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214 Comments

Do people actually want what you're making?

One of the most common failure modes for indie hackers is to build something that people don't want. Sometimes our guesses are wrong.

So this is a sanity check! Reply in the comments and share the following…

  1. What are you making? Or what do you want to make?
  2. What's your best evidence that people actually want it?

Also, take the time to reply to someone else and let them know what you think about their evidence.

  1. 12

    This was four years ago, but I'll share what my answers would've been Indie Hackers in July 2016:

    1. I'm making a place for developers to learn how to profit from their side projects and turn them into online businesses.
    2. I think people want this, because there are many thousands of developers every month posting about this on Hacker News, upvoting discussions and asking question in the comments.
    1. 2

      I think the question should be "Do enough people actually want what you're making?"

    2. 2

      How do you describe IH to people who aren't familiar with it nowadays?

    3. 1

      Another important question is whether people are willing to pay for your product. Does IH make money?

      Having built a project that reached 200k users and 35k WAU at peak but having failed to monetise it properly this is one of the most important questions I ask myself for new businesses I start

  2. 9

    1 At GTM HUB (gtmhub.co), we are building a platform to help businesses generate leads.

    2 I think businesses want this because they are always looking for an easy way to prospect.

    1. 7

      One piece of advice. If you are to copy, at least change the wording.

    2. 5

      This looks very cool. I definitely want to use this.

      1. 2

        I am glad you find it interesting. I am looking forward to helping you find customers

    3. 4

      Finding leads for businesses to sell to is a useful service. I looked at you site though, and you seem to focus on finding leads from startup businesses. Why limit your searches to startups? What if my product is also useful to established businesses - how do I get leads from then?

      1. 1

        I find leads from established companies too. I guess my first copy is confusing.

        How about I put it this way, Find fast-growing companies to do business with?

        Instead of Find fast-growing startups to do business with??

        What do you think?

        1. 2

          Just been to your website Emeka. Quite interesting. I'm interested and will give it a trial.

        2. 1

          It's better, but it is still restrictive. Depending on the product, even businesses that are not growing may still be interested. The product may even be perfect to help a business that is struggling. I think you will find more leads by searching for companies that may be interested in the product, regardless of their current state.

          On a slightly different note, and only mentioned because of your response - You should review all the copy on your site, as there are a few grammar errors.

          I don't know where you are from, or whether you are a native English speaker or not, so please don't take this as a personal criticism!

          1. 1

            Well, the deal is to help businesses find companies that recently got funded. Correct me but I feel any company that just got funded is fast growing.

            The product may even be perfect to help a business that is struggling.

            You are right. we also help businesses that are struggling to find leads

            You should review all the copy on your site, as there are a few grammar errors.

            Thank you so much for this. I just ran it through Grammarly and was able to fix some errors. Please point me to any error you find. I will really appreciate 🙏

            1. 1

              Emekonu,

              You say 'Well, the deal is to help businesses find companies that recently got funded.'

              Shouldn't it be:
              Well, the deal is to help startup/fast growing/recently funded businesses find companies who can be their customers.

              The businesses that you say you are searching for (the startups/fast growing/recently funded), to provide as leads TO your customers, sound much like your customers - the business who are looking for leads to grow their business.

              The businesses that you should be providing in the CSV file or to your customer inboxes should, surely, be more established business with some cash to spend on your customers new/growing business.

              If I'm wrong here, and you are really searching for startups/recently funded/fast growing business to provide as leads, what sort of business are your customers - the people who use your service?

    4. 4

      People are always looking for prospects. I think you'll do great.

    5. 4

      bit of a layman when it comes to this stuff. I hear this language so often and these businesses all seem the same to me...

    6. 1

      It looks cool. I see some similarities with something launched recently by @alexwest https://www.getcyberleads.com/

    7. 1

      This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

    8. 4

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

  3. 7

    Sick thread.

    1. I am building an online video editor to make quick content.
    2. I have a paying customer.

    It's hard to gauge because I have been rejected so many times but I do believe in my product I just need to improve my marketing. Once I have reached at least 1000 targeted customers without converting 1%-10% then I will know it's time to give up and pivot.

    A new thing I am trying. In each of my responses online I use my tool to make a quick video response that ties into my boring text response. Check it out, I just made this specifically for this thread https://go.aws/3eShhXq Cheers!

    1. 2

      Love the concept, especially if it could be made really easy to create

    2. 2

      I would love this. If it’s intuitive and super high quality like canva i’d recommend it to people

      1. 1

        Do you believe it currently is not intuitive enough?

        1. 2

          not for my taste. you could literally copy canva's funnel. I want to sign up your site but using facebook because i never remember my passwords. I know there's a google signup but I have never used that and prefer facebook signup. The potential behind this idea is great. i just think there is a lot of friction for new creators. The front page could literally be "click here to get started" with some examples of use cases for how some people used it, have them log in via facebook and then let them start creating. don't hit them with pricing etc. til later in the funnel. prove your value first

          1. 1

            Just added a free demo https://storycreatorapp.com/demo. Fair enough, I mean I have several paying users who think it's pretty intuitive. Could you provide a bullet point list as to what you struggled with?

            1. 2

              amazing. i'm going to use this for some Instagram content next weekend and let you know.

              I'll have some better feedback after I play with it more.

              I wasn't trying to insult btw, i was letting you know because I think you have a great idea.

              As far as having some users that's great. I just think that even though you have some users, you could have tons of users if everyone who uses it believes it's intuitive.

              1. 1

                I agree. Nothing personal, just hungry to get inside the minds of anyone who uses it and objectively figure out how it can get better.

                The thing I find is everyone is different. So a major challenge is doing one size fits all. I think there is a fine line with enough data and conversations you can closely follow though.

                That would be awesome. Let me know how it can improve :)

                1. 2

                  just a heads up when I try to drag and drop a video mp4 nothing happens

                  1. 1

                    Just took a look the file is audio/x-m4p. I do a strict check against all file formats. I'll add support for that mime-type.

                    It feels like I am finding a new mime-type everyday lol. Had a customer upload an audio/x-m4a yesterday.

                    I wonder if I should drop the strict check and allow all mime-types with audio. It seems concerning to me.

                    Fix will be up soon. Thanks for pointing it out!

                    1. 2

                      sounds good. let me know. eager to use it

                    2. 1

                      I just made an update to support that mimetype. Let me know how it goes.

                  2. 1

                    into the upload window

    3. 2

      Audio on by default is not preferable feature by many, if you make it optional it would be better.

      1. 2

        His customer isn't the person receiving the videos, it's the people posting them.

        Plus the major platforms like twitter + FB already mute the audio for you by default

        1. 1

          Right. Also if you're referring to the link. That is the raw video file. It's a default browser behavior. To my knowledge, the only other way around that is if I create a dedicated page to the hosted links and control the UI and the volume. Which is not a bad idea actually.

      2. 1

        I had it muted by default at first because it makes sense as a consumer. You're in class and a video with a loud fart noise comes on. That would be embarrassing. So that was my thinking. Then I had users who were confused and assumed audio would be on by default. I thought about it some more and it makes sense to have the audio on by default for the folks creating the content. Love the feedback keep it coming.

  4. 7

    Great post! I'm building https://probstack.io for the exact same reason. To know how many people are wanting to get a problem solved!

    As I launched, consumers from different walks of life, many experienced founders and aspiring makers signed up and shared their interest which I felt was a good starting validation. This is the first time my guess/assumption is right!

    1. 2

      This is a nice idea! Seeing over time what the common problems people are having would obviously be a great first step in coming up with a product. How are you planning on monetising it though?

      1. 2

        Hey, thanks so much. Glad to see you found it helpful. Below are the ways I'm planning to monetize this currently and researching to provide more value and increase ways of monetization.

        1. I'm starting a newsletter shortly with top and latest problems for the week.
        2. I have a 'Featured Product' Ad space on different pages in the site.

        Please feel free to share if you have any suggestions on how to monetize this kind of a site.. Thanks!

        1. 3

          Long shot, but you could focus on recommendations of the products that are solving problems.
          Work flow would be something like Problem - proper research about the problem and who is solving it (company, service, whatever) - check if they have affiliate program or you can make private deal for leads sent from you - recommend that company or service to the person who asked for the solution.
          Basically, listen the issues, find solutions, earn in the process.

          1. 1

            Wow! This is awesome.. I have an existing feature where I can tag a product/service as a solution for each of the problem. The point you made is very similar to it and I'll def. work on this.
            Thanks so much!

        2. 2

          Just got to your site and I like what I saw, e.g. "How to get more sales as an affiliate marketer."

          I guess one of the ways to monetize is to make it a membership so only members can post, starting maybe as low as $20 per month and gradually raising it over time.

          Looks like mini Quora.

          1. 1

            Hey, Thanks so much & it means a lot!!

            Yes, one of the challenging decisions for me is about keeping the community free vs members only. But, I think there is still some time to decide on this and currently focusing on growth and spreading the word out :) Thanks again!

  5. 6
    1. I’m building Twig - a private, shared journal for couples.
    2. I made it because I wanted it. I now have 500 MAU and a handful of paying subscribers.
    1. 1

      What do paid subscribers get that free users don’t?

      1. 1

        Unlimited image upload and a couple features that aren't yet released.

  6. 6
    1. Building a modern personal page builder at https://oneprofile.info
    2. Have over 80 paying customers and 2000+ users
    1. 1

      Cool concept. Might try it out. I like that you have the QR code. It doesn't seem to be a big thing in the US yet but I think eventually it will be. Since other countries use it so much (due to how efficient it is).

      1. 1

        Thanks, @arod. Yes, you're right. QR code is amazingly efficient. You can have it on your phone or business card and people can simply scan it to access your page rather than having to type on their phone. Anyway, if you're thinking of building landing pages for your products, I also have a similar tool here, check it out: https://oneprofile.page

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

  7. 5
    1. My team and I have created and are constantly developing a free social network platform named Westeria, which for the time being does not include any premium services. It will be hosting all kind of interests, passions and hobbies with absolutely no filters. It is a place where we want to promote freedom of speech and diversity, including all sort of topics - varying from the most to the least mainstream ones - all being treated equally, as each opinion and view matters. We endeavor to tackle major issues that social media are faced with nowadays, through state-of-the-art and innovative tools, since modern problems require modern solutions!

    2. In today's ever-evolving digitized environment, most communities suffer from 2 major problems:
      They are not easily discoverable.
      Moderation is extremely harsh, leaving the average user powerless.

    https://westeria.app/

    1. 3

      Being so open, how do you prevent it from just another platform for sharing porn, or grooming children, or hate speach/racism etc, or fake news and other scams?

      1. 1

        Let's assume there is a post with a 80-20 disagree-agree ratio. For starters our plan is if >50% (or a dynamically calculated value) of the communities ownership agrees, take down the post (each vote should have a solid explanation of why this post should be taken down). If this system overshadows minorities we fall back to the safer option of just marking the post as "controversial" and keeping it up and running.

        Toxic communities will always exist throughout the internet. For these types of communities (see r/IncelTears) as long as they are self-contained no action will be taken. For all the communities an option for a DISABLED BY DEFAULT auto-moderation system (racism, violence etc) will be implemented and the user base can vote to enable it.

    2. 2

      This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

      1. 1

        Thank you Chris, I really appreciate it.
        Hoping to see you in the platform :)

  8. 4
    1. I'm making Dose (https://doseapp.io) - it's an app that tracks your use of alcohol, caffeine, cannabis and other drugs.
    2. Almost everyone drinks alcohol, caffeine or uses other drugs. I think they should keep track of their usage to avoid addiction and live a healthier life.
    1. 1

      nice i think people use drugs but no one cares about tracking it. I think its really easy to track per day/week since its used so infrequently

  9. 4
    1. I'm working on a web development financing product ( https://financed.dev/ ). It lets people pay later for web and app development.

    2. Everyone I speak to about this says it's sorely needed. I told my former boss about this idea and he became our first client, calling it "highly compelling." Unfortunately, nobody is really searching for this yet, so I'm not sure how to get the word out.

    1. 2

      Hey, I run gtmhub.co and most of our leads would be interested in this.

      I would like to help you with prospecting. We have hundreds of startups that recently raised money and probably looking for dev shops to help them get things done.

      Let me know what you think

      1. 2

        This is a great idea! Are there any plans to expand the proposition to non-startup businesses?

      2. 2

        Oh my goodness -- these are exactly the sort of leads we need! I'll definitely go ahead and sign up! Do you offer any other kind of services or introductions?

        1. 1

          Yes, we have a custom plan where we help you contact every single startup in your target audience. Once they show interest, we will notify you to follow up. We send up to 50 emails per day.

          It is listed in our pricing section, http://gtmhub.co/#pricing

          Looking forward to helping you prospect

    2. 2

      i've seen this work... and since you have a financial institution helping to provide some financial lift for folks... yah. this.

      but, i wonder if the financing part is the primary problem. for instance, what if you're not entirely sure what you want to build yet?

      1. 2

        Well if you're not sure what you're building you're not going to hire a non-financed web dev firm either, are you?

        I don't think someone who's not sure what they want to build is in the market for our services, but I dunno... maybe there's a solution I'm not seeing here

        1. 1

          mmm. how much time do you spend on selling?

          1. 1

            That could mean a few different things so I'm not sure what you're asking? Like how much time do I spend selling to a single client or how much time out of my day do I spend selling? Or do you mean how much time I spend explaining the product to a new prospect?

            1. 1

              ah, yes. sorry! yeah, the last part. the time required to work through the entire sale cycle (thus far).

              1. 1

                Thus far the entire sales cycle seems to be a minimum of two weeks. Looks like that number is likely to be going up over time, though.

                1. 1

                  sweet! keep going friend. i believe in you!

    3. 2

      Well having a client that needs this is always a good sign!

      1. 2

        definitely send it @maxk42's way! very neat!

    4. 1

      Hi maxk42 I believe this is one of a kind. This is the first time I'm hearing about this kind of online funding idea.

      Just wondering, what about if I don't have 20% down payment? Would you be willing to take a cut of sales, say 10% of sales, until you recover your cost?

      1. 1

        If you don't have enough for the down payment you can apply to Spectrum Capital Partners for a 0% interest loan to cover it: https://spectrumcapitalpros.com/

    5. 1

      Super interesting! You should get agencies to tell their clients about this. No dev agency wants to lose a potential client. I've run https://plenty.works for the past 3 years and would love to recommend this to our clients if they're having trouble with financing development. Would love to learn more!

    6. 1

      I'm a developer myself - web and non-web, so I get the proposition.

      But, how do your differ from a bank? Surely, small businesses who want to build a new web app either go down the venture funding route, or go to a bank or other traditional lender for a business loan?

      Next question, who is providing the mains funds for the project (not Spectral's downpayment service)?
      Many websites fail (even with your consultancy, success is not guaranteed) - they simply don't return the income that has been planned. Who covers the loan in that case? How do I repay if I don't have the income? What happens if I miss payments?

      Next, what's the interest paid on the loan you provide? You say it gets paid back within 36 months - what happens if my site is ultimately successful, takes almost that long to build, an even longer to turn a profit?

    7. 3

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

      1. 1

        You have a good point. Maybe I just need to invest in a lot of Google AdWords.

  10. 3
    1. I am making a rapid application development framework (lowcode) for enterprise applications that is both scalable and low-cost

    2. The product is better than alternatives I used in my 20 years long career. People in my direct network who tried the product like it (However, I so far fail to generate interest outside of my network).

    1. 2

      Can you give more details about your framework? your website, etc.

      1. 1

        More details on the framework can be found at https://openlowcode.com/

        The framework helps building enterprise apps for desktop / laptop usage. You generate quickly 95% of the application by assembling pre-defined bricks (data-model and many features of enterprise software also come standard: access rights, calculations, workflows....

        Then, developers still have freedom to implement the last 5% as there are many extension points.

        1. 1

          This is really cool. Work out a deal with development agencies where they use this for their clients and pay you some of the difference in development cost.

        2. 1

          I think you have to build your audience, try to learn how.

          Try to make video tutorials on youtube, teach people about it on Linkedin and Twitter, open a slack channel for your community.

          I wish you success, you can make it , it just takes time.

  11. 3
    1. we are building a business & communication tool for new projects and their communities.
    2. we validated this concept after doing > 2,000 customer interviews and now we have paying customers (mrr)!
    1. 2

      dude, this video at first looked cool, but my mind turn off after couple of seconds of text flashing - I thought that there will be some product showcase in it

      1. 1

        we don't have our saas product ready for market... won't be awhile!

        instead, we're running a 5-day bootcamp and we have a managed, private community space where we talk shop (building our communities, biz strategies, product design, launching, go-to-market, etc).

        :)

        1. 1

          makes sense, I just had a quick glance and wanted to give some useful feedback :) good luck!

          1. 1

            sweet, i appreciate it!

            we can definitely do a better job of communicating what we're doing. i'll take these thoughts and think through some alternate angle and approaches!

    2. 2

      2000 interviews! How long did that take? Would you say it was worth the time spent? Any takeaways from that experience?

      1. 2

        over 2+ years. we started this project back in 2017... pivoted 3 times. lots of learning!

    3. 1

      How did you create the text part of that cool intro video ? Did you use a specific tool/generator ? The text was perfectly synced with the sound :)

      1. 1

        i paid a good friend to help me put together the final cut. i don't have this much skill.

        1. 1

          All right, thank you for your answer ^^

    4. 1

      Already having paying customers is certainly evidence of a need! Good post and good luck :)

      1. 2

        well, it's a start! we're still learning and we're not even close to product-market fit.... i mean, it'll probably be a year+ until we get close...

  12. 2

    https://github.com/apps/pull-dog

    1. I am making a GitHub app that automatically creates test environments for every pull request you make, based on your Docker Compose file.
    2. I am a developer myself, and have witnessed several companies wanting this.
  13. 2

    I test before going live. I go lean.

    few ways which worked for me

    • prelaunch pages on carrd etc (No code)
    • write a blogpost & test the feedback
    • reach out to the biggies in the same market

    something which I launched 2 days back & got paying customers

    1. Infographic book summaries
    2. Nothing beats paying customers . However I would consider this a full-blown success if the customers are referring others.

    I wrote this blogpost for the launch - https://medium.com/@thenakedpoet2/the-pandemic-hit-i-built-a-business-with-ed-latimore-heres-how-a00b7fcbead7

    which got mentions from the likes of Jim O'Shaughnessy

  14. 2

    1/ I'm working on https://virtualpeer.co - which brings people from around the world together into small online coach-facilitated peer groups to work on shared professional goals and challenges. 2/ I think people want this because it provides an opportunity to develop more meaningful connections. Evidence - 40 people signed up for my beta test and half are taking part in peer groups. I also have a business interested in sponsoring peer groups. It's still a small sample. Next step is to attract a wider audience and monetize the proposition. Any other thoughts people?

    1. 1

      i can DEFINITELY tell you that folks want this! i'm doing this with YEN.CAMP! and many more folks and colleagues that i know are doing similar things to get things started!

      i'd say, you have enough to get started! gogogo!

      1. 1

        Thanks for the vote of confidence 8bit. How did you go about growing your audience?

        1. 1

          doing things just like this. replying, being helpful, and trying to be friendly.

          :)

  15. 1
    1. We're building https://www.vuibo.com in order to aggregate the wisdom that successful people impart across the web.

    2. Books are a constant source of wisdom, and with the proliferation of podcasts and social media there are book recommendations in all sorts of places. This can make it difficult to grasp the trends of what things people are recommending, which we aim to solve.

  16. 1

    The second half the first question is always more complicated than it sounds. You often don't know what you build until you find where to sell it!!!

  17. 1

    https://linkdra.com

    Focus B2B

    Finding early users to validate and sell. Start with a buyer persona and then use Linkdra to search profiles that best match your persona by location, industry, role etc. Follow through with a warm connection request offering valuable content. 3-5 will accept your request if it is sincere. Some more content and then ask for a meeting.

    So far, I have found this to be the fastest, low or no cost way to reach customers early on.

    How are you all finding your first 100 customers?

  18. 1
    1. A site for indie hackers to quickly create a landing page for their idea/MVP to gauge interest and gather first users. A Product Hunt Ship alternative that only costs when you actually hit jackpot.

    2. I for one would have wanted this when I was iterating and exploring ideas and trying to find early users. Product Hunt Ship costs way too much just to validate an idea and building your own landing page is always a time drain unless you have ungodly levels of self-restraint.

  19. 1

    Mine is a little bit quite different, but the common essential part is building/ start a business.

    1. I was washing dishes for money when I served in the military base in Taiwan (Mandatory military service).

    2. I think/guess people want someone to do tedious work for them so they could do other things whatever they want, because I noticed most people just want to go play their phones when the rest time comes, want to have fun or call their girlfriend and even cry alone (Cause some of them are pussy, kidding)

    Hope it helps! especially for those great makers who happen to hate talk to real people.

  20. 1

    Yeah, also about 42% of startups fail because they doesn't have the market need.

    When I was looking for problems to solve and then come up with an idea to start my startup what I wasn't able to figure out that whether these startups, which i am thinking really have a market need?

    Then, i though what if we build a platform where people who face problems can come and post their problems and the entrepreneurs who are willing to start their startup can come and search for a problem for which they are passionate about.

    This will not only build the more market need startups but will also increase the success rate of your startup.

    Link to my startup website: https://www.voxup.co.in

  21. 1

    I wonder this all the time!

    I am working on a marketplace that connects tech founders to experienced advisors. I think there's a need, but adoption on the startup side has been slow so far... Are people happy to just keep using LinkedIn??

  22. 1
    1. I'm making an extension to use a virtual background in Google Meet
    2. I think people want this because a lot of people are using it in Zoom :)

    https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/virtual-backgrounds-for-g/ghlkgnalbbkgpdlodjlackgjehofahoc

  23. 1
    1. We have built a no-code solution for generating mobile apps that help users prep for tests e.g. residency tests in the UK, Canada, Australia, Language proficiency tests, professional certifications (AWS, Microsoft, Google), driving license etc.

    2. Depending on time of the year, location etc. apps that help user prep for tests are ~10-20% of the top ~20 best selling apps in the AppStore.

    We are working with partners who are qualified to type some content in a spreadsheet that relates to a test taken by a few tens of thousands people annually. The business model is a 50-50 revenue split.

    Our first app will be published later this month to the AppStore 🤞

    You can find out more at dripl.co.uk

  24. 1

    My humble opinion is people jump in too fast to code or build an app etc without really validating an idea.

    Here's a checklist I created for my clients and teams that helps them check off whether or not they have answered key questions.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/fyw551zpm5v0whf/opportunity-assessment-checklist.pdf?dl=0

    For consumer apps as a litmus test (the google toothbrush test), you usually want 25% of your MAU using your app or service on a daily basis (that's something that VCs look for as a general first swipe assessment of traction and fit).

  25. 1
    1. I'm building an online course platform for indie creators—xebel.co
    2. I think people want this because the online course market is constantly growing, with more and more people going the independent route.
    1. 1

      sound like Teachable?

  26. 1
    1. I am working on a CRM-style application less focused on managing campaigns and more focused on quoting and closing ongoing repeat customers.
    2. There are plenty of CRM systems in the current SaaS landscape with plenty of examples that are niched to solve a particular use case well. Also, I've already built a similar system for a consulting client who's already paid low- to mid- six figures for a custom system.
  27. 1
    1. We help brick and mortar chains manage their maintenance and repairs -- from finding folks to do repairs to tracking how much money they're spending. https://www.useopenwrench.com

    2. There are more than 1 million brick and mortar retail stores in the U.S. alone. There are also more than 1 million restaurants, more than 40,000 gyms, etc. A substantial portion of these are multi-unit chains. They all need maintenance, and some of them are paying us to help them manage it.

  28. 1

    1- A self-hosted tool to collect users feedback. The webapp gives you a js snippet for embedded widget that you can put on your site where your users can give you feedback.
    https://github.com/moufette-tools/moufette

    2- I started working on project to answer the exact same question of this thread. Couple weeks ago I launched a web app but ppl weren't singing up. I didn't need an analytics tool to tell me what is the problem. I needed to know why! so I decided to add this little widget and show a pop up asking ppl explicitly for for their feedback. I got the answers I was blind to. ppl didn't want to use "big brother" social login, ppl need to sign up to try the app out, and some other points. after I implemented the changes the sign up rate jumped significantly. So even tho analytics tools are important to measure users behavior passively, it's still important to hear what your users want to say if you ask them in the write way to get an objective feedback.

  29. 1
    1. We're building, Electrician Path. A marketplace for electricians to find training and job opportunities in the electrical industry.
    2. Best point of evidence is that we have organizations using us and paying. However the biggest challenge has been acquiring electricians to our platform. We are getting better at it but trying to figure out how we can acquire more and at scale.

    electricianpath.com

  30. 1

    Hello Courtland,

    Such a nice question at this time of global lockdown.

    1. I'm writing Ultimate Guides on wide ranging topics believing people will love what I've
      written when I guest post them. Here are the topics:

    2.  My Ultimate Guide To Setting Goals And Achieving Your Dreams
      
    3.  My Ultimate Guide To Making More Money Online Than You Can Use In A Lifetime 
               – And Be Happy With The World
      
    4.  My Ultimate Guide To Landing The Job You’ve Always Wanted And Living A Life Of 
              Your Dreams
      
    5.  My Definitive Guide To Successful Marriage, Happiness And Abundance
      
    6.  My Ultimate Guide To Building A Perpetual Online Money-Making Machine And 
              Being Humble About It
      
    7.  My Ultimate Guide To Radiant Health, Wealth, And Happiness
      
    8.  My Ultimate Guide To Entrepreneurship, Wealth And Power
      
    9.  My Ultimate Guide To Building, Developing, And Managing Your Career And 
               Making It Big In Life
      
    10.  My Ultimate Guide To Small Business Success 
      
    11. My Ultimate Guide To Personal Development And Financial Freedom
      
    12. The truth is most of the time you won't know what people want until you test what you have in the market place.

    Remember Ford's famous quote, "If I'd asked the customers they would have said they wanted faster horse-drawn carts."

    Some great visionaries, including Bill Gates, initially said the internet was a joke.

    The founder of one of the largest mid-frame manufacturers (forgotten the name) said he didn't think households would be interested in computers.

    Sometimes "sure winners" lose out in the marketplace as was the case between Sony Betamax and VHS from former Matsushita. Betamax, with better technical quality lost against VHS.

    So sometimes it's a great idea to go to "fishing holes" to confirm if there is a market for our ideas but sometimes the market does get it wrong.

    Let's never forget no one can stop an idea whose time has come.

    Yes, market testing is good but the market sometimes is not 100% right.

    Best.

  31. 1
    1. Building an subscription management application. For people who are into dairy farming, groceries, organic farming, who wants not just to sell their products, but to let people subscribe to their products, so that delivery it periodically. It is very different from platforms where people sell products one time

    2. Have couple of friends who are into milk dairy farming. They currently don't use any tech to manage their business. They assured this gonna work out. Not just that, even the market, there are very very little saas platforms/tools which provide these features.

    https://simplsub.com

    1. 1

      Will your friends act as suppliers? Have they committed to it?

  32. 1
    1. Making https://mostrecommendedbooks.com/

    2. It's growing every month:

    • January we got 3,500 visitors.
    • February we got 8,000 visitors.
    • March we got 10,000 visitors.
    • This month so far we've had 14,000 visitors.

    And we haven't focused on growth yet.

  33. 1
    1. I'm building Balance the Grind (https://www.balancethegrind.com.au/), an online hub focused on conversations, ideas and communities around work-life balance.

    2. I didn't do any research before creating the website, it was initially just for me because I'm fascinated with reading about people's work life balance routines and a typical day in their life. But since launching in last year and conducting 500+ interviews, the feedback has been amazing, with a lot of readers telling me how important this project is and how often they come back to read the interviews.

  34. 1
    1. Mobile app to share and manage personal printed books.
    2. Did hundred interviews to understand how people get their printed books and wherethere them share books or not. Found that many people lost their books (by sharing and forgot whom they shared to).
  35. 1
    1. I'm building apps for Shopify.
    2. It's a super popular ecommerce platform with a thriving app community. I've also audited a lot of current apps and there's definitely room for more options that target small and mid size shops, with more competitive pricing models. I also think my experience building highly available distributed systems gives me an edge over a lot of app developers I've come across during my research.
    1. 1

      Shopify is a very good market, I'm going to make my own app soon. How do you get ideas for your apps?

      1. 2

        As someone new to Shopify app development, and as a bootstrapper, I'm looking for existing niches that are low risk (e.g. if something is wrong with my app, I'm not taking someone's shop offline, for example apps that are a part of the checkout process) and that only have a few big competitors. You can also dig around in the comments for competitors and get an idea of what people's pain points are to find ways to differentiate yourself. There's some activity in their forums as well, where folks will have threads like "Looking for app to do X" - but I've found that less fruitful. Often times the app exists, or its super niche, or the person will get swarmed with offers by freelancers to build said thing.

        1. 1

          Thanks for the info, it's really helpful!

  36. 1
    1. Self managed advertising platform that enables the website and/or app owner to only accept companies to advertise on their platforms that they want to be associated with. Companies will have to apply to be advertised on the owners platforms.

    2. Scratching a friends itch - she wants this for her business

  37. 1
    1. We're building a platform to write (or exchange) high quality guest blog posts in the SaaS niche.

    2. We have crossed 100 beta users and there are quite a few articles have already been published that came to life through our platform. Some people are now exclusively using our platform to find guest blogging opportunities.

  38. 1
    1. www.posterday.club A place where people can search, discuss, post, Academic posters

    2. Academics have said they'd use it. There is no go to place for students to search for examples of posters. Google Image search is the closest thing, and those images are normally of people posing next to them. Ultimately it could be supported by advertisers (poster printing companies make a pretty penny). The audience is one I'd like to serve because they're smart and doing the hard work of making scientific discoveries. I'm also thinking of the people outside of the US and early academic career people who need inspiration.

    3. Evidence against it: Academics are notoriously guarded at times with their proprietary intellectual property.

  39. 1

    I've been contemplating the idea of online hourly consulting sessions via video stream. A marketplace of sorts where experts and influencers can charge an hourly rate for their time, streamed on video via the platform.

    Would really appreciate any feedback here as its a mammoth development undertaking and I need to be sure the idea is solid.

  40. 1
    1. What are you making? Or what do you want to make?

    Trying to disrupt the analytics space by making people use self-hosted analytics instead of the analytics services from giant companies.
    Trying to make insightful analytics more approachable, so you don't need training and certificates to understand your visitors.

    1. What's your best evidence that people actually want it?

    1600+ website owners paid for and are already using my self-hosted analytics platform. Most of the feedback and reviews I got from them were really positive.

  41. 1

    Thanks for the sanity check.

    I'm pretty much new around here, so I'd go ahead to respond to the questions.

    1. I'm building a link building solution (agency) for SaaS business owners. Would have posted the website here, but still working on it.

    2. The best evidence that people want it is the fact that I'm currently doing link building outreach for a client in the SaaS space.

    And since links are important to rank on the first page of Google, there's a demand for it.

    Also, for most SaaS companies who create content for their product on a regular basis, they struggle with getting the word out there about what they do through proper link building outreach.

  42. 1
    1. I'm making a place where people could easily reach for information/support relevant for them, while being fully anonymous
    2. I think there are lot of people who would like to receive such content while not exposing themselves to anyone, especially to those in their surroundings (talking about addictions, mental states, sexual orientation issues, habits we're doing incognito, things that we keep for ourselves in general)
  43. 1

    1- I’m building a podcast hosting service
    2- I think people need this based on a few sign ups I had(about 50) and also there are competitors on the same niche

    1. 1

      Resource requirements and costs could be fierce. Also price point of the mentioned competitors is hard to ignore, they can do it just because they already have thousands of users and they can do the slimmer margins than most of the new podcast services.

      1. 1

        Hey Dotz!

        Regarding pricing, we are not monetizing right away so that we can have feedback. We got that 5k USD from AWS and are using it to finance the operations while we build the product and understand the customer needs.

        About the margins, it is still a point to solve and I'll find a way to see it through. In the future we might have to change our business model, but it will be worth it by having lots of feedback and product users for our services.

  44. 1

    I have two side projects on the go:
    1a. An online personal organizer to improve productivity: Yourganize
    1b. A typography design tool for web designers/developers: Archetype

    2a. I'm trying to validate this! I have a few paying customers and some very positive feedback, but I'm assessing where to take this next
    2b. We have 4000 users in the db and the product has been shared by some well known web developers and newsletters - I'm adding a paid plan to this right now to see if it's something people would be willing to pay for.

    Ultimately though I've learned so much from these that I can take into future projects and enjoyed every minute! (other than debugging)

  45. 1
    1. We are working to revamp/relaunch www.soundstage.fm into a platform that allows music fans to fund live streams from artists they love, and to even hire them for private performances (our core mission is to create opportunities for artists to monetize from virtual musical acts).

    2a. The live music industry has been eviscerated in recent months. Artists have found themselves in dire straits, and are streaming non stop in attempts to fundraise... as neil degrasses said "there are now more DJ live streams than atoms in the universe" (j/k he didn't say this)... but jokes aside, there is a lot of mediocre bedroom DJ'ing all over social with artists competing over attention and getting table scraps for their performances, and in truth many acts are rather bland and unengaging.

    2b. We've recently experience a significant surge in inbound interest, and have been approached by numerous artists, event promoters, etc. exploring new ways to monetize streams.

    We think asking fans to fund the stream up-front is not unreasonable, and can change the dynamic in how fans value the artists streams, and also create incentive for artists to bring their very best to the table (quality not quantity).

  46. 1
    1. I'm making an email relay service - which keeps your real email address private.
    2. Best evidence is that i'm building it for myself, it's a product that I actually want to use myself.
    1. 1

      Probably not news to you, but I've seen several services out there like this. Do you have a way to differentiate yourself, or you think there's enough customers to go around?

      I think its a great idea, though I haven't committed to using one yet. I must admit, gmail does a pretty good job at filtering the spam out of my inbox these days, which seems to be the biggest reason for services like this.

      1. 1

        While it’s true that Gmail does a good job at filtering, you’re still giving out your actual email address.

        In some instances you don’t want to actually give it out. My own use case is that when I go shopping I usually get asked for my email for the digital receipt, and I don’t trust the company enough to not sell my email address on.

        My other use case is that sometimes on the web, you get prompted to give your email when you want to download a resource!

        The biggest reason for these types of services (in my opinion, Feel free to disagree!) is for when you’re hesitant to give your actual email address out when signing up to new services (I beta test a lot of indie hackers’ services).

        Sure, I can give out my real email, but then, I might be bombarded with spammy newsletters or marketing emails, and have no idea who sold my data on. I know that within gmail you can create these “virtual” addresses by using “+” at the end of your email, but then it all ends up in the same inbox and doesn’t really protect you!

        1. 1

          Excellent points! The same sort of service might be useful for phone numbers as well (though something tells me that's not as cost effective).

          1. 1

            That's a great idea actually! I'll have a look around the web to see how I can achieve that, that would help distinguish RelayMail from other similar services, thanks!

    2. 1

      I would like to know more about reasons why you would like to keep the email address private, and if you could name a few use cases.
      I'm asking because we're building a product that can broadcast information too followers while they don't need to provide any of personal identifiers (such as mail, phone number, name), and we would like to know more about people's habits in this case.

      1. 1

        I sometimes get asked for my email address when shopping, for digital receipts and am usually hesitant about doing so.

        I’ve also been asked to enter my email address when trying to download a resource from a blog, and in that case I’m not interested in whatever they want to send to my email, and don’t want it to be sold on.

  47. 1

    We are building https://kpibees.com/ - a Google Sheet Add-on that helps you pull data from the tools that you are using into Google Sheets. We're on our way to integrate a couple of marketing tools like google ads, facebook ads etc. We've seen quite a bit of success with the mysql integration so far.

    Our assumption is that a lot people prefer working with spreadsheets and they currently maintain dashboards that they fill manually, cell by cell.

  48. 1
    1. I am writing an eBook teaching blockchain programming https://web3.coach
    2. The newsletter signups count is steadily increasing and got 2 pre-orders after few days of promoting

    My current struggle is to identify my audience pain points but I tried to add a survey asking: "why do you want to learn blockchain" to hopefully identify these pain points.

  49. 1
    1. I am building a teaching platform to help people learn data skills - https://codequarantine.landen.co
    2. I am hosting free classes myself and already have 40 people signed up for these classes in the first week
  50. 1
    1. Dcolevevents (https://dcolevents.com), we want to make an online plateform where people can post, find and join any online events around the world.

    2. I think pepole want this, because there are multiple sources of information to be informed of events.

    Our goal is the source of event information.

    Currently we are launching MVP.
    I'll be happy to read your feedback (https://www.indiehackers.com/post/mvp-give-me-your-feedback-7ad4e3baeb)

  51. 1
    1. I’m building a Gmail chrome extension that will be the “Mint.com” of your email inbox - intelligently helping you organize your email, get to/stay at inbox 0, and making smart suggestions based on your activity.

    2. Scratching my own itch mainly since Gmail’s ways of managing your emails is limited and not that user-friendly. I also know tons of other people struggle with managing their emails. Either they have thousands of unread emails or they’re at inbox 0 and I’m guessing they’d like to set up automation to avoid having to maintain that inbox 0 status every day.

    1. 1

      I recently started using more features of Gmail, more specifically labels and filters to auto-label the incoming emails. I'm really happy with how much cleaner my inbox looks with just a few changes, now all my newsletters are in one folder, all the support emails are in another folder and so on. Although this works pretty well it still has a lot of limitations (eg. when you open a folder/label it shows all emails in recevied order instead of the unread ones first). I was looking for some better ways to manage my inbox, but didn't find too many solutions that were both simple enough and that actually improved the experience.

      1. 1

        Email clients (Thunderbird, Outlook) are solving all this easily.

        1. 1

          Just checked Thunderbird out and agree with @XCS that it looks outdated and bloated. It might be a great solution for people who need to manage 20 inboxes but isn’t something the average Gmail user would want to commit to.

          A more suitable competitor to what I’m building is something like SaneBox. That’s more a tool I can see any Gmail user using.

          Manual and smart Tagging and Folders are the most obvious first areas of focus but I also want to focus on all the use cases for why you would need to go into your mail in the first place and make that more seamless. I.e. confirm email address emails, activation code emails, password reset emails, tracking codes, event/flight tickets, etc.

          So not just organizing your emails, but also fetching the details in them when and where you need them.

          Would love feedback if other tools are already doing this or if there are things you hate about managing your emails that you wish were solved.

          Appreciate all your feedback!

        2. 1

          How exactly do them solve those problems? What extra features do they have Gmail is missing? I see that Thunderbird is really bloated, has Task lists and Calendars, I just want a really focused email app where I can easily organize my emails.

          I tried Thunderbird for about 1 year and it was really slow/buggy, interface from the 90s and a lot of other issues. And that was just trying to use the basic email functionality, no fancy features.

          1. 1

            You can easily make it fancy or basic as much as you want, disable all unnecessary features and use email only, customization is great if you actually enter into settings. You can change default theme to neutral light or dark theme, in addons.
            You can have much more email accounts in the same interface, organized separately in their folders. You can sort emails by date, read/unread, starred, with attachments, etc. Web interface of Gmail I found at least 2 times slower than thunderbird. I use about 20 different emails for different websites and people in the life and business, and nothing is slowing down, ever.
            Interface is absolutely intuitive, things and buttons are exactly where people would expect to be. Mozilla (Firefox browser creators) is behind the project, and really deserve a second look.

            1. 1

              My use case is mostly for using a single email address, and "sort emails by date, read/unread, starred, with attachments, etc." is also easily possible in Gmail, their search functionality is the best on the market I think (if Google does one thing well, that is search).

              The issues I had with Thunderbird: occupying hundreds of GBs on my HDD, having lots of syncing issues, automatically downloading unsafe files to my computer, crashes, just to name a few. Probably all of those can be fixed/configured, but I don't want to spend the time to fix something that I get out of the box with other tools.

              My current problem with Gmail now is that it's very hard to add shorcuts for the things you do often. Maybe some Gmail extensions do this, I have to search more I guess.

  52. 1
    1. I am making a simple drag and drop no-code bot builder.

    2. When someone became my customer even before me launching it! Just posted it here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/got-my-first-customer-even-before-launch-c736c49963

  53. 1

    I'm working on a personal fitness tracking app. (I know, I know)
    https://www.justfitness.io

    Best evidence are from the complaints I read and hear about other fitness apps.
    Fitness tracking is a huge market and I'm not looking to get rich by taking it over. I just want a very small slice to not have to have an employer.

    I started building it because I didn't like the only other fitness app that synced between the web browser and phone. The UI felt outdated and it was a pain to get started. I figured, since I'm not special, there has to be other people with these pain points. I became my best customer and got to work.

  54. 1
    1. Im making a newsletter that aggregates the most mentioned stocks on r/wallstreetbets and 4chan. www.topstonks.com

    2. We've had a handful of premium signups but it feels like we've plateaued somewhat. A little worried tbh.

  55. 1

    I’m currently working on a task management/collaboration tool. I know people want it because there’s definitely a huge market for tools that make team collaboration easier

  56. 1

    I think "sometimes our guesses are wrong" is the understatement of the year.

  57. 1

    1- Making Motiveex (motiveex.com) Daily dose of motivation, in bite-size.
    2. This is what people need during these days, Get some extra motivation to overcome the pandemic situation

  58. 1

    I really want to build a useful tool that people will sign up for and pay a monthly fee for to use. The problem is, I can't think of any ideas since there are already so many tools for growing a business. Any tips on coming up with ideas?

    1. 2

      See my comment.
      I built my app because it solved my problem. I was frustrated using a fitness app that required too many taps to add a program. (324 I counted) I wondered if there was an app that allowed me to create a program in a desktop browser and have it sync to my phone. I found 3 and didn't like the UX. So I learned everything I needed to to create my own. The reason being that I am not special and there are 8 billion people on the planet. There has to other people who feel the way I do about the current market offering. I've set a modest goal of 3K MRR in 3 years. Slow and steady.

      TLDR : Solve your own problems. Be your best customer.

      1. 1

        TLDR : Solve your own problems. Be your best customer.

        Unfortunately ,it's not enough to sell the product.

        You not only have to find people having the same problem, but also willing to pay you!

        1. 2

          Yea,
          Marketing: Look at me!
          Sales: Give me money!

          That's the game.

          EDIT: I just found this article that might be worth the read
          https://blog.asmartbear.com/your-idea-sucks-now-go-do-it-anyway.html

          1. 2

            Marketing: Look at me!
            Sales: Give me money!

            Hmmm... I'm not sure if this approach is right... I would say marketing is not "look at me" but "see how I can help you with your problem" and even if sales is "give me money" you still need to make them give you their money. The resume is if they don't have a problem or you can't solve it well you will fail.

            1. 1

              Not every product solves a problem. Most just feed the ego. (IMO. not that it's bad) Take TacticalBabyGear for example. Their tagline is

              Your diaper bag isn't your child's accessory - it's YOURS.

              A regular book bag would certainly do the job. But the people who would buy this product have the desire attach the image of the military and what ever else in conjured up in their mind to their role as a parent. "I'm an adult who gets things done" There are a few things about masculinity in there but I wont go down that rabbit hole.

              If the desire is strong enough, they'll fork up the cash. The buyer then gets a conversation piece for people to talk about them.

              Marketing: "WITNESSME !! I EXIST" lol
              When you're in the laundry aisle of a store and faced with 30-50 choices of detergent, you'll go with what feels the most familiar. This is because of the millions of dollars the laundry brand spent to get your eyes on their brand.

              You still need to make them give you their money.

              I subscribe to the notion that you cannot make someone buy something they don't already want. Desire cannot be negotiated. I think think it was covered by one of the guests on the podcast.

              Marketers know this and it is the reason why the features section of your landing page are titled with benefits rather than verbs. The customer's mind is already made up on what they want. Your job is be the wind the pushes them further the the direction they're already walking. Blow the wrong way and they'll fight against you. No sale.

              1. 1

                Well, it looks like there is an ambiguity in terminology. When I say "a problem" I don't mean something that needs to be fixed. It may be some unmet need or want.

                Because there is no product in the world that wouldn't solve a problem - or wouldn't meet a need or want, that's it.

                I just wanted to emphasize that it's a good sign if you create a product that solves your problem - but it doesn't necessarily solve other's problem or meets somebody else's need. The reason why you really have your unmet problem may be different from theirs, therefore, existence of their problem may be undecided. You said, "you don't like their UX" and it's definitely a problem for you but what if others don't care? I just wanted to encourage you to figure out exactly if your product meets their needs.

                1. 1

                  lol I gave you an entire essay over a misunderstanding.

                  You bet!!

                  About a month ago, I was sitting in a class and one of the guys started to talk about working out which led to his frustrations about the fitness apps that were out there. He mentioned one of the three aforementioned bad UX sites and expressed the exact pain points I had with it. It was unreal. His laptop was already out so I had him go to my page. He made an account I kept my mouth shut and watched. After about 3 mins of messing around he said "Yea this app is already 10 times better than the other app. All we talk about at work is how sh**y that other app is ".

                  That was my validation moment.

                  The other app boasts about having millions of users as social proof on their landing page. But their UX heavily dated, they do not have an export feature, and their alexa score has been in the decline for years. Their users are trapped.

                  The fitness tracking market is huge and I believe that there's room for everyone who wants a slice. In Jason Cohen's lecture - Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business, he talks about choosing a large market enter so that you'll have a greater chance at success when trying something different. The big players cannot address everyone's needs.

                  The thing about others not caring is that I'm not special and unique. My passions and complaints aren't new. Which ties back to my first comment. I'm not in it to get rich. I'm building (I've built) a tool for myself. It adds value to my life. I'm simply charging others for my solution.

                  I think its best to solve your own problems because that is what is going to allow you to put in another 8 hours of work after the duty day ends. It's anecdotal but It's what I did everyday for a year and it's what got me to this point.

                  I hope this doesn't sound like a lecture. I'm just trying to address this.

                  The problem is, I can't think of any ideas since there are already so many tools for growing a business.

                  Your ideas don't have to be novel. There's a new computer repair shop opening everyday. You can literally pick anything in a large enough market and hit it with a "plus 1".

                  Making it personal should leave you with a great sense of satisfaction even if the business aspect fails.

                  You win either way.

                  I can't find the original text but the founder of @cronometer mentioned at some point that his app started as a personal project that gained traction. It's the same scenario I've described above.

                  I really hope you find something to pour your all into.

                  Thanks for reading my Ted Talk lol

                  1. 1

                    Got your point! It turned out you kinda did a validation, so I wish you good luck! Will also follow your progress :)

  59. 1
    1. I want to build a place for people to post (business) ideas in a structured way, keep them private, share with select friends or post them publicly for validation. Users will also be able to give their ideas away if they abandoned them.
    2. I have no proof that people want this, other than the fact that people should know if their idea is good or not. I tried posting on Ideas and Validation but hadn't had much feedback :(
  60. 1
    1. I would try to get rid of social anxiety with gamification. By building a video platform/game where you can start talking with people 1 on 1, and can progress to larger groups as you get more comfortable. Further progress could be to hold presentations, where you would be rewarded for both holding the presentation, listening in, and asking questions to the presenter.
    2. A lot of people are uncomfortable with small talk, contributing in a group setting, and holding presentations. This is an idea so I haven't made any real market research.
  61. 1

    I work on an app called Contacts Journal CRM (www.contactsjournal.com) - available on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Contacts Journal is an intuitive and easy-to-use CRM system, packed with power features that enable it to function just as easily as a Business and Personal CRM.

    The best evidence that people want it: the reviews, ratings and feedback is amazing. I get a lot of emails regularly saying how this app changed their lives and their business. Some people say this app is only reason they're sticking with an iPhone. People also appreciate that it's more affordable than any other CRM system out there. It ideal for small (or independent) salespeople, or people who manage portfolios or clients, and even people who open new businesses. I would think it's also ideal for "Personal CRM" but that category hasn't really caught on.

    The big challenge is that not enough people know about it, or I'm not reaching the right kind of people. I haven't found a good cost-efficient channel to put it in front of the right audience. There is organic traffic through App Store search, but otherwise, things like Google Ads and Apple Search ads just don't seem to have a good ROI (and I'm self-funded, so can't get aggressive with advertising). Apple used to give the app a lot of publicity in the past, when it was featured in many different app collections on the App Store ("Apps for Networking", "Apps your Small Business" etc), but that changed a couple of years ago with the iOS11 overhaul to the App Store, and now it's only featured in a couple of places.

    Would love to hear some feedback.

  62. 1

    1- A tool to query files straight from cloud storage buckets (Backblaze B2, Wasabi, AWS S3)
    2- Only a hunch and a few commentaries here and there, nothing really solid :(

  63. 1
    1. I want to make a service on where users can create redirecting links which detect bot traffic. Sort of a "traffic sanitizer," I guess you could call it? It would be like those link shortening services (bitly, etc) except it evaluates if you are a bot or not before redirecting you.
    2. My best evidence that people would actually want it is that click fraud and bot traffic is rampant on the web and I'm sure companies could benefit from sanitizing their traffic to reduce click fraud and decrease spending.
    1. 2

      How you plan to determine who/what is the bot or not? Just about every firewall or anti-fraud service is doing more or less successful separation and segmentation of traffic by user-agent, IP address or IP range from the "bad neighborhood", blacklisted servers proven to host malicious apps, phishing pages or C&C panels, but still those efforts are obsolete very fast.
      Even tracking mouse movements, clicks, time on page and other parameters doesn't help to determine if visitor or bot is crawling, because even for that automated tools exist - randomly changing hundreds of user-agents, IP addresses (through proxies), clicking randomly on page elements, visiting more pages in the same session, basically virtually impossible to distinct real user from the bot.

      1. 1

        Good point, Dotz. I planned on doing pretty much what everyone else is already doing (user-agent analysis, IP logging, etc.) and potentially tracking mouse movement and feeding it into a machine learning detection system... but I now realize Google already does this with reCaptcha. I think I'm going to have to rethink my idea, and potentially leave bot detection to the pros, I don't want to reinvent the wheel. =)

  64. 1
    1. Writing a book on Node.js - https://gumroad.com/l/javascript/launch
    2. Haven't really launched it anywhere just posting here and there and watching the traffic / sales =) I'm still writing it so the people that have bought it so far have given me motivation and encouragement to keep going.

    Just wanted to write a book to be honest. Not going to lie, I want to have it appear on iBooks and/or Amazon just to say to myself that I did it.

    Been wanting to do it for a while in the back of my head but couldn't decide on an idea. Now had an idea and I am implementing the idea. Plus by self-publishing I'm learning a bit about another industry. The project didn't come out of thin air, basically transformed one of my side projects into a book.

    Considering also turning the book into a video course ... but that is a maybe. I will circle back when book is finished and launched.

    1. 1

      Nice! I like the idea of selling a book before you're done writing it. I do feel lucky that I've never had the urge to write a book, though. Seems incredibly challenging.

      1. 1

        Thanks Courtland =)

  65. 1
    1. I'm building Letterbase, a simple, thoughtful, privacy-friendly customer support tool.

    2. Customer support tools like Intercom, Crisp, and Tawk are becoming very popular. There's also a rise of privacy-friendly tools like Simple Analytics and Fathom. I'm aiming to target a niche of smaller companies + indie makers by having cheaper pricing (people always complain about Intercom's price), an easier to use interface (these tools tend to be notoriously hard to use), and being more privacy-friendly (as opposed to tools like Crisp that excessively track what end users do on your website).

    1. 1

      i'm liking the idea and there's always room for single-serve apps that serve a problem really, really well!

  66. 1

    I’m building an Instagram tool (https://targetaudience.app) to help you find the right target audience. I’m an indie dev myself and I decided that I’d love to have indie hackers as a target audience so I’m still validating if indie hackers even want an Instagram account to build an audience and what their biggest challenge is that comes with it.

    1. 1

      how have you validated this before IH?

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        I haven’t. That’s why I’m here on indie hackers haha.

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          no worries! glad you're here!

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    1. Inventory/maintenance app used for managing your own farm (not meant to be commercial). Includes info for what's best to grow at that period of time and location, guidance on how to do so, animal tracking (for those that want to get into that), etc.
    2. None, except that I'm building it for myself.
    1. 1

      very cool! my friend and colleague is doing this right now: https://twitter.com/walberty/status/1247673317886066688

      !!! i'll let him know to follow you!

  68. 1

    1-. I am working on https://www.colorsandfonts.com.

    • I am building the color and typography tools.
    • I am adding more value with resources and interesting post from the newsletter
      ( is coming with the redesign relaxed-dijkstra-1e8c58.netlify.com) on the landing page.

    The site is free to use and will always be.
    Soon as I am done with the redesign I will create illustrations and sell them on the site and newsletter, I am creating an audience then I will offer the real product.

    2-. A part of the hundreds of daily users and 750 subscribers, this comment from a user was very nice to get.

    Also the fact that I had been offered three job positions after it went viral on reddit.( 7.6k users that day on first page)

    1. 2

      very cool! how will you plan on monetizing? (or is that even an idea?)

      1. 1

        Thanks Jhon, yes it is an idea. I had Adsense, carbon ads, codefund... ads on the site. They make the site a bit ugly, so I decided to make my own ones with affiliate links for the website, they look like this and they are coming on the new design.

        In another side, the newsletter can be sponsored

        That's all at the moment.

        1. 1

          cool! have you had any bites on the newsletter?

          1. 1

            Yes, on the 9th I am having my first sponsor on the newsletter if everything goes as talked.

            Then I had a couple of them coming from letterwell.

            Here is a template if younwant to see it

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              you're on your way! so excited for you!

              you should update your $$$:

              1. 2

                Soon as I see the $$$ 😅
                I really hope so. Been working a year on the project...by now.

                Thank you.

    2. 2

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

      1. 1

        nice! I am glad you like it Patrick!

  69. 1

    I am working on making QualityQuicker which is a website that you can buy HTML themes and templates which will help you produce quality websites quicker.

    I think people would want my product because it will save them countless hours of designing and developing websites and in the end, it will look amazing.

    1. 1

      Hi @Bra@BraydenTW, what's the difference between your website and the other marketplaces like Themforest?

      1. 2

        Mine is different because not only does it sell themes, it will give you tips and other things to help you create a good website. In other words, I'm not just selling themes.

        1. 1

          I wish you success, you can make money from selling templates, it's the same as selling courses and books, it works.

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

      1. 2

        My themes are much better than others out there because they are very easy to customize, cheap, and are very well documented. I will spend lots of time creating the best themes and giving great advice for everyone.

      2. 1

        There are a ton of theme sites already out there, and a lot of them for free.

        People purchase premium templates for couple reasons:

        • quality of code.
        • support.
        • updates.
        1. 2

          This comment was deleted a year ago.

  70. 1
    1. At Summit (https://summit.work), we're building status updates without interruption.

    Users can share status updates in Slack or Teams without interrupting deep work. This keeps your team in sync and helps make other meeting time as effective as possible.

    1. Our evidence is people signing up for free trials! We built this because it's something we want, and our peers want it as well. Now it's time to jump in and see if it works.
    1. 1

      Interesting! How do you avoid interruptions while also nudging people to actually read the updates?

      1. 1

        A bet we're making is that users will read the updates asynchronously when needed & convenient, and this is a preferable way to stay broadly up-to-date.

        1. 1

          This comment was deleted a year ago.

      2. 2

        This comment was deleted a year ago.

        1. 2

          10 days in, that's how we're envisioning it.

          Talking to your teammates in person (or on Zoom) is never going away, but not everything needs to happen synchronously. Status updates are a good example.

  71. 0

    We ask for a review from our new users and get feedback such as the one below. It sounds like we're on the right path.

    ==========================================================================

    Hi Gercek,

    Thank you for your email and hopefully you're keeping well.

    Just wrote my 5 star review and Thank you for the great work. We look forward to upgrading to a paid version soon.

    Please keep safe,

    Kind Regards

    --

    David

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    This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

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    This comment was deleted a year ago.

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      How did you get these signups?

      1. 1

        This comment was deleted a year ago.

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    This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

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    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

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    This comment was deleted a year ago.

    1. 2

      That's a great way to validate! I've had some podcast guests who did something similar and built a product that filled a gap left by a disappearing competitor:

  81. 1

    This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

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    This comment was deleted a year ago.

    1. 1

      i am so curious about this and i want to follow the progress!

    2. 1

      Interesting idea! Is there a reason for targeting software developers? Have you considered other niches, such as people starting businesses? I ask because starting a business can be a more lonely endeavor and there might be a bigger need there. Software developers who work for a company might already have mental health resources available to them (I did at my last company) and may be less willing to pay.

      1. 1

        This comment was deleted a year ago.

        1. 2

          Nice! That sounds super impactful. We definitely need to destigmatize mental health more.

          Best of luck to you :)

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