I think as a general rule, any shiny new market strategy will perform worse in year 10 than it will in year 1. Law of diminished returns and all. And that's before factoring in any platform enshittification.
Does “building in public” work?
71–80 of 225 posts
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's another very large subgroup you're missing: the hackers that build things (even for $0) because they're fun/cool, not because they solve a specific annoying problem/inefficiency.
That’s not hacking, that’s called a hobby. Hacking is something that challenges social norms or might even get you in trouble.
“hacking” is the challenge of making something work in ways it was never intended - for example unlocking a car with wireless entry using a laptop and DIY electronics instead of the normal car key.
Doing it to your own car is obviously very different from stealing someone else’s, however it’s not illegal to “hack” your own car. The theft part is what gets you in trouble.
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
If no one will pay for the solution, the problem might not be that important.
You are making the same mistake as youtubers chasing their numbers rather than having a personality and a point and an interest and something to say of their own. The ONLY reason I have any interest in someone's output is if it is something they themselves actually care about, what they actually think, etc. I want to know what they have to say. There is absolutely no value in them trying to say what they think I want…
The ONLY reason I have any interest in someone's output is if it is something they themselves actually care about, what they actually think, etc. I want to know what they have to say. There is absolutely no value in them trying to say what they think I want to hear, worse, what they think most people want to hear.
MrBeast's leaked production document is pretty much exactly this: trying to anticipate what people will click on, what will go viral, and throwing all their weight behind it.
Now it's fair to say that you, personally, place no value in viral content such as that. On the other hand, it's clearly not the case that this content is of no value to anyone. Very broad-based entertainment like this is about providing a small amount of value to a very large number of people.
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of people won't pay for journalism anymore. You'd have a hard time convincing me (or most other people on here) that journalism is no longer important.
Lots of people won't pay for something they can otherwise get for free, even if the free option is mediocre. This does not mean that journalism isn't valuable enough to some people. It just means that the market for journalism shrank.
This is the short-sightedness of market fundamentalism. To take this to a ridiculous extreme, if I decide that taking care of my children is no longer ROI-positive, should I just decide this market has shrunk and the prudent thing to do is invest in new markets?
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#75Anecdotal, but it seems like all the people who “build in public” end up trapped by their chosen distribution strategy. What I mean by this is, if you’re building in public there’s a 99% chance you’re going to end up building products for other indiehackers who are interested in following people who build in public. This means you’re probably going to end up building yet another micro-Saas dev tool (Saas boilerplate,…
This. I like listening to technical solo founders talk about they built. Its the less technical marketing guys building in public their AI "powered" crud apps or micro SaaS like you describe that really bother me. They remind me a lot of scammy people on Instagram talking about drop shipping or whatever the get rich quick scheme of the week is.
Currently a technical solo founder. Got any video recs?
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#76I get doing it to feel less alone in the journey, but unless your target customer is other indie hackers it just invites unnecessary competition.
I get that ‘it’s not about the idea - the execution is what matters,’ but why make an already difficult journey that much harder?
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#77I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now. 1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it. 2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works. 3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.…
It’s an ideal, and like any ideal we manage to capture in a six-letter word, 99% will get it completely backwards.
For example, everyone knows and agrees with the value of the phrase “think outside the box,” but only a minority ever recognizes “the box” they should be thinking outside of, and even fewer bother to fully apply the wisdom by making a habit out of finding the box that’s currently holding them at any given moment.
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#78I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now. 1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it. 2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works. 3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.…
What an awful way to live, with the sense that everyone else is a fraud and you’re the only one that’s real. It sounds terribly lonely, and equally unattractive. Who would want to work with, or be around someone, with such a terrible opinion of others?
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of people won't pay for journalism anymore. You'd have a hard time convincing me (or most other people on here) that journalism is no longer important.
Lots of people won't pay for something they can otherwise get for free, even if the free option is mediocre. This does not mean that journalism isn't valuable enough to some people. It just means that the market for journalism shrank.
It's the diamonds vs water paradox of value. Diamonds are highly valued yet practically useless to most people. Water is extremely low-valued, yet essential to all life on earth.
High-quality, investigative journalism is an essential institution for a functioning democracy, yet it's not valued by the people it is most important to: average citizens.
Re: Does “building in public” work?
#80I really dislike that so much of hacker culture is $$ focused now. 1. Being a hacker means walking the world being constantly dissatisfied by all of the inefficiency you see on a daily basis and wanting to fix it. 2. Being a hacker means feeling like most of the software world is fraudulent and you are going to build a solution that actually works. 3. Being a hacker means building something because it is fun or cool.…
It’s weird to say but the whole startup culture has shifted, from founder to hacker and everywhere in between. It’s a victim of its own success because no one is writing feature pieces in media on quants or finance bros with the same gusto as they did in the 2010s for tech founders.
So the attention combined with the desire to escape the grind which is only offered in combination by tech founder, has nearly fully been consumed in the broader machine of capitalism.
When we ran out of stored resources to consume, we unsustainably consumed our own attention, and then when that was gone, we turned our attention to the money machine that made it possible, and started eating that.