Why is everyone succeeding and I am failing?

Don't read the news bro. The news feeds are designed to grab your attention and give you an instant dopamine hit. Not to give you a real image of how the world works.

Why would someone post about all the stuff that didn't work?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Success depends a lot on your goal. For example, I'm a receptionist here in Brazil and I get paid R$1500 (convert it to dollars). My goal is to earn a little more than that right now just from my projects. I've been working at night for 4 years. Success for me today is sleeping at home.

Look, here are a few motivational points and one piece of advice... as the saying goes "Every master was once a disaster".

1. Michael Jordan is said to have been practicing for hours on end, on top of his regular practice schedule with the team. If you consider what "practice" means, which is trying again and again and again, mostly failing. In business, practice is about improvement, not about hitting a goal.

2. Also, consider that for every person who posts their success, there are a thousand not posting their "not success", and most of the people who post about their success have the interest to inflate their numbers. Some to boost their ego and most because they sell you something related, such as coaching, books and courses, or equipment. With this in mind:

3. Consider that viewing the opposite of success as failure is a disservice to yourself. Failure is perceived by the mind as terminal. In contrast, you could frame the two options and "goal achieved" and "feedback acquired" (there are other options too). If you take every "failure", analyze and find just one thing to improve next time, you will get consistently better. And now with this one in mind:

4. The cycle of continuous improvement will improve your results exponentially, not linearly. This is the blessed effect of compounding.

So here is my (hopefully) helpful advice: NEVER look at an unfavorable result as a terminal failure, ALWAYS collect data during and after the process, and ALWAYS analyze, learn and improve.

Hope this helps.

Usually when people feel this way in their journey, success it right around the corner.
You are Edison and you've tested 9,999 bad lightbulbs so far - don't give up!

The phenomenon you're describing is often referred to as "highlight reel syndrome." It's a common occurrence where people tend to showcase only their achievements, positive experiences, and successes while omitting the challenges, setbacks, and failures they've encountered along the way.

It's crucial to maintain a balanced perspective on both successes and failures. Failures are an integral part of the journey towards success. They provide valuable learning opportunities, help refine strategies, and contribute to personal growth. Sharing failures transparently not only helps demystify the entrepreneurial process but also offers insights that can guide others in making more informed decisions.

Read posts on the website Failory, basically they focus on founders that failed and what they learnt from it.

I am not good at this but I'll still share it (helps me to remind myself while I write this down):

Your journey is different to everyone else. And the only thing that matters is for you to achieve your objectives. Don't focus on what others say on social media. We don't even know if it's real or not. If it's real be happy for them! We can learn from others. But to succeed, we need to keep our mind with a "tunnel vision" mindset. Don't look sideways. Finding PMF, getting customers, or building a great product won't be achieved by looking at Twitter ("x"), or LinkedIn.

It's hard. But this won't help you.
Learning. Building. Sharing your experiences with others who WANT to support you and the other way around. That will help. And we're here for each other.

I tend to block time to consciously look at what's happening around me. But the rest of the time I try to not even check my feed, and just focus on building.

I've spent a week and a half trying to work out how to build on Webflow 😅. I'm almost there. But if I would have just looked at others' "successes" I would just cry and stop my work. Building a startup is hard. And success can have many different meanings.

If I can help I'm here always.

Yea can't take social posts as proof of success. Sometimes it helps to stay focused and stay in lanes you know really well. That means if you going to go after something new then study up and be the best at it before you begin instead of jumping in and blindly following someone directions.

As a newbie to this space , I do get motivation from success stories but motivation alone is not enough , I need lessons to learn too first.
Just wondering, what is ur failure story?

In the specific case you mention above I wouldn't say inflating their numbers but rather flat out lying...

Success is always difficult, specially when it comes to financial success. Most of the overnight success stories are either fake or short-lived. Yeah, some people might get lucky and get there in a shorter span than others but still it requires extreme hard work.

I feel the same way. It seems that most of the stories I hear are like this: one person makes an app alone, and then makes a lot of money.
I made 2 apps, namely ChatWork and ChatPDF, Chrome Extension, but neither made any money.

Play your own game man you’ll be better for it

It takes 5 years of hard work for a 5 day success like that one.

Most, if not all, how to make money doing 'xyz' courses are failed business models that don't work in the real world. If they did work and if they were so profitable, why is some huckster selling courses instead of building his super easy, super profitable business?

Most TikTok and Social MEdia influencers are full of shit. Don't believe everything you read. Most people outright lie while some inflate their numbers just to get social points. Focus on yourself and ensure that you are getting something done every day towards your own Goal. Remember, run your own race.

Learn from others' experiences but keep a skeptical eye online. Not everything you find is accurate. Stay curious and critical

I guarantee a lot are lying. People are willing to do anything for likes so don’t be surprised if some are BS. Don’t let it get you down, building something takes time. Some just get luckier than others, quicker.

Agree with many of the comments below.

Be skeptical of what you see on social media (and the news for that matter). Social feeds are designed to extract revenue through manipulative algorithms -- posts showcasing incredible successes attract attention and generate engagement, which is probably why you see so many of them.

Easier said than done, but it might help to actively direct your attention to information sources that add real value to your life. Determine what those sources are (in alignment with your goals and values) and start working to tune out the rest.

Some people succeed overnight when they strike gold. Overnight success is rare, but it does happen.

Some people succeed by working tirelessly for years. We hear about their success at the very end, so it feels like overnight success.

And some people … well, some people just lie, not in a malicious, but unintentional way. The MRR is a very toxic metric. It is just revenue. 50K MRR with 60K operating cost is well … not great.

There is a tiny group that lies intentionally though :(

You're right, there is a lot of content on social media about successes, and it can be easy to get the impression that everyone is doing amazing things and making a lot of money.

However, it's important to remember that social media is a curated platform, and people are only going to share the things that make them look good.

The failures and setbacks are often left out.

This can be a problem for Indie Hackers because it can create unrealistic expectations. It can make it seem like it's easy to build a successful business when in reality it takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and perseverance.

It can also make it difficult to stay motivated when you're facing challenges because you don't see other people talking about their struggles.

So what can you do to combat this?

Be skeptical of the content you see on social media. Don't believe everything you read.

Find Indie Hackers who are willing to be open about their failures. There are a number of people who share their stories on Indie Hackers, and it can be helpful to hear about the challenges they've faced and how they overcame them.

Focus on your own journey. Don't compare yourself to others.

Everyone's path is different, and there's no one right way to build a successful business.
Remember that success takes time.

Don't expect to become an overnight millionaire. It takes hard work, dedication, and perseverance to build a successful business.

It's also important to remember that social media is just one tool that can be used to promote your business.

It's not the only way to get attention or generate leads. You should also focus on building a strong website, creating high-quality content, and networking with other people in your industry.

If you're feeling discouraged by the content you see on social media, remember that you're not alone.

Everyone faces challenges when they're building a business. The important thing is to stay focused on your goals and keep moving forward.

My suggestion: Focus on the long term

Life works in a compounding way, you won't get any results in the first 6 months but in the 7 the month, you will see a big success. This is my biggest learning in my entrepreneur journey

The best time to plant a tree is 5 years ago or right now! Growth comes to you eventually when you show up every day!

My take: Ignore others. Focus on your own success.

Totally agree.
Even on the IH platform, I've noticed that posts with higher engagement are those about massive success or a massive comeback from failure.

No one really interacts with posts about a new indie's journey or his small failure.

It's sad really.

P.S. I wouldn't call myself an Indie Hacker, though, I love the IH platform and the tight knit community. 🙈

• If they're selling a course, their advice is worthless
• everyones faking to some degree
• if 9/10 startups fail, build 12 just to be safe.

It's important to remember that success stories often dominate social media, but they don't reflect the whole journey. Failure is a natural part of any venture and can be a powerful teacher. Don't be discouraged by what you see; focus on your own progress and growth. Keep learning, adapting, and persisting – your unique path will lead you to success in your own time. Stay determined and keep pushing forward.KoreanPanda explained in a blog post

Survivors Bias. 99% of people online are broke and have struggling businesses. I created a newsletter discussing failed startups & the reality of them

• some present inflated numbers (or downright fake) in order to make you buy their courses
• they worked their asses off for the past few years getting there
• there is severe survivor bias on social media: the wins get pushed in front of your eyes, whole the ones that fail are not writing about it and if they are, the algorithms don't push their content as much. For each successful startup there are like at least 10 that failed in silence.

Don't worry, keep building and selling .

We recently launched https://www.investorradar.io/ to minor success, we understand the difficulties in developing a SaaS application.

Of course. It is what human are. We want to talk about how great we are and hide all the failure so we look like a perfect genius human. So far after talking and observing so many successful people they are as much as we are.

1. They don't know what they are doing.
2. They feel the imposter syndrome.
3. They lost count how many time they fail.

But the most important thing they all have is arrogance. They are very arrogance with failure. They don't give it much weight and don't take it as something concrete.

Essentially failure is determine by you and most of the time if you stop you fail. As long as you don't stop you will win. ( read about infinite game of life )

In fact this article explain why failure is what MVP and iterating need to do : Here why startup fail to win

Would you mind sharing the courses you bought? I started dropshipping in 2017, did some great numbers but It wasn't that thing for me after a while. Fell in love with SaaS instead. Created 40+ tools, and finally got one which is pretty much blowing up right now. But you can guess it, the other 39 failed. So a 2.5% success rate for me. Just don't give up, find something what is super interesting and give it your all.

Bro, dont care. This content is called “营销号” in chinese.