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Highs and Lows, go...

Last year I was a founder in a Techstars program, and one of the things the MD did with us was on Friday afternoon we would all grab a beer and head into a back room to share the highs and lows from the week. It was an amazing way to help keep your sanity and get things out to a group of people that were all going through the same kinds of things. I wanted to keep the practice going, but unfortunately have not had the chance. Let's give it a try here on IH.

Simply post a short list (say 1-3 things) in the comments of the highs and lows from your indie hacker/founder efforts this week. The only rules are 1) be kind and 2) if you join in you have to post a 'high', even if it is something like 'I still get to hug my kids tonight'.

Join in this weekend and share your highs and lows!
I'll post mine in the comments...

  1. 4

    Lows:

    • crashed the enziano.com server during an upgrade (still recovering and testing - f* that unnecessary time loss!)
    • only tiny steps progress in promoting Indie-Ignitor.com

    Highs:

    • made significant progress in GDPR preparations (having a clear action plan now)
    • Supported my wife to "mini-launch" a project of hers to 800+ visitors and made the first € there.
    1. 1

      Unexpected outages during an upgrade, I have been there too any times :P

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      1. 2

        Haha, good point - maybe the indie-entrepreneur bug is kind of infectious...

        But I guess in reality everybody out there has some drive to fulfill his own dreams and destiny. And having someone around you who encourages you to try things is enough to get started. Also I think if you have seen this type of "lifestyle" working out against all odds, you're more open to the idea of "higher risk" less "secure" lifestyle.

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            No I must have missed that one - seems like it was an engaging discussion ;-)

  2. 2

    Highs:

    • Front Desk is ranking #1 on google for the search 'voice visitor sign in'
    • It looks like the IP from a past startup could sell soon
    • Slowly but surely my efforts of build a twitter presence for Front Desk are making headway

    Lows:

    • Nobody searches for 'voice visitor sign in' :P
    • A very low ball offer is in bound for the previous startup IP (two years of my life)
  3. 1

    Lows:

    • Growth/Use is really low and not being monetized yet, makes that even more of a low
    • There's a lot to do because I'm doing a native mobile app as well as a fully functioning website so users can use both. So I have to do everything twice and that makes everything take twice as long. (I guess this is more of an on-going "low")

    Highs:

    • I talked with a couple of my most active users yesterday about a monetization plan and i think I worked out a realistic goal for the month to get my product monetized.
    • Got this comment through my chat widget last Friday:

    Hi! I recently discovered this through the Apple App Store. I'm loving the feel of it. Great job! Can't wait to see what improvements you make!

    I'm looking forward to the idea/strategy that I discussed with a couple of my users and I'm excited to finally start generating some revenue.

    1. 2

      I've done the native mobile thing, did everything 3 times (iOS, Android, and web). I so feel your pain!

      I started a new Highs and Lows post for this week. If you want to join an active conversation ;)

  4. 1

    So far this year:

    Low: Building Evertrainer for a year and getting zero traction and realising I probably went the wrong way about it

    High: Building Hourly exercise in 3 weeks and getting featured on ProductHunt :)

  5. 1

    Low: Not focusing enough on the right things with the available time I have.

    Highs: Got the revamp of my site up and running without too many fixes needex. Still a WIP, but it's live. Did a few cool vector designs. Added a few new ideas to the list too.

  6. 1

    Highs: Got a working prototype on almost everything I've been wanting to work on lately, bar the one I'm doing today which is the least technical thing out of all of them.

    Lows: Banking is annoying, and figuring how why homepages annoy you is hard.

  7. 1

    Highs:

    • Showed continued growth with my article traffic and audience.
    • Finished a landing page for a product idea and started validating.

    Lows:

    • Don't think my product is validating well, but I guess that's the point of validating ;)
    • Feeling a little lost on what I want to do next. Know I want to build a product but ideation is becoming overwhelming.
  8. 1

    Highs:

    • Got my first landing page done for validation and finishing 3 others
    • Got a product dashboard 98% done using Bubble.is
      -Accepted the mindset that it’s ok to put out something for feedback and validation even if you aren’t quite sure yet where the fit is or won’t be

    Lows:

    • only got one landing page done due to trying to be too perfect
    • felt a little low thinking I can’t find any problems to solve and I don’t really have any that bother me too much
    • took too much time thinking of negative things and not positive outcomes
    1. 1

      I got to a similar place this week too, just have to get started and learn along the way (social, marketing, writing, etc). It's funny, as a coder I have been completely fine with iterating on something new as I learned. Don't know why it didn't click with everything else until now.

      1. 2

        Yeah - this is what I'm finding as well. One thing that I'm definitely learning is that there are so many distractions in terms of what others are doing or not doing and sometimes you have to just go with your gut and "test and learn" and then move on.

  9. 1

    Highs:
    -Finished a lot of work
    -Ready to release 3 startups next week
    -Got some payments
    Lows:
    -Not finished as much work as I would like to
    -Not spent enough time with my SO
    -Not the happiest about my own performance

  10. 1

    Cool idea!

    High:

    • Made our first 'no selling' sale on postperk.com (where the customer sold themselves inbound on our site and just wanted to get set up, no demo necessary)

    Low:

    • A startup I was previously involved with is going through a tough time and laying off quite a few employees (including some I hired and convinced to move countries/homes). An unavoidable yet truly horrible feeling of responsibility that comes with being a founder and never goes away...
    1. 1

      Nope it really never does go away, and I think that is a good sign. Stay human ;)

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    1. 3

      Lack of sleep is no fun, it's an issue for me too.

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