The Loneliness Trap of Indiemakers
For me, the loneliness part is also the hardest part of being a freelance and indie maker.
It can impact my productivity and become a vicious cycle that goes like this:
- Feeling unproductive
- Not wanting to go out, because I need to...
- Work more to feel better, but not accomplish much
- Feeling guilt or shame or burnout
- Not wanting to meet other people, because of that shame
...and it continues until you think you are a fraud and should have just remained on the traditional route of full-time employment!
When we leave a company, and that is all we have known for a long time, our life suddenly might seem empty of these everyday interactions and check-ins.
It's important to add social habits into your weekly routine. Social habits to connect to other people who share similar struggles.
You can connect to people of different stages:
People who are at the same level and career stage as you
These are your main peers. You are rooting for them, and they are rooting for you. You can support each other and you share a lot of similar struggles—RIGHT NOW. Tha means, you can even hang out over a beer and just talk about your WINS, but also about your frustrations.
People who are ahead of you
Those people have been through what you are going through. They can guide you and give you helpful resources. You still have to walk your path, which might be different from theirs, but they can show you options you might have never seen.
People who are not as far as you
You can give back to the community and make it a more positive environment for newcomers. You know what you struggled with and how you came out on the other side. With that knowledge, you can help others. There is always something you know, that somebody else does not.
It's better to be a positive beacon in the community than to be a gatekeeper. Don't be afraid that people outpace you. It might happen, but if you were a positive influence on their way, they will not forget.
A positive cycle
Connecting to people in the same industry can lead to many positive effects:
- Meeting with someone
- Getting inspired by their work
- Sharing your work with them
- Getting new opportunities through them
- Having contacts to recommend when you are booked out
Not having peers that go through the same daily struggle as you do, can feel very isolating.
I for example am a very versatile creator who does many things (maybe too many). And there is no other person with the same experience, but many with similar relatable ones (wanna connect? 😉).
When having a job, there are many people who have a VERY similar role, and daily life as you. That automatically builds community within. And if things don't go well, you have a common "struggle".
Where to find peers?
My favorite way to find peers is to go to meetups and connect to people face-to-face. In a bigger city, it's obviously easier. The site to find meetups:
https://www.meetup.com/
Now the unfortunate thing is, I started freelancing right in the middle of a global pandemic. The in-person meeting became pretty difficult. Luckily we have the internet! It cannot replace in-person meetings for me personally, but it's better than nothing. There are specific communities popping up like:
https://wannabe-entrepreneur.com/coworking/
Sometimes it's slack, discord, or facebook groups. It can be hard to find something you like and want to engage in. I sometimes have the "shopping" effect. Where I collect communities to feel like I am part of them and then realizing, I am not actually posting or engaging in any of them in a meaningful way.
It would be good to stick with one community for a while and try to create real relationships and even jump on face-to-face calls. There is something about immediate communication that can't be replicated by texting. Even if it feels awkward to talk to a person you never talked to before in the beginning. But do it more, and it will get less awkward!
These are my tips, and I consider myself rather on the introverted side.
What are your ways to combat this loneliness?
Reading the beginning of this post might as well have been a recap of my daily struggles for the past 10 months.
As I've posted here before: it is so helpful to see that I'm not alone and other Indiehackers are going through the same doubts and obstacles I am.
The tips and suggestions you include are great. Thanks for writing this!
It is great to hear that this resonates with so many people. We are all hanging in there and others are going through the same path.
Often people just post about their WINs. How they got their high MRR finally after 1 year or whatever. And it makes you feel even lonelier. Like, how come everyone is successful while I struggle to come close to any income...
When the truth is: Most people who are in this indie journey are probably struggling just like we are. But the survival bias shows us the great carrot in front of us that we can reach with "smart work". Many times it's just luck, too.
At least this year I'm trying to spread my luck out in many "small bets" and see if one of them strikes gold.
This hits home man. It is hard to find people that I can relate to.
Back when I had a normal job, my friends and family was so happy for me whenever I got a promotion, while I didn't care much about it. Now I am so happy that I was able to get my first few users. When I share that, there was a lot less support. $15 MMR made me sound like a loser and I always have a feeling no one wants me to succeed. So I don't even share my ups and downs to anyone any more.
It's a lonely path.
Oh man, I feel this so much!
Yeah, people don't get it. They think why would you give up your well-paying job for $50 per month?
While we are happy because we know that every $ we make came through our work and it validates that there IS some need in the market. Especially the first $ are hard. And then consistent MRR is hard as well.
It took me 2 years to get to $100 MRR now, and even that MRR is uncertain because I mostly sell digital products and not subscriptions. But when I hit that $100 in January for the first time I felt really happy and I just had my fiancé to share it with.
But especially in the beginning, there are a lot of DOWNs and only sparsely distributed UPs.
---
Congrats on your launch of Dotling, it looks really promising! I used to be a professional frontend-focused developer and I still love great products in that space, so I will keep an eye on it.
I see you are a multi-interested person just like me, so let's stay in touch!
Maybe, we can help each other out with our skillsets in the future. I for example was thinking of building a library to enable easy drag and drop of parallax functionality into websites and SVGs (something that was part of this illustration project of mine)
Cheers!
Goscha
Thanks!
As an introvert I have found that it also has a toxic side to it. That of feeling isolated and alone. For me it's balancing things out, spending time to connect with others and with myself. Loneliness usually is an inside job, we can be in the presence of others and still feel alone. It's about connection and that is a basic human need. Thanks for sharing this - great article, insightful and practical!
Yes, we consciously need to commit to getting away from our work and hang out with others sometimes. Even if we think we are fine on our own.
It's being aware of the signs before it's too late. In both directions. Feeling overwhelmed from spending too much time with others or along.
Pre covid I host Indie Hacker meetups. During Covid I've found peers in telegram groups.
Hackagu being the most social. But you can't join unless you've been in Canggu (sorry)
In addition I've found a great global community of SaaS founders in High Signal: highsignal.io We meet Thursdays and it's almost always only for 1 hour. Not a long chit chat. Just enough time to bounce quick ideas on one another. The moderator: Pete does a great job of keeping groups small enough to feel intimate.
And only recently I created a free telegram chat for Maker Dads, any fathers who make stuff online can join. It's called Maker Dads. Find me on twitter and DM me and I'll send you a link to join. It's just about 20 of us so far. We share book recommendations, weekend plans, recommendations on when and how to work around sleeping kids. There are fathers of all ages of kids. I have a toddler (one year old) and some have 5 or 7 or 10 year olds. There's one expecting father too. find me at twitter.com/kamphey
In the maker group, we don't do meetings, we don't do calls. it's all chat and it's all over the world. Some in Belgium, Brazil, Bali. You can be in any country or city. It doesn't have to start with a B.
Thanks for posting this. I am feeling a bit of this as well. I quit my day job a couple of weeks ago and am starting to feel the loneliness of going it alone. Everything you do is just in your head and done by yourself. There's no one to bounce ideas off or show your work to. There's also no one keeping you on track.
I've been reminding myself to make sure to get out of the house. Today I'm planning on going to the library to do some work just to be around other people.
Thank you for the post, a couple of months ago I was feeling the same. It's really important to keep a routine in your life (meeting friends, doing sports, chilling, etc...). And surrounding yourself with other freelancers and entrepreneurs is crucial because they understand what you are going through. Thank you for mentioning the WBE Space btw :) We would love to see you there!
You're welcome! Thanks for reading and tweeting about it :)
I might join when I'm back from vacation. Need some of that cross-pollination from other creators :)
your first paragraph hit me hard it was almost like you are talking about me. I felt the same way but now I feel it's not something I won't like it's me who like things this way working as a freelancer developer, meeting different clients, refreshing my mind taking my dog for a walk, etc. Being social is a necessity of a human being but not being able to do shouldn't make you feel guilt or in a negative way take it as a strength as a solo you are going through a journey be strong.
Yes, I still feel it sometimes, but I am trying to find ways to deal with it. To meet like-minded people inside the industry to refresh my motivation and know that I am not alone in this and that I am a lucky person to have the chance to do exactly what I want to do.
Thanks for the article. It helped me understand struggles I'm going through, which is half the solution.
Loneliness is probably the most difficult part of being a solo maker or a freelancer. Online groups are nice but I find that meeting with people irl is very crucial for mental health.
I try to solve this by seeing where my friends are working at and join them for a coworking session at a cafe.
I thought about building a simple app to see where (which cafe or coworking space) my friends are currently at so that I can join them without manually contacting one by one.
A bonus would be to able to see other fellow makers who are working at the same cafe, and maybe info about what they are building, what they can help with and where they need help.
What do you think? If there's enough interest here I'll make it a weekend project.
That's an interesting idea :)
Very few people talk about these struggles. And even if they do the gravity of the situation is nowhere clear.
One way during Covid I found myself meeting others was finding my users and talking to them.
One other thing I would like to mention is disconnecting yourself from work every now and then. I still struggle with this but it is important to do so to get a perspective.
I am currently going through this phase. Although I have a day job and meet my colleagues on a daily basis, I still feel lonely in my entrepreneurial journey. And it's hard to find the right peer(s) as you have mentioned as well. Totally relatable post.
Exactly... it's not finding yourself passively like work colleagues do. You have to actively search for peers and engage with them. And it's difficult to do if you are not used to it, or you are introverted!
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