What's New: Don't take advice from every founder
(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)
When taking advice from other founders, keep a few things in mind:
- You need to know your customer, not theirs. If you're targeting different audiences, their strategies are probably not going to help you much.
- Thinking "big" can be your worst enemy as a new founder. Set 5 small goals you can actually achieve, to gain momentum and stay motivated.
- $6.6K MRR. Going from open source to source available turned out to be the path to profitability for EmailEngine, after several pricing tweaks.
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Taking Advice From Other Founders 👂
by Danbee No
Here's why you should ignore most of the advice you get from other founders.
Know your customer, not theirs
The issue isn't that advice from other founders is incorrect. It's that you are building something different.
There's no one-size-fits-all solution. What works for growing Salesforce might not work for Tinder. It might seem obvious, but ask yourself whether you are truly filtering through the advice to take what pertains to your situation, and not just chasing dream numbers.
Finding the gems
Search for the gems in advice from other founders. Maybe 10 out of 100 are building a product similar to yours. Perhaps five out of 100 target similar user needs. Just one out of that 100 might offer genuine insights from their trials and errors.
If you're building a mobile app for casual consumers, only take advice from those building something similar, not from creators of web-focused SaaS for founders. SaaS go-to-market strategies may help, but always weigh out whether they will work for your customer base to minimize failed attempts.
Work on your product
Securing a large waitlist with an appealing landing page is great marketing, and being the Number One Product of the Day is every indie hacker's dream. I still believe that these are the best marketing strategies, but do you have a solid product ready for the market?
According to Lenny’s Newsletter, here are the major go-to-market strategies for B2C startups. Remember, 99% of successful B2C projects acquired their first customers through seven major strategies. Building your audience first is a very niche strategy, accounting for only 1% of total success.
If you are building something that doesn't target enterprises, you need a sound MVP, not a landing page, to go to market. It doesn't have to be perfect, but users need to keep using your MVP, as opposed to trying it once and never coming back. The reason they will keep using an imperfect version of the product is because of the new value you give to your users.
If you're building a consumer app, don't spend a ton of time diversifying your communication channels. Instead, talk to your users through the app.
I launched a habit builder for lazy people, which is a totally casual consumer app. Here are my biggest mistakes:
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Spending lots of time promoting my landing page when people could not actually use my product.
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Building web apps to quickly spin up an MVP, which never works for a casual consumer product.
tl;dr
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Filter advice from those in the same sector, with similar customers or similar user needs.
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If you are building anything B2C, prioritize building your product before your audience.
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In the News 📰
from the Growth Trends newsletter
🧵 Threads is hitting three times more daily downloads than X.
📹 Advanced SEO for video-based content.
💲 Link to your product here. Our most affordable ad.
🤖 Here's why you shouldn't block GPTBot from crawling your site.
😮 Surprising examples of clickbait headlines that worked.
📱 What celebrities can teach you about how to use your phone.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
Think Small to Win Big 🧠
by Jay Tan
Practically everybody in your life tells you to "think big" when you start a business. But thinking big is possibly your worst enemy if you're just starting out.
Big goals can paralyze you
Say your goal is to build a house. Which mental target is more likely to spur you to action?
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Build a house.
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Build a doorframe.
The answer is clearly number two, because it seems much more doable. In your business, if you think of hitting $10K MRR when you're not even at $100 MRR, you're more likely to feel overwhelmed. Overwhelm leads to procrastination, and pushes you to do things that make you feel productive, but don't actually move the needle.
Don't avoid small goals because of your ego
A lot of new founders overlook smaller goals because they think they're beneath them. Maybe they've been making a six figure salary in the corporate world, so setting the goal of $100 MRR is a joke to them.
But the truth is, they're afraid to set small goals; deep down, they're scared that they can't even hit that. They're more concerned about optics than actual results.
In the same vein, a lot of founders don't dare to proclaim to others (or themselves) that they want to hit $100 MRR to start, because they feel they'll have zero excuse if they don't get there a month from now.
But there's no room for ego in entrepreneurship. Everyone starts from the bottom. If you can't hit small goals, you can't hit big goals. Period.
Momentum is how you succeed
The whole point of setting small goals is to convince yourself that you're on to something, that you can do it, and that this can someday help you live your dream life.
If you're new, you desperately need tiny wins, because you badly need evidence to convince yourself that this venture has legs. You won't be motivated to do anything if you can't see signs of traction. Human beings are motivated by progress, no matter how small.
It's better to set five small goals, setting each one after hitting the previous one, than to set one massive goal. Each small success leads to a bigger success.
Set your ego aside. Goals aren't permanent; you're allowed to revise them once you hit them, and most of us naturally do. Set goals you can actually achieve, and get to work!
If you enjoyed this, consider subscribing to my newsletter, where I send my top learning about entrepreneurship each week.
Discuss this story.
🔥 Landing Page Hot Tips
by Rob Hope
Strengthen your landing page with these design, development, and conversion tips!
When in doubt, double the padding. Whitespace isn’t just breathing room for your content, it’s breathing room for your potential customer.
Digestible content improves focus, and clarifies what you’re offering. If your landing page is overwhelming, add padding!
Subscribe to Rob's One Page Love newsletter for his favorite UI, design, and development finds.
From Open Source to Source Available 💻
When I started writing and publishing open source software about 15 years ago, I was pretty radical about it. I only used permissive licenses like MIT or BSD, as all I cared about was reach. Using a copyleft license with strings attached seemed to hinder that reach.
Open source despair
When Nodemailer started using my open source libraries, it was a badge of honor. I was thrilled to have a top company using my software. Then, years later, a startup using Nodemailer was acquired for half a billion dollars. I was financially not in a good place back then, and when I saw the news, I started to wonder: What did I get out of this?
At the very least, I'd saved them tons of developer hours by providing a free, solid library. I searched my inbox for emails related to that company, and found one single complaint about a feature. No pull requests, no donations, no nothing. My empty wallet was not happy about that turn of events.
The next attempt
When I started what eventually became EmailEngine, I tried to cover my back as much as possible. I released the software under the copyleft LGPL license. I also set up an automated CLA process so that no one was able to get their PR merged without signing a CLA first.
Obviously, I wanted to make some money from my new project, and my business plan was simple: I published the project as an LGPL licensed application. I also offered an MIT version, but to get that, you had to subscribe for $270 per year.
It turns out that my business plan was bonkers. I only gained a few paying subscribers, and after a year and a half, I'd only made $812 in total revenue.
A new day
I redesigned the UI, and implemented a license key system that was only available for paying subscribers. I also changed the license from LGPL to a commercial license. The source code is still published publicly on GitHub. It is no longer open source by definition, but is source available. This change of license was only possible due to requiring outside committers to sign a CLA from the start.
I also increased my monthly pricing several times, finally settling at $970. To my surprise, it did not mean getting fewer customers. I guess any amount under $1K is peanuts for businesses!
I still publish MIT licensed projects, but only for smaller tools, not larger projects. The goal of these tools is to promote my main effort.
EmailEngine is currently at $6.6K MRR, and growing steadily, and I'm working on it full-time. The only regret I have is not selling my software sooner!
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The Tweetmaster's Pick 🐦
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Danbee No, Darko, Jay Tan, Rob Hope, and Andris Reinman for contributing posts. —Channing
