Vibe Combinator 🚀

Building alone can feel isolating. Somehow, every error, every failure can spiral into the dreaded "am I going to make it" That voice dims when you're not the only one hearing it. That's why we created Vibe Combinator.

Had a great chat with the @vibecombinator community on marketing yesterday. Some takeaways: 1. SEO is key. Slow but high leverage if done right. Tools like Keysearch.co are good for cheap keyword research. 2. Don’t build before you know how you’ll market. A lot of us (me included) use building as a way to avoid talking to users. 3. Marketing = Discovery. It’s how you figure out what your product actually is and who it’s for. 4. Channels depend on audience. X is great for builder tools. B2C might need SEO, YouTube, in-person stuff, etc. 5. Personal trust matters. As an indie, people don’t just buy your product, they buy you. 6. At the start, you need conversations, not just signups. Don’t quit until you’ve talked to 100 users about your product. And charging even $5 changes how people engage. 7. Indie landing pages should be info-dense. VC sites can be pretty because users already know them. We have to earn trust fast. 8. Also, hearing other folks' stories made it clear that feeling stuck or lost on marketing is very common, not a personal failure. I’ve committed to not writing any more code until I’ve done the marketing work 😅 (unless the code is related to marketing)

Had a product niche discovery workshop yesterday for @vibecombinator led by @outsidvoice (PM & community member). We used a 4-part framework to pressure-test ideas: 1. List your top 5 ideas 2. Define specific user personas 3. Map first customer acquisition 4. Reflect on personal motivation Most of us struggled with step 2. But how do you grow a niche if you don’t know exactly who you're helping on day one. "People who work remotely" isn't a persona. My own ideas: 🔹 Secret Desk: directory of good free work spots → Clear audience (remote workers & indie hackers who need a free spot to focus). It's a real problem, I need it. → Distribution: Talk to people I meet at IRL events like Luma or Shopify Builder Sundays, Reddit, Nomad List for Canada → Test partnerships with Toronto cafes 🔹 Marketing Strategy Directory: playbooks for devs who hate marketing → But it's more vague. Could solve my own problem, but maybe not enough people want it. I need to validate it. A few things that clicked for me: 1. If I can’t describe a specific user, the idea’s probably not clear enough 2. Solving my own problem is a great start, but not enough on its own 3. I still feel awkward promoting my stuff, but waiting around won't magically lead to MRR 4. I should know up front how I will get my first 5-20 users Next up in the community: SEO workshop led by our very own @iraftopo on Wednesday July 30th at 12pm EST

Friendly reminder, @outsidvoice's Product Niche Discovery workshop will be tomorrow at 12pm eastern Sign up here: lu.ma/yd3ipsp1

@outsidvoice lu.ma/yd3ipsp1

Product Niche Discovery workshop with @outsidvoice starts in 20 minutes! Link below

At the end of the day, the biggest barrier isn't technical skills - it's the stuff happening in your head. We also have fun! It's not vibing if you're miserable, is it?

We talk about pushing through when things get confusing, celebrating small wins, and remembering why you started building in the first place.

Building alone can feel isolating. Somehow, every error, every failure can spiral into the dreaded "am I going to make it" That voice dims when you're not the only one hearing it. That's why we created Vibe Combinator.

Excited to be part of the new and improved @vibecombinator after a long time away! Can’t wait to share what I’ve been working on and learn alongside this awesome crew 🙌

@alightinastorm I still think 300/month is a lot more accessible than 30,000 a month to build a product, especially if you're building with the hope of getting revenue at some point I never could afford to hire devs but I'm okay spending 300 bucks

it's crazy how vibe coding changed from empower the masses to pay $300/month all these blog posts about how AI enables the average person instead of corporations.. what do we do with them now?

@iamjasonlevin You rang?

Wow YC going full vibe coding. Vibe Combinator?

Action produces information Credit: @adamjohannsson, batch 1