4 ms·

I was going to suggest IH, great place to hangout for solo and bootstrap folk

serjester 6y ago
My one gripe with the IH forum is it seems like everyone on there is doing the millionth note taking / project management / web analytics app. Or even worse, a product for other Indie Hackers. I wish there was more originality, better yet solving real problems for real people - not other indie hackers. Not that it doesn't exist, it just seems the signal to noise ratio is so low.
- mostlystatic 6y ago
  Since Indie Hackers generally don't take external funding, all the risk is concentrated on the founders. That makes it attractive to focus on established product categories with known demand. Funded startups are in a better position to take risks and work on innovative products. You don't know if you're building the right thing, and even if you are your potential customers might not see the value right away. Funding allows founders to take a salary while trying to find a market. I had lots innovative ideas I started working on my product. But in practice the few users I had were all asking for the same types of standard functionality. So I started trying to more directly compete with existing successful businesses.
- XCSme 6y ago
  I am on IH and I am indeed building another web analytics app [0], but I do try and feel like I solve a real problem, help real people and have a positive impact in the self-hosted movement. I have 100x other "original" ideas, but it's very likely that only few of them would generate enough income to sustain the IH life. Also, as you mentioned, most of the products there seem to be targeted at other indie-hackers, but that's mostly because the people building those things are more vocal because they can generate leads this way. If someone locally sells flowers and is an indie-hacker, it wouldn't make any sense for him to also try to promote his business on IH. That being said, I still saw a lot of original ideas (cookie delivery, services, products, etc.). [0]: http://usertrack.net/ http://usertrack.net/

My one gripe with the IH forum is it seems like everyone on there is doing the millionth note taking / project management / web analytics app. Or even worse, a product for other Indie Hackers. I wish there was more originality, better yet solving real problems for real people - not other indie hackers. Not that it doesn't exist, it just seems the signal to noise ratio is so low.

mostlystatic 6y ago
Since Indie Hackers generally don't take external funding, all the risk is concentrated on the founders. That makes it attractive to focus on established product categories with known demand. Funded startups are in a better position to take risks and work on innovative products. You don't know if you're building the right thing, and even if you are your potential customers might not see the value right away. Funding allows founders to take a salary while trying to find a market. I had lots innovative ideas I started working on my product. But in practice the few users I had were all asking for the same types of standard functionality. So I started trying to more directly compete with existing successful businesses.
XCSme 6y ago
I am on IH and I am indeed building another web analytics app [0], but I do try and feel like I solve a real problem, help real people and have a positive impact in the self-hosted movement. I have 100x other "original" ideas, but it's very likely that only few of them would generate enough income to sustain the IH life. Also, as you mentioned, most of the products there seem to be targeted at other indie-hackers, but that's mostly because the people building those things are more vocal because they can generate leads this way. If someone locally sells flowers and is an indie-hacker, it wouldn't make any sense for him to also try to promote his business on IH. That being said, I still saw a lot of original ideas (cookie delivery, services, products, etc.). [0]: http://usertrack.net/ http://usertrack.net/