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My product is my garden

herman.bearblog.dev

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Re: My product is my garden

#61

Post by ehnto »

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #36

Where are there online communities for people into this kind of tech sub-culture? Most Indie Hacker type communities seem to eventually attract a critical mass of "Hustle Boys" and most startup communities tend to be dismissive of anything that doesn't have hyper-growth potential. It makes sense that a large number of tech entrepreneurs live between these two extremes. Where do they hang out?

I decided to start a Discord for it, it's been on my mind for a while. I'm not interested in the VC moonshot culture, and frankly am not in the location for it anyway. I also don't care for SEO marketing ploys and hustle bullshit.

The community values I would want in a community like that are:

* A focus on building products that meet real world problems

* Pragmatism, stability and longevity in your products

* Discussions about bootstrapping with real customers

* Investment can be useful but it shouldn't be a stand in for a real business model

* Realistically these are businesses, money is a real factor, but no get rich quick schemes, we're just trying to get sensibly rich slowly

* No narcissistic hustle bullshit, no marketing ploys

Re: My product is my garden

#62

Post by styrmis »

dustinmoris wrote: post #53
elliotec wrote: post #28

I love this and I aspire to eventually, if I come out of the grinder with any ambition, drive, or passion left, do something similar. I abhor big corpratism, and love the way software can be independent and disconnected from it, if not usually in practice. I deeply admire Basecamp's style of "you don't need VC money, keep it small, keep building something useful that gets you paid." I want that someday but someday is…

> I deeply admire Basecamp's style of "you don't need VC money, keep it small, keep building something useful that gets you paid. Honestly, DHH looks to me and comes across to me as extremely burnt out to an unhealthy point. I wouldn't want to aspire what he has become. He doesn't strike me as someone like the author of Bear Blog who just enjoys puttering along. He comes across as someone who constantly stresses hims…

DHH certainly doesn't putter (by the common definition), but as someone who has followed his output here and there over the course of ~15 years I disagree that he is burnt out or that he is out to impress.

Over the years his approach has in my opinion been an example of how to be practical, think for yourself, be productive and not burn out. His form of puttering looks to be blocking out time to program in Ruby and extracting patterns from Basecamp (and now Hey) to release as open source. This looks like a form of cultivation/gardening to me.

I think most people, myself included, would burn out if they attempted to emulate him—he has clearly found a way to remain balanced, in his own way.

For the rest of us I think Bear Blog is a good example to follow if you can make a living doing so. If you want to see the parallels between this and Basecamp then you would need to wind the clock way back to the early days of that product/company. That said, winding the clock forward on Bear Blog will likely not get you something that looks like Basecamp today.

Re: My product is my garden

#63

Post by x4j91 »

playpause wrote: post #44
qwantim1 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Basecamp really the example to aspire to? Being the developer of Rails and ActiveRecord and fostering and milking that would be the software equivalent of Peter Frampton, and I mean that in the most positive way. I think we know that we’re not all going platinum. This article was about just “working on the song(s)” for the enjoyment of it, whatever that may involve, or that’s the way I took it.

> the software equivalent of Peter Frampton Can you clarify this? Just curious. Heard of him, but no idea what you mean.

I think the sentiment is that Basecamp is no Led Zeppelin. In that they perhaps haven't achieved the record breaking, Unicorn level growth that many startups strive for. But perhaps that's OK for them?

They've got some great tunes, a loyal following, and can still put on a fantastic show. They're superstars by any definition.

Peter Frampton had a standout, influential "live" album and an innovative style of playing that will forever be remembered.

Led Zeppelin had a series of standout albums and hit songs spanning close to a decade, spawning Unicorn level sales, crowds and generational fandom that held influence on rock and roll for 40+ years.

But the band members of Zeppelin eventually succumbed to the excesses of their success. They split up after some really dark days. The scope and size of their success wasn't long term manageable on a personal level. But their legacy remains.

Whereas Frampton is still playing small live venues today!!!!

He's still rocking out.

Re: My product is my garden

#65

Post by 9dev »

ehnto wrote: post #61
benjaminjosephw wrote: post #36

Where are there online communities for people into this kind of tech sub-culture? Most Indie Hacker type communities seem to eventually attract a critical mass of "Hustle Boys" and most startup communities tend to be dismissive of anything that doesn't have hyper-growth potential. It makes sense that a large number of tech entrepreneurs live between these two extremes. Where do they hang out?

I decided to start a Discord for it, it's been on my mind for a while. I'm not interested in the VC moonshot culture, and frankly am not in the location for it anyway. I also don't care for SEO marketing ploys and hustle bullshit. The community values I would want in a community like that are: * A focus on building products that meet real world problems * Pragmatism, stability and longevity in your products * Discuss…

Count me in! I’d very much be interested in joining such a community.

Re: My product is my garden

#66

Post by k__ »

Sounds good to me.

I always wanted to do my own product, but I had the impression all startup communities sucked in some kind of way.

I want to go slow and if I didn't get an MVP out of the door in the first few months, I don't care. I have a flexible job as a freelancer on the side and can wait.

Still, it's hard to find a likeminded community...

Re: My product is my garden

#67

Post by FriedrichN »

I like the idea of being a custodian of the things I do and have done, which sort of align with the idea in the article. Of course I don't always have the opportunity to do so with clients pushing for new features and so on. But when I can, I do.

It makes the things I make just a little better every time by adding small new features or making small improvements on existing ones. No one asked for them, but they are nonetheless thankful that I did them.

I don't think I could work in an environment that would not let me do those things, there's very little that makes me more unhappy than producing garbage work and 'shutting up'.

Re: My product is my garden

#68

Post by hahamrfunnyguy »

elliotec wrote: post #28

I love this and I aspire to eventually, if I come out of the grinder with any ambition, drive, or passion left, do something similar. I abhor big corpratism, and love the way software can be independent and disconnected from it, if not usually in practice. I deeply admire Basecamp's style of "you don't need VC money, keep it small, keep building something useful that gets you paid." I want that someday but someday is…

I have too many ideas. Every problem or small improvement is a potential business opportunity or startup idea and I see them everywhere. My experience as a software consultant likely contributes to this. It's my job to go talk to customers, understand their problem and propose a solution.

If you want to just build stuff for yourself, go work for a software consulting firm for a while. It should be a smaller one that's interested in tackling smaller jobs. This way, you'll interact with more potential customers. You'll learn a ton about their businesses, because after all; they hired your company to solve their problems. Save as much money as you can.

When you have enough money saved up, you can afford to quit your job and focus on something you that interests you because it's fun or an amazing opportunity. I've done this a couple of times so far. Right now I am splitting my time between a startup and a part time job.

I am really glad I have the part time job. Not so much for the money, but for the socialization aspects.

Re: My product is my garden

#69

Post by baobabKoodaa »

ehnto wrote: post #61
benjaminjosephw wrote: post #36

Where are there online communities for people into this kind of tech sub-culture? Most Indie Hacker type communities seem to eventually attract a critical mass of "Hustle Boys" and most startup communities tend to be dismissive of anything that doesn't have hyper-growth potential. It makes sense that a large number of tech entrepreneurs live between these two extremes. Where do they hang out?

I decided to start a Discord for it, it's been on my mind for a while. I'm not interested in the VC moonshot culture, and frankly am not in the location for it anyway. I also don't care for SEO marketing ploys and hustle bullshit. The community values I would want in a community like that are: * A focus on building products that meet real world problems * Pragmatism, stability and longevity in your products * Discuss…

Can you invite me to the Discord?

Re: My product is my garden

#70

Post by inferense »

This strongly resonates with the idea of a pure authentic self-expression. In part, bigger companies and the system in general take this away, because of their underlying incentives - “scale quick and break things” instead of just “have fun building something valuable”. I think this is what every side project / idea should be about in long term because that’s how it starts anyway, it’s just transformed into this artificial process full of vanity metrics later on.
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