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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

#201

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#203

Post by haag_codes »

KurSix wrote: post #124
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…

The sad part is, there are people building genuinely useful tools or creative projects, but their stuff gets buried under the avalanche of low-effort trend-chasing

We need a community away from this low effort AI slop for people genuinely building good products.

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

#204

Post by jreebigwinnr »

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…

[dead]

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

#205

Post by Karrot_Kream »

danjl wrote: post #199
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 somet…

This approach has worked for me, and many others. Read the Lean Startup for the general approach, and The Mom Test to learn how to talk to prospective customers. The main point is that you need to talk to customers and work with them throughout the process.

I never read over the Mom Test but this thread has so many recs for it. Definitely moving it up in my list.

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

#206

Post by riku_iki »

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 can see how one could be tricked into the idea that success mainly comes from a good idea and not a good execution.

in your situation, if you would have good idea which solves real problem, you would see at least some people come to your site/app and try it, but looks like your idea is not that good, or you failed to contact your audience.

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

#207

Post by forgotmypw17 »

nunodonato wrote: post #135
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #8

>Did you find success by focusing on one project and giving it time, or by making lots of new bets? Mostly focusing on one project at a time on most days, but running several projects in parallel, and cross-pollinating the knowledge I gain from one to the others. >Has "slow growth" ever paid off for you? My arguably most successful project (in terms of impact and popularity) went “almost nowhere” for the first 2-3 ye…

Slow and consistent. I truly believe this is the key to growth. Unfortunately, I also suck at it. If I don't see interesting growth after a few weeks ,I'm inclined to give up too quickly.

What has helped me with this is committing to doing one small thing, a very small task, an outrageously small task per day. This might be one minute of meditation; one commit to my project, no matter how small; one pushup. I can then stop, or I can keep going, depending on how I feel. But there's basically no excuse for me not to do that one thing, which keeps me primed and there mentally.

The other thing that has helped me is changing how I talk about myself and my struggles. Diligently and attentively remove negative talk (e.g. "I suck at x") and replace it with positive talk (e.g. I'm learning to get better at x").

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

#208

Post by esskay »

satvikpendem wrote: post #189
esskay wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pl…

Lots of products on IH are Stripe verified though.

Oh I wasnt specifically talking about the IH site - that's been on death watch for years now, most of it's moved to Twitter, Reddit, etc at this point. Most people also removed their stripe integration on IH a long time ago when it became apparent people were scraping the site to work out what to clone.

For a small snapshot of what it's like these days, check out the unmoderated /r/saas subreddit, currently being held hostage by two chaps who own a saas (legitcheckapp) and have zero intention of making it a workable community, and instead allow lies, scams and overall crap content to fester.

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

#209

Post by tomcam »

My instinct normally is to bat for a single or a double, not a home run. But we have different needs than most people. For us, owning our real estate outright and making mid 6 figures or below pretax in a HCOL area is the target. Any higher income and you spend too much time on business trips, emergencies, hiring people, HR issues, etc. Too old for that. Inflation and property taxes are running much hotter than we'd like but we assumed years ago it would happen at some point. It hasn't affected us at all on a day-to-day basis.

So when my wife and I evaluate business ideas, it never crosses our mind to assume it will be picked up by a VC and hit the front page of HN. We try to project the worst, best, and most likely scenarios. We project these same terms a few years out to understand where problems might arise.

Our businesses are always medium- to long-term plays that we can run with minimal to no staffing. We have about a 50% success rate, about 30% higher than we normally bet.

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

#210

Post by zem »

jasonthorsness wrote: post #52
fxtentacle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also dislike the product. But I find it refreshing to see that selling LLM slop for marketing is, apparently, not a viable business.

this is one of the ones he successfully sold, for apparently the biggest amount in fact

doesn't mean it was a viable business, just a viable scam. he sold the business after all, not the product.
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