4 ms·

Learnings from a Year of Being Indie

92 points by wallflower 6y ago

Jack000 6y ago
sustainable customer acquisition is the hardest part of being an indie dev, it's a lot more difficult than building the product itself. You got amazing press coverage though, should be able to leverage that for SEO and content marketing.
- mtlynch 6y ago
  My friend Matteo Mosca (@matteomosca_, also an indie dev) is working on a tool called HustleJet[0] to help founders find customers. You give him your product and the type of customers you want, he scours social media and forums to find people who have recently posted about the pain point your product solves. Then he finds contact info for those people and provides a dashboard with the relevant screenshots and contact info. I'm not involved with the product at all. He just did a recent demo for me, and I thought it was neat. [0] https://hustlejet.io/ https://hustlejet.io/
- hef19898 6y ago
  My biggest pain right now. I am loycking at outsourcing the actual leg work, like cold calling people. That would free up a lot of my time and will most likely still be cheaper than hiring someone full-time. Not sure about it yet, so.
volkk 6y ago
slightly off topic but what app do you use for the blueprint style notes/drawings? ive been googling around but all i get are CAD programs
- mguerville 6y ago
  Not OP but the Carbo app does this, you take a picture of a drawing and it converts to faux chalkboard or blueprints
  - sixhobbits 6y ago
    Most iPad note taking apps I've tried have that as a background option and then you just draw in white using the pencil
  - volkk 6y ago
    can i write in the faux chalkboard/blueprint style or is that only an export functionality? hoping to edit that way
    - mguerville 6y ago
      You can adjust the sensitivity of the writing scanner so it looks more organic if you want, and you can draw directly in the app although that doesn’t allow for sensitivity or pressure based influence on thickness of the lines of the things you draw
mtlynch 6y ago
>While I wish that I had made more than just $7.5k in my first year doing indie development, I am more concerned about the lack of downloads and growth. I'm surprised the author sees $7.5k as a low number. $7.5k in your first year as an indie developer is great! That's 3x what I made in my first year and even slightly higher than what I made in my second.[0] I'd estimate that $7.5k in the first year puts one in ~90th percentile or higher of revenue. There's maybe survivorship and availability bias at play because you only hear about massively successful startups, but I think the vast majority of startups or solo software projects struggle to find revenue, especially with their first product. [0] https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-2/#how-i-made-and-spent-money https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-2/#how-i-made-and-spe...
- jlokier 6y ago
  That may be "great" for an indie, but it's a disaster for a business you're hoping to live off, unless you have reason to believe it's going to change radically. As an indie you almost certainly have no investment and are living off personal savings during that time. $7,500 won't cover essential cost of living for most people. And if it does, you're probably doing without healthcare, aren't investing in a pension or generally in your future, and are living in a shithole. If revenue is that low and there is "lack of [...] growth", even if that's the upper 90% of indies for the first year, you're probably going to end up running out of savings and desparately looking for a perm job in due course. At least, with those metrics it's advisable to have some kind of second project, part-time job or similar. EDIT: Above assumes you don't have a partner paying for your costs of living during this time. I didn't think about that.
vivekweb2013 6y ago
I like this article a lot. Such learnings has the power to shape the path of indie development journey.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
I've spent years tracking my food intake and indeed most apps (even from great brands) are crap. I built my own web tracker and diet creator but I ended up not using it at all. These days my diet is stable enough that I know roughly what I'm going to eat. When I'm lean cutting or lean building I just throw in / remove a snack rich in protein. The app look really amazing but the value it provides is not life changing. If I were a potential customer I'd be put off by it being subscription based. Sure, it's great for you to have MRR but as a user I'm not adding a monthly cost for a fancy ui and the hope to lose fat.
semicolonandson 6y ago
Lessons I learned in my first year (prolly 2010) - Dip your toes into a few different markets in as inexpensive a manner as possible. The difference in ease of marketing you'll see between lackluster ideas and winners will literally be 50x - i.e. you will _know_ when you've got product-market fit. If you are in doubt, you don't have it. - You gotta spend money (or serious marketing sweat labour) to make money. Nothing happened for me when I first released my product. It was only after taking out some AdWords and planning a sensible, scalable SEO strategy (more here: https://www.semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-strategies-for-web-apps-part-i https://www.semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-strategies-for-...) that I started getting sales. - This one is embarrassing to admit but I'll put it here anyway: keep every receipt - you'll need it for accounting (and can save a lot tax deductions)

92 points by wallflower 6y ago

sustainable customer acquisition is the hardest part of being an indie dev, it's a lot more difficult than building the product itself. You got amazing press coverage though, should be able to leverage that for SEO and content marketing.

mtlynch 6y ago
My friend Matteo Mosca (@matteomosca_, also an indie dev) is working on a tool called HustleJet[0] to help founders find customers. You give him your product and the type of customers you want, he scours social media and forums to find people who have recently posted about the pain point your product solves. Then he finds contact info for those people and provides a dashboard with the relevant screenshots and contact info. I'm not involved with the product at all. He just did a recent demo for me, and I thought it was neat. [0] https://hustlejet.io/ https://hustlejet.io/
hef19898 6y ago
My biggest pain right now. I am loycking at outsourcing the actual leg work, like cold calling people. That would free up a lot of my time and will most likely still be cheaper than hiring someone full-time. Not sure about it yet, so.

volkk 6y ago

slightly off topic but what app do you use for the blueprint style notes/drawings? ive been googling around but all i get are CAD programs

mguerville 6y ago
Not OP but the Carbo app does this, you take a picture of a drawing and it converts to faux chalkboard or blueprints
- sixhobbits 6y ago
  Most iPad note taking apps I've tried have that as a background option and then you just draw in white using the pencil
- volkk 6y ago
  can i write in the faux chalkboard/blueprint style or is that only an export functionality? hoping to edit that way
  - mguerville 6y ago
    You can adjust the sensitivity of the writing scanner so it looks more organic if you want, and you can draw directly in the app although that doesn’t allow for sensitivity or pressure based influence on thickness of the lines of the things you draw

mtlynch 6y ago

>While I wish that I had made more than just $7.5k in my first year doing indie development, I am more concerned about the lack of downloads and growth. I'm surprised the author sees $7.5k as a low number. $7.5k in your first year as an indie developer is great! That's 3x what I made in my first year and even slightly higher than what I made in my second.[0] I'd estimate that $7.5k in the first year puts one in ~90th percentile or higher of revenue. There's maybe survivorship and availability bias at play because you only hear about massively successful startups, but I think the vast majority of startups or solo software projects struggle to find revenue, especially with their first product. [0] https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-2/#how-i-made-and-spent-money https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-2/#how-i-made-and-spe...

jlokier 6y ago
That may be "great" for an indie, but it's a disaster for a business you're hoping to live off, unless you have reason to believe it's going to change radically. As an indie you almost certainly have no investment and are living off personal savings during that time. $7,500 won't cover essential cost of living for most people. And if it does, you're probably doing without healthcare, aren't investing in a pension or generally in your future, and are living in a shithole. If revenue is that low and there is "lack of [...] growth", even if that's the upper 90% of indies for the first year, you're probably going to end up running out of savings and desparately looking for a perm job in due course. At least, with those metrics it's advisable to have some kind of second project, part-time job or similar. EDIT: Above assumes you don't have a partner paying for your costs of living during this time. I didn't think about that.

vivekweb2013 6y ago

I like this article a lot. Such learnings has the power to shape the path of indie development journey.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

I've spent years tracking my food intake and indeed most apps (even from great brands) are crap. I built my own web tracker and diet creator but I ended up not using it at all. These days my diet is stable enough that I know roughly what I'm going to eat. When I'm lean cutting or lean building I just throw in / remove a snack rich in protein. The app look really amazing but the value it provides is not life changing. If I were a potential customer I'd be put off by it being subscription based. Sure, it's great for you to have MRR but as a user I'm not adding a monthly cost for a fancy ui and the hope to lose fat.

semicolonandson 6y ago

Lessons I learned in my first year (prolly 2010) - Dip your toes into a few different markets in as inexpensive a manner as possible. The difference in ease of marketing you'll see between lackluster ideas and winners will literally be 50x - i.e. you will _know_ when you've got product-market fit. If you are in doubt, you don't have it. - You gotta spend money (or serious marketing sweat labour) to make money. Nothing happened for me when I first released my product. It was only after taking out some AdWords and planning a sensible, scalable SEO strategy (more here: https://www.semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-strategies-for-web-apps-part-i https://www.semicolonandsons.com/episode/seo-strategies-for-...) that I started getting sales. - This one is embarrassing to admit but I'll put it here anyway: keep every receipt - you'll need it for accounting (and can save a lot tax deductions)