether you're personally cut out for it by giving it a go. When you find that you really struggle with a critical piece of the puzzle that can be tough to accept at first, so you can throw good money after bad trying to deny it, but eventually you will succumb.

People can throw out the generic advice that you just need the right co-founder, but that's not always a panacea either.

Re: After losing my savings as an indie hacker, I can't do it anymore. I quit.

#120

Post by inetsee »

neckardt wrote: post #110
Waterluvian wrote: post #72

Earlier 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…

What is the collection model?

The collection model is that the person delivering the newspapers has to knock on doors and ask the subscribers to pay for the subscription. This is in contrast to the subscription model where the subscribers pay the newspaper publisher, which pays the person delivering the newspapers.
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