Tom Planer
906 posts
Tom Planer
@tplaner
Full-stack engineer turned founder. Mastered shipping, still figuring out distribution. Laravel, TypeScript, whatever tool for the job.
New Jersey, USA Katılım Ağustos 2008
399 Takip Edilen143 Takipçiler
X is full of business stories that read like fables.
Perfect setup, perfect conflict, perfect resolution.
Real clients are never this tidy.
Engagement farming is.
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@eliana_jordan Cheapest is a race to the bottom.
Confidence is a race to the top.
Raise your prices.
Delete all mentions of competitors.
Promote what you built. People already found you.
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Last day to look your price for SeoZast! Your SEO/AI search shouldn’t cost more than your coffee seozast.com
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Today hit harder than usual.
I’ve been building my SaaS for 2 years and I still can’t live from it.
Yes, I’ve made progress… users, an audience, collabs that help me pay the bills…
but the questions never stop:
Am I going in the right direction?
Should I pivot?
What if I’m doing all this and I never make it?
Being an indie hacker is equal parts progress and panic.
But quitting isn’t an option.
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@catalinmpit It's rarely about inactivity. Something in the token refresh failed and the app blames you instead of admitting the auth flow is brittle.
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Hey @taylorotwell — genuine question: if archived servers can be reconnected anytime in Forge, why do we need to type the server’s name to confirm before archiving?
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I never had my identity stolen until I started job hunting. The amount of personal info we casually dump into fake job portals is insane.
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@benjamincrozat 100% agree. I’d even go further: “clean code” barely matters for 80% of a codebase, especially early on. Most of it gets rewritten anyway.
Leaders who cling to acronyms and 20-year-old purity tests have never actually had to ship. Pragmatism wins every time.
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Never put any developer in a leadership position if their life goal is to religiously stick to acronyms and outdated practices they've read in Uncle Whatever's book written 1000 years ago.
That only puts your project at risk and huge cost almost immediately.
Because I can guarantee you they have no idea what first principle thinking is. Which is necessary as a leader and why some framework maintainers push toward Active Record.
Pragmatism is so underrated.
Nate Berkopec@nateberkopec
I never empathized with the “ActiveRecord objects have 350 public methods!!!!” gripe. Like yeah, damn, that sounds like a hella useful object. Anyway… Everyone griping about this just proposes a far more onerous alternative for little gain except adherence to acronyms.
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@taylorotwell Curious how you run those 10-minute pair sessions. Most pair-programming interviews I’ve seen aren’t great.
What problem do you like to use? I’ve had good results with the bowling kata.
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Coding interviews for *anyone* complete waste of time imo.
Pair program with me for 10 minutes. I’ll know if you’re good or bad.
Ram@sriramsubram
It’s a big red flag when a company still gives coding interviews to developers with significant open-source contributions. These companies typically don’t believe in open source, have low sense of trust, incompetent to validate contributions or are just inefficient. Join companies that take your past contributions seriously and respect it.
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@AlexBerenson You wouldn’t even have enough equity to cover closing costs after 10 years. You’d still be underwater if you sold.
ohcalc.com/50-year-mortga…
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You are making my point.
About 75% of the payments seven years in go to interest, not equity repayment. The bank does just fine, the homeowner has paid down about 10% of his mortgage balance, yippee!
A 50-year would only make this imbalance worse.
Michael Harding@TennBuckII
@AlexBerenson You do know the average actual life of a 30 year mortgage is about seven years, don't you?
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@Acyn It doesn't actually "reduce the payment quite a bit", maybe $100-200 a month on a typical loan, in exchange for 20 extra years of payments and hundreds of thousands more in interest.
Run the numbers yourself: ohcalc.com/50-year-mortga…
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MacCallum: Are you a supporter of a 50 year mortgage plan?
Hassett: It reduces the monthly payment quite a bit.. We need to help people get back in the homes. First-time home buyers are over 40 years old and we are focusing on that problem
MacCallum: Isn’t the problem that there is not enough houses?
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@jcactrades @PeterSchiff Not sure what it is, but it isn’t a 50 year mortgage. ohcalc.com/50-year-mortga…
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@PeterSchiff So what’s the alternative for people who can’t afford a 30 year mortgage right now?
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The Trump administration’s plan for the federal government to guarantee 50-year mortgages will make housing even less affordable and trap more homebuyers in perpetual debt. We need the free market to lower home prices, not government manipulation that drives prices even higher!
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A 50-year mortgage plan is being floated to help younger generations "afford" the American Dream. But that’s not homeownership. That’s RENTING. It’s almost like… “you will own nothing and be happy.”
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Everyone's debating 50-year mortgages right now.
So I built a calculator to actually show the math.
See what 50 vs 30 years really costs you 👇
ohcalc.com/50-year-mortga…
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@ImBreckWorsham The difference is ownership. With a mortgage, you’re slowly buying an asset. With rent, you’re buying time in someone else’s.
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There is ZERO difference between having a 50-year mortgage and renting.
Prove me wrong.
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@CryptoWendyO Doesn’t fix the down payment problem. Most stretch to 40 years after a HELOC or refi by year 10. If the average stay is 7 years, an ARM makes more sense.
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@willmcgugan After nearly 20 years in dev, I couldn’t agree more. The real skill isn’t memorization. It’s being able to pick something up, learn fast, and make it work. I’ve relearned regex about 10 times.
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I consider myself a "just in time" developer.
Like I have no idea how to work with sqlite databases in Python. At least not without an ORM. By the end of the day I will.
Let me tell you the secret of how I do that...
I read docs and play with code until it works. 🤫
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@benjamincrozat My daughter’s 10, my son’s 8, and I’ve worked remote their whole lives. The key: set boundaries early (“If the door’s closed, I’m working”) and build them into your day. Walks to school, summer bike rides, real talk time. One hour of presence beats eight of distraction.
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Dad developers.
How can you even work at home when you have a kid and a pregnant wife who are always interrupting you?
Yes, I have my own office. But it seems like they are mistaking it for a hallway or something.
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@herbertyang @v_lugovsky Building an app has always been easy. Getting users has always been hard.
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@v_lugovsky Building an app is easy in 2025. Getting users is hard.
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Bro, the SaaS space is cooked.
I just vibe coded an entire CRM (with login, database, backend) in a little over an hour using UI Bakery.
It includes contact management, D&D deals board, activity logging, etc.
Publishing it as a free app template so anyone can use or remix
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@reezus @ayushtweetshere I’ve played the “build the audience first” game before. It’s noise. Build the MVP and get a paying customer, that’s the only signal that matters.
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bro you are approaching it the wrong way.
I’d just:
- go down the list
- pick what I like
- spend 1–2 days studying their distribution strategy (using Meta Ad Library, AdSpy, and Pipiads)
- get 2 VAs to replicate all their ads
- get another VA to set up a landing page
- test my offer
Then, if the unit economics make sense, I’d build my own version.
Too many people think copying a successful app or SaaS is enough, then wonder why their MRR is still zero.
Work smart, not hard
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This is crazy good..
if you're building your first product, don't look for a "new" idea
- Just go down this list
- Pick what you like
- Make your own version of it
Different niche/geography/angle
100 validated business ideas - already making money
$47K to $7.6M Stripe verified revenue 💸
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