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Recording my fears to look back on

My website, thatwas.pro, is only a few tweaks away from going public. Once the tweaks are made, my plan is to start posting on instagram and twitter using hashtags to get my first few users and test out the site, and build from there. But I've been dragging my feet, and I know that it is because I'm afraid of failure. I want to be more accountable, and so in the interest of recording for posterity, here is a list of things that are holding me back.

A quick summary of the site for context on these fears - people upload gameplay clips from Rainbow 6 Siege, these then fall into a batch of videos that people vote on, the top clips are then pulled together for a community montage each week, which is uploaded to youtube. Repeat ad infinitum.

  • What if people upload a bunch of inappropriate clips to the site?
  • The general quality of clips posted to instagram under these hashtags is pretty poor... what if my site gets filled with low quality content?
  • What if no one actually signs up after I post the clips?
  • Even if things go well, there is a long road ahead in actually making money from youtube... have I been wasting my time for the past few months building this?

I'm not saying these are good reasons for not continuing on... but writing them out has put things in context, and the next few steps really are low risk!

However, there is one final point that I originally wrote in the above list, that needs its own space. I feel it is something that is not talked about a whole lot - the pressure you place on yourself.

  • My wife and I have our first baby on the way, 5 months until D-Day. I always thought that by this point in life, I would have figured out a way to escape the rat race, and be able to make the decision to take time away from work and be a great father. After many years of consuming content on financial independence, and indie hacking, and teaching myself to code and getting a job in web development, plus saving money and investing... I am still stuck in the situation of having 2 weeks leave once our baby is born, and then needing to get back to my full time job. Not sure how to put it into words... but the pressure I have put on myself works well to motivate me during the building phase, but it also holds me back in some way from taking steps that would make it obvious whether something I have built is a success or failure.
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    Quick update - this post did the job for me. I edited the landing page to show that voting will be open soon, and made my first post to social media. Not expecting a landfall of users obviously, but a few signups would be great to kick things off 🖖

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