My Transition from Full-Time Developer to Indie Hacker
It all began during my last summer holiday somewhere in Spain, where I explored opportunities to earn money as a software developer. I quickly stumbled upon the term 'Micro SaaS' and discovered Pieter Levels, who launched 12 startups in 12 months.
This concept seemed perfect for me as I often struggled to launch side projects.
The idea was to build a minimal yet functional version and launch it quickly, such as an MVP.
As a passionate recreational tennis player, I developed a video player that allows you to compare tennis strokes side by side and enable pose estimation directly in the browser. I launched it on Reddit, received several signups, and overall positive feedback. Unfortunately, I haven't acquired any paying customers to date. However, the site remains online, and I've built additional tools around it, like AI wrappers that help generate a development plan.
My second product was Travellover, a site for creating travel routes and itineraries easily, also supported by AI. It too received positive feedback. However, I somewhat lost track of this project due to commitments with my full-time job.
Fast forward to today, I launched MealAssistant, a tool that provides personalized recipe ideas, also powered by AI, for those unsure of what to eat.
You can check out my launch here on Product Hunt:
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mealassistant
In the past few months, here's a brief rundown of what I've learned:
- React and Next.js (previously focused on Java and Angular)
- GPT integration (APIs, creating the right prompts, etc.)
- Custom GPT-assistants with web search
- Building sign-up forms
- Strapi
- Email campaigns
- Stripe integration
- Google Analytics, Google Ads (basic knowledge)
- Marketing basics (Reddit, TikTok, Google, Instagram...)
- Google Sheet API
- Google Script automation
- Buffer
- ...
I've learned an immense amount in the last three months, much of which I typically wouldn't encounter in my full-time job as a software developer.
My goal this year is to quit my full-time job and fully commit to indie hacking and traveling the world.
If you're interested, you can follow my journey here:
https://twitter.com/pat_codes
People who have inspired me the most in recent months:
