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…
@ProductHunt @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.
@ProductHunt @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.)
@ProductHunt @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.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi There are many thousands of businesses that solve more-or-less the same old problems, but in unique ways, or for a unique segment of customers, etc. You're probably better off picking a very straightforward problem to solve, and then getting innovative with your solution.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi Don't wait to start learning from your customers.

Talk to customers about what you're doing from day #1. Figure out where they hang online and learn from their conversations. Try to get a strong sense of what they'll think about your product before you waste months building it.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi Don't try to be too clever when finding your first users.

Going from 1M to 2M users requires a bulletproof strategy, considerable knowledge, and a healthy dose of luck. Going from 1 to 2 users requires… a conversation.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi More broadly, don't copy founders or companies who are way further ahead than you are. If you're going to copy them, copy what they did in the early days, not what they're doing now.

Many of the strategies that work at scale are often deadly to early-stage companies.

More from Makers

First update to https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL since the challenge ended – Medium links!! Go add your Medium profile now 👀📝 (thanks @diannamallen for the suggestion 😁)


Just added Telegram links to
https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL too! Now you can provide a nice easy way for people to message you :)


Less than 1 hour since I started adding stuff to https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL again, and profile pages are now responsive!!! 🥳 Check it out -> https://t.co/fVkEL4fu0L


Accounts page is now also responsive!! 📱✨


💪 I managed to make the whole site responsive in about an hour. On my roadmap I had it down as 4-5 hours!!! 🤘🤠🤘
And here they are...

THE WINNERS OF THE 24 HOUR STARTUP CHALLENGE

Remember, this money is just fun. If you launched a product (or even attempted a launch) - you did something worth MUCH more than $1,000.

#24hrstartup

The winners 👇

#10

Lattes For Change - Skip a latte and save a life.

https://t.co/M75RAirZzs

@frantzfries built a platform where you can see how skipping your morning latte could do for the world.

A great product for a great cause.

Congrats Chris on winning $250!


#9

Instaland - Create amazing landing pages for your followers.

https://t.co/5KkveJTAsy

A team project! @bpmct and @BaileyPumfleet built a tool for social media influencers to create simple "swipe up" landing pages for followers.

Really impressive for 24 hours. Congrats!


#8

SayHenlo - Chat without distractions

https://t.co/og0B7gmkW6

Built by @DaltonEdwards, it's a platform for combatting conversation overload. This product was also coded exclusively from an iPad 😲

Dalton is a beast. I'm so excited he placed in the top 10.


#7

CoderStory - Learn to code from developers across the globe!

https://t.co/86Ay6nF4AY

Built by @jesswallaceuk, the project is focused on highlighting the experience of developers and people learning to code.

I wish this existed when I learned to code! Congrats on $250!!
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.

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The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?