Indie hackers/makers that are also parents?
It's something I've been noticing for some time now but most (if not all) of the interesting and/or successful indiehackers/makers I follow don't have kids.
Raising kids while making products on your own (or in tiny teams) requires a different relationship to time/priorities management. Not that time isn't important to everybody else but it's by nature... well... a bit more limited for most people raising kids.
Looking to discover or connect with people that are doing both at the same time (if that's a thing)!
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👋Hey.
Mother to 5 here, aged 3-17. We unschool / home educate them too.
Indie hacker to Ministry of Testing (previously and still own it) and Rosie.land (sidegig).
Use to lead community here at Indie Hackers. Now at Orbit doing community stuff there.
My motto since I had kids: live life one day at a time. If I think too much in the future I get depressed at how hard it is to plan around kids. If I look back at how much I've achieved, I've actually done alright. 💜
Hey @rosiesherry, this is amazing! Delighted to know a bit more of the parent side of your story. I'd say you've done more than alright, raising 5 and having the career you have. Wonder Woman much? :)
Thanks for sharing on Twitter too ✨
What you're doing is HARD. Good for you! Three kids, consulting service, startup service, and building a marketplace. Today I'll be forgoing my 1 hour of VC outreach because I'm helping my eldest daughter paint a bathroom. The struggle for time is real! Keep going, fellow parents!
@kfuller Keith, it's great to meet you! Inspiring to see you're doing so much but yet put the emphasis on time spent with your kids above all else. I've got two, 6 & 9y old, work part-time as a brand consultant and the rest of the 'work' time on Dawn. The remainder of my time is spread across the kids, my couple and myself too.
Hey - I have a 4 and 2 year old, with another one due this month.
I actually think I'm way more productive and focused with kids. I cut out a lot of things that weren't important like TV, and started waking up earlier.
Great point here, and agreed. You wake up, you do this, this and this. Focus becomes a necessity and then just a habit.
Hey @mattcrail, hello! Absolutely agree with you on the productive bits here. I like to say that I cut the crap since I came to be a dad 9 years ago. But even more so since I started bootstrapping 🤯
Father of 2, 2 and 6 months. I manage time and work mostly during odd hours.
I translated that too. I work when the kids are asleep. :D
Well done and hello @sreekanth850!
Hola amigo,
I have 1 8-year-old girl and another baking in the oven. While working a stable freelance gig and creating https://www.funmetric.co/invite-only all at the same time.
Education varies from online school to in-school, to extracurricular activities.
Juggling time is an understatement, but I just say to myself "do right by my family and everything else will work out fine".
Good luck on your journey of parenthood and cherish every moment you can.
@sodux Congrats on the news Greg! And kudos about working a freelance gig while building your own thing. Fairly similar story here as I work part-time for an agency on branding project while building Dawn myself. Got two sons (6 & 9y old) at home as well. Love your motto 👏
@dte That's amazing. Having kids is honestly a life-changing experience I will never trade. It's not for everyone, but seeing this little person look up to you and know you have to teach them about the world is an experience that can never truly be conveyed to others who are not parents.
Can't agree more, would never trade either. In turn, it also made me grow in ways that are hard to explain with only a few words!
Hi, Mom of two here. 7 and 2yr old. Homeschooling them too. Building remoteful.co
@Kechi awesome to meet you and kudos for building Remoteful, it looks like a great idea! Homeschooling since the pandemic or by choice?
By choice. This is my second year homeschooling.
That's amazing, very well done managing it all. Takes purposeful intent and some brilliant time management skills!
Full-time parent checking in here. I have full employment working remotely and also homeschool my kids in the process. My project is OnoSchool, a homeschool planner, an app that helps parents organize their homeschool. I wake at 5am before anyone else and get a couple hours hacking on the site before everyone needs my attention. I work all day and I'm pulled off work to help with some homeschool subjects from time to time. Sometimes I'll work a bit at night but usually I'm too exhausted so I just go to sleep early. Weekends I can usually put in a good amount of time towards it both Saturday and Sunday. Its a lot to juggle but I think waking up before the sun helps a LOT. I'm 2 cups of coffee into my day and charging ahead on the site before responsibility calls.
Amazing story Brian! That is a great idea you're working on and definitely something you have a use case for since you're doing it every day. LMK if you ever need feedback etc!
Hey Damien! Nice to meet you and happy to read other parents around!
Im Ran, father of two (6 and 3).
I've been freelancing in the past 6 years, while building a startup in the kindergartens niche (profitable), Linkush being currently built, and other minor side projects.
It's super challenging, but it forces you to be hyper productive and make every working time count.
Hey Ran, very nice to meet you too! Looks like you've managed to strike a really nice balance there! Feel free to reach out if you need any feedback or just feel like connecting ;)
I’ve launched two very successful, fast growing products into the market...but enough about my girls, I also have a side project that is taking form and I am very proud of.
I think priorities do change with little ones (as it should) but I really think finances and current career commitments are more of a limiting factor/time sink.
Haha, well done @PinkLion, had to read you twice to make sure I got it right! Two successful launches indeed :)
Yeah, money it the one think to sort out first in our case, then make the most of the time we got left to create something of value outside of the family circle!
Theory: Indie Hacker's without kids are the ones that have time to blog/video/tweet about their biz, therefore they are the ones that we follow.
Wish I had time to talk more about what, how, and why we do what we do .
Such a good theory @baird and you're one of the parents I was thinking about from the IH pod. "bulding in public" is a privilege in a way. It takes extra time to write and share about what you're doing in addition to just doing the work. It's like cooking and eating a delicious meal may take 45 minutes. Taking pics at each step and editing and sharing a recipe blog will double or triple that time :)
Pretty good analogy yes! Also depends on the age of your kids I'd say re: time etc... but building a successful product doesn't always require to build it in public. Finding the best balance will be different from people to people taking into account their different situations etc
I mean, @baird, you're one truly successful indie hacker for sure. Would love to learn and read about your journey to this kind of amazing success. But looking at your profile, seems like you got a handful with a little one (and maybe more) and that should take the priority over telling your story.
Managing time does get (a bit) easier as they grow up, in my experience.
Keep up the amazing work mate!
Thanks. Appreciate that. Working on some things to hopefully free up some time! 😉
An involved parent (spend at least 2-3 hours a day with my kid) + very demanding full-time job + indie hacker here. Definitely don't have as much time as I want to do indie hacking. I've been trying to make it work for a while and arrived at a few things:
These are all extremely valid and great points Sergey. Thanks so much for sharing your perspective on the matter! I have arrived at mostly the same conclusions as you. #2 is my favorite out of the bunch. Enjoying the journey, regardless of what it is you do!!!
What's up! Dad of 2 babies(1 and 2 years old).
I work full-time at Forem on the DEV team and I own two businesses, an agency and a micro-saas.
My biggest challenge is time management. I build and work on my businesses after I get off work and write code after the family is in bed. It works great for me, but then again I stay up until ~3 AM and wake up at 8 AM. Plenty of time to spend with the kiddos and wifey, who helps me with marketing on my saas
Hey Casey! Owning an agency + a micro-saas feels like a decent amount of time/commitments. And then you got two little ones. Kudos to you for making this all work! LMK if you ever need any feedback or anything, happy to connect!
Hey Casey,
Do you mind sharing what tools you use to manage your time. Full disclosure, I'm working on a tool for time management and want to get honest feedback from a busy person like you.
Thanks!
Hey Sergey, I don't use any time management tools. I use task management ones, Trello.
Whatcha working on?
Code name: https://time-wallet.app. An idea is to shift todos into calendar with some time intelligence on top. I want to build a tool for people who value their time and want to be in control of what they spend their time on.
Father of two. Will be happy to chat :) Hit me DM on twitter
Awesome and likewise Kostja 👏
Some of the most successful stories on IH pod I've heard so far come from parents. Parents have constraints but also built in motivation to improve their life and free up time, etc.
It's hard to know for sure sometimes, but there are many parents doing this. I actually indicate this in the 'founder' column in my database of IH pod notes:
find founders who have something in common with you. For example those who happen to be parents or who happen to be non-technical.:)And a parent of two toddlers as well (zoom-schooling for the last year). Time is the most precious resource currently, and have to be creative to work around it (wake up early in the AM to work, etc.)
Yes, I think that's what's interesting about parents bootstrapping: we have to be creative in our routines and time management to make it all work. Experimenting with this, I found, is good to find whats sticks and what makes us most productive!
Hi 👋
Father of two kids (1 and 4 years old)
Fulltime IT Consultant at a big corp, trying to start a protfolio of small bets, inspired by @dvassallo , so I can quit my job by the end of 2021.
It's a challange I have to say :)
Hi, I'm Dave, father of two (10 and 8). My wife is a doctor at the hospital, so being indie gives me enough time flexibility to look after the kids in the day-to-day.
Of course this means that I often catch up with work after dinner, but this also helps to update with my co-cofounder who is on the other side of the world.
It's though, but I since I left previous job (consulting) I feel much more happy and I believe relationship with the kids improved too.
Thank you for starting this thread. Totally inspiring. I have 2 young kids (3 and 1) and a full-time job. Trying to build a side hustle on the nights when I don't fall asleep while waiting for the big girl to sleep. So many things I want to do, yet so little time.
Good on you @nelhf, finding the time I realized is something that needs to be more deliberate when we have kids but I'm certain you will find a way!
Hi Damien and great to see so many other parents managing to hustle still. I've got three young kids. And yep - there is zero free time. I've been working on Wide Awake Pip - which is partly inspired by the kids ... but I do feel guilty when working on it as it eats into time I could be spending with them. It's still in the long shot category and potentially just a huge time sink. I'm building it because I enjoy building things... and hopefully one day something will take off!
Hey👏
Father of a 6yo Son.
Working on a couple of side projects.
I think having a kid really forces you to drill down and focus on the things that really matter to you. It has helped me and my wife a lot in prioritizing the things we want to work on.
It can get overwhelming sometimes, of course.
But the overall ride is awesome🤗
Happy to connect.
Hey Ayush, you are totally right about the prioritization part of being a parent. It's no longer a nice to have but a required thing if we want to both enjoy our family and the work we put out!
absolutely!
It makes you laser-focused
Hi Damien!
I personally have 2 boys (2 and 4 years old), but it doesn't prevent me from successfully working on NLPCloud.io.
In my opinion it's definitely a challenge but as far as I'm concerned a strong self-discipline does the trick.
I find it actually very important to keep having a balanced life despite being a founder, and for the moment I've been able to properly take care care of the kids while efficiently working on my startup (at least I think!)
Hey Julien, good to see someone from France as well!
Well done on having found the balance between the two boys and your business!
I can't agree more. Having kids teaches us a lot about discipline and removing the unnecessary noise in our lives. Happy to connect!
Great, thanks! I'm still new here and I really like the spirit, I'll try to share a couple of things I learned like you did above, that's very cool.
Not sure there are so many French people around ;)
Regarding kids, I used to be very frustrated not being able to work as much as I wanted, and I now realize it's possible to get rid of this frustration by having very strict routines.
And actually I also realized that the time I'm not concretely spending working is also often a great occasion to keep medidating about business stuffs and even see the bigger picture.
That's also something I realized more generally as a developper: the actual time I'm spending coding is very short, and most of the work is done doing something else (walking, talking to colleagues, playing with the kids...).
Can't agree more on both the routines and the time spent "not working". These are very valid and valuable points and it's great to see someone who understands that this well!
Feel free to reach out if you need any feedback or just want to connect :)
Hey,
I have one boy and soon a little girl - working full-time as a teacher at day and on Sponsorgap and Remoteworkvisas at night.
That's some very nice balance Tobi, well played! Sponsorgap looks nice, are you working on that alone or with someone else?
Thanks! Working on it alone - feels a bit lonely sometimes
Feel free to reach out anytime it feels lonely 👋
Hey Damien! Been a long time since our SP:Forum days, great to see you here on IH too!
Father to 3¾ y/o and 16 m/o. My wife is also profoundly deaf, which means I have responsibility for every wake-up.
Christ on a bike, sleep? That's all I want more of.
Our product Flow Mobile Surveying (which isn't listed on IH) has had a great first year of trading. My brother Paul and I have bootstrapped to $10,000/mo. We're humbled.
So here's my biggest learnings about the big juggle:
1 - Family time / company culture
When Paul joined me, I was really strict on the type of business I wanted to build. I was very clear that the work-life balance is part of our culture. And I was bored of the engineering lifestyle I'd had prior to this. So here's a rough outline of my wants:
This has had a few lovely outcomes for us:
And for a young family, this is what I need.
2 - Don't sink too much time into engineering
I'm the solo engineer for Flow Mobile Surveying. I spend a maximum of 50% of my time on product development. Frankly, once you've got some features that someone (anyone) will pay for, your real focus should be in keeping them happy and finding more people like them. Don't stray too far from your core features. Yet.
As a team of two, you can really read this as much less than 50% - Paul spends all of his time working on LinkedIn, writing, calling customers, calling competitors (you read that right), planning etc.
3 - Always speak to customers
This is really an extension to #2. What should do you do your time? It kinda doesn't matter, as long as you're speaking to customers. Yup, finances are important, and taxes, roadmaps, partnerships, research etc. But nothing is more important than talking to customers.
If you're in the pre-launch "development phase", this still applies. If you're scared, that's fine. You need to practice. Don't worry if you fluff the first
nconversations, you've got to put the hours in! Listen first, talk second.4 - Do the work
Probably my biggest idol is Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you read one book this year, make it Total Recall. I'm not joking. Sure there's the Lean Startup and a million other business books. Read them later. Total Recall highlights the importance of putting the work in, selling, and making connections. I promise that book will get you fired up.
Ultimately, you might have more time than you realise. in 24 hours you might do:
You have to be a MACHINE to do it. But if you make a product that can be worked on incrementally, have a supportive family, and are lucky to have a reliable business partner, it can be done.
Hey David, life has a funny way to make us feel like it's a small, small world!
Great to see you've done so well with the bootstrapped venture!
Thanks so much for sharing your journey and perspective when it comes to balancing the indie lifestyle with a family on the sides.
The family side I'm used to, having 2 kids age 9 and 6, now I've just gotta combine this well with the newly-embraced indie journey.
Luckily, the product we're working on is the mental health space which sees us put the emphasis on that whether there's a ton to do or not. Mental health comes first always.
Routines are important as you highlighted so well.
Looking forward to chat more with you, as we did in the past :)
Hey! Two kids, aged 3 and 5. I try to spend max 32 hours a week on my product, and so far that has gone pretty well. It’s easier to do this because spending more time often is painful because of having partially recovered from RSI (both my elbows remain weak spots).
Time spent mentally is higher than that 32 hours and I feel that’s the biggest challenge of raising kids and being an indie hacker. It’s difficult to be a 100% there in the moment with my kids when product and marketing ideas also randomly eat up the brain cycles. I’m a bit chaotic by nature so that might be why this is so hard for me, it really takes a lot of conscious effort to not trail off.
I don’t have a lot of advise. Just that they grow up fast and not being there to see it because your developing a product isn’t worth it. When my wife was pregnant of our first child i spoke to multiple people that had so much regret chasing their careers instead of being there for their kids.
In short: You will have less time, that should push you to spend it more carefully (better planning, better idea management), which is a good thing, because that is what you should be doing anyway.
Hey Rik! I like the way you go about it, by limiting the number of hours you spend on your product. Everything can cascade down from this statement and that's awesome!
I agree on the career VS time spent with the kids bit. It's what made me go full-remote at first and then what got me to work on our product as well. The end goal is not what will be left on my resume but what my family experienced together as one. That's the goal! Everything else needs to come after that
Well said :-)
Father of a special kid. Sometimes I feel no matter how much I do, it is not enough. I can only plan my freelancing/consulting work, side-projects get easily side tracked. That is also one reason why I takeup small and quick side-projects.
I feel you! Truth is, discarding things to look after our kids is the way to go. Work should never come in the way of turning our attention to our kids. Unless your servers are on fire but then again, pretty unlikely to happen... work can wait
Yes, I completely agree.
To avoid/minimize server failures problems, I try to make everything serverless.
Hey Damien 👋
Father of two (7.5yo and a 1.5yo) here. Besides my $dayjob, wife and I are working together on a side gig (Will it Fail?), and I'm working on a Hosted Status Page by myself and working pro-bono at Fosshost.
Yes, we're kind of in significant disadvantage compared to people without kids/families. They simply can do whatever/whenever they want 🤷♂️
I usually work on my project(s) after wife and kids fall asleep (>11PM until 2AM or later) and during the weekends.
Yes, it's slow, but that's the only way to actually do anything. 🤷♂️
But, I love it whatsoever. My goal is to leave 9-5 and go full indie hacker 🕺 I believe I'll achieve that eventually. I got my wife's support, which is an amazing thing to have in this "setup" 🔥❤️
Just don't give up
Hey Nikola! Truly great to read your story here. It is more complex in terms of time, yes, but I also tend to believe that we've been through things others haven't. This can sometimes be an advantage?! Something I'm pondering over often :)
Definitely an amazing experience, having kids + working from home (since pandemic started) + all the rest 🧙♂️
Hi, Proud father of two daughters, 6 and 2 year old. Enjoying the journey of parenthood. Design a beautiful UI Design for Geeks Bootstrap UI Kit. 💜
Very nice Jitu, well done in making both work for you!
Hey ,👋
building wickedtemplates .
Trying to put a feet into a remote tech job so I dont miss nothing of 9 years old daughter.
Full job and a couple of side projects. I have no choice but to code at night or when no one is at home.
Hey Michael, I feel you there! I switched to full-time remote back 3 years ago to have better opportunities to align my time with that of my kids, and make work happen around that. It changes a lot and can't recommend enough! Happy to chat more whenever you feel like it!
Hi! I’m a mother of a 9-years-old. I’m a creator with a full-time gig. Rising kids (or in my case a kid) definitely changes my life and times management skills, for the better.
Before having a kid, I used to make stuff just for the sake of making them but these days, I’m more selective of what I do mainly because I don’t have the luxury of time.
Hey Isabel! Yes, totally agree with you. Being selective is key in our cases. Could it be that by being selective with our time, we also become more selective with what kind of things we work on? I tend to think so :)
Wanted to start the same thread and I saw this.
I am father of 6m old with full time job working on side projects.
I really hope there are some advices how to stay on track on both fronts.
Hey there! I feel you mate. It's much harder with little ones and gets easier over time. Sergey has a list of things above in this thread that could be useful for you! In case you still have questions, please ask and I will answer to the best of my ability!
I'm a parent to two little ones (2.5 and 5 right now) and I'm a full-time entrepreneur and my husband is as well. I run Startup Parent (www.startupparent.com) for working parents navigating business, entrepreneurship, and career while having little ones at home. Thanks for starting this thread!
hey 🎈 @dte
love this chain. thanks for starting. We've got a small family with a 6 year old and managing day job with side passion projects has been hard, especially through corona (while my wife is a nurse).
But it had a silver lining - that I started opening up to the idea of being a more involved dad and beating my patterns of growing up in a heavily patriarchal society (I'm from India).
The upside was I started enjoying creating small projects with my son (that led to kreativkit.com/kit) and also looking up to remarkable individuals who are radically different in parenting while growing their businesses. So I started capturing and sharing these conversations through a podcast on conscious and alternative parenting,
I'd love to know what you're upto.
Deep, I LOVE it so much that you found a silver lining within the covid pandemic. It demonstrates a positive attitude and I can't encourage this enough, it's the best way to approach most anything!
Kreativkit looks so good and it's amazing that it was prompted by your relationshop with your son, so good! Would love to know about where you want to take that podcast of yours as this is a topic I'm sure a lot of people will be interested in. I know I will :)
🙌 @dte - actually I released my first 2 episodes today on reroutingpod.com . Found an interesting match with a cohost Tiffany, and we've had amazing time conversing on topics around active / co parenting, child development and alternative ways of engaging kids.
(I'd love to celebrate this little win today, do you know if there is a place for it on IH?)
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Hey Ricky! Loved reading your story here and could relate on more points than one!
Luxury is the word that stood out for me as it really is that...
We have the luxury to be loved by lovely human beings and have to make time work around them to keep that luxury as intact as possible... therefore, time is our most valuable currency in a way! Let's connect for sure!
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Same - feel like that's the right answer to manage everything
Yeah it's a great way to do it. Doing part-time is my way to do it, which brings less money than fulltime would but provides me with more time to do what I love and be with those I love most (my family)
That's a very nice way to approach things indeed! As long as we manage to strike a balance that doesn't push us too close to burnout of course...