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35 Comments

Share something valuable you've discovered recently!

What's something valuable that you've read, learned, or discovered recently that you want to pass on to other indie hackers?

Share it in the comments below!

#ask-ih

  1. 14

    I've discovered that IH is a dangerous place to hang out. I keep seeing what people are up to and getting ideas for new projects. I'm meant to be simplifying my life atm, oops.

    1. 1

      I'm meant to be simplifying my life atm, oops.

      Lol I promised myself I'd not start any new LLC's this year... It's been hard!

  2. 10

    I've discovered Farnam Street recently. I'm sure a many of you know it already: https://fs.blog/

    There is so much value in there! I'm going through everything, taking notes and making mindmaps from their mental model articles.

    1. 2

      Love Farnam Street too, discovered them last year via their mental models. I really want to spend more time studying mental models.

    2. 1

      Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

    3. 1

      I was about to post this one too. Love this site :)

    4. 1

      Great article. They’ve got a book on it now. Also Gabriel Weinberg (of DuckDuckGo) is publishing a book on it.

  3. 5

    Since I didn’t want to use WordPress anymore, I spent weeks looking for the best website builder on the market.

    Carrd and Webflow are good, but Carrd is too simple to build a complete website while Webflow has a steep learning curve.

    So, after a long search I finally discovered these tools that quickly became my favorites!

    1. 1

      Check Bubble as well!

    2. 1

      Great list! I think your links need a scheme (http or https) to be clickable...

      1. 2

        Whoops, fixed! 😉

  4. 3

    Being irrationally kind to other folks pays off in unexpected ways. Irrational as in - being nice to someone else above and beyond what seems logical and not expecting anything back but just because it's the right thing to do.

    I decided to reach out to one of my customers and found out they were local. I showed up at their office with coffee just to thank them.

    They've now sent me through all of their social media networks and have generated more sales than the $700 I just spent advertising

  5. 3

    Good question!

    • I loved this podcast episode with Joanna Wiebe on how to write copy that converts
    • I started using RightMessage.com to segment visitors to my landing page, and it has been super effective at increasing conversions
    • Don't underestimate the value of an accountability group . As a solo founder/IHer, it's super useful to have a group of people who motivated you and hold you accountable for delivering every day - even if it's just a little bit!

    That last one seems so obvious, but I implemented it (late) in my Sales For Founders course and all of a sudden participants are sending way more emails, taking way more meetings, and closing more deals than before!

    1. 3

      I started using RightMessage.com to segment visitors to my landing page, and it has been super effective at increasing conversions

      Care to share a brief case study? Just a few sentences on what you segmented by, what things you personalized, and how it affected your conversion rates. Thinking about doing some of this for IH soon!

      1. 1

        Absolutely swamped right now but will do soon!

    2. 2

      Any tips on accountability groups? Did you go with a FB group, Slack channel or something else? Is it pretty free-form or do you do office hours, etc?

      1. 2

        Hmm, it's a real mix. In the course, we have a Slack community and there's a specific channel for posting daily updates.

        We also have 1-on-1 coaching sessions, but no group office hours (that's a nice idea, just super difficult because of timezones etc).

        Outside of S4F, I'm also part of a small accountability group. We are 5 founders, all at a similar stage, and we post goals/results every two weeks and have a short group call to discuss them and get feedback/advice.

        1. 1

          Nice, appreciate the info. Where'd you find your smaller, founders' accountability group?

          1. 2

            I was invited by a friend.

            If you're looking to set one up or join one, why not make a post here on IH?

            I think they're great and I'm sure @rosiesherry/@csallen would love to facilitate more IHers creating small accountability/mastermind groups :)

            Just make it clear what stage of business/founder you're looking for. IMO, it's best to have everyone at a roughly similar experience level/facing similar challenges.

            1. 1

              Good idea. Thanks again!

              1. 1

                I'll be second on creating a similar group.

    3. 1

      I just listened to that EHM episode and I loved it too!

      I always considered myself a bad copywriter (and the fact that I'm not a native English speaker doesn't help 😅).

      Learning about things like the 1-2-3 process or the problem-agitate-solve formula has been really helpful!

  6. 2

    A book: 48 laws of power has had the most profound impact on me this year.

    1. 1

      Robert Greene is a fantastic author, seconded.

  7. 2

    Haven't missed a workout, or a day of flossing, or a day of stretching since I started using https://streaksapp.com/

    Don't love the UI, but it is effective motivator to not break the chain.

  8. 2

    I've been working on learning customer development as a way to validate my SaaS idea, and I've found these two resources to be super good:

  9. 1

    Share your work, start with few people, listen, listen, listen THEN after a lot of listen try to summarize, asky why people gives that kind of feedback, analyze them, try to understand better people.
    After all of this, move to actual change on your work. Don't start acting immediately. Change require understanding and time.

  10. 1

    Recently learned that people just assume that you're against them or something and disagree with you in comments/replies. You have to craft your messages very carefully, some readers just focus on the parts they can disagree with and won't understand your point of view.

  11. 1

    http://momtestbook.com/ - great framework for customer interviews. Rob is an IHer too.

  12. 1

    I just started using Notion.so and have really been loving it for taking notes and managing multiple projects in a central place. I’ve been living off Google Sheets and have been having trouble keeping track of everything, seems the Notion structure is much easier to work with.. Excited to tackle Asana next!

  13. 1

    Google Organic is such an underrated and under-utilised source of traffic.

    This video on how to write a blog is a great start => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kOT39l0omU

    1. 1

      This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

      1. 1

        I'd place my bottom dollar, Indie Hackers leading source of traffic is "Organic".

        Obviously not applicable for every business. And some business run great FB ads.

  14. 1

    I read about “principled negotiation” in the book “Getting to Yes”. This is very useful idea.

      1. 1

        "Principled negotiation is an approach to negotiation focuses on the interests of the parties and emphasizes conflict management and conflict resolution"

        Instead of taking a "position" (as in, stating "I'll pay no more than X dollars") and then "haggling" over successive positions, you say "I'll pay (or receive) any price that is fair, let's work together on deciding a fair price." If the other side gets hung up on a position, you work with them to see if that position is fair and principled.

        The book is much more nuanced than this. Also covers useful concepts like BATNA (Best-alternative-to-negotiated-agreement), how to face power-asymmetry, how to deal with nasty tactics etc.

        We are all negotiating much of the time. It's eye opening.

  15. 1

    This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

  16. 2

    This comment was deleted 7 months ago.

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