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65 Comments

Which of the following would you most like to see for Indie Hackers?

I'm not promising to build any of these immediately, but I'm curious what you all think! If you have other suggestions, let me know in the comments. Or feel free to explain why you voted the way you did.

EDIT: Direct messaging isn't in the poll, because we're already working on it.

What would you like to see most on Indie Hackers?
  1. Directory of indie business coaches/mentors
  2. Help you come up with business ideas
  3. Job board to work for (or hire) other indie hackers
  4. List of relevant classes or courses, ideally with ratings
  5. Place to highlight indie product launches
  6. Co-founder matchmaking
  7. Improved meetups tool, for virtual or in-person masterminds
  8. Better method for trading feedback on each other's products
Vote
  1. 52

    I'll be honest, something I'd really like to see is some sort of requirement when posting that people actually write something to add to the post. Lately it seems like there's been tons of just links getting posted with absolutely no other content.

    I get they serve a purpose and they are better than nothing, but they just seem really low effort. Even just a sentence or two would go a long way.

    Just my two cents but I think it would really add to the community.

    1. 14

      Agreed, and I’d love to stop seeing posts about how some company just raised X million series A/B/C or whatever, that’s not indie. Also the “I went from 0 to 7M ARR and 39 staff” again, not indie - I can get that stuff from tech Twitter or HN

      1. 4

        +1 on this one. I'd rather read slow growth bootstrap stories than raising millions of dollars or how someone went to extremely high numbers in very short time.

      2. 2

        Fair enough, I totally get where you're coming from.
        I think the only issue with that would be that someone has to come up with some arbitrary boundary for what is "indie". Is 1M ARR still indie? 100K? 20 staff? 6 staff? 2 office dogs?

        I think your point is still important to address, and will greatly influence the direction the IH community moves in, but it stands separate to the (arguably much simpler) issue of link dumping.

        1. 2

          Outside of SV--and even inside it--$1M ARR is a pretty good metric. In my experience it's been an inflection point for companies. Most are still startups afterward, but they're dealing with more "company" issues (HR, sales, etc.)

        2. 1

          I believe that Simon is getting at the fact that neither:

          • some company just raised X million series A/B/C
          • I went from 0 to 7M ARR and 39 staff

          are independent ventures. They may have started out that way, and could result in an interesting case study (which I believe the second bullet to be FWIW), but they are literally not independent ventures.

    2. 5

      100% agree. Why do we come to IH and expect a bunch of links only post, no context, no conversation. Don’t IH thinks it hurts bounce rate?

      1. 6

        Just in general I think it hurts the community bc you have some people posting brilliant original content, and then others just cross posting from devto / Twitter / blogs etc.

        Kinda cheapens the whole feel of the community

    3. 3

      Literally clicked this link in my email to come here and say this. I remember before I created my account, I used to come here often to read about how a person built something or how scrappy they were, etc. But more importantly, it's the discussions that ensued that gave a LOT more information kept me coming back.

      Need to see those who are quality commenters.

    4. 3

      Completely agree to the point. Quality posts result in good conversations.

    5. 2

      Adding to that, when I'm posting a link, I want to also include some content.

    6. 2

      I second this, would be very nice!

    7. 1

      Lots of subreddits have a submission statement requirement with a min word limit as well. Seems to work well for them.

    8. 1

      This here plus, limits with link dropping, some comments are simply made to drop your link.

    9. 2

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

    10. 1

      This comment was deleted a year ago.

  2. 19

    I am not sure what your thoughts are on private messaging but it would be very nice to be able to make direct private contact with other members as well as doing it publicly.

    1. 21

      Great suggestion. This is already in the works and should be released soon, so I didn't put it in the poll 👍

      1. 1

        This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    2. 1

      +1 on this idea! Glad to hear it's coming soon!

    3. 1

      Yeah one more vote in that direction. Contacting others is quite frequent here, and a bit awkward

    4. 1

      Actually I would agree with this.

  3. 14

    @csallen An option to Bookmark Indie Hacker Posts or View the ones you've upvoted because that is the source of inspiration / curated content that will help yourself and your idea, It gets hard back tracking a post that had information that can help you.

    1. 3

      I'm missing this so much that I was seriously considered building it. I would love to be able to to mark as favorite or bookmark posts.

    2. 3

      I like this idea as well. Something that allows you to curate and jump back to your favorite posts would be nice.

  4. 9

    In my opinion IH was amazing when links weren’t allowed and milestones were front and center.

    1. 1

      I was ranting about the link type posts from day one till I got the official response of this is the future, cause make it easy to contribute for new people, than the spam went hockey stick, community managers and moderators quit, some other anti spam was floated and now we have the invite only wall so it's really easy for new people to contribute.

      Maybe maybe maybe someone would think it over at some point

  5. 7

    Not much of fan of any of these features. Instead, this is what I think would help:

    • ability to collapse comment threads
    • bookmark posts and comments of others
    • transcriptions for the IH podcast
    • plus everything @hatkyinc said
    1. 1

      I've created Chrome extension to collapse comment threads (in review for cws)

      If you would like to check and give feedback: https://github.com/mcavdar/collapse-ih-comments/raw/main/collapse-comments.crx

      Edit:
      It's in store now: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/collapse-ih-comments/jmgnbkfmjcnfdjembjpgfokiombkdpfg?hl=en&authuser=0

  6. 6

    Bring back founder interviews (blog posts)!

  7. 5

    More content organization

    I think the concepts around the "start here" page is good but should be extended and made more prominent or just generally more organization and process rather than generic forums

    Reusing some of the common q&a content in a helpful prominent way would also contribute a lot both for the readers and for the content to evolve over time.

    While not everyone's path is exactly the same, the building blocks are kinda stable and helpful for both new people and a reminder of people already working on something, so just coming back and seeing yea this building the product things is just 1 sliver in the project...

    Like some books [and other resources] are very common recommendations and could be made into an accessible format

    Also the quotes in the loading screen people asked about where they can all be viewed...
    Seem like posted in meta a few times over
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/is-there-a-place-to-find-the-loading-state-quotes-62dc9f864e
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/loading-quotes-4d7b50ee23
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/splash-page-quotes-disappear-too-quickly-0975ded642
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/indie-hackers-quotes-5114d3ebfc
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/link-to-product-page-on-quotes-3bbb718fef
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/is-there-any-way-i-can-get-ih-loading-page-quotes-03a8d778c5
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/id-like-to-read-all-the-quotes-i-can-briefly-see-when-loading-indiehackers-0121c48003
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/where-to-find-the-quotes-that-appear-when-ih-opens-1d773cfba6
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/make-quotes-clickable-6af1dc4b26
    https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-was-bored-so-here-are-all-the-indie-hackers-loading-screen-quotes-d1268107fa

    Maybe a sum up newsletter of the popular/best posts - not just titles
    I'd rather have some wiki type content part that gets improved over time with content and references to posts and such

    ---

    I'd like to see more indication in the preview about the content, for example, the desktop version had an indication for the link only type, now while it's not a type there is the twitter reference only type...
    Maybe something like a word count in the preview, as well as 'first post' for the person icon or thing like that 'no links' badge for no links in the content or in comments by the author

  8. 5

    I don't know why "Place to highlight indie product launches" hasn't had any votes. That seems nice and just voted

    1. 1

      I'd like to see a news site highlighting indie products and related news. VC backed companies seem to get so much easy PR from basic funding rounds. It would be nice to have a techcrunch for indie companies and issues.

      1. 3

        You might be interested in THIS then from @MicroAcquire 👍

    2. 1

      I did the same. But it seems like we already have something similar

  9. 3

    Jobs board would be SO useful when growing a business, especially just looking for people with similar mindsets.
    Also have to agree with comments around reducing the 'VC backed / how to apply for funding' stuff, it does seem to fly quite directly in the face of 'indie'.
    As my business is solely focused on helping independent businesses to grow (whatever growth means to them), this is quite a big one for me.

  10. 2

    To be honest, IH is falling down my list of platforms I can be bothered with. Why? Because 9 out of 10 posts result in zero responses.

    Oh, and if someone says "write or ask something interesting Steve and people will respond" - sorry it aint just mine. Look through all the recent posts and you will see it is a total lottery whether people's posts get any responses or not. This is a core issue because people will just give up and move to other platforms where they find it easier to get a conversation going.

    And with new forums popping up every week, it wouldn't take long for a previously amazing one to become a ghost-town.

    I am in 7 Slack groups for startups/founders, and there is something more appealing to me in groups that have semi-live chatter as they do (the discord group for r/startups can also offer up some good live chat occasionally - just a shame they are so anal about any kind of promotion). But posting on IH at 9am and then waiting 3 days to see if I get a single response doesn't do it for me any more. I wonder if the async-forum idea is starting to die?

    Other thoughts... directories. and some killer search/filtering tools to find people and products by all manner of different fields, including what country people are in.

    And easier/better DM's. But I appreciate this may cause us all to moan in 3 months time about spam ;-)

    1. 2

      Hi Steve,

      Curious to know what slack groups you're in, if you're happy to share?

      I'm in several myself and so far haven't really had any meaningful conversations on them - And haven't found them to have much 'semi-live chatter' Which is super annoying as I purchased an airtable community directory specifically for the Slsck groups, only to find they're not that useful.

      1. 1

        hey @janinah, I guess it might depend on your approach and what your objectives are. I also DM quite a bit on the slack groups; as long as it is respectful and helpful (versus spammy) then I always get good responses.

        happy to swap lists. Please email me...

        1. 1

          I'd love to find out about some slack groups. Can I get in on this too?

          1. 2

            email me for my list.

  11. 2

    The reason I voted for "Better method for trading feedback on each other's products". Most of us IHers work in isolation, getting feedback from potential users and also from other hackers is very very important. Some good feedback can greatly help in identifiying the problems ahead.

    The reason I visit IH is to learn and see what others are doing? whats happening in this group. Sadly now-a-days there is alot of unncessary content on the main page. Couple of years back there were genuine questions and it was pleasure to learn/answer/give-feedback.

  12. 2

    The options in the poll are oriented more towards working together on the same project, (which is definitely something a lot of indie hackers will be interested in, so I'm not against it).

    I'd like to suggest to also have options oriented to working together but not on the same project. For example, I prefer to work alone on my projects but I'd like to talk to other indie hackers to share ideas and feedback, help others with what I can, accountability, etc. Something like mentors, but not one way, but rather to help each other.

    If there was a tool to discover others who are interested in the same thing and see what they need help with and how can I contribute would be awesome. Maybe also match by goals/interests, stage of their progress, communication preferences (email/zoom/phone/chat).

    Also 100% agree on the link posts and no VC content points from the top comment.

  13. 2

    I'd like the email notifications to include the subjects of the posts they refer to, not just the text of the comments, as it's a crucial piece of context.

  14. 1

    Courtland, not sure how big a project the direct messaging will be for you; but I may be able to give you a shortcut. ContactLink is basically an escrow service for contact info; we store phone#'s and email addresses confidentially, and give members an iFrame in your website where they can send calls/messages through the browser.

    It's a much higher fidelity solution than typical community text-based DM's, and since we've gotten so much value out of IndieHackers I think we can do something for you that's less expensive than anything you'd build or buy yourself.

    Thoughts? Hit my link: https://contactlink.to/jesse.hercules

  15. 1

    i hate link posts. seems like spam to me.

    improve the quality of discussion first, then worry about that other stuff

  16. 1

    Would love more content on how to come up with ideas and testing / validating ideas.

  17. 1

    I'd like to see a tag or filter where I can filter by the size and type of company. For example, I only care about one or two person SaaS. I'm not interested in hearing a team of 50 people hitting $1M ARR. Give me a person running a SaaS solo and getting 250K ARR.

  18. 1

    An IOS app ;-) mostly visit indiehackers on downtown moments and a browser isn’t the best experience for something you visit multiple times per day

  19. 1

    I’d love to continue to hear great podcast episodes!

  20. 1

    What I'd like to see is a platform where ppl share insights about different fields/domains they have experience with.
    It could work with a point system where I only see some until I share my own experience with some domain I'm familiar with. (I know it's abstract, but you get the point)

  21. 1

    I would love to go back to founder interviews, those were my favorite part of IndieHackers.

  22. 1

    It's possible to link contact information on profiles and there are already complains about how it's used for spammy cold outreach. I don't know who asked for direct messaging but I'm sure they didn't think it further.

    Having a real-time chat room may work better, there were several discord servers set up in time for indiehackers and demand was there. An official chat room possibly gather more people. This may also encourage people to move their low-effort posts to share over there. Such as twitter links.

    • Directory of mentors can be handled via single post or page, I don't see a recurring benefit/value of having such a feature. Mentors already marketing themselves. How hard to find them?
    • Not sure how you'll help with generating ideas.
    • Those who vote for a job board, how many indies you've contacted to hire(d) so far. Don't we all trying to get rid of our bosses or am I in the wrong place?
    • I'd rather have this page fully open, don't need another listing pumped with network votes and false testimonials.
    • A place to highlight launches, yes.
      .
      .
      .

    When I look back on the past year of indiehackers, it was particularly helpful on igniting the spark for many. Those who reached $2K/month already gone, they don't come back until the churn hits or a new release knocks the door. No one stays around. So I'd put my money on either finding a way to keep them here or focus on doing this better. So everyone knows indiehackers is a good place to start. A place to highlight launches sounds good to me. Indiehackers can become the welcoming, helpful community again instead of a link dumping forum. I'd suggest to have a queued system rather than a voting/rating system. Highlighting 1-5 projects a day on the homepage and combining it with "better method for feedback" sounds good to me.

    About link dumps, a switch to turn them on and off will give you a better opinion on what active minority wants, the minority who keeps the activity going. Or simply moving them to a 4th tab can work the same without much effort. eg. "Show HN"

    The feature I'd like to see not listed on the poll is an update on the popular feed. It doesn't fit the current circulation IMHO. It's possible to hit the popular page with 2 upvotes and comments, and stuck there for the rest of the day due to exposure and some folks already leveraging/abusing this knowledge.

  23. 1

    I just voted for "Place to highlight indie product launches"

    It's clear most of us want this :D

    I also feel there should be more of that on your amazing podcast.

    (see you Twitter DMs :D)

  24. 1

    I’d love to see you flip some of your podcast episodes on their head where it’s more of a Shark Tank format for early stage projects and ideas. The guest presents their idea and plans and the host(s) tear it down by asking question and pointing out potential flaws in the plan. Courtland would be great at asking tough questions. I think it would be informative , entertaining and could be fertile ground for a podcast thread where members could weigh in with ideas for improving the plan.

  25. 1

    What about an option to list of your product 'on sale'?

  26. 1

    I would like IH to use a platform like hopin.com for networking/ community chat. It doesn't have to be long sessions but it would be nice to video chat with people online. They could also build their own version of the platform as a feature, that would be cool too.

  27. 1

    Make it easier to see updates from products/people you follow. Like some type of feed.

  28. 1

    There's a lot of room here for job postings and coach listings. The strength of a small community is that it can foster the kind of back-and-forth over drinks for a few months that ends in a strong partnership.
    Key here is names and interest. Tools (like the meetups tool) are already out there and way better than IH could or should make. Just slap in an API or just a link.

  29. 1

    How about a getsatistfaction section or similar which is basically a consistent discussion around priorities for the site and plans so people can be in the loop and communicate these things on an on-going basis..

  30. 1

    I saw earlier today on the product page there's a feature called ( visitors ) where it can possibly track your traffic on the site. Love this, curious in seeing when that will fully rollout? @csallen :)

  31. 1

    I would also like the links in the newsletters to work in Safari. Right now when I open an IH Top Milestones newsletter in Gmail on Safari all the links are forwarded through the click.pstmrk.it domain which Safari blocks by default.

  32. 1

    To go totally back to the basics – I felt like the products have been missing some love and would fix some of those problems, so:

    • Milestones
    • Being able to post jobs (I love to hire from IH)
    • Features / interviews
    • More metrics on there
    • Request for help // Feedback
  33. 1

    Adding a step into the onboarding for following other people's projects would be great. I feel like following projects is so essential to the function of this whole community but currently the process is quite hidden.

  34. 1

    I have a really old account created with facebook and for some reason I cannot log in on mobile. Would like that to be fixed or the ability to deassociate the facebook requirement to my account.

  35. 1

    Great to see job board coming in second since it would be the second best feature I would like to see on Indie Hackers.

  36. 1

    A more even distribution of content. It's not very encouraging to create content when the average post get arounds 10 or 20 views.

  37. 1

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

  38. 1

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

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