Indiehackers was the place that finally made me realise trying to bootstrap a tech product is almost always pointless. There's almost always a far better way to allocate your time.
I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
161–170 of 225 posts
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#162Earlier 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…
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...
The same guy who sold a Saas starter kit riddled with security flaws that allowed anyone to just have access to your product, then when it was pointed out to him, he berated the person who told him and said it was 'no big deal' and to 'build something'.
The guy's extremely sketchy and is selling a non existent pipe dream to people who are easily swayed by "how to make money online" nonsense.
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#163The author states "Virality is rare and nearly impossible to predict" and yet one of his products aims to automate the creation of "viral LinkedIn posts"! Much irony.
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#164I see one of the products and I already hate the OP. Thanks https://replyguy.com/
It's crazy how AI folks are re-inventing literal Internet spam
And not only that, people are cheering them on for making slop. The amount of high fiving and patting on the back and the moronic 'bro culture' around these sorts of products especially on Xitter is insane.
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#165Indiehackers was the place that finally made me realise trying to bootstrap a tech product is almost always pointless. There's almost always a far better way to allocate your time.
Yup same, the whole toxic culture of lies surrounding it makes things worse as theres people trapped in this weird little bubble of believing half the stories on there. Most are completely fabricated.
For me personally I gave up on SaaS a couple of years ago and shifted my focus elsewhere. I ended up building a site in a niche I've always loved, and it ended up making me love that hobby even more, and now I have a place to share knowledge on it, with the bonus being it puts a small amount of cash in my pocket (not at all job quitting kind of money, but that wasn't the goal).
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#166I am actually a little intrigued in the inner workings of replyguy.com (the app OP sold for 6 figures)
It just sounds like it relies on scraping reddit/twitter/some basic google/brave search api shenanigans...
Seriously, all the posts on replyguy.com seems to particularly target reddit and I am pretty sure that they might be scraping since eating reddit's api cost might be hard.
The autogenerate reply feature might be really easy to build (I think)
I mean, I don't condone scraping since it might be a little grey area but apify has reddit scraping too with the ability to search for keyword.
I mean, they are also raking as in as much if not more dollars per month than replyguy.com while being an api..
Now, we don't know if they are scraping or using api but I have assumed that they are scraping and so I may be wrong, I usually am but I am kinda impressed by how reddit scraping can lead to 6 figures.
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#167Earning $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.
It is SO bad actually. That's $30,000 a year, a salary of a junior developer with 10 times less responsibility compared to running multiple products.
I am not discouraging building tools, I do that myself but most of these could be done while having a full time job and learning on the side.
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!”
It's profoundly depressing that this is basically the model for almost all startups in the last twenty plus years. :shrug:
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jobs literally did get a group of people together and did not do that. He built a company where all the products contributed to the vision of personal computing; either personal computers or personal computer accessories.
The thing people seem to forget about Jobs is that he really was that good, that obsessive/dedicated and that visionary. It's that simple. His process resulted in some of the most transformative products humanity has ever known.
True, but lots of people who were less talented failed with this approach. It's always a bad idea to look for advice from outliers.
Re: I've launched 37 products in 5 years and not doing that again
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shovel-as-a-Service* [*] Also known as "tool hire" and has been around since the dawn of mankind
I package shovel-industry futures into financial instruments and sell them to speculators.
and I create a cryptocurrency whose name is shovel but has nothing to do with the shovel but its just for the hype.