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I used to be a big fan of the whole "Open Startup" and Indiehackers scene, back before I ran my own business. Now I believe it's 1. mostly useless 2. selective

I used to be a big fan of the whole "Open Startup" and Indiehackers scene, back before I ran my own business. Now I believe it's 1. mostly useless 2. selective in which kinds of businesses are presented. Useless because, as others have said, there are so many factors that go into the business that can't be adequately captured, not even with an hour of interview and blog post. Selective in the sense that the kind of business which talks about their revenue and product doesn't have a niche to protect. They are operating in a crowded space already and are simply excelling and outperforming their competition, so they feel confident enough to talk about their revenue because it's not like it would attract competitors into a previously pristine business segment. For most people, entering a crowded space like "SaaS-based API monitoring service" and then trying to out-compete all the established players is not realistic, so these people would benefit more from thinking about business avenues off the beaten path. But that's not something that anyone would have any incentives to talk about, except when trying to hire friends for example. This is at least my perspective, my only motivations for talking about my business to close friends would be to hire them or to brag about it a little, but mostly the former since bragging doesn't really create lasting happiness.

upen946 6y ago
But for starters, it still gives some idea about how the current products are performing. Personally it gives me some confidence to enter into those markets. But agreed, a wrong move could land you into a "crowded market" but everyone has to start somewhere.
- codingdave 6y ago
  > gives some idea about how the current products are performing. It really doesn't. It gives one measurement, presumably from one point in time. We have no idea if they are growing or shrinking, at what rate, whether they are profitable or just burning money to buy revenue, or anything else that actually tells us about the health of their product.
serjester 6y ago
Completely agree. I used to run a highly lucrative software b2b that solved a very important problem but could have been coded by an intern. Joining the "open startup" movement would have only caused me problems. I solute the people doing this but it only makes sense for businesses that sell to other indie hackers.

upen946 6y ago

But for starters, it still gives some idea about how the current products are performing. Personally it gives me some confidence to enter into those markets. But agreed, a wrong move could land you into a "crowded market" but everyone has to start somewhere.

codingdave 6y ago
> gives some idea about how the current products are performing. It really doesn't. It gives one measurement, presumably from one point in time. We have no idea if they are growing or shrinking, at what rate, whether they are profitable or just burning money to buy revenue, or anything else that actually tells us about the health of their product.

serjester 6y ago

Completely agree. I used to run a highly lucrative software b2b that solved a very important problem but could have been coded by an intern. Joining the "open startup" movement would have only caused me problems. I solute the people doing this but it only makes sense for businesses that sell to other indie hackers.