Shotinger

When I started building Shotinger, I had the typical indie hacker mindset:

Build it yourself. Figure everything out. Move fast.

So I tried to do everything.

Product.
SEO.
Marketing.
Design.
Research.
Strategy.
And, of course, building the product itself.

At first, it felt like the right approach.

No meetings. No dependencies. No waiting for anyone.

But eventually, I realized something:

Doing everything yourself doesn't necessarily make you faster.

It can actually become your biggest bottleneck.

You spend hours working on things you're not particularly good at, while the things you're really good at get less attention.

That's when I started thinking differently about what being an "indie hacker" actually means.

Being indie doesn't necessarily mean being alone.

It means having the freedom to build, make decisions, experiment, and create something without needing a huge organization behind you.

And sometimes, the best way to keep that freedom is to build with a small, complementary team.

You don't need 10 people.

You might only need 2 or 3 people who bring completely different strengths to the table.

One person sees the product.

Another sees the market.

Another sees the growth opportunities.

And suddenly, problems that would have taken you days to solve alone can be solved in a few hours together.

I've also realized that complementarity isn't just about skills.

It's about personality.

You need someone who challenges your ideas.

Someone who pushes execution.

Someone who thinks about details you completely overlooked.

Someone who can say:

"I don't think this is the right direction."

And that's valuable.

I'm still figuring out the right balance between being independent and building with others.

But one thing has become clear to me:

The goal shouldn't be to prove that you can do everything yourself.

The goal is to build something great with as little unnecessary complexity as possible.

And sometimes, that means realizing that the strongest indie team isn't the biggest one.

It's the one where everyone brings something the others don't have.

What do you think matters more for a small startup: individual skill or complementary skills?