Maker movement is doing to startups what startups did to corporations.

Here is why 👇

Startups fixed the problem of innovation, that corporations lack.

In big, slow corporations, innovation is a RISK and distraction from the core $$$ profitable business.

Agile startups could launch, iterate fast and eventually stumble upon new growing market opportunities.
However,

When a startup reaches product-market-fit, it has to 🚀 "grow at all costs" and reach market dominance before some giant corporation can replicate their new product and distribute it to their existing giant customer base.
Startup's "growth at all costs" often means growth at the expense of charging customers $$$ money.

Hence, to be sustainable, startups have to constantly chase investor money.

Startup teams spend more time finding and pleasing investors, than finding and pleasing customers.
95% of startups die because they run out of (investor) money + no business model + crazy investor expectations.

Same way corporations die, when unable to adjust to new technology and market shifts.
Maker movement is fixing the problem of financial sustainability, that most startups have.

For startups, growth is everything, and early monetization or lack of capital is a RISK that can slow down their growth.
Makers are more pragmatic and tend to solve real problems to which customers are ready to pay right away.

If customer is unwilling to pay in advance, they move onto the next idea. Often the next month or week.
Maker movement perfectly fits in @claychristensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma”:

Startups chase markets that would justify team effort + investor’s money.

This creates an opportunity for Makers to go after even smaller markets, start making money right away, self-sustain and expand.
So what’s next?

The next major breakthrough for Maker movement would be an ability to collaborate and evolve into larger organizations.

But not into a “startups” as we know them…
Maker organizations will have their own distinct culture, structure, values and reward mechanisms. An alternative to what ESOP & equity offered traditional startups
These collaboration and reward mechanisms should have some simple reward and incentive mechanisms that would align interests of all participants yet maintain their independence and freedom.

More from Makers

What are some things you should *NOT* do as an indie hacker?

I was recently on @ProductHunt Radio (
https://t.co/IuSMrZTaYG) where @Abadesi asked me this question about all sorts of challenges that founders face.

Here are a few of my thoughts…

@Abadesi Don't blindly follow advice without considering the context in which the advice was given (from who, to who, when, for what) and adapting it to fit your personal situation.

E.g. advice that works for a high-growth VC-funded startup might be disastrous to your indie business.

@Abadesi (This applies to any and all advice in life, btw, not just advice for how to start and run a company. It's almost never a good time to turn off your brain and blindly follow what others are saying.)

@Abadesi Don't equate being a founder with being an inventor. It's an analogy that can easily go too far.

You'll end up overvaluing and over-protecting your pet ideas. Or worse, you'll never come up with an idea at all, because you'll assume that it needs to be something completely new.
Results from yesterday’s poll. I’m inclined to agree. And this is something I’m going to fix in my next move.


As an indie maker you have a huge advantage if you can genuinely dogfood your product. Don’t do what I did and try to make a product for teams if you’re just one person. That’s really, really dumb 🙃

Before searching for product-market fit, ask yourself if you have founder-product fit. It is a humbling question but one worth investing the time to answer truthfully.

In hindsight, I have low founder-product fit with Talkshow. It’s for teams but I’m solo. It’s a big broad idea but as an indie I should be focused on a niche.

Just braindumping 🤪 Again thanks to @tylertringas for the micro-saas content on his blog, it helped me navigate / articulate some thoughts I was having.
#24hrstartup recap and analysis

What a weekend celebrating makers looks like.

A thread

👇Read on

Let's start with a crazy view of what @ProductHunt looked like on Sunday

Download image and upload

A top 7 with:
https://t.co/6gBjO6jXtB @Booligoosh
https://t.co/fwfKbQha57 @stephsmithio
https://t.co/LsSRNV9Jrf @anthilemoon
https://t.co/Fts7T8Un5M @J_Tabansi
Spotify Ctrl @shahroozme
https://t.co/37EoJAXEeG @kossnocorp
https://t.co/fMawYGlnro

If you want some top picks, see @deadcoder0904's thread,

We were going to have a go at doing this, but he nailed it.

It also comes with voting links 🖐so go do your


Over the following days the 24hr startup crew had more than their fair share of launches

Lots of variety: web, bots, extensions and even native apps

eg. @jordibruin with

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I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.


I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.