What are the key skills of successful IHers?
Hey all,
As the title suggests, I'd love your opinion on this:
What are key skills that IHers need to possess/learn in order to build a profitable business?
The main ones I can think about are building products (could be code or content) and marketing (SEO, audience building, etc.). On top of this, maybe identifying the right problems to solve.
Do you have any other ideas? Would love to get some input on this!
Edit: Just wanted to share this with fellow IHers: I asked Arvid Kahl the same thing on Twitter, I found his reply super valuable (not sure if the embed works?).
I find the mental model perspective very interesting. I tend to jump into building stuff and starting new projects. Also, I tend to get very excited about new ideas.
But with that, I often don't think deeply enough about the problem, and therefore often end up wasting time on irrelevant things. I'll try to apply the mental models he mentioned and see how that'll guide my thinking and doing in regards to my IndieHacking :D
Networking.
Not sure how much I agree. When I started tipping my toes into startup life, I spent quite some time doing this networking thing. Most of it was a waste of time, it would've been better to talk to customers or build the product.
That being said, I think that building an audience can help a lot, and part of the advantages of having an audience is that networking is sort of built into that.
Also, I believe in Mastermind groups. Having a handful of founders helping each other out seems super valuable. But I wouldn't put that in the "networking" bucket.
I couldn't put Mastermind groups anywhere else. It's important who's inside that group.
Imagine releasing a product and from day one, csallen writes a post about it. A perfect testimonial for the landing page is ready. An invitation to IH podcast. While you mention you wouldn't be there without indiehackers.
You release a product for book authors and somehow arvidkahl loves it, decides to use it for his publishes. While you keep endorsing his books, giving away them in bunches.
You release a product about remote work, someone from your network who's close to levelsio introduce it to him. Boom acquired.
...
Imagine 10 of them tweeting simultaneously about the same product.
Let's forget them and gather 100 motivated people. You'll be able to raid anywhere you want. It's possible to pin your post to the top of HN, reddit or producthunt. 100 people voting, commenting with each other there is no algorithm or moderator to fight it back. :)
If people can sell farts, potatoes or rocks. There is no need for SEO, code or audience. All you need to know is how to grab attention or know someone who can. 🤷♂️
I sure love this comment ;)
lol :) being unexpected got to be one of those 1000 more things.
I'm sooo behind this. Ability to find the right people, listen to them, get them interested and help or buy seems to be the most valuable skill. Struggling with it myself.
i think this is what i learned relatively late. Networking is kinda important, especially in the early stages.
Some that come to mind, from what I've seen successfully Indie Hackers doing:
To point 2 I'd add: identifying problems worth solving.
For my newsletter, I researched tons of problems people complain about in niche online communities. Solving a problem for a well-defined niche isn't necessarily the hard part IMO.
But being able to assess whether solving a problem is a viable business opportunity, compare different problems, and choose the one that makes the most sense is pretty tough.
What problem am I suited to solving? Is this market growing? What's the purchasing power in this market? Do they already pay for the type of solution I want to offer? Can I meaningfully differentiate from the competition? The list goes on... :D
Great points Matthias.
It's not always easy to figure out what problems that you solve will lead the most successful business outcome. Maybe that's also why people try to build X startups in Y months 🤔
Building products for other indiehackers ;)
Hahah it's a good market!
Ha, thanks for pointing me towards Nathan Latka. Been on my list, but somehow never ended up looking him up. The "asking for money" part has been the toughest for me, especially at the beginning. Also, figuring out business models is harder than I thought.
Yep. That is why there are biz schools, not just to make good connections, but to cultivate a certain mindset that is not obvious to most people. A colleague of mine started to sell music tapes (bootlegs obviously) copied on his brother's recorder when he was 12 y/o, asking us his closest friends to pay a pretty penny, so for him, this is a native skill, now he owns a large firm. But for most people, it is a skill we need to develop, practice, and get used to.
Learning. I don't mean learning new technologies or necessarily new skills, but being able to develop an awareness of where you're making mistakes and having the ability to adjust what you're doing to correct them.
One of the best books I've ever read is The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. In it, he talks about how he was a child chess prodigy and then gave it up. He eventually turned his attention to competitive Tai Chi and became successful in that as well. The key thing that helped him is his ability to learn quickly.
Interesting take on this. I hadn't thought about it from this perspective. First, I've been thinking mainly about "hard" skills like coding, etc., but what you say makes total sense.
I read Josh Waitzkin's book, it's amazing advice on how to learn anything.
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Agree 100 %. If you keep on pushing with the right strategy, it's just a matter of time for success to come.
And tenacity is definitely a skill that only few people have or can develop.