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18 Comments

What are your anti-goals?

Anti-Goals create a balance by showing us a tangible set of values or actions that we don’t want to be.

When building an indie business what don't you want to do?

on November 15, 2020
  1. 6
    1. I don't want to capture more value than I create.
    2. I don't want to decouple my success from that of my customers.
    3. I don't want to sacrifice freedom for money.
    1. 1

      For 1, are you saying you don't want to turn a profit? If you captured exactly the value you created, isn't that the same your customers paying X and them getting exactly X in value and not more? Or do you mean something else?

      1. 1

        I mean If I make something that makes them $150 and I take $100, that's great! But if my product or service only earns them $70 on average, then I wouldn't feel right about taking $100.

        1. 2

          I see, I didn't realize they could've been getting negative value.

  2. 3

    I don't want to be disingenuous. It has to be pure. It has to be me.

  3. 3
    1. Scale to the absurd point of mature complacency.
    2. Represent more noise than signal.
    3. Polarize anyone at any time.
    1. 2

      I love the point about 'noise'. It feels like, escaping the noise is one of the reasons the indie hacker scene is growing. It is a movement that proves that good ideas don't have to be loud to succeed.

      Thanks for sharing this!

      1. 1

        @melaniegoel You’re welcome 🙃

  4. 3
    1. Don't focus on short term hacks over long term compounding.
    2. Don't do anything that compromises my integrity, my word and my values.
    3. Don't lose sight of what matters in life.
    1. 1

      Thanks for mentioning values! It's so important and I feel that exactly this gets lost in the midst of growing and growing faster! From my experience and observations, business ideas and brands are built more sustainability when they're built on values. In the end that's why we think about value propositions, right? However, I've noticed from working with clients, that we're in a society where thinking about our own values isn't particularly encouraged and so a lot of people actually struggle with defining them. Was that a difficult task for you, when you started out?

  5. 2

    I do not want to achieve business "success" and be unhappy.

    I do want to sacrifice my family or health to build an indie business.

    1. 1

      Good point. There's always the question what 'success' is, right? I believe that we achieve success when we reach a point where we're at ease with ourselves, our health and with the kind of work we're doing - basically when we reach a stage of full authenticity. Whenever those three major aspects in life blend in well, that feels like success to me.

  6. 2
    1. I don't want to work with blind enthusiasm on a problem that only I think exists but in reality it doesn't
  7. 1

    I want to create, not be created.

  8. 1

    I don't want to scale it to a business with multiple employees.

    I want it to be a company of one where I work efficiently & automate where I can.

  9. 1

    customer success 1st, company success 2nd.

    be willing to compromise the 2nd for the 1st.

  10. 1

    Not getting obsessed with the product itself.

  11. 1

    This comment was deleted 5 years ago