Why do you build products, Indie Hacker?
Money? Freedom (via money)?
Humans get used to things and lose perspective quickly, and people in the tech industry are especially guilty of this.
I see people saying things like "It's only 10k a month, it's not a lot of money". And maybe it's not to you, but to 99% of the world, that's a shit tonne.
We are some of the most entitled folk around.
Some of us don't realise how lucky we are, and most of us are constantly chasing some arbitrary number.
But what happens when you reach that number?
Recently I posted this to Twitter and it got me thinking.
This is fun, and I'm happy. Sure, I have an arbitrary number I'm aiming at, but for some reason or another, the project I'm working on now is exciting to me.
I enjoy waking up, excited to work on my project. I love taking that first sip of coffee as as I sit down to my desk and turn on my monitor. I can't wait to see where my project goes.
Although the number is still there, the process has become more important to me. And, if my SaaS fails, I got a lot more out of it than a number.
I build mine because I want to help the world, and have financially freedom.
Very admirable. How are you helping the world?
With the choice of building out my product I can: work on an unpredictable schedule, practice valuable skills, have some sort of chance at scalable financial success, and most importantly, build the tool that I want to exist for my own personal satisfaction. I want this thing to exist because I want to use it myself.
Building for yourself is always good imo. Especially if it can be productised and other people want to use it :)
My app is also something I want!
Because I'm compelled to by whatever combination of genetic drivers that makeup me as a human being.
What I do is so hard that if I had a choice not to, I absolutely WOULD NOT do this. But I just can't not.
If you're obsessed with something, you don't have much of a choice.
The more pragmatic part is that I don't like to be dependent on anyone. When you work at a company (for me, I'm not judging others) it feels like you're still a kid. But instead of your parents taking care of you and putting food in your mouth, you're now looking to your boss to take on that role. Being in that position made me feel like I wasn't an adult.
I get you. Building is addictive. It's not easy, but it's fun, interesting, and rewarding. It'll suck you in!
I also completely understand where you're coming from on your pragmatic answer too. I think it depends on the company, but some places will definitely have you feeling like a little child.
Yup!
Generally speaking:
That's a good list.
I think the last one is especially good. Building a SaaS definitely makes you learn a lot of new skills that you wouldn't have otherwise.
I think the answer is that we can't say what happens when you reach that number, because we don't know. I'm guessing it's not just a simple case of "now you're happy and everything is good."
Maybe once you hit that number, you start to worry about losing it? Or maybe you worry about what will happen if someone else makes more than you? Or maybe things get harder because now the money isn't enough?
Or maybe you start seeing them as points in a game? I feel that's probably how I'll end up.
I definitely agree that it's not just a case of "now you're happy and everything is good.".
I think I was 10 years old when I built my first app. It was a simple Windows program that contained a collection of small mini games and quizzes. I didn't know what I was doing, but I learned programming by trial and error. I wanted to build an app for myself, simply because I was bored and building things has always been something I liked doing.
Today, I run a computer software company with employees all over the world. And I still enjoy building small side projects. I think it's both a matter of loving what I do, but also working on different projects helps me to not get bored with working on the same work things all the time.
I, too, enjoy waking up, excited to work on my projects. I started to do this when I was about 10 years old. Now I'm 40 years old, and I still love to build new things.
This is the way - excited by the process of building things.
For me, I like starting from nothing and seeing something tangible being built over time. It sounds like you might be similar?
Exactly. And after you have built it, keep polishing and improving it and the look back how it look when you started. All that is very enjoyable for me.
I build stuff that I want to build
I mean... Sure.
But why do you want to build them?
I built my app because I found other apps are not good enough for me. Everyone copies and pastes and updates from API docs, but that's a great waste of time. So I built Apidog, to save every minute of developers in API developing.
"I built it because I wasn't happy with what there was" is a good reason, I think.
Scratch your own itch!
I definitely want the money, and I definitely want the freedom, but it's also the way in which I will (hopefully) attain that. If I'm able to do this on my own, I can look back without any doubt that it was my hard work that made it happen.
That's a nice way of looking at things.
"I got this through my own hard work" - definitely a satisfying outcome.
I build stuff that I generally want to build. If I could, I would give them all away for free but life is expensive.
I actually thought about this the other day; if developers/creators were guaranteed their basic needs (and occasional wants) for life, the world would be full of a lot of great free software and stuff.
Yeah definitely. If money wasn't an issue, people like us would still build, we just wouldn't have a reason to charge for it.
It distracts me from my existential crisis 😅
Haha, I hope you're doing OK, mate!
Thank you brother, haha all good just taking it day by day
That's all we can do :)
I want to earn enough money so I have the freedom to do whatever I want 😅
The latter part changes a lot, but for now my goal is to buy a house in the mountains with a home gym, get a pig 🐷 and not have any responsibilities so I can decide on a day to day basis what I'm going to do (spend time with my future kids, play video games, go hiking etc.) 🙈
Of course I love building stuff, so even if I was rich I would still do it. It will just be a lot different (and more fun I guess?) since I won't have any pressure
That sounds like a nice life!
Yeah getting rid of the pressures of modern life, financial burden, and having to adhere to someone else's schedule would be a major quality of life improvement.