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My solopreneur story

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Re: My solopreneur story

#121

Post by ljfjklklj »

meheleventyone wrote: post #60
appleiigs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People voluntarily pay him $45K/mo. for his products… Makes you claim of “largely useless products” obviously false.

People voluntarily pay to smoke products that give them cancer which is probably more "actively harmful" than "largely useless". Which is to say that the value proposition is largely subjective so the OP is entirely within their right to wonder why on earth people pay for those things! I think the better takeaway should be that other people have very different problems to you, don't always act rationally about things…

> "largely useless"

> don't always act rationally about things

And by that you surely mean that they act in the way you do not approve of.

Re: My solopreneur story

#122

Post by didip »

I am surprised people reduced this article as just another pet rock.

Dude's journey has some interesting nuggets. He knows how to time box himself and build the smallest MVP that will actually make money.

And his journey is not an overnight success either, it took him years to build everything including his social presence. Compare that to a W-2 job where you just have to show up 9am-5pm.

HN is showing its overly critical self again, just like when Dropbox first appeared on HN.

Re: My solopreneur story

#123

Post by firtoz »

demondemidi wrote: post #10

An arrow indicator for a twitter profile pic, a screen cap tool, and a wrapper around ChatGPT. I kinda want to shoot myself. Largely useless products that made someone rich that rely on two other ecosystems. That’s the way I guess? I’m so not an entrepreneur. Edit: apologies for using a suicide metaphor. I was being sarcastic. I’m in my 50s, really like my job, and am on a path to a good retirement. It just amazes me…

From reading the article, you probably skimmed it too fast, 1st is actually a "growth tools for Twitter", the arrow was only pointing to the first feature, and it grew to be more than that.

Re: My solopreneur story

#124

Post by yayitswei »

demondemidi wrote: post #10

An arrow indicator for a twitter profile pic, a screen cap tool, and a wrapper around ChatGPT. I kinda want to shoot myself. Largely useless products that made someone rich that rely on two other ecosystems. That’s the way I guess? I’m so not an entrepreneur. Edit: apologies for using a suicide metaphor. I was being sarcastic. I’m in my 50s, really like my job, and am on a path to a good retirement. It just amazes me…

I get the frustration of seeing someone else succeed through seemingly frivolous means. That said, you state that you're not willing to take the risk that he did, not to mention the hard work and stress that comes with it.

By the numbers, he's created $45k/mo of usefulness.

Re: My solopreneur story

#125

Post by [deleted] »

donnythecroc wrote: post #50
OmarShehata wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One the flipside here, you can argue that, every time you get another "1", this is great for the economy. You now have someone who's making their own money, leaving a salaried job spot open for another person. A lot of these indie hacking ventures probably wouldn't exist at all if the person making them decided not to. If that is, or for the subset of indie hacking companies for which it is true, it means this is gro…

This is a great point. He's literally created a job.

[deleted]

Re: My solopreneur story

#126

Post by croes »

gumballindie wrote: post #102
croes wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survivorship bias. These stories are the few lucky ones, the rest didn't have nearly the same success. Remember flappy bird?

This is such a false statement. Amazon and apple are making trillions on the backs of small indie folks. Google too. The apple app store is monetised by nearly a million people, google makes money largely from small businesses, amazon’s filled with small independent sellers. Any time someone’s success reaches the bubble of corporate workers the workers that cant fathom there’s success out there and freedom claim “sur…

How many single entrepreneurs reach that income level?

10%, 1%, less than 1%?

There are very few with really great ideas and only some of them have success and there are some with success with average ideas but the large mass aren't that lucky. The lucky ones post their stories but they aren't reproducible.

They can't be. Otherwise the lucky ones wouldn't have succeeded in the first place.

If attention gets evenly split it approaches zero for the single individual.

BTW why mentioning Google and Apple? Yes the make millions of indie developers, but the developers don't nake nearly as much. They just hope to be the next lucky winner with app gone viral to generate enough revenue.

That's why the app stores are full of copycats.

Re: My solopreneur story

#127

Post by fullstackchris »

Waterluvian wrote: post #109
unsupp0rted wrote: post #38

HN: "It's okay to make something nobody wants = damn right! Do it for the craft and the process and the learning and the joy." Also HN: "A guy makes 45K/mo by building tiny time-saving apps, starting with ones he himself wants = what a sad world of frivolous side-hustles!"

I wish this absolutely ridiculous, unthinking trope of treating communities of thousands of people as one mind that’s only allowed to have one opinion would finally stop.

but reading the comments, they mostly fall in to one of these two buckets...

Re: My solopreneur story

#128

Post by chinchilla2020 »

getrealyall wrote: post #110
demondemidi wrote: post #10

An arrow indicator for a twitter profile pic, a screen cap tool, and a wrapper around ChatGPT. I kinda want to shoot myself. Largely useless products that made someone rich that rely on two other ecosystems. That’s the way I guess? I’m so not an entrepreneur. Edit: apologies for using a suicide metaphor. I was being sarcastic. I’m in my 50s, really like my job, and am on a path to a good retirement. It just amazes me…

This is the endgame of rent-seeking and an abundance of (concentrated) capital, in a country that is largely comfortable letting everyone fend for themselves. Who needs to build cars when you can tickle Sam Altman's Markov chain generator for $45,000 a month? I mean, I don't blame anyone, and I need money as much as the next husk of a man, but I really wish hustle culture would stop permeating every last open space o…

He's not from the US.

Typical hackernews: "Something bad happened in the world and this is why the US is bad"

Re: My solopreneur story

#129

Post by mt_ »

didip wrote: post #122

I am surprised people reduced this article as just another pet rock. Dude's journey has some interesting nuggets. He knows how to time box himself and build the smallest MVP that will actually make money. And his journey is not an overnight success either, it took him years to build everything including his social presence. Compare that to a W-2 job where you just have to show up 9am-5pm. HN is showing its overly cri…

He's a good marketeer, I'll give you that. Just this week I've seen one of his tweets being promoted on X and now he's top of hacker news on my feed. Not particularly interested in his tools but congratulations on his way to achieve engagement.
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