9
11 Comments

Lessons learned after one year indie making: from $125K to $164

  1. 7

    Good luck in your journey, but lesson learned from this which I learned a long time ago is this. Don't quit your job to become an indie hacker. Build on the side, launch on the side and then only quit if you gain traction. Most indie hackers who can code will make more money with a job than they will ever make being an indie hacker. If you're of course doing it for fun, experience, quitting your job because it's toxic, then by all means quit. However, if the loss of income is going to hurt and it does hurt, stick to the job and bootstrap on the side by putting in the work with nights and weekends. It really breaks my heart when i see such stories and I know I'll keep seeing it.

    1. 2

      He has not commited suicide, just chosen a very difficult path. A very small number succeed and create more opportunities and wealth for others, including for job-seekers. Countries where wealthy people are risk averse and never explore new ideas are also very poor. The biggest problem is that it is very hard for someone who has got used to being their own boss to be able to work again in a corporate environment and feel content.

    2. 1

      I agree. I've been lucky enough to not have any debts and save enough to not worry about money for a while. And I'm confident that with my experience I'd be able to find a job if I have to or even go back to my previous company as I made sure to leave in good terms with them. Without all that, I'd have never taken that risk.

  2. 1

    Good luck to you! Hope you'll get all that you want. Tnx for sharing your story, it really motivates!

  3. 1

    Thanks for sharing. I definitely resonate with the part about how coding is less important than we engineers think it is. The next step for something I'm working on is definitely to talk to users, and yet it's so tempting to instead open my IDE 😅

    1. 1

      Yeah, I'm still trying to get better at that. The days I don't write a single line of code still feel like unproductive days to me for some reason, even if I manage to get new subscribers to one of my products 😅

  4. 1

    I don't see how your projects will make money. As you've found out in the last 12 months, most indie hackers are investing their savings in product development and don't have much left for non-essentials. What are you planning to sell? You need to invest into a project that is very likely to grow into a profitable business over time, even if it takes many years.

    1. 1

      I do actually think I'll be able to make money out of my projects eventually. If I wouldn't think that, I'd be job hunting already 😅 The fact that I haven't been able to grow any of my projects yet doesn't meant I'm doom to fail. I'm going to work smarter, and learn from every mistake I make and if I fail, I'll accept it knowing that I gave my best ✌️

  5. 1

    Hey @antonio, great post! Sucky timing regarding your job and going remote. But as you said there is a silver lining that it pushed you out of your comfort zone💪

    What’s the next steps?

    1. 1

      Definately working smarter and, as you mention. pushing myself out of my confort zone, which for me means a lot less coding and a lot more marketing, building in public and talking with my users. And definately officially launching a couple of products this year 🚀

      1. 1

        Good on you! All the best and look forward to seeing how you’re doin💪

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 28 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 14 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments