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How I stay motivated as a solo creator

herman.bearblog.dev

101–110 of 123 posts

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My software isn't done because I'm a perfectionist. :) When it is done (and I've gotten to the point where it's only months away), the roadblock will be my inability to make a sale.

I wrote this for people like you. ;0) https://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/07/if-you-arent-embar...

Yeah, I agree.

I have cut down my initial feature set drastically. My build system won't even have incremental builds. It must be able to build itself, though.

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#102

My wife hit upon something that might be interesting to anyone reading this. I don't think any of the comments here directly put their finger upon it. Some possibly unimportant background: my wife used to suffer from depression, but in the last 10 years that has subsided, mostly through self-guided philosophy and practical stuff. What remains is social anxiety and a life-long history of avoiding working for/with peop…

>She's even done free/low cost work for cash-strapped clients just so that she can work.

I've done this a few times when otherwise finding work was proving hard. I think I might share the same weird mental hurdle as your wife. If I can find even 1 person who wants something I think I can prototype for them, I'm happy to do it. But making things purely for myself? Why?

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So get an accountability "partner" - perhaps another person who is doing their own thing and having the same challenges you're having. Or do the public progress showmanship thing (recurring blog or vlog posts about your project and the current status). I admire the people that go this route, but it frankly scares me since we're talking here on a forum of talented people, some of whom could just hear the project idea…

Does that stuff actually work for some people? My issue is that I don't give a shit about other people outside of those I care about. imo the whole coach thing is a cottage industry of bullshit artists. If Linus Torvalds wanted to give me advice/coach me I'd damn well listen, even if I disagreed with it (and I'd question if I'm right because Linus is that good). But the random joe blow whose entire career is coaching…

An accountability partner isn't a coach. It could be, but it certainly doesn't have to be.

For example, an accountability partner could be a potential client/user that you're building a tool targeting. You keep them in the loop with regular updates, and that activity alone can help keep you moving forward even when you might have moments of doubt. If you know you _have_ to report status to someone weekly, you're less likely to blow a week off entirely. At minimum, you might wait until an hour before the meeting and hustle to do at least something.

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that stuff actually work for some people? My issue is that I don't give a shit about other people outside of those I care about. imo the whole coach thing is a cottage industry of bullshit artists. If Linus Torvalds wanted to give me advice/coach me I'd damn well listen, even if I disagreed with it (and I'd question if I'm right because Linus is that good). But the random joe blow whose entire career is coaching…

An accountability partner isn't a coach. It could be, but it certainly doesn't have to be. For example, an accountability partner could be a potential client/user that you're building a tool targeting. You keep them in the loop with regular updates, and that activity alone can help keep you moving forward even when you might have moments of doubt. If you know you _have_ to report status to someone weekly, you're less…

That's a user.

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#105
post #88
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same problem. I see all these hackers out there making (something like) the millionth travel blog and sticking with it for years and somehow ending up making a decent income off of it. But I'm sitting here wondering if my potentially cool game idea that has never been done before is something that the world really needs, then I quit after about a week because of those thoughts. What drives people?

> What drives people? I've worked on [side/pet/hobby] projects consistently for the last 6 years. What drives me is my friends. One of the latest projects I've started to work on is a free alternative to a mobile app called UDisc. They hit us with the ol' switcheroo by offering the service for free for several years and now force you to pay if you want to maintain your previous disc golf rounds (beyond 10 rounds). I'…

This is great advice, and applies to business as well. Make something people actually want.

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#106

How do you generate enough income to survive?

Multiple streams of income / selling your skills until you can work exclusively on what you want. Lowering overhead helps too: Learning to love what you have and another thing i learned on HN: for everything you buy, you buy it twice.

> for everything you buy, you buy it twice.

I didn't understand what you meant by that? Care to elaborate?

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#107
post #63

After 10 years remote I’ve rented an office space to force myself to go in to work. If I don’t go then it feels like I’m wasting money. If I go and don’t work it feels like I’m wasting money. So far I’ve gone almost every day for the last 4 months and worked hard to justify the expense. I’ve done my best work because of it. Would recommend giving it a try.

^ This was important for me. I think it may have something to do with the separation of environments from bedroom-office (primed for resting) and an actual workspace (productive space).

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#108
My biggest problem is that yak shaving kills my motivation. I tend to choose tasks that will teach me something, so I don’t already know what will be entailed in building the thing. I do expect a certain amount of peripheral work, but when those peripheral tasks start getting deep and wide, it starts to feel like my goal is out of reach.

Re: How I stay motivated as a solo creator

#109
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same problem. I see all these hackers out there making (something like) the millionth travel blog and sticking with it for years and somehow ending up making a decent income off of it. But I'm sitting here wondering if my potentially cool game idea that has never been done before is something that the world really needs, then I quit after about a week because of those thoughts. What drives people?

I went through a phase of following a lot of “indie hacker” people on Twitter when everyone was posting their growth numbers and other stats in public. It was fun to watch them try different things and experiment. Then slowly, nearly all of them stopped. Some got jobs at big companies. Others quietly stopped posting after numbers flatlined or declined. This includes a lot of people whose projects were “Ramen profitab…

Newsletters were cool until now everyone’s doing it.

Spammed my email with subpar / spam writing

What’s the next stage for these content creators?

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