I can't be a solopreneur, failed too many times...
During my 15 years journey as programmer, I started companies with other teammates, with my wife, solo, and with relatives, many failures, couples of successes, the ones I started alone, were completely failures (usually neglected them).
I see a lot of people doing nice projects being alone I thought I could too, just learned my weaknesses the hard way, I'm a bit convinced that I cannot start something without anyone around and is a bit sad.
I don't know if it is normal or not, but I find myself changing directions all the time when I'm building something alone, is like lying myself that the other idea is way better, perhaps just need someone who tells me that I'm wrong, and we should stick with the project, at least until finishing it.
Sometimes I think is a personality trait, like getting bored and wanting to start every week something nicer (maybe that's why I don't last more than 2 years at jobs)
So if you are a bit like me, I could overcome this by doing the following stuff to get more focus and avoid neglecting another project:
-
Invite some friend, sibling, or someone to your project, even if they are there a few hours per week or are not skillful. (helps a lot that you know there is someone else helping a bit, or caring about your project). I invited friends too, they are like 30 mins active every week, but that is enough for me to get some motivation.
-
Talk to your wife or even children, it is enjoyable to explain something to someone, it is more difficult to neglect things if you know someone else also knows that you are building something.
-
Have a clear goal and split them by chunks, so you can see how the progress is going and see the light at the end of the tunnel.
-
Build in public, that helped a lot, since you take more accountability if you know there are other people expecting your product, or checking how are the things going on. You can tweet about your project for instance, by using #buildinpublic you will find a nice community full of devs in the same boat as you.
So far the results are better than any other project I did, 4 months in a row building things for my project, I really think I'm going to finish it soon, unfortunately this project in particular cannot be shipped that fast, but in the future I want to ship way faster things.
Perhaps will be something like an AI partner where you can share and be more accountable, something for people like us, that cannot finish things alone.
I left my my full-time job one month ago with my head on top of my shoulders. Screw the 9 to 5 I said. I gonna be entrepreneur I said.
One month later , I managed to waste an entire month (like literally). All I did was reading Manga, Watching anime and scrolling through Twitter.
I was so pissed at myself, I thought I was worse than trash.
I managed to get out of this situation by having a part time job and by partnering with a programmer (for the project I've had in mind).
Partnering sounds great to me too, sometimes is difficult to be tough with ourselves. Par time job is a great idea, you keep the cash flowing and release a bit of the stress of not receiving any money, I think it's not possible to be an entrepreneur if you cannot pay the bills, you are too overwhelmed.
Well, consistency matters!
Thanks for the reminder !
Sales is 65% of the success. No other person will do that for you. As most will not hang around long enough to put in the hard work. About 90% want success fast, the reality is, it takes years.
Good for you for starting to figure out what works!
As indie hackers, we iterate on the products we build. On customer acquisition strategies. On pricing. I think that approaches to productivity are no exception. Gotta iterate on that as well. It sounds to me like there's a lot left to explore in that area before you justify that you can't be a solopreneur.
You also might be interested in Beeminder. The product is a great way to pre-commit to things and hold yourself accountable, but the blog is also great. Lots of info on the science of productivity.
You are doing something wrong somewhere.
As a professional SEO expert, I have managed 30+ sites so far. While I failed most of my own projects, I've had great results with almost all of my clients. The problem was the lack of continuity in my own projects. This was not a problem for my clients because the projects belonged to them. But there was always a continuity problem in my own projects.
If you believe an idea is important, you shouldn't be upset if it doesn't produce results for a few years.
Many SEO experts now say "I wish I had started 5 years ago". Just like SEO experts 5 years ago.
Continuity is key.
If you're looking for clear goals or tasks, here is something very useful from the Twitter indie community https://twitter.com/dannypostmaa/status/1646368426246680579
It is a set of tasks to complete for any indie (saas/app) project. I think the most important step is setting up proper on-page SEO and getting high-value backlinks on another forum/website.
The traffic then comes naturally with time, after which you work on customer conversion.
I used to have the same problem, tens of ideas in the same time, why not creating a community to help each other keep focus on one project.
love the idea
It's called a "shiny object syndrome" and I used to "suffer" from it when I was trying to build startups in my 20s. By my 30s it has already caused enough pain and wasted years to start actively work on sticking to a single project. 4 years into my software startup I can say that it's tough, but possible. Find your "why" and remind yourself every day for the first half year until it sticks and be clear about what is it that you want to achieve.
didn't know the name, thanks for your words that motivates me to continue trying
Dude, just remember this "Ideas don't matter" it's always the problem you are solving. Once you connect yourself with the problem, hopping from ideas ends as a problem.
Thanks for your words, I appreciate it.
Don't give up, it's too early to leave
Hey thanks for your words, means a lot, I won't give up.
Don't give up
Sounds like you quit too early, and are eager to hop onto another product..
here's one for you.. SEO takes about 3 months to kick in.. another 3-6 months to see traffic from SEO (if your content is good/checks all the seo boxes, key words, user friendly, usability, backlinks etx).. just from an SEO strategy alone, things take time..
Yes, agreed, I quite early, thanks for the response, I will consider all of them and work them out.
Share your experience: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/quitting-too-early-or-not-knowing-when-to-quit-da855de080