Why it's so difficult to make money as an IH or Creator
Anyone else think the Indie Hacker / Creator Market is broken?
There is nothing worse than working hard for hours on a creation and receiving little to no engagement.
I joined twitter to share my learning from consulting — I’ve got a lot to give: a decade of experience running projects; a good grasp of how to define a tech strategy; techniques for client / stakeholder manager and communication.
I could package my knowledge up into useful articles, tools, templates and provide one on one coaching.
The Problem
Despite there being almost zero barriers to entry, there are huge barriers to success:
Supply is high — lots of people are creating so there’s lots of competition for attention, but more importantly;
Visibility is weighted — it’s heavily skewed to those who have built a large audience on twitter etc. over many years. They are the hubs and gate keepers of engagement. This makes it incredibly difficult for the rest of us.
We are small fish in a world sized pond.
I don’t believe the best creators currently sell the most. This is not a perfect market, not by any means.
Indies just starting out may not have the time to develop content marketing and engage in comments on a range of social media, but they have value to give.
The lack of engagement and momentum early on can kill the enthusiasm and motivation of a creator and ensure they go back to a reasonably paid job.
How do you think we can solve this problem?
Gotta keep digging at it. I deeply believe this is a game where the results show survivorship bias. As a result, just survive.
It is difficult to make money fast. It is not difficult to make money over a few years, assuming you stick with it and keep hustling.
Small is amazing.
Small means you don't have to convince anyone else before you do or try something.
Small means that the scale of success is achievable using the resources you already have.
Small means you don't have employees to pay (or lay off if something goes wrong).
"Supply is high" - to me this is usually a clue that you're spending more time paying attention to what other people are doing, rather than whoever your business serves. And it's in direct contradiction with your other point that the world is huge.
THE WORLD IS HUGE. You can build a sustainable product business with hundreds of customers...or less. Hundreds. ON THE WHOLE INTERNET!
Marketing is just "building trust at scale" which you can't really do until you learn how to do it one-on-one.
Time is a real constraint, but what's more important is how you use it to build leverage. Use small successes to create space for bigger ones.
There is no single path that works for everyone, so the best way to solve this problem is to analyze your advantages, whatever they may be, and use them to reach and help people. That builds trust, which is the #1 prerequisite to making a sale that folks forget.
Focus there. A valuable feedback loop follows.
This comment was deleted 5 years ago