Is building for other indie founders a bad idea?
After a recent discussion with another founder, I thought I'd toss the topic out in public. Is building for indie founders a good or bad idea?
Considering it's a rather supportive community, one would think building a product and gaining traction within it may be easier. However, on the downside, these founders usually aren't cash flowing a lot yet and may not be able to afford premium products making it hard to achieve meaningful MRR/ARR.
I'm currently building adcove.io and targeting indie founders, but I also believe it has the capability to scale beyond that niche.
What do you think?
Not a bad idea at all! Testimonial.to is mostly used be indiehackers and they are doing like 40k mrr. I think the market is huge
Just four months ago, there were discussions about if Indie Hacking is a Ponzi scheme just because of this!
Unfortunately, countless indie hackers target other indie hackers. Malte had written about this very recently and provided a great way out of this vicious cycle.
There is a reason why you immediately think of fellow indie hackers when you think about a product. And it is briefly explained on Malte's piece. Since your focus and experience is in indie hacking domain, you can only see the problems and solutions in this domain. What you need is another hobby or a significant other (which then can introduce you to other domains).
My concern with indie hackers targeting other indie hackers is this practice makes the whole indie hacking domain a red ocean – we all are suffocating all the others. That makes all our games an attrition game, the worst kind of game you can play.
Been in Micro SaaS space for sometime.
Some people say creating products for Indie founders is like creating products for the bottom of the pyramid (customers who may not be able to afford premium products) while ideally you should target for the top of the pyramid (high paying customers).
If there is enough volume at the bottom of the pyramid and you have better reach, go for it.
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Also, its not that founders don't spend money in struggling phase. If there is a good tool that saves them time, money, energy or helps them some way by providing real value, any founder would be happy to pay
hey!!!
regarding your landing page. can we discuss??
thanks!!
Sure thing! Shoot me an email at cody@adcove.io
not a bad idea if they have money to spend:)
Yes.
Not a bad idea at all!
If you spend your time in indie builder communities and are an indie builder yourself, most of the initial service design and community-building will be easier than if you had to go out and look for that knowledge "elsewhere", so to speak.
However, as others have already pointed out: Be aware of your target users' budget limitations. Founders who are bootstrapping a side project will be particularly prone to cutting costs and churning if they don't see your product as essential.
The adcove.io concept sounds useful! I think the biggest thing to be cognizant when targeting indie hackers/solo founders is price - when you're just starting out it's harder to invest a bunch of money for tools, etc. That said, $199 a year seems plenty reasonable.
Hi, your approach with adcove(dot)io, targeting indie founders while envisioning scalability beyond that niche, is a strategic move. It allows you to establish a foothold in a supportive community while keeping the door open for expansion. Balancing the needs of your current audience with future scalability demonstrates foresight and adaptability.
Good luck with your venture.
adcove.io is a great idea and looks super handy!! How would you recommend I use it for Githired?
Githired aims to shift the early-stage startup tech recruiting methods. Startups need hacker-genius, versatile developers who are passionate about the startups missions. So startups can't rely on big tech recruiting methods! Githired is a chrome extension for founders, eng leaders, and tech recruiters to find & hire talented developers that are working on projects similar to theirs. https://bit.ly/githired_devs
It seems to be the majority of projects I see in the buildinpublic community. It definitely fits in well with audience building which I think is a huge advantage.
Nah, go for it Cody
Building for other founders and startups in general is not a bad idea because they are more likely to adopt something new. This is an interesting episode from YC partially explaining why it's a good idea. https://open.spotify.com/episode/54WWhQNElpmQ19vScCvL9I
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