How do you pace through struggles?
So after spending weeks and maybe months thinking about your baby business idea. You've worked on the tech stack, the launch, the marketing, and all that jazz.
So one day you wake up and find a competitor in the open. Maybe not exactly doing whatever you're doing, but similar. Maybe they already have the product, or maybe they don't, maybe their site is better looking, maybe they exist for a longer timespan and you've missed them before.
Clearly, this could be a market validation. But how do you handle that? How do you avoid thinking that your work is pointless? Do you continue working on your idea? How do you handle not falling into depression and feeling of the lost time? Basically, how do you find the will to persevere?
In general, I'm pretty stubborn in many ways, but things like that are worrying. I'm probably in a good company, but still, this is freaking hard.
Thanks!
Saying I don't worry would be a lie. Saying that I'm worried would be an understatement...
However, This does not mean I'm not trying to figure out solutions to all the challenges lying up ahead and will try every single thing that would make sense in our situation at the right timing. There will be some moment of sorrow and joyful moments, it is a freaking roller-coaster!
Being a maker is mostly a journey on your own, having friends or family that can help you in some ways is very valuable and could be considered as unfair advantages. But by the end of the day, this is YOUR baby and you're worried, I'm worried, we're all worried.
Most of your friends, acquaintances, family members are employees and can not understand what you are living through, the challenges you are facing, and it is quite normal.
Reading indie hackers helps a lot, there is a mountain of valuable informations here (If you know where to look), also discussing with like-minded people riding the same coaster as you are is quite soothing.
I wonder why there is no official IH discord server, Slack is a great tool but it does not bring on the table the same things as voice discussions, hoping on a vocal channel and join an ongoing discussion or just chill while working. it's is not for everyone but I'm pretty sure people used to it would find this great.
Doesn't this happen all the time? Unless you figure out cold fusion I believe there is usually something similar. Facebook wasn't the first social network, Google wasn't the first search engine and the list goes on.
I run a dev shop, and there are many others doing the same. We are still profitable because the market is large enough for everyone. I don't have any successful SaaS products yet, but I try to find a niche and provide a better service for those customers.
Well, sure. Like, why are there so many email services, and even paid ones?
Still, it does bother me for some reason, and takes the wind out the sail a bit. I even know better than to worry about this stuff, but it still happens nevertheless.
It is very rare for any business to have 100% market share.
A nice property of an indie business is that you only need to please a small % of the market to make the business worth pursuing. Spend your time obsessing over that.
Of course, this is assuming the market you are addressing is big enough for multiple players to make money. Bonus points if the market is growing. That is key.
Totally agreed. I hope that my "thing" is potentially money-making, big, and is big enough for a few players to share.
It's a roller coaster. I've had my product idea for about 10 years now and on the surface, it might seem like it's already been done and there are a million competitors. Yet! No one has quite nailed what I want yet, and that gives me hope. So I'm finally making a concerted effort at making it real ... and just today I saw a product that deflated me because it did just one thing my app is trying to do, but way better and more polished.
I think there's always room for a product that scratches a specific itch that isn't exactly serviced by any of the existing offerings. Some podcasts interviews by David Heinemeier Hansson (aka: dhh) have inspired me to keep going. There's always room for a product that takes a specific approach to a real problem and charges a reasonable amount.
Yes! Thanks, that's the approach I'm thinking about. There a lots of products on the market, and they even can compete head to head on the same thing. So, considering I'm trying to address a pretty big field, I do hope there's enough playground for multiple players.
Also, just had an idea to improve my landing page, so it's not all black and dark and hopeless.
I have the same issues. Most of the time this has happened during the idea phase. I find one, two, a bunch of other companies doing the same thing. Sometimes I give up, sometimes I keep going. Neither has been successful so far. I don't have anything useful to say, other than I get what you're feeling.
Ha, thanks Brent. I knew I'm not the only one.