How to turn online indie hacker friends into real friends

Be careful of advice from Twitter Saas celebs. They claim to be living a dream life. Yet when you look at it, their lives revolve around money and status and they don’t actually create relationships that matter.

Loneliness is a massive problem for many developers who spend long days staring at their screens. Online social networking can give the illusion of connection but for many, it’s empty and soulless. There are plenty of wolves in sheep’s clothing who are just transactional.

How do you cut through the crap?

Everything I’ve built online comes down to my ability to create meaningful relationships. I could make more money in the short term by deceiving people but what kind of life is that? While others run on the same treadmill, I am introduced to new and exciting people each week from those who trust me.

My online friends have become true friends even when we aren’t collaborating.

Here are my secrets:

Steer the conversation off track

If you aren’t paying me by the hour, I don’t care what the subject matter we’re meant to talk about it is, I will take you off-topic.

Once your projects have had a bit of success, people will want to ask you the same old questions over and over again. It gets boring. Quick.

I don’t find it fun being a replacement for Google. I want to find out about the person beyond their job or their brand. What makes them laugh? What would they be doing if money wasn’t an object? What are their dreams? What sports do they follow?

Some of the best collab projects have come from two people ranting about a problem they both have and then realizing they can do something about it.

If you treat people like drones then of course you won’t build a human connection.

Show vulnerability

Desperation to impress isn’t a good look and often makes you come across as narcissistic. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to make friends with narcissists. Stop trying so hard to dazzle everyone and be open with them instead.

The truth is you can sum up your credibility in one or two lines. If I’m demonstrating my podcast chops to someone it’s:

“I’ve interviewed over 100 people including Ev Williams (Co-Founder of Twitter) and Marc Randolph (Co-Founder of Netflix).”

If this doesn’t make someone’s head turn then telling them a dozen other reasons I’m amazing won’t help. It’ll just make them think I’m full of myself. If they ask more questions then I’ll elaborate but I let them ask rather than shove it down their throat.

The more interesting part to talk about is the stress I’ve been through and my imposter syndrome because it’s much more relatable. What does every indie hacker/entrepreneur have in common? They’ve burnt out at some point or they are on the verge.

Unless you’re creating a cult, being perfect is a turn-off. Being human is what matters.

Don’t count the minutes

Most intro calls I have overrun. The fact neither of us is watching the clock is a great sign of friendship potential.

The internet is obsessed with being efficient but the magic happens in spontaneous moments. One call last week was meant to be 15 minutes and ended up being two hours. The following week we met in person for coffee and we’re meeting again this week. It started with business chat but we’ve talked about everything from dating to travel to family.

I will sacrifice some deep work to allow these sparks to ignite. It’s good to have boundaries and protect your time but don’t be so aggressive about it that you end up killing a potential bond with someone.

Follow up when you don’t want something

I’d estimate I have at least a couple of hundred people who only ever message me when they want something but try to do it in an uber-friendly way. They aren’t fooling anyone.

As I was writing this, someone went to my LinkedIn profile and saw I had a few updates. They slid into my DMs with a generic “Congrats on your new position”. I liked their comment knowing it was just an excuse to talk to me. Five minutes later, they sent another message starting with “Btw, I was hoping you could help me with…”.

Don’t be the person who everyone knows is all about themselves.

It’s as simple as talking to people when you don’t want anything. Maybe you’re both interested in the same topics and something newsworthy happened. Ask them if they saw it and what they think. If you see a meme you think they’ll find funny, send it. If you talked to someone who you think they’d vibe with, offer to make the introduction.

Spoilers: the only way to convince someone you aren’t transactional, is to actually not be transactional!

Always listen to advice

The dark side of mixing business and friendship is when you get advice you disagree with or feel patronized by. When someone considers you a friend, they might be more direct with negative feedback than you’re ready to listen to.

You’ve got to remember, they’re trying to help and you should be grateful for this. Listen and make sure they know you are listening. Ask questions for them to dive deeper into something if you don’t understand it. Respect their opinion and if you like something they say then try it out.

You can decide your arguments are stronger than theirs and discard their advice. Yet, if you can’t persuade someone who likes you that you have a good strategy, how can you expect to do it to a stranger?

Call a spade a spade

Friends =/= customers.

The quickest way to tank a growing online friendship is to be too demanding.

You know the type.

They start as the ones who expect you to like and comment on everything you do. This evolves to expecting you to promote their latest idea every week.

This can be harmless but there are two times when it crosses the line. First is when they try to push you into buying their products. Second is where they ask for your support but refuse to return it even when it’s low-effort for them.

Someone I considered a friend, sent me a sales voice note where they said if I signed up for their event by tomorrow then I’d get 50% off. I didn’t reply. Never use pressure sales techniques on friends if you want to keep your relationship.

You know you’re doing relationship building right then you’ll find some of your online friends will offer to pay off their own accord.

The best sign though is if people like talking to you even if they aren’t paying attention to what projects you’re working on.

Now you have a true friend.