I would add this advice: 1) start by working on your apps on the side while working another job, 2) while working said job, save and invest. Over time this can provide the cushion necessary to jump to full time indie.
Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
11–20 of 120 posts
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#12"What if I am not good enough?"
I just heard this quote somewhere: What is success? It's being able to do what you want to be doing.
If you're not able to do that then of course you will need to do something else. But if you are able to do it, then you are "good enough".
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#13I would add this advice: 1) start by working on your apps on the side while working another job, 2) while working said job, save and invest. Over time this can provide the cushion necessary to jump to full time indie.
This is excellent advice.
I have done side hustles for a while before jumping full indie, when I had enough runway to make me comfortable.
Some people wait to jump full time once their side income replace their salary. For me, it's a recipe to procrastinate forever
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#14> Some lease company somewhere is getting data on wherever I go.
Quite frustrating to figure out who too, unless you can find some debug ports or an SD card holding configuration.
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#15He mentions that making a living from an indie app is like winning the lottery - that would make it much more unlikely than having a reasonably successful startup. Why is a successful indie app harder?
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#16I would add this advice: 1) start by working on your apps on the side while working another job, 2) while working said job, save and invest. Over time this can provide the cushion necessary to jump to full time indie.
This is excellent advice. I have done side hustles for a while before jumping full indie, when I had enough runway to make me comfortable. Some people wait to jump full time once their side income replace their salary. For me, it's a recipe to procrastinate forever
My strategy was interest income + indie business income. I went full time indie once my interest and dividend income was a few thousand per month.
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#17Can anyone recommend good learning material for the non-tech part? I'm good at building stuff, but not on the other parts.
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#18He mentions that making a living from an indie app is like winning the lottery - that would make it much more unlikely than having a reasonably successful startup. Why is a successful indie app harder?
Having a successful startup is like winning the lottery too. Getting funded if you are not in a circle of reputation is like winning the lottery. Getting into ycombinator is like winning a lottery then you get to win another.
Any business is like a lottery. But some have better odds like setting up a plumbing service in a growing underserved town.
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#19What about marketing? I don’t mean necessarily traditional ads but more how to get the word out if you have a good product? I’ve personally find it easy to reach “tech enthusiasts” but much harder to penetrate towards normies who would really benefit from the product but don’t read HN, tech blogs etc.
Go where the normies are and speak to them in the medium they understand.
Re: Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
#20I’m trying to relaunch my indie app which did have success getting a lot of users. But I failed to properly monetise it and the support burden and stress on top of a full time job drove me to pull it from the store. I’m attempting to relaunch with a proper paid tier. I guess my point is don’t neglect the getting paid part too long or you can also burn yourself out.