My basic framework for solo indie founders wanting to better manage building and growing

I've developed a basic framework to help me consistently build and market my solo indie business:

Build -> Market -> Plan

I cycle through these phases every 2-3 weeks (similar to an Agile sprint).

Key benefit is that I get to focus on a single part of my business at each phase:

Build

Super straightforward - build and ship new features for your product.

It's important to have a prioritized list of tasks to work off of (generated by your previous Plan phase). This lets you 'get in the zone' and maximize your development time.

Market

For early stage indie businesses (like my own), I don't think paying for ads and have long running marketing campaigns are worth it (yet).

I focus my marketing on micro launches. This means sharing my progress in a relevant online community.

Example:
For my current project, gomobo.app (digital board game platform), I posted on /r/digitaltabletop asking for playtesters for my newest game. It's no cost to me outside of time, and I get gather early feedback from ideal customers.

This micro launch allows me to get more excited about what I just built - motivation is precious.

Plan

The goal of this step is to have an updated list of prioritized work items to focus on. I try to break each item to be something I can get done in 30min to 3hr.

To determine priority I combine the feedback I have received with my prior list of work items.

Wrap-up

The main goal of this framework is to help me ship and market my product consistently. When you work on a project by yourself or with a very small team it is easy to get distracted or discouraged.

With this framework, my work days are much more focused without needless overhead.

View my original tweet thread here: