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5 Comments

Ask for advice. But don't take it.

I am a software developer. I started The Spaghetti Detective as a side project about 2 years ago. Now it has grown to more than $15k in MRR (the fluctuation was me pausing the payout at year-end to reduce tax burden).

Before TSD, I have founded 3 other startups. The combined revenue from them? $0. Yes you have read it right. It's Zero. Nil. None. Nothing.

And these 3 startups costed me more than 3 years of not getting paid, after quitting my $230k/year full time job. So for me the revenue from these 3 startups was $-0.7M.

Ouch!

What have I done differently this time? Obviously a lot. But none of them has as much impact as this behavior change: I stopped taking the advice that I asked for.

Here is why. Doing startups, by definition, means creating something new. No matter how good they are, the mentors/advisors can only give you advice from their past experience. Would you buy the GameStop stock, just because its price soared 1100% last week? Of course the answer is "No!".

For instance, when I just started TSD, everyone told me to stop, because "you will be serving the hobbyists who would pay for only hardware, not software." These people were solid founders and investors. And they genuinely wanted me to avoid another failure.

They were proven to be "right" by the pathetic 0.3% conversion rate at the time I flipped on the "pay now" button.

But I'm glad that I decided not to take their advice. Because nowadays, about 6% of the users will punch in their credit card numbers when the free trial ends.

I wish I could say that "I knew this would happen". But the truth is I didn't. The decision to ignore the advice and charge ahead was based "my gut feeling": users were enthusiastic; people were growing comfortable to pay for software subscriptions; etc. Was my gut feeling guaranteed to be right? No! But it probably had a better shot than the advice from everyone else, simply because I was the one who had the most knowledge about my users and the industry.

But if I don't plan to take any advice, why would I even bother to ask for one to begin with? This is because it is the thinking process, not the advice itself, that matters. When I receive a piece of advice, I always follow up with "why so?". The answer "hobbyists won't pay for software because they historically don't do that." prompted me to think "how can I quickly test if this behavior will change, and if so, how to expedite this behavior change?".

The hardest part of being an indie hacker is probably to go against the advice from the people you respect or otherwise have been successful. It takes a lot of self-awareness and inner calm to say "They are probably right. I'm probably wrong. But I'll still go with my own gut."

  1. 3

    Interesting journey! It takes so much courage to follow your guts. What is your main acquisition channel? Is it the same as the 3 first startups?

    1. 2

      It's a good question. Our main acquisition channel so far is word of mouth. I'm actually not happy with it as, although it snowballs, it ramps up really slowly. We'd love to figure out some other channels that will allow us to grow much faster.

  2. 2

    Just a side note: Billionaire Mark Cuban has the same thoughts - he said he's against mentors, and he's never had one. His idea is the same: pretty much every one will give you advice through their "thought lense", and it's very possible they're wrong.

    You'll need to do the hard work yourself, and see if an idea really works :)

  3. 1

    Awesome! How long does it take for you to acquire expertise in both software engineering and 3D printing (hardware)?

    1. 3

      I'm a pro at software engineering (20 years in experience). But I'm just a hobbyist when it comes to 3D printing. This actually serves me well as I speak the same language as my users, who are also just 3D printing hobbyists, instead of professional mechanists or mechanical engineers.

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