Night & Day
I've been reflecting back on the past four months of project experiments I've been running.
The short: I really love the projects I released. I think the ideas are actually good. One in particular has the potential to be something that could get some significant investment and become a really long term product . (Of course, everyone thinks this I'm sure.)
The reality is this is the point that separates the doers from the quitters. I feel like this is part of tashi's "ghis is hard" post.
And the thing is, I know how to build and launch; in theory anyway. I can code all parts of the stack, incl mobile. Api's, db design, knowing when to optimize are all no problem. Hypothesis and metrics, no prob.
I've been thinking back to my internet marketing days a few years ago where you drive traffic, measure conversion, adjust, repeat. It all seems very simple. But when you want to tie everything together - idea, dev, marketing - it becomes
Really difficult. At least for one person.
I've gotten my projects to this point where I've either proved the hypothesis or disproved it and know what to povot on. But then, it just stops. Either interest has waned or it's just clear it's gonna take a lot more work to continue on. I'm trying to jack in 80%resilts for 20% of time but only get 30% of the results. 80/20 is a law of the universe I think, and people swear and succeed by it, but I'm not able to fully leverage it.
I'm not a doom and gloom person. I consider myself a pragmatic optimist. I've seen things just fall into place many times in my life and am a big fan of the path of least resistance.
But now, I'm not totally sure what the path is. I've been thinking a lot about what Cortland has done with IH and - to me - I'm not surprised with his success so far. Lots of hard work and consistency along with striking a nerve with devs. That nerve is turning your dream into a reality you can pursue full time (if you like).
I've shared with a friend how discipline and consistent execution keep you in the game. But it's definitely easier said than done. I'm the first to admit that.
So, here I am, 5 projects launched and maybe burned out? (See Courtland's post on burnout) I guess I'll just keep pushing on and not give up, but I really wish (hope) I can find that one nugget that will validate all my effort and I'll actually start seeing some real revenue.
Gonna be a log day today at the day job.. 😕 Apologies in advance for the downer post. This is supposed to be an awesome time of the year..
Whoa 5 projects in 4 months?! That's a lot.
I can relate with a lot of this. I've started and stopped many projects this year with 2 that are still ongoing. I'm not sure what happened towards the end of the year but I've switched my thought process to seeing the projects as something I want to work on long term.
With that I've been less stressed about the timeline for when things roll out. Obviously, I'm constantly working on things, but I'm also careful where to put focus on instead of working at blinding speeds to get things out the door. I'm also taking goals and breaking them down to micro goals.
Goals so small that I almost can't fail them.
For example, resources used to keep the projects running are cheap, I'm signing up paid users to pay for the resources itself (A VPS and AWS resources are roughly $7/month). For one of the two projects that I'm still working on, the cost for the resources are passed through to a early beta user on a monthly basis. So the only costs that I have to worry about is time to develop and build out the projects.
I'm also learning to put good habits into place. Since in the past I would neglect one aspect of the projects over another i.e. marketing, user communication, feedback loops, building a community. Areas of habit where I think Courtland has done exceptionally well with IH.
Now I'm realizing though, of the two projects, one is more "sexier" than the other but the non-sexy one has better chance to become a consistent source of income. Since the non-sexy project is a B2B model while the sexier project is B2C. The value I do see in keeping both afloat is that solving problems in either project benefits the other. It's just I can see pouring energy in both does slow down the building of both.
Thanks to IH, I'm learning to think through automation a lot earlier in the build process, so I'm doing just that. I'm hoping in doing that, I'll be able to have more time to switch easier between the two and hopefully see more momentum later in the projects' life cycles.
I'm really glad for folks like you Jbit. It shows, I'm not alone and that I have a community here to share technical questions but also personal struggles. In sharing our journey I'm excited to celebrate when we arrive at our successes.
Hey man, you've done a great service here sharing and supporting, thanks much for that!
Small goals are no joke. At my day job, I'm really trying to push for this on all levels of our product development. Small teams, small iterations, small deliverables, small stories/tasks. Small is key. And small steps finish the race.
You're right, automation is another thing I come across with successful projects. This is actually really big in the IM space - the ballers have everything automated because they have to move so fast to stay ahead of their competitors.
Yeah man you're welcome. Thanks for sharing your feelings. Everyone has their days. I'm just glad there is a community to share and hope we can foster the community forward in helping each other succeed in their endeavors.
Yeah I agree, small also seems to help build and sustain momentum. It is easy to get blocked on a problem or challenge which gets easy to walk away and start or work on something else. I think having many tiny wins helps get the ball rolling and keep rolling.
What does IM mean?
IM == internet marketing.
I think as IH gains more momentum and a larger audience, it will be interesting to see who of all us posters can cross that line to something profitable and consistent.
I feel like a lot of 'us' here have the wherewithal to do this, but I also know from seeing things play out in my IM days, you just have to keep tweaking your approach and at some point (if you don't run out of money) you'll tap in to the right product at the right time.
I once read something that argued a business should appeal strongly to one of the "seven deadly sins", i.e. lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, envy, pride, or wrath. Indie Hackers definitely hits on some combination of pride/greed/envy. Well, that's the cynical way to look at it. The more positive way to describe it is inspiring and and motivational. :-D
"Striking a nerve" has been the most important thing by far. I've put years of hard work and consistency into other projects in the past, only to burn out without seeing any real results. It sucked at times. Burning out on Indie Hackers feels similar, but getting a promising amount of traffic and good feedback helps pull me out of funks.
Anyway, you're right that it's hard to do it all on your own. But it sounds like you're very knowledgeable and talented in a wide range of areas, so hopefully you will eventually hit on that 20% that can do 80% of the results, and then you won't have to worry about everything else. Until then, keep sharing your progress and your feelings! Hopefully we can all help out in some way.
Thanks csallen, your hard work and dedication have made all this possible. To even have a place where you can vent to other hackers is awesome. 🤘
Along the line of the sins, I've heard if you resonate with a person's basic needs for health, love or the ability to feel safe/have shelter there's a business that could be built around them.
Beginning of the year, a butt load of business turn their focus to health since folks are coming out of the holidays indulging their stomachs.
Renters try to stagger rental property agreements since spring/summer months are high in demand for properties.
I'm happily not in the dating scene, but have a sibling who is and has shared the gamut of datings apps out there.
Another tip I've heard of, and I'm thinking Courtland have mentioned it before as well, create a product that helps others make money. Hence I think that's why info products are popular. Instead of going through the documentation of some tech, watch this video of a veteran in that tech to gain the skills you need to help level up your career skills.
I think they're also looking to capitalize on New Year's resolutions.
Paul Graham has a theory I agree with on following your passion. Simply, you're more inclined to pursue things you're interested in.
With Indie Hackers, maybe Courtland can use both of these to his advantage and make some kind of resolution - business, health or otherwise - and blog about it to help drive traffic.
Yup that's right. I think about gym memberships too. Get them in the door to sign up for an automatic recurring membership and then they make it super hard and tedious to end your membership...
Oh interesting, that definitely does sound like a good topic or even a challenge for the community to take part in.
These are all great examples!
I think Reid Hoffman is the one that said the seven deadly sins thing. I need to rewatch where he talks about that to reframe it in the way he intended, but yeah it does sound pretty cynical lol.
I'm watching a Google I/O talk (2011) where they just brought up the fact that startups' chance for success dramatically increases with more than one founder. This made me want to check IH and, surprise surprise, this is the first post I see.
For me, I haven't even started anything despite being in like the 1% of the 1% in terms of how much I consume this kind of info. When I was younger me and my older cousin would get into some crazy stuff. The underlying theme was that he had a general idea of what to do, and I was always up for doing it.
Now, at 24, I find myself wanting to come to a general consensus with a friend of what we're going to do. I coming to terms with the fact that not many people are willing to do anything other than follow (at least initially) and in order to bring that about, I'm going to have to lead; to start something without permission or consensus with anyone other than myself.
I'm going to work on that but in the meantime, I'm hungry to get to work on something. If you're interested, I'd really like to help you tackle some problems and get the needle moving. I'm willing to put the time in to push out another 30%, and maybe some synergy itself will give way to another 20%.
Hey Ride,
Thanks for the comment!
One thing I've been thinking about is the marathon. Getting an idea to profitability is a marathon of many aspects - idea market fit, having some hypothesis on what you want to build, building it, getting it in front of people, and getting paying customers. All these things on the surface seem easy, but in reality, are all difficult. Failure is the norm, success the exception because of these things.
And every level of this has all its own nuances and inputs/outputs to tweak.
One of the hardest things is making a decision and acting on it. Being able to lead is a gift because you're right, most people want to follow or avoid leading. Can't blame them really, it's hard to put yourself on the line. We equate leadership in our fantasies as perfect success. But in reality, it's more failure than success.
I started my experiments alone this year because I didn't get the traction I wanted with previous biz partners and wanted to pare it down to just me - was I the reason?
Turns out, it's not as simple as me or the other guy. There are tons of other factors that come into play. The biggest and hardest that I've discovered that consistency and discipline - for me - are the biggest factors. Once I stray one step off the path, it accelerates and eventually, I leave the path.
I'll pm you about moving the needle. Thanks for the offer.
Yeah, I've definitely seen this echoed in just life in general.
As far as businesses go, it seems like many start off as an idea that ultimately won't work, and only through constant iteration does the business itself turn into something successful.
I'm partly curious to see if I can do it and partly just have the urge to get iterating.
I see we're both located in the bay area. Wouldn't mind just going to a regular meetup also.
Hey Ride,
I've been thinking a lot about this the past few days and what it's probably coming down too is:
Too big for me is just too big of an idea. I tend to want to have more things under one umbrella. Why make a small product or project when you can make an entire company for it! 😕
Too much is simply too many things going on at once. I know I'm maxed out, but I keep pushing. I have a day job with high expectations, family, and then my other things. I probably need to just dial back and simplify.
What meetups are you interested in?
Do you think the idea of creating a company around one of your products is a negative thing? You mentioned one your products as having the potential to take on investment in your OP, so I'll assume not.
It's definitely beneficial - if only for ease of mind - when things are under a single umbrella, but you have to weigh your interest in trying new things against the unease of doing it.
I don't like putting myself out there to meet new people and I prefer to focus on singular goals. It would probably easier to gain a level of mastery over such a skill (engineering or entrepreneurial) while huddled and alone, but then again I'm also interested meeting new people that share these interests and pursuing more than one of my interests at a time.
For me, any initial lack comfort that comes from expanding myself to fit the size of my goals is worth it.
I don't think having various ventures under a 'single umbrella' are mutually exclusive to a single company either. There are plenty of lifestyle entrepreneurs that keep their day job. If you find the right flow, that umbrella can just be you.
I'm sure things are easier when you genuinely enjoy what you're doing (building a product for yourself, etc) but I think entrepreneurship itself can bring its own kind of enjoyment.
As for meetups I go to the Free Code Camp all day meetup on Thursdays and I just started volunteering at Ace Monster Toys (hackerspace) in Oakland. My schedule is still pretty open & I wouldn't mind just knocking some work out on one of your products (ie setting the marketing funnel up with a few blog posts). I'm still not sure what software development even looks like but I'm sure there's something on the chain that I can teach myself with relative ease. A few sleepless nights are what I aim for.
Oh, without dropping your email here, how do I contact you?
I don't necessarily think one company around multiple products is bad or negative at all. In fact, there's quite a few Mac or iOS specific indie companies that have done this with good success. But, I started this trend where I would start a project and think "ooh, I should build a company around this and release more things". Versus, just releasing that one thing and building it up. There's a lot to be said about focusing on one thing and one thing only.
I've hung out with other indie devs and they even go further thinking that need to incorporate and have this presence across the social networks, realtime support system, maybe hire other devs to help, etc. We have the easiest distributions systems in place to today with the various app stores and the internet itself. There's very little barrier between you and your potential customer - you > product > customer. That's the minimum requirements in my mind.
Building the product is definitely part of the fun. But also actually having customers can be a great high too. Just depends, I guess. It's like, watch what you wish for - everyone with a product has had that customer from hell. And when you screw up, ugh, sometimes that's really hard.
I remember the first iOS app I released a little after the app store had opened up and we had this weird error where some users were creating two accounts. It started screwing up our system, customers were getting pissed, we were just featured in Techcrunch and my co-founder and investors were like wtf?!
I couldn't figure it out for a day and it was super stressful. Turns out, people we're double tapping the submit button on the last screen of the app signup. I think the iPhone 3G was out and it was slow back then, so it was totally possible to do this, to double submit. When I realized this, I updated the code to disable the button when it was tapped. Having that pressure was not fun and I hated it, but in the end I was able to fix it.
I think it would be great to have paying users for a product you didn't really have to support. 😁
The last startup I worked at (we got acquired this past Jan), we would release every two weeks and usually I would stay until 12a-2a. 😩 I have kids and they are up at 6 usually so those nights were very, very difficult. I'm usually up 5a every day, so all around this was hellish. I'm done with those all nighters now, but if you want to put in a few, I always say 'scratch your itch'. I'll ping you and we can chat about some things.
One of Newton's laws of motion says that an object in motion will stay at the same speed unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
You can infer that given the 'unbalanced forces' in life, it's still likely a lot easier to move an object once it's in motion than it is to get one moving.
I'm sure this applies when the object in question is a venture of some kind. With indie products, I'd assume that hearing customer feedback and iterating enough times would lead to a lot less friction down the road.
Anyway I'm interested in figuring it out :) . You can just email me. ryan a calvo at gmail.
I am feeling myself in a similar position. Maybe it would help to handle a project together and motivate each other. Would love to get in contact: info@zekcake.com