Indie Lessons

618 posts

Indie Lessons

Indie Lessons

@indielessons

I curate the journeys and lessons of Indie Hackers

Beigetreten Aralık 2020
246 Folgt274 Follower
Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
Honestly I’m less likely to reply to anyone at the moment because of all the accusations of being AI slop. So many people will just block if they suspect it. Before I’d be more friendly and send a smaller message of support. Now I’m worried that if I’ll get blocked if it isn’t personalised enough. If it means anything, I’m enjoying following your progress even if im not publicly engaging with it :)
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Andrew Zacker
Andrew Zacker@andrewzacker·
Building in public is honestly a joke now: - You post the first sale celebration post or a follower's milestone post to farm engagement. People reply with "congrats", but they genuinely don't care - You ask people to upvote your product, they upvote, but they don't even open your website, as they don't care - Most founders are crazy CHEAP. Unless you are selling the dream, they will rather spend a week building an alternative, rather than paying you $10 - Whenever you share a tactic that works, you get 10s of people copying you and making it harder to work - You can have thousands of followers, and barely get any views and engagement While at the same time, some coaches on Instagram make $10s of thousands of dollars with just 10k-50k followers, by building simple funnels and selling high-ticket. Don't get me wrong, I still believe in build in public content and community, and it GAVE ME a lot over the last few months. But tell me, what's the point of building in public content on X over filming reels and selling high ticket?
Andrew Zacker tweet media
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
Have you looked at ways to calm your body down before going to bed? Progressive muscle relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing. I’m an insomniac and fit they are hit and miss, but it does work sometimes. My real issue is I’m so hyped about my projects it’s hard to shut my brain off and my sleep quality is poor. It’s taught me that sleep isn’t always about the time spent asleep, but how well you sleep. May be worth seeing a doctor to see if there are any issues impacting on sleep
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Florin Pop 👨🏻‍💻
Florin Pop 👨🏻‍💻@FlorinPop17·
Nothing better than a good night’s sleep. 😴 Too bad it only happens 1-2 times a week. 😕 Tips on increasing that to 7? I do all of the: no food, no phone, no coffee before bed. Also completely dark, colder room, ear plugs. Roughly the same hour in bed (11-12).
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
This residency program has given me a bunch of new indie hackers to research :) Going to be fun seeing the new products/projects
Thomas Sanlis 🥐@T_Zahil

From a fresh pasta shop to a SaaS at $2K MRR. Sometimes the path is a bit longer than you'd expect 😅. We're continuing the resident introductions for the Uneed Residency. Today: @heymattia! Mattia's journey stands out. Before tech, he worked 4 years at a fresh pasta shop (Yes, he's Italian 😂). Then graphic design. Then 6 years of freelancing. And finally, he went into indie hacking, after procrastinating the dream for 6 more years. Today, he's a Product Manager by day and co-founder of BlackTwist the rest of the time, alongside Luca (also a resident, introduced a few days ago). BlackTwist is the tool creators use to build a consistent Threads presence without burning out. Scheduling, analytics, everything you need to show up daily without being glued to your phone. The numbers: $2K MRR today, versus $600 a year ago. Clear growth. And yet, Mattia is honest: a year ago, he was writing a blog post titled "I'm failing". And the feeling hasn't really changed 😅. There's something very real about that line for anyone who's ever built solo. His current challenge: positioning. Threads added native scheduling, new competitors showed up, and people need to see BlackTwist as a system for building a presence, not "just another scheduler". Otherwise, it's a price war. What he's coming to the residency for: honest conversations with other founders about growth when you're bootstrapped and competing against bigger tools. And simply, the energy of being around people who get it. After almost 2 years heads-down, that's earned. Bonus fun fact: he got his personal .com domain back after 8 years of waiting. On his birthday 🎂. More coming soon, we'll introduce all the residents before the residency kicks off 😊.

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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
One of my fav things about Indie Lessons is documenting these failed products, especially from prolific creators like Tibo. It’s fascinating seeing how past failures influenced their current products :) Contemplating turning my failed product case studies into a searchable directory
Tibo@tibo_maker

I spent ~$35k across 7 products - 3 even hit $1k mrr I still killed them all most founders think that's embarrassing but I think it's the biggest reason I'm winning now fast failures aren't setbacks - they're data each product I killed taught me something I couldn't learn any other way you can't learn what customers actually want by reading books you can't learn what business model works by watching YouTube you learn by building something, watching it fail, and asking why the problem is most founders take 18 months to learn what should take 6 weeks they build in secret for a year. launch. realize nobody wants it. get sad. I learned faster one of my products attracted the wrong customers killed it at $1k mrr one had good economics at scale but I was too small to make it work - killed it one was a feature pretending to be a product - killed it at $300 mrr each death made the next product better the products that work now, the ones doing $1m mrr combined, only work because I learned what doesn't work first and I learned that fast the real shift is: stop thinking "I failed 7 times" start thinking "I ran 7 experiments and extracted the data" failure isn't the opposite of success - it's the tuition you pay for it the only question is: how much are you paying, and how fast are you learning? this week's newsletter: I'm breaking down all 7 products I killed, what made me pull the trigger on each one, and how those lessons compound into what's working now 100% free & no ads subscribe below 👇

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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
I use AI to help with content creation and some marketing tasks. I’m not a developer, and there js no way I’d vibe code a product. I’d rather pay for something I can trust, that doesn’t have security risks and has good customer support. Competitors can easily vibe code solutions and that is a huge risk. But even then, I’ll always go with the person I trust to be around for long enough. AI is awesome but trust is more powerful
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Andrea Bosoni
Andrea Bosoni@theandreboso·
@alexanderisorax @unicornplatform You're ignoring the fact that the average person is not a builder and they don't want to spend time and effort creating something from scratch when they can just buy an existing product.
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Alexander Isora, ex-maker
Alexander Isora, ex-maker@alexanderisorax·
I've just killed my second (and last) SaaS. I expected it to be a glorious success, but that was an delusion. I've made it with my 1st SaaS (@unicornplatform) not because I'm good at creating SaaS, but because I'm good at noticing gaps in markets. There was an obvious gap with landing pages, but there was no gap in video creation. My way is to patiently wait until I notice a gaping hole, luring to be filled in, that no one else see. Then I will have an opportunity to make another SaaS. However, AI will be able to instantly replicate any of my findings. So my skill to have a clear vision is obsolete. ... . The SaaS game is over. Indie making is over. . ... You may throw rocks into me. But I'm just a messenger.
Paracast.io 🛸@paracast_io

Paracast is shutting down. Thank you all for your generous support during these 2 years! 🙇 Goodbye!

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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
@tibo_maker @dr For me it helps build trust. I know it's part of the build in public marketing playbook. But the fact he's continuing to publish newsletters when he's at a point he doesn't need to... makes me confident he'll stick around with his products
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Tibo
Tibo@tibo_maker·
@dr to be fully transparent, I also have the same thoughts when I see billionaires starting a newsletter in my case, it's part of my playbook, it helped me be where I am today
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Dan Rowden
Dan Rowden@dr·
If my products were at +$900K MRR I don’t think I’d be writing a weekly newsletter
Dan Rowden tweet media
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
@BenjaminHouy I’ve done 500 of these profiles so far and it’s a slog. One of the hardest parts is actually finding a clear product description. Very few product sites have media rooms. I know because I hunt for them. I tend to prioritize those write ups though as it can easily save an hour
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Benjamin Houy
Benjamin Houy@BenjaminHouy·
Stop pitching journalists and sending cold emails. The pitch is not the bottleneck. Last year I built an AI search visibility tool called Lorelight. It helped brands track how they appeared in ChatGPT and other AI answers. Got press coverage, had paying customers, investors reaching out. Then I analyzed hundreds of AI responses and realized the whole category was built on a false premise. There was no "GEO hack." The brands showing up in AI answers were just brands people already talked about. So I shut it down publicly and wrote one honest post about why. The Wall Street Journal, Digiday, and many other publications covered it. No pitch necessary. Turns out a founder killing their own product and saying "this entire category is smoke and mirrors" is a story journalists want to tell. That taught me something I now apply to everything: spend more time wondering how to be remarkable than on outreach. With Copycat Cafe™, that's what we do. We named a language app after an insult. Our tagline is "Babies don't conjugate. They copy." Every part of the brand is designed to make someone stop and want to tell the story. Then we built a press page. Downloadable graphics, story angles, founder background. Took an afternoon. We got featured on @indielessons today. The writer said our press page made their job easier. Most founders spend 10x more time crafting cold emails than making their company worth writing about. Flip it. When you do pitch, it's way easier.
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
Write up is here: indielessons.com/product/copyca… Getting so close to the juicy curatorial work. When this is done, I can curate all the strategies into pages that have deep dives into how specific techniques work for different founders and products. I'm so looking forward to that part :)
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
Want to make it easier for people to write about your product? Create a good media page. Just finished the @copycatcafeapp write up and the media page made it easier. Graphics, story angles, founder background. It's something that is overlooked so often with indie hacking copycatcafe.com/press
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
@helloitsolly I don't know if she's making more money, but I'm really enjoying seeing the interesting ways @lkr has been using AI. It's getting to the point where she's sharing so many good ideas, I don't know how to organize them
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Olly
Olly@helloitsolly·
Who's making more money with AI? Not people selling spades, but existing founders shipping more marketing work that's driving revenue? I see lots of founders running more experiments, trying new things, and saving time. But who can attribute extra revenue to work delivered through AI? Who should I follow? What should I be reading? #buildinpublic
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
@FlorinPop17 Australia, on my For You page (I’ve always used lists to get what I want normally)
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
Now I have to update Marc’s directory profile. Again ;) The beautiful thing is I’m at the point where I can analyse trends across the products. Going to have some fun with that in the coming weeks
Marc Lou@marclou

This is my 35th startup. It made $1K in 4 hours. For the past 4 years, I’ve only built apps that solve my own problems. I never tried to “build a business.” I just kept making things I wanted to exist. Most entrepreneurs would disagree and tell me to focus on one startup, but this approach worked well for me. It also made the whole process fun enough that work rarely feels like work. There’s room for people who create just because they want to create. Just ship it.

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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
I'm Australian. Which means I have to see the local April Fools Day posts on our April Fools Day, then see people in other countries celebrate it the following day. It's hard work if your project involves curating milestones. I've fallen for a couple of them without realizing!
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
@ThePeterMick @ShortsAI_com I'm Australian and just woke up :P It takes me a minute to remember it's still April Fools in some parts of the world
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Peter Mick
Peter Mick@ThePeterMick·
finally happened today I sold my solo SaaS @ShortsAI_com for $1.8M it's been a fun journey, a bit sad, but also happy and building another solo SaaS as I am typing it (well AI is) Jack is better than me at negotiations so he got $4.2M for his, something to keep in mind and learn for the future ❤️
Peter Mick tweet media
jack friks@jackfriks

i sold my company @postbridge_ for $4,206,969 i cant believe it, but i just closed the final documents and got the wire into my account this morning.

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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
@petersuhm I have no interest in genealogy, but always interested in different ways people use AI for research :) Would definitely be intrigued. (I'm still a beginner for research; I'm at the point where I mostly use AI for pattern recognition)
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
I'm working on a database of products launched by indie hackers. I've done write ups of 478 products. I have 293 left to go. I'm bored of the write ups but I need to push through as all the juicy stuff is going to be in the strategy pages. :) Seeing so many patterns already
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
@T_Zahil I’m not a developer but have freelanced in both social media and content marketing. It has decimated by industry. It can do what took me hours in seconds. I can do the posts that involve complex research better, for now. There isn’t as much demand due to reduced search interest
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Thomas Sanlis 🥐
Thomas Sanlis 🥐@T_Zahil·
My LinkedIn feed is full of people saying « there are more dev jobs opening than ever », « we will still need more and more devs », « it’s a good time to start a dev career », etc. I really wonder how so many people can be this delusional. If you’ve tried working with AI, how can you still think it won’t take most jobs? I see absolutely no reason for anyone to still work 40h/week behind a screen in a few years.
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Indie Lessons
Indie Lessons@indielessons·
@lkr I’ve only been using it for two weeks. That was a huge adjustment, especially in relation to ChatGPT. Can require a lot of organization skills to remember what you’ve told each chat. Will likely get easier with time but still getting used to it.
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Laura Roeder
Laura Roeder@lkr·
So a mental shift I've had recently with claude code is truly understanding that it has only the assets you've given it in that session. Because it talks like a human, we often feel surprised/frustrated when it doesn't remember a convo it just had, or it can't find a tool we just installed. But if it doesn't have some kind of path to knowing they exist, it never will. And it's "memory" works absolutely nothing like ours does, it should be called something else. You CAN'T think of it like a human coworker or you'll hit constant failure and frustration.
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@alexanderisorax @unicornplatform @tibo_maker @dr @BenjaminHouy @copycatcafeapp @helloitsolly @lkr