Do I Have an Unfair Advantage, or Am I Delusional
One thing the indie community puts a lot of focus on these days is building and getting out there fast. You see lots of tweets saying something like "I built this thing over the weekend; try it now in early access release."
I don't disagree with this "get out there fast" advice, though I think there are startups where that's not quite possible. Still, even larger, conventional startup incubators offer similar guidance. Ycombinator is forever reminding you that you want customers as early as possible and that product-market fit is the critical early objective, something that's only achievable if you're out there and actively engaged with your market.
Truth be told, I've been dithering around for a couple of years, at least as far as putting product out on the street goes. I've had a couple long-term clients (for WordPress maintenance and content marketing) and this pays in regular and decent chunks, but I'd really like a more product-focused business and I want to take advantage of my programming skills.
WordPress in Transition
It's an interesting moment in the WordPress world (I'll spare you the technical details). The point here is that a lot of the standard approaches to building WordPress sites are being reconsidered and reconceived (and actively rebuilt, too).
In my case, I saw a better way to build custom applications with WordPress and I've been working on the pieces you need to do that for about a year.
By now, I've got the basic pieces together, but I'm feeling a little confused.
Why I'm Dazed
I can build things that look more modern than the vast majority of WordPress applications. And I can build them fast (and so can you, if you have my tools), but that raises the question: is the product the toolset itself (still with rough edges) the product? Or is it instead my unfair advantage?
As an unfair advantage, what it means is that I can build new applications quickly, try them in the market, and just keep spinning them out till something works. This sounds like a classic indie hacker approach.
Or is that just a diversion from getting enough polish on the toolset to really sell it standalone?
Or — one final possibility — am I just another hacker who has spent way too long building a tool without finding a way to get real validation in the market?
I'd love to hear what you think!
I don't have enough experience in that area to know if you have an unfair advantage or not.
I've definitely picked up on that focus of getting things out fast from the community and I’m often left questioning my approach. I personally think how long you should/can spend on getting a project out has many variables and it’s not as simple as one rule fits all.
I think it’s true that many of us will spend longer than we should before going live, or sharing the guts of our idea to get feedback. But this idea that you can build something of value in days and sell it in days is also a bit of a juxtaposition, it’s hard to build value in a short time.
It seems like simple ideas/products can be MVP'd and/or tested with "dry selling" and more complex ones don't lend themselves to that so easily. It begs the question, though: should indie hackers focus on the simple stuff because that's the only way they can get the thumbs up or down fast enough? I worry that this is the case...
I am doing something similar with you but with some extra steps.
So here are step by step guide on How i use the same advantage you have which is to build stuff fast. The mindset going to this step is DO FAST FAIL FAST ( of course this is the advantage )
Go to reddit and pick a subreddit that you are most familiar ( of course the one with good market also ) with as this will make it easier for you to communicate and provide value in the subreddit.
Go trough the posts and see the one with most comment and engagement ( not jus upvotes, downvotes also good things as there is something people don't like )
Go through the comment. Here you can see generally what make people tick. What they like what they don't.
See where you can fit in. What problem you can solve or something you can sell.
Now you should have a brief understand what business you want to make and who will buy the product. So go to creativeblogtopic.com insert the business and target customer and the tool will analyze google trend and search for you. It will then return you topic and keyword that best for blogging for your idea.
From the topic and keyword write a simple blog and also a simple reddit posts. Try make it controversial so it will give a reason for people to engage.
Now you will do it couple of time to the engagement, and see how people are reacting to it.
If you got engagement now you have an idea that somehow you know people are interested to.
So go built MVP. Remember this MVP is for validating some more. Think the MVP as a glorified survey. Ask them for rating and email if they want to use the product. This way you will have potential user for the real product
By doing this steps, I can essentially run multiple ideas in one run. Think about it like running multiple survey. Since I can already built stuff fast, building mvps takes hours so in a day I week I can do multiple idea research until I found one that have people interest
What you think about my method ? Instead of just building you actually doing quick marketing while building and validating
Thinking about running multiple MVPs as similar to running several surveys is interesting. Increasingly I feel like I need to leverage the toolset to get a thing or two out there doing my testing for me. I will say, though, that I sometimes feel like people are in such a hurry to push out an MVP that they end up doing more harm than good. Opinions will vary, of course...
I don't know what you built, but if it is a variation of ACF, it's probably not that advantageous? Those things have forever been in Drupal a.o. and it's the whole base of how Craft CMS works (and pretty much any CMS that is customizable on the field level).
Raising ACF is a right on point and I can't say with certainty how that will play out. There are some key differences between my set of blocks and ACF, but they may be differences that no one cares about. Or the potential advantage of it being something that someone who's looking for no code will find it a lot closer to that than ACF may not be enough of an advantage. What's obvious is that I need to get a better handle on this as quickly as I can (in case it turns out that I'm delusional ;-) ).
Thanks for the reply!
Do both? Sell the toolset and make the products you want with it. There is no way you are going to make every product possible yourself! So might as well make money letting others do the same.
Thanks. I think longer term it's probably both. Shorter term, though, I feel like I need to pick a focus. Off hand, it's the products, and/or slices of the toolset that work as standalone products.
If I were you, and you are able to get a steady stream of customers for the sorts of website/app you are able to create with your toolset, I'd be tempted to outsource the use of that toolset and use it as the basis of an agency-type business. Could that work?
Some version of this is probably the right approach. I think I have to build some of the websites/apps first, mostly because the toolset probably isn't robust enough at this point. I want it to be--that's the whole point, really--but that's the part I feel like I can only move just so fast on. So I'm increasingly thinking that's the direction I should head.
Hi Robert,
I've read your post with great interest and I can relate to your dilemma. It's a common situation for many developers and entrepreneurs, especially when we've created something that we believe has potential.
In my opinion, the answer to your question depends on whether there are other people out there who will be able to use the tool in the same way that you do. If those people exist, then they are your potential customers.
Your tool could be a game-changer for them, just as it is for you. The key is to identify these people, reach out to them, and show them how they can benefit from using your tool. This could involve demonstrating how it can solve a problem they're facing, save them time, or provide a more efficient way of doing things.
If you can find a way to communicate this effectively, you could have a viable product on your hands. However, if you find that the tool is too specialized or complex for others to use in the same way you do, it might be more beneficial to use it as your "unfair advantage" to build and launch applications quickly.
In either case, getting your tool or applications out there and actively engaging with your market is crucial. This will not only provide you with valuable feedback but also help you achieve product-market fit, which as you rightly pointed out, is the critical early objective.
I hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck with your venture!
Best,
Jeff
Jeff -- appreciate the thoughtful reply. I think maybe it could be a game changer for others, but the toolset may not be fully up to that just yet, which I suppose gives me my answer. One thing I didn't mention in the original post but which is certainly true is that the shifts in WordPress are profound and there's a significant adoption lag. So it may be a little early for the toolset to resonate very widely (not that being early isn't potentially advantageous, but it complicates finding adopters).
It's clear you've put thought into your journey. Building a solid toolset is valuable, and it aligns with the indie hacker approach of experimentation. Consider both options: using the toolset to iterate on applications and polishing it for wider adoption. Trust your instincts, and remember, learning and evolving are part of the journey. Good luck!
Yes, trusting one's instincts is probably half the battle. But I really want, at the same time, not to let myself dither. If I make a conscious decision that creates delay, fine. But dithering just let's the months (even years) go by.
@PeakZebra @Tetley
I’m with you both on this.
Almost every thread I read anywhere online at present on this topic has some variation of: “Set up a waiting list and a fake door test”. It may be my experience putting me at a disadvantage, but I feel ethically very uneasy about that approach. Doing business should be a simple and transparent process, not something which is obfuscated because what’s being “sold” doesn’t exist.
I think the YCombinator viewpoint is a bit more realistic for B2B. It’s what used to be needed traditionally: we know we have a new product, and we know we’re logically only going to sell that initially to early adopters, but for B2B markets, those early adopters are going to be pretty sophisticated buyers, and they’ll want to see something “real”, which may be called an MVP, or may be called V1.0!
Robert – I don’t think your advantage is an unfair one – it’s your business advantage!
Can you do both? Balance your time so you limit what’s needed to create new applications, to keep paying the bills, but devote as much time as possible to get the toolset to a marketable condition.
As far as your penultimate and earlier paragraphs about dithering and not getting validation are concerned, I think you know yourself already that you need to end that and act 😉. How about you join this Reddit group for Professional WordPress developers:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProWordPress/ (if you haven’t already)
and “listen and ask”, to see if you can understand if there’s a need for your tools?
Or this group on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13948955/ ?
Connect with people who understand what you would be offering and ask them for help or advice in validating your idea: “Here’s what I offer; would you pay for it?” (simplistic version).
Don’t pitch – just ask for help. People are generally happy to give help when asked directly.
Most importantly - set a deadline to do these things. 31st December 2023?
This is all sound advice and I thank you for it. I need to get more going on in reddit and wordpress, though I'm already (somewhat) active in a couple of primary WordPress fora. And the deadline is key. These days I'm working on shorter-duration deadlines. For instance, I had a list of things to get done in September and, needless to say, that deadline is upon me (and I'll make it, at least for the business-related stuff). Maybe I'll write a little on this subject--I find the closer goals build up finished things faster and I can build on those successes earlier. 31 December is pretty close, of course, but I think I might like to be more like end October or Thanksgiving, with the goals scaled accordingly, of course.
Sounds like a good plan. :-)