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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

#111

Post by reactordev »

warrenm wrote: post #74
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...

It's the "envelope stuffing" 'business' of the 80s informercials updated Or the "how to make a course" 'courses' of the 2010s Or the "how to make a blog" 'blogs' of the 2000s As they say, what's new is old again

Now it’s how to earn money on TikTok by buying an AI course maker to make courses on how to earn money on TikTok.

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

#112

Post by another_twist »

I feel like this is the same story for products that don't really solve a problem. Its probably a lot easier to focus on one broad market segment like e.g. marketing and learn as much about it as you possibly could. That way you'd know what to do next and maybe even have the power to shape the market.

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

#113

Post by Karrot_Kream »

danjl wrote: post #48
fxtentacle wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please elaborate. I think I can talk to people pretty well. But I've yet to hear anyone accidentally mentioning a valid business opportunity. How do you pre-filter which event to go to and who to talk to? How do you introduce the topic of potential business ideas? How do you confirm that they would actually pay for it if you would build it? Also, has this ever worked for you?

You learn where your customers hang out, and then you hang out there and authentically become part of the social group. You spend weeks/months/years learning what they like, their workflows, and their problems. Or, better, you've already spent years working with your customers so you have some experience in these matters. Then you spend more time setting up face-to-face discussions, at conferences, online, or whereve…

Has this ever worked for you? If so, could you walk us through your journey?

In my experience if you spend a really long time trying to identify a problem to solve, you end up burning too much time on a problem that may not work. The Indiehackers approach is like the opposite of that where you shotgun low-effort attempts at ideas until you find one that sticks. I think most folks trying to build a business want something in the middle though. Use your experience and your knowledge to winnow the market of potential opportunities and to offer you an advantage (with your expertise) then iterate by creating different products until one of those products gets traction.

When I worked at a tech company that eventually became one of the Big Tech Unicorns of the last rush, we had plenty of products that completely bombed, much to the sadness of the folks that worked on them.

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

#114

Post by tsimionescu »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #82

"After launching 37 different products over the last few years, I've had one go viral and almost all the others struggle to get any traction at all." Imagine if these "products" were subject to the laws of product liability in the United States like real products sold there. Why do software developers call websites or apps "products". Why not just call them "websites", "apps" or just "software". For example, "After c…

"product" just means "something you sell for money to customers". Saying "37 products" rather than "37 websites" makes it clear that each of these were business ventures, and that "going viral" means "finding many paying customers" not "finding many users curious about my fan site". Wikipedia is a site, for example, but not a product.

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

#115

Post by pinkmuffinere »

beAbU wrote: post #78
fxtentacle wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely, they booked some advertisements to push revenue but didn't honestly account for the ad expenses. I've seen that way too many times with Indie products that they brag about large revenue numbers and "forget" to mention that profit margins are negative. I remember once hearing about a start-up that resold baby diapers at a loss. Obviously, they were easily able to scale up customers and revenue ...

It's the whole "we're selling $1 bills for 50c, but we're not worried, we'll make up for it by scaling up."

Imo the pithier version is “we lose money on every sale, but we’ll make it up on volume!”

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

#116

Post by bruce511 »

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…

>> 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.

I agree. As long as you make it explicit in your encouragement that they should do this as a hobby with no expectation of income.

If their goal is to work on an interesting problem then discussing marketing is irrelevant.

If however their goal is to get paid, then the nature of the code is irrelevant. If you want to get paid then marketing (finding a customer base, discussing their pain, solving that need at a price they can afford etc) is more important.

Unfortunately in a lot of postings this context is not made clear. So the replier has to assume one or other context. Equally Unfortunately they often don't post which context they assumed.

Incidentally marketing might be the most important part of commercial success, but it is not the only important part. It is the most difficult part though so it makes sense to start there. Execution still matters, good execution makes sales easier. But the best execution ever does not mean anything if marketing is missing.

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

#118

Post by shahzaibmushtaq »

Earning $150000 + 1 viral product sold for 6 figures over the last 5 years isn't that bad in terms of experience which can help grow Refgrow faster using organic SEO and marketing.

I guess all those ideas that never made $1 were because of the "If you build it, they will come" marketing approach.

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

#119

Post by antupis »

narrator wrote: post #108
weitendorf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But if you listen to Levels' interviews, especially before his Twitter stardom, you will see that he always promotes the find your audience and build to them approach.

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

#120

Post by csomar »

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 have lost track of the number of apps I could use and maybe even pay for but that were badly executed (that’s actually being soft as most didn’t even work past the authy login).

You do need to validate product market fit but you also need a minimal viable product. I think most people lost the meaning of what viable means.

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