How do indie hackers deal with their business when on holiday?
I'm just coming to the end of a 10 day break, and I've barely had time to work on Squeaky. I'm fine with switching off, but it's also just not something you can do for too long when you're trying to grow a business as a small team - sales opportunities get missed, customer support tickets are answered slower, the product doesn't get updated for a few weeks etc.
Do indie hackers just not take time off? How do you make time-off 'work' if so? How do you not feel guilty?
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I take 5-7 days off for vacation, sometimes more, every 2 months or so.
Mostly road trips.
I did it monthly in 2021, in fact, but even travelling hits diminishing returns pretty soon lol.
I'm at 25/50 US states so far.
So yes, some indie hackers do take time off to relax.
I get that people must take time off, I've just noticed that it's not been ideal for the business and I'm curious to know how people make that work as indie hackers/small teams :)
I've rephrased the post title to clarify!
Solo founder here.
First, my customer support volume is really low (I average 3-5 emails every 24 hours, sometimes 0 even, and almost all of them non-urgent).
That gives me the confidence to take days off at a time, knowing that, even if I couldn't attend to my customers right away, they'll be all right.
Second, I'm not a big nature guy, so whenever I go on vacation, I have full access to internet, so I either answer emails on the go or I work on my laptop at the end of the day in the hotel.
It's remarkably similar to working at home normally, except that I don't do any deep work, just do on-call work (99% of the time answering emails) as and when needed.
Sometimes I do push out bug fixes on the road too, if I deem it a critical bug that needs to be fixed ASAP, but I try to avoid big pushes to production right before I leave.
Hope this answers your question!
Thanks Jay!
I am on Slack but only respond if it's super urgent. Otherwise, I prioritise rest and relaxation.
Took me A WHILE to get to my new mindset.
No, personally I do not.
You’ll burn out if you don’t! Your mental health trumps everything. If you don’t take time off you’ll be half as productive and will dearly suffer from a lack of clear sky thinking
Yeah, I think people are missing the point of the question I've asked. I already understand the value of time off (I'm literally on the tail end of a holiday), I've just really noticed that it's not been ideal for the business and I'm curious to know how people make that work as indie hackers/small teams :)
I've rephrased the post title to clarify!