Have you used the business model canvas?
When starting your indie hacker journey, how much did you plan your business? Have you used tools such as the business model canvas, or the lean canvas? Any other tools to help layout a strategy and organize your thoughts?
I participated on a couple of workshops focused around the canvases (value proposition, experiments, etc.) and, to be honest, I have mixed feelings about them. They are useful to force you to start thinking, but I feel they fall short with multi-dimensional problems, such as the ones most businesses face. So, I am eager to hear what you have done!
I think the business model canvas is something that is good at a very early stage to see whether you've got something there or not. It's also something other entrepreneurs are used to looking at and can quickly get an understanding of what you're trying to accomplish and how you'll go about it versus reading a long narrative.
It's a bit overkill at the indie stage, but the EOS / Traction system is pretty good for making sure you are getting done what needs to get done and making progress towards your goals.
I think part of my question was to try to understand whether indie hackers think about what they do as a business. If they actually evaluate strategies or they just go with the flow
I can tell you when I started my first tech business - there were no where near the resources and planning tools that exist today. Some people have, and do - just go with the flow. If you just go with the flow and make a product, hopefully you are in an area where you're scratching your own itch and know it inside and out and there are more customers just like you. Otherwise, I think the planning and strategy is definitely needed. I'm also a big proponent of calling on some of your prospects before you even make anything - if you can't get over that social/courage barrier it doesn't matter what else you do.
That's exactly what one of my fellow participants of an incubator told me. He started a business decades ago, exited, and now he was re-educating himself with all the new tools, frameworks, and knowledge available. It's not that he didn't know how-to, or that he had failed earlier, it's just that the way of approaching problems, finding solutions, and preparing your mindset has evolved.
I have seen many discussions on IH about validating ideas, but almost none regarding the business plan itself after that initial phase. Which, you know, it is also fine if you like building stuff and find an audience for it even if it's not "a good business" (something I asked earlier but nobody answered).
I remember writing my first business plan. It didn't go down anything like that. I used to think product, and making/creating the business was the hardest part. My goodness no. Getting people to give an F about your business is the hardest part. Marketing, advertising, and sales. If you do not understand your marketing and sales channel you will struggle no matter what. Even with Boast.io we have succeed with a shotgun approach around what the product does (just tweeted this) which is a RARE way to succeed. Laser focus on a niche ideal customer profile is a more efficient and proven way to get customers.
I have tried once. There wasn’t enough space in the boxes to fill in my thoughts.
I ended up just using my Notes app and copying those questions down and answering them there.
Didn’t find the canvas in particular very useful, but perhaps the questions were useful to think about.
Or you needed a bigger canvas ;-) I use the A0 one, and believe me, you can write a short novel on each block