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I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

indiehackers.com

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Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#11

Post by rorylaitila »

Let's call this shotgun capitalism. It's all the rage over at indie X.

It used to be that one had a unique interest, profession or capability. This uniqueness causes them to see a gap in the market that could be filled by a new business. They work on filling out that gap, going as far as the customers and their capabilities will take them.

But that's too limiting. Because their interests and their customers might not lead to infinite growth! So instead you need to burn your life looking for that ONE business that will take off.

So shoot at everything. Burn your business, burn your time, burn your customers (this I detest the most), burn your intellect. Maybe get a shot at joining some club that no one cares about, except the other shooters.

The correct path is neither a shotgun blast on all available ideas, or a march to the death on your pet idea. It's a coherent expansion of effort based on feedback, capabilities, risk and likely return. Otherwise known as being in business.

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#12

Post by nikolayasdf123 »

> Did you find success by focusing on one project and giving it time, or by making lots of new bets?

lots of new bets are technically impossible. unless you doing something super trivial, you will hit roadblocks that require effort and time (e.g. Apple App Store reviews are notoriously slow and can take a month for a single new app).

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#16

Post by karel-3d »

sunaookami wrote: post #15
karel-3d wrote: post #13

I see one of the products and I already hate the OP. Thanks https://replyguy.com/

Hm not sure if you are a legit commenter or if this is just rage marketing ;)

He doesn't even own it anymore and, according to the recent reviews of the service (by marketers), it basically stopped working since he sold it (and when I google there are many more like it that works better, this seems to be using 2024 LLMs). So I am not selling it at all.

I just really hate the idea.

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#17

Post by olyjohn »

moondowner wrote: post #6
lccerina wrote: post #4

The growing product is something that bolts in the worst of current internet (affiliation links). Hopefully it will fail too

Affiliate links have been here for three decades; (AutoWeb.com doing it since 1995)

That doesn't mean anything. It's still a huge reason for all the junk and bullshit that's ruined the internet.

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#18

Post by farceSpherule »

Everyone is trying to "copy" Pieter Levels "success" which as of now is "brand effect."

The guy started his thing over a decade ago and people look at it now and think they can replicate it.

The stuff the guy codes is garbage and what he does is far from solving any problems.

And, I do not believe his revenue numbers. At all. But people on the Internet see some shit posted, believe it, and then compare themselves to it.

Gleaning anything from his "1 in a million success" is falling prey to survivorship bias.

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#19

Post by nzach »

I just want to share my recent personal experience.

Recently I've finally decided to try creating something new that people would find useful hoping that some day I would be able to turn a profit from that. So I vibe coded a pretty bare-bones (but fully functional) version of my idea and started to talk about it in several platforms, including IndieHackers.

And the main "advice" I've got after talking with a few people was "You are putting too much effort in your product, your focus should be on finding the right market fit for your idea". And after reading the logs in my server I found out nobody bothered to actually try what I built(and no, you don't need to create an account to use), which is fine. But why would you give this generic advice without even looking at the thing?

So, after a brief encounter with this community(people that are trying to build products) I can see how one could be tricked into the idea that success mainly comes from a good idea and not a good execution.

I get that many people are in this space only to make money and that finding the "magic idea" is probably a good advice if you don't care about what you will build and you need to make money fast. But I think we should also encourage people to build interesting things, even if it's not clear how one could make money from these ideas.

Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again

#20

Post by askafriend »

Invictus0 wrote: post #2

The indie hacker community builds worthless, visionless widgets and then fails to market them. Could you imagine Steve jobs talking about building 37 products in 5 years? Instead, talk to a customer. Build something that solves just one person's problem really well. Grow from there.

Exactly this.

It's inherent in the process and way of thinking. It's a dangerous path to pursue for entrepreneurs. How can the results be anything but disposable and frivolous when the process treats them as such.

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