I've always worked for a big corporates. The teams are large and infrastructure support is good. We produce apps with specialists for databases, networking, front end back end, middleware, tools, business analysts, project managers, HR etc etc. And we dont even have to worry about marketing or advertising or search optimisation. I realize corporates have overhead but dont know how one entrepreneur can do significant by themselves.
I am done. I give up
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Re: I am done. I give up
#22Props for getting that laid out here and you are in the right now by focusing on what matters, i.e. your health. FWIW, granted it's worth anything, I feel like everything you describe here (a.k.a. ProductHunt, Substack, etc) are byproducts of success but not a good ramp to success itself. Granted that you genuinely enjoy building stuff from scratch (which, without saying, is totally fine if not), those are the least of your concern when roaming the road to PMF. And you'll have better luck at finding it by becoming an authentic expert in a specific niche and building a shitty MVP along the way, which is a much more enjoyable journey.
So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that, all these parts of entrepreneurship that you didn't like, they were actually just distractions posturing themselves as Entrepreneurship™ and their shilling was probably the product of other entrepreneurs. Take care and remember that failure is a byproduct of trying and there's absolutely no shame in that.
Re: I am done. I give up
#23I tried 10 years building numerous projects since 17 until i reached the $1mil one. I did it because I loved building stuff, it wasn't a burden for me like i see it's for so many people that want to become entrepreneurs because they see on Tiktok how good others have it.
If it becomes a burden, then it's a problem.
Also, luck may play a big role, but there's something you learn failing over and over again. You start to see what it's actually working and what path is closer to success. Patterns will emerge. You know that saying that sometimes you do your own luck.
The easiest path to success for a SaaS is getting a feature of a big product into a standalone specialized product and going after that niche. This simple thing so many indie hackers fail to realize, many try to build the next unicorn, the unique idea. If you keep trying like this, you'll likely fail 50 more times.
Re: I am done. I give up
#24It's not defeat, it is the expected outcome. Out of 20 or so of my projects two have been break-out successes and the rest (commercially) complete failures, and I'm very lucky to have two out of those 20, with very small variations in timing it would have been a big fat zero. So don't beat yourself up about it, some people win the lottery and the majority don't. There is absolutely no recipe that will work every time, not even one that will work most of the time or a significant fraction of the times you try to apply it. Luck, luck, luck and timing.
One problem is not just the influencers peddling their books and their bullshit, it's also the eco-system that sells the dream itself. This site is part of that and you should take the success stories with a large grain of salt, usually things are not as easy as they are made out to be and for every success there are 100 failures. And those are rarely talked about.
Best of luck with the recovery, I can see it weighs heavily on you.
Re: I am done. I give up
#25I don't know if that's helpful; but one lesson I remember from a business program years ago was that the average business owner fails at least three times before becoming successful.
Re: I am done. I give up
#26I tried 10 years building numerous projects since 17 until i reached the $1mil one. I did it because I loved building stuff, it wasn't a burden for me like i see it's for so many people that want to become entrepreneurs because they see on Tiktok how good others have it. If it becomes a burden, then it's a problem. Also, luck may play a big role, but there's something you learn failing over and over again. You start…
What you see on Tiktok rarely reflects reality.
Re: I am done. I give up
#27Why do "indiehackers" want attention from and create products for other "indiehackers"? As a group they seem the people with the least amount of money to spend on products, and are some of the most cheapskate people on the planet. Here's some advice: if you want to make money selling a software product, sell to people who are able and willing to spend money on it.
That's what I asked myself reading the post. Business wise nobody cares about your product blog.
Re: I am done. I give up
#28What did you build?
After reading this I really like to know as well!
Re: I am done. I give up
#29Starting any business is very very very hard work. Creating a new product from nothing, is very very hard work. Combining the 2 means you have an insane amount of work to do.
That leaves you to be CEO and R&D and manufacturing.
How do you think marketing and sales fits into that? And finance and strategy?
Those are the pitfalls and a reason to better not do startup alone.
There are freelance sales people that will sell your product for a fee, with the advantages of using their network and their feedback in an early stage of development (if they say they can’t sell it, stop your work).
For now: you have a ton of experience and are invaluable for any employer. See this as an investment and see you get a return.
Re: I am done. I give up
#30Sounds like you need to think about working with other people, to learn from them but also to lean on their skills that you may be missing (marketing, community-building, and so on). From your post, it seems that you tried to do everything by yourself which requires you to be incredibly on-point in many different types of work.
Finding the right people has made entrepreneurship bearable for me. And I didn't find those right people on my first attempt either.
Staying disciplined for years is so much easier when you have competent and compassionate cofounders with you. You might even get away with a few vacations.