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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

#71

Post by nzach »

slightwinder wrote: post #44
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…

> But why would you give this generic advice without even looking at the thing? Is there a website, documentation, any kind of presentation of your product? In that case, depending on your idea, this might be already enough for people to evaluate it. Certain categories are so overpopulated, people don't need to see the actual product any more; some description, maybe a screenshot, that's enough. The other side is, pe…

> Is there a website, documentation, any kind of presentation of your product?

I do have a fully functional MVP available on the internet (https://leetprompt.io)

> The other side is, people are also so feed up with seeing the same stuff for the gazillions time again and again, they simply can't even bother with it any more.

That is a fair point, but if you can't even bother why would you give any advice then?

> it's important to have a good balance

That's why I went out of my way to try my hand at marketing something for the first time, but the only kind of advice I've got is a little bit depressing.

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

#73

Post by BizarroLand »

satvikpendem wrote: post #53
poulpy123 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I perceive of his personality through the media, I totally believe that a 24 years old Steve Jobs in 2025 would do that.

Jobs was a perfectionist and would not have done that, given what I read from Isaacson's biography.

He would have started a group of people and got them to each do that, and then connected with the winners of the hundreds or thousands of attempts and then taken credit for it.

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

#74

Post by warrenm »

andai wrote: post #49
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…

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...

It's the "envelope stuffing" 'business' of the 80s informercials updated

Or the "how to make a course" 'courses' of the 2010s

Or the "how to make a blog" 'blogs' of the 2000s

As they say, what's new is old again

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

#75

Post by nzach »

satvikpendem wrote: post #62
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…

> You are putting too much effort in your product, your focus should be on finding the right market fit for your idea How is this not excellent advice? There are lots of stories of founders building first (sometimes for years, even), then finding out that there is no market for it (as it seems you have done). The people evaluating your product might have even just read your post and concluded that there's no market,…

> How is this not excellent advice?

I do understand that in order to create something popular you need to create something good but you also need to properly communicate what you do. And proper communication is as hard as creating something good. So, I do know you need to "find an audience", and that is why I've posted it in a few places.

Having said all that, reading these comments made me feel somewhat demoralized because the advice wasn't really actionable. As a noob in this space I went in expecting to get some advice along the lines of: "your idea is bad", "the website design needs to improve", "your app keeps crashing", "there is no way to make money from this", etc... But all I've got was this generic "find users" advice.

"Find users" isn't intrinsically bad advice, but the way it was delivered felt really bad. How do I find users? Should I post about it in some platform? Maybe I should write a blog post about it? Running ads is a viable approach? Given what I have, what communities should I try to engage?

> so understand what it is you are optimizing for as the two require different actions to succeed

But I don't want to create a business right now. I just want to create something that people find interesting. I already know how to build things for myself, now I want a different challenge. But right now I feel stuck because I've built something, nobody seems to care and I don't really know how to improve my situation.

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

#76

Post by larrik »

danjl wrote: post #45

The biggest problem I have, is that, even though I know from experience that I should talk to customers to understand their problems and build a solution that provides them value, and spend time talking to them to understand the value proposition, how to communicate it, and how it fits into their workflow, I don't enjoy those bits, and I prefer to just code things I want to build. I prefer to willfully delude myself…

Probably if not you are trying to build a business.

But! That's just one reason to code anything, and you are probably "doing this" well enough for the other reasons (education, experience, job hunting, and the best one: fun).

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

#77

Post by Invictus0 »

BizarroLand wrote: post #73
satvikpendem wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs was a perfectionist and would not have done that, given what I read from Isaacson's biography.

He would have started a group of people and got them to each do that, and then connected with the winners of the hundreds or thousands of attempts and then taken credit for it.

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.

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

#78

Post by beAbU »

fxtentacle wrote: post #31
TimPC wrote: post #14

A product with $6000 in revenue selling for only $12,500 seems crazy to me. Why were you so eager to get rid of it?

Most likely, they booked some advertisements to push revenue but didn't honestly account for the ad expenses. I've seen that way too many times with Indie products that they brag about large revenue numbers and "forget" to mention that profit margins are negative. I remember once hearing about a start-up that resold baby diapers at a loss. Obviously, they were easily able to scale up customers and revenue ...

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."

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

nzach wrote: post #71
slightwinder wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why would you give this generic advice without even looking at the thing? Is there a website, documentation, any kind of presentation of your product? In that case, depending on your idea, this might be already enough for people to evaluate it. Certain categories are so overpopulated, people don't need to see the actual product any more; some description, maybe a screenshot, that's enough. The other side is, pe…

> Is there a website, documentation, any kind of presentation of your product? I do have a fully functional MVP available on the internet ( https://leetprompt.io ) > The other side is, people are also so feed up with seeing the same stuff for the gazillions time again and again, they simply can't even bother with it any more. That is a fair point, but if you can't even bother why would you give any advice then? > it'…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by fxtentacle »

andai wrote: post #49
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…

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...

I find it pretty fascinating that these "asia backpacking entrepreneur" types are in general so stuck with the "fake it, perception is everything" mindset, that they build products such as:

"Create Stunning Travel Photos at Popular Destinations Without Leaving Home. Our AI model crafts your perfect travel photos."

which is the featured example client on https://codefa.st - the vibe coding course by aforementioned Marc Lou.

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