How to Measure progress as a solo founder ?

That is a really important question!

To measure progress you have to set goals. I know this sounds smartass, but this is the whole truth.

You need to start to set goals. To stay motivated these goals have to be minimal.

You can start a to-do list. Or start a kanban board. It doesn't really matter what you do, but the important thing is that your goals are not only in your mind, but written down, on paper or digital... it really doesn't matter. Just start to write it down.

And off course you can measure building a feature. Just make your features as small as possible. If your feature is to set up a website, this will take days after a 40-hour work week, but if you have goals like: "navigation", "header", "button" you can measure features easily

Most likely you want this side-project to take off so you can have some financial independence.

With that in mind.. Measure revenue.
If you don't have a product that produces revenue right now: measure how many users you have that could in theory pay.
If you don't have any users: measure how far you are off from having a MVP that users can use (in estimated days, core features developed etc)
If you don't know what you're building yet, and you are still figuring out the idea: measure how many prospective users you've talked to.
etc.

Start from your main goal and work your way back. Don't measure irrelevant vanity metrics like lines of code produced or features developed if they don't directly relate to the 1 single thing that is your main goal. Revenue.

Carefully take and keep screenshots as you build your product, it will remind you how far you went down the solo founder road once you see them again in a few months 😁

Sometime measuring your "code" related progress in terms of the amount of code written or features implemented might not be the best idea as sometime you deprecate features as soon as you built them after receiving some feedback from users or see that the features are not used at all.

IMHO you need to think strategically and take a hard look at why you are doing side projects before jumping into feeling like a failure.

Why are you interested in side projects? Do you want to own an independent business? Are you looking to pick up technical, or other, skills that will help you ladder up within your existing organization? Something else? (None of these are wrong answers btw).

This may not be a popular opinion on a site like this, but you need to think critically about the best way to attack side projects based on your own life timing as well. For some people that might be nights and weekends. For others that might mean saving up a 12-18 month runway. Or you could work 10 years at a big co to FIRE, then pursue other projects. You could also take on consulting work or take a part-time job to free up time for your side project.

The point is, I think it's worth thinking back to front rather than getting stuck in the weeds. Once you have a clear strategic vision you can engineer your life to not feel like a treadmill of goals that you keep failing at.

Goals come after strategic thinking, not before.

Hey Tanvir. I've struggled with this as well. The best way I've found to reset my brain after an 8 hour work day is a simple 30 minutes of meditation. Sit and do absolutely nothing for 30 minutes. It's okay if your mind wanders and you think about anything, but the key is that you are sitting and not doing any activity. After this, your mind will reset.

For tracking progress, join us on the Indie Hackers Daily Stand-Up forum. Making progress is simple - as long as you wrote at least one line of code that day, drew one wire-frame, filled out one business form, or wrote one response to a customer, you made progress.

Some days you will only get through one line, other days you will get through hundreds of lines of code or many business forms, or many customer responses. Any amount is okay as long as you do at least one line of code, one wire-frame, one legal business form, or one customer response per day.

The important thing is that you must maintain or increase momentum. This is only possible as long as you do one task per day, no matter how simple or basic the task.

Final thought - DO NOT TRACK TIME SPENT ON YOUR PROJECT. Time can be wasted, so it is not a good metric to track. Instead, focus on the actionable metrics that I previously mentioned.

Good luck!

I wrote every task for my project into 3 tiny hand-size notepads . 1 for marketing, functions, and Work in Progress (To do’s).
I them tore them out of the notepad and stuck tiny pieces of tape to each on of the To Dos. I then stuck them up all on my wall and took a picture of them all. As i completed them I got to crush them up in a ball and make a shot into my rubbish bin. There were many. Now about 10 left. And it felt good.

For starters, MRR.