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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

#101

Post by dlcarrier »

deadbabe wrote: post #41

Looking over his list of products, it is clear the author is the quintessential late stage capitalist.

He hasn't bribed the government to make any of them mandatory, so they're all effectively worthless. It's just regular capitalism.

He'll either randomly hit on something that's actually useful, or leave the low-effort software sector, or get a regular job writing low-effort software at one of the big conglomerates that already bribes the government to make their products mandatory.

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

#102

Post by dfex »

danjl wrote: post #34
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.

Or a dozen. Or, better, a few dozen. Read "The Mom Test" to learn how to get useful information from your face to face discussions.

So much this! The Mom Test is a rare gem in a sea of startup advice books, but it's the only one I've come across that cuts through all the BS and focusses on the only important thing - finding a market for people who want your product.

Spoiler alert - you can't always do it sitting at home in your office chair.

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

#103

Post by Fade_Dance »

bwb wrote: post #51
andai wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hilarious. The post reminded me of Marc Lou, who's launched like 30 SaaS, and from what I gathered by far his most profitable one is the one that helps you launch your own SaaS...

Its the old story of who makes money in the gold rush, the person selling equipment and eggs.

And vices! That's what's really driving this phenomenon. The users have a deeply meaningful goal they are pursuing (achieve financial independence, realize a great idea), and end up repeatedly taking low effort dopamine hits from "building their toolset" or whatever.

Same with the self-help world. Big, life-defining subjects hijacked for quick dopamine hits.

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

#104

Post by dijksterhuis »

spacemadness wrote: post #61
yellow_lead wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy how AI folks are re-inventing literal Internet spam

This is commonly how people choose to use the “greatest breakthrough in the history of computer science” as it was stated in another thread. Great work humanity.

it’s either spam or porn, or both.

heavy sigh

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

#105

Post by raincole »

GianFabien wrote: post #95

Ok, guesstimating that the 6 figure sale was around 3x earnings, the total of all the revenue is less than $450k for 5 years. Then you need to allow for expenses and taxes. Might be Ok as a side hustle, but probably insufficient to replace a typical income. A reality check to counteract all the startup boosterism.

It seems that all these products are 100% online. Therefore it's a very viable income source for people who live in, well, the majority part of the world.

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

#107

Post by tsimionescu »

nzach wrote: post #75
satvikpendem wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are putting too much effort in your product, your focus should be on finding the right market fit for your idea How is this not excellent advice? There are lots of stories of founders building first (sometimes for years, even), then finding out that there is no market for it (as it seems you have done). The people evaluating your product might have even just read your post and concluded that there's no market,…

> How is this not excellent advice? I do understand that in order to create something popular you need to create something good but you also need to properly communicate what you do. And proper communication is as hard as creating something good. So, I do know you need to "find an audience", and that is why I've posted it in a few places. Having said all that, reading these comments made me feel somewhat demoralized…

I think you have a big disconnect with the Indie Hacker community. It sounds like you posted there hoping to get them as an audience and potential users of your project. But they assumed you are posting as a fellow founder trying to get feedback on your business. So they gave you advice about your business (which you didn't want) and didn't much care to check out the actual project (which they assumed is secondary).

You should probably try to clarify this, address them more directly and make it clear that you're trying to gain them as users of your project - if you want to pursue this path at all, of course.

Also, remember that no one owes you to try out your project. It's perfectly fine for many people to just not care about the problem you're trying to solve, even if to you it seems like a very important idea. Personally, I'm not vibe coding or using Ai much at all, so I would have no interest in trying out your product, even though it is free. This is not me being rude in any way: I'm just not your target audience. Perhaps the people on Indie Hackers are also not, though likely for other reasons. Or perhaps your pitch just wasn't attractive or clear enough.

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

#108

Post by narrator »

weitendorf wrote: post #46
nzach wrote: post #19

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 peop…

I didn't understand the indiehacker community/product mindset until I discovered the indiehacker "influencers" / lifestyle vloggers / etc. that might be the only ones actually turning a profit on all of this. The influencers sell a lifestyle of throwing a million darts at the board with simple apps and building tiny businesses off the handful that get a lot of interest or seem to resonate with users. And the apps the…

Well Pieter Levels has a negative customer acquisition cost because he gets most of his business off of X and he gets so many impressions that he gets paid to post there. That's a pretty incredible marketing hack if you ask me. I invest in startups and the ones who do really well hack marketing. They have tech in their stack that is specifically devoted to automating and scaling their marketing.

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

#110

Post by tsimionescu »

karel-3d wrote: post #13

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

Wow, they're actually proud of a marketing spam post that convinced a depressed person struggling with debt that they're being listened to and understood, while possibly convincing them to try some predatory lending service (I assume, since that "debt freedom now" site is telling me how much debt "Americans in București" are erasing right now!).

Having this as a success story you brag about is sociopathic.

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