Shifting focus from creating a product to sharing value?
After hearing the constant advice to start a mailing list and build an audience before launching a product, I finally created a ConvertKit account (woo!).
I built a fancy email form, and then the epiphany hit:
why in the hell would anyone want to sign up for this?
It was a helpful moment in the sense that it shifted my thinking from heads-down product work to thinking about what value I can produce and share.
Perhaps that means helpful written content or free video content on YouTube or "hot tips" on Twitter. Either way, it's been helpful for me to shift my perspective away from being caught up in the fun of building a new thing and hoping someone will randomly show up at launch.
Anyone else have a similar experience? What were some good first steps you found for striking a balance between sharing and building?
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Nice! Let me know how it goes. The interesting thing for me is that I have a tough time doing both (building and sharing) at the same time.
When I wrote this post, I was making tons of progress building features, but I realized I wasn't talking to people nearly enough.
More recently, I've been talking to people a lot more:
But progress towards launching slowed down a bit while doing all that. I feel like I'm settling into a bit of a balance, but it's taken some time.
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There will definitely be opportunities to join in the future. I don't think there are monthly cohorts, but all the previous lectures are available in playlists on the YCombinator YouTube channel.
The group sessions are insanely valuable. Having to talk about your ideas every week to complete strangers is a useful way to get better at explaining your ideas in a concise way. Having said that, the lecture content can be hit or miss because it's primarily aimed at people that want to build rapid-growth, venture-backed businesses. You'd be better off listening to Indie Hackers podcast episodes if you're looking for inspiration.
This is basically the exact problem I'm trying to solve right now. I've occasionally used my Twitter account to post fun progress and updates. But I'm leaning towards posting milestones to Indie Hackers or perhaps trying something like wip.chat.
But I think you're right on the money looking to create a small group of 3-5 people for support because that's exactly what I'm trying to do with my local community and I think meeting people and making connections has been invaluable.
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I think you're hitting on the important questions here. I wish I had some answers, but I'm still looking for the right mix of big/small and online/local community.
On one end of the spectrum, posting to Twitter or Hacker News can occasionally feel like sharing amidst a sea of noise.
The Indie Hackers forum has been a breath of fresh air because it feels like a smaller niche group. So it's more likely that you'd meet people with the same goals and interests.
And I think there's also value in having closer personal relationships. A local meetup is one option. I actually just posted today about a valuable in-person demo experience too. And I could also see something like a mastermind group being useful. I think there are a lot of us still searching for the right "tribe."
This comment was deleted 5 years ago.