16 ms·

Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development

207 points by Lukas_Petr 2y ago

gyomu 2y ago
OP, just a heads up that none of the "Download on the App Store" links on your main website (http://www.glimsoft.com http://www.glimsoft.com) resolve.
- Lukas_Petr 2y ago
  Thank you so much! I will get that fixed asap. I don't understand how the links that were officially shortened for App Store can stop working, but somehow they did. It's unfortunate that this could've been broken for a very long time now, it's just not something I would think of periodically verifying that it's still working.
  - MarkSweep 2y ago
    One idea for catching this sort of break in the future is monitoring the source people use to acquire your app. It looks like the App Store might support tracking which website referred people to download your app: https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/view-app-analytics/view-acquisition-sources/ https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/view-app-...
klabb3 2y ago
What about marketing? I don’t mean necessarily traditional ads but more how to get the word out if you have a good product? I’ve personally find it easy to reach “tech enthusiasts” but much harder to penetrate towards normies who would really benefit from the product but don’t read HN, tech blogs etc.
- gcheong 2y ago
  You can try doing a press release, for example through PrWeb or similar, that will send your announcement to multiple outlets that might write it up if it fits their audience. It’s kind of a shotgun approach though.
  - hermitcrab 2y ago
    I've done a few press releases for my products over the last 20 years. Unless you are already very famous or are doing something very innovative, it is almost certainly a complete waste of time and money.
- 1123581321 2y ago
  If you’re working in a domain you know, use your contacts in that industry. If you’ve learned a random domain just to sell software into it, do it in a way that puts you in touch with people. (If you’ve a mass market retail app, good luck!)
- veyh 2y ago
  I've been trying to sneak into some relevant discussions on Twitter lately. Too early to say whether that helps at all but at least my posts haven't (yet?) been deleted as self-promotion like on Reddit.
  - misfitgentleman 2y ago
    There’s plenty of self-promotion allowed on r/macapps.
- fakedang 2y ago
  Consumer app? Instagram Reels and TikTok. Especially TikTok.
  - wahnfrieden 2y ago
    Reels are friendlier to shorter form content these days
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Go where the normies are and speak to them in the medium they understand.
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  The most important advertising step for smartphone apps is probably to put the app on the App Store / Play Store. But of course only developer scum do that in this decade.
indigoabstract 2y ago
I love this, thank you for sharing your story, and congratulations on achieving your dream at 31!
- Lukas_Petr 2y ago
  Thank you so much!
- smallhands 2y ago
  Congratulations,where can I Find machine learning communities online
indieofone 2y ago
I would add this advice: 1) start by working on your apps on the side while working another job, 2) while working said job, save and invest. Over time this can provide the cushion necessary to jump to full time indie.
- tropianhs 2y ago
  This is excellent advice. I have done side hustles for a while before jumping full indie, when I had enough runway to make me comfortable. Some people wait to jump full time once their side income replace their salary. For me, it's a recipe to procrastinate forever
  - indieofone 2y ago
    My strategy was interest income + indie business income. I went full time indie once my interest and dividend income was a few thousand per month.
- Lukas_Petr 2y ago
  That's a good advice. For me I was doing freelancing on the side for many years, and then naturally as my app was starting to make more money, I'd decrease the amount of freelancing I was doing, and then eventually I stopped freelancing altogether.
- auspex 2y ago
  Just be careful of inventions assignments. If you live in the US you probably signed paperwork that says anything you invent or create is property of the company you work for. If you signed one of these and hack on the side… successful business could be owned by your previous company. You can always ask that they release the IP which requires the lawyers to officially sign it over to you. Before you quit your job make sure you own it.
  - herval 2y ago
    that's not exactly how those work (they can claim an invention if it's done during work hours, with company equipment, in the business area of operation. Might differ from state to state, but that's the gist of those contracts
galaxyLogic 2y ago
"What if I am not good enough?" I just heard this quote somewhere: What is success? It's being able to do what you want to be doing. If you're not able to do that then of course you will need to do something else. But if you are able to do it, then you are "good enough".
- Lukas_Petr 2y ago
  Thank you. That's a great quote. Obviously it's such an unclear question, and it stems from something deeper than just the performance of my work. The whole mental health / psychological resilience is a big piece of it, but I didn't want to overshare too much in the article (it's already super long without it). In general, that's something that I've always tried to do in my other posts too - trying to be vulnerable and share stuff to an extent, but hopefully in a way that helps/inspires people who can relate to feeling that way.
benoau 2y ago
> Some lease company somewhere is getting data on wherever I go. Quite frustrating to figure out who too, unless you can find some debug ports or an SD card holding configuration.
- probably_wrong 2y ago
  I think you commented in the wrong story
  - nayuki 2y ago
    Good observation. That would be for https://blog.koenvh.nl/what-does-this-button-do-cm42u2oi7000a09l42f54g2pr https://blog.koenvh.nl/what-does-this-button-do-cm42u2oi7000... , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276620 .
    - benoau 2y ago
      Yeah my bad!
lukasb 2y ago
He mentions that making a living from an indie app is like winning the lottery - that would make it much more unlikely than having a reasonably successful startup. Why is a successful indie app harder?
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Having a successful startup is like winning the lottery too. Getting funded if you are not in a circle of reputation is like winning the lottery. Getting into ycombinator is like winning a lottery then you get to win another. Any business is like a lottery. But some have better odds like setting up a plumbing service in a growing underserved town.
  - lukasb 2y ago
    Well, no, winning a lottery is one in a million. A successful startup - assuming you get funding - is more like one in ten (that's not exact but no more than an order of magnitude off.)
    - pavlov 2y ago
      There’s also the time and effort that you need to invest. You can buy a lottery ticket every week and it costs $2 (just guessing — I don’t buy them). With that minimum spending over three years, you get 150 shots. You paid $300, but no time or effort. A typical startup takes three years, and you pay for it in both real money and opportunity cost. Let’s say your chance of getting funded is 1:100 (assuming you don’t have an existing network). And then your chances of success are 1:30 (a more realistic figure for first-time founders than one in ten, IMO). That means the odds are 1:3000 with great personal investment, versus the lottery where in the same timeframe you get to take 150 shots at a 1:1,000,000 chance at no personal cost. Looking at these numbers, it does feel a lot like lottery. Of course I’m downplaying the career growth value of a startup. You learn nothing from the lottery, but going through the startup grind offers experience that you can’t get elsewhere.
      - 2y ago
manx 2y ago
Can anyone recommend good learning material for the non-tech part? I'm good at building stuff, but not on the other parts.
- tonyedgecombe 2y ago
  Andy Brice has some great material at https://successfulsoftware.net/articles/ https://successfulsoftware.net/articles/ Including a list of books at https://successfulsoftware.net/reading-list/ https://successfulsoftware.net/reading-list/
- LVB 2y ago
  I'll say, this has been the worst part of my little indie dev adventure. I knew I'd be uncomfortable with a lot of it, but I also didn't realize how flat out bad I am at it. I've spent so much time fiddling with keywords, refreshing splash pages for app stores, making a good landing page, buying ads, adjusting paywalls, etc. But the uptake has been depressingly low. A few people downloaded the app, but not only have I had no paying customers and no reviews, no one has even tried the sync aspect of the app that I built a backend for! I really misjudged how little attention it would get in the app store, and how rapidly they'd bail from it. My wife and I use the app. I find that code improvements bring some satisfaction even if there is no external ROI, whereas marketing type efforts are just a drag.
  - hermitcrab 2y ago
    IIRC quite a large percentage of apps in the Mac apps store have 0 downloads. You definitely can't rely on the app store to do your marketing for you.
    - LVB 2y ago
      I fell victim to the line offered by certain indie devs along the line of, "Sure, it's hard to get a big piece of the pie, but with a BILLION users even a small piece is significant." I'm seriously considering a simple web app for my next project. Yeah the UX will be worse, but I'll completely bypass trying to appease Apple, and it will get into the world much quicker, mostly likely. If it's a dud, I might as well fail fast.
jamil7 2y ago
I’m trying to relaunch my indie app which did have success getting a lot of users. But I failed to properly monetise it and the support burden and stress on top of a full time job drove me to pull it from the store. I’m attempting to relaunch with a proper paid tier. I guess my point is don’t neglect the getting paid part too long or you can also burn yourself out.
deze333 2y ago
As an indie developer for the last 10 years my key learning is writing apps for “under privileged” communities. Firstly, it’s a niche. Secondly, people really value your effort and appreciate giving. This creates a nice feeling. I have created my major app, Time Nomad [1], out of pure curiosity. Don’t laugh, scientific minds… I wanted to see how astronomy and astrology coexisted for hundreds of years without all that new age nonsense that corrupted the ancient discipline. So I made it different. It’s more of a toolkit to calculate and grok movements of celestial bodies and find moments of specific alignments. That is pure fun. I have enjoyed maths and computational challenges, while the users surprised me by liking the app’s ability to give quick answers about what (and equally importantly when) is happening in the sky — from an astronomical standpoint. No voodoo language needed, just pure geometry. Why am I saying all this? Taking an old idea and giving it a new modern spin can win hearts. There are communities of people who are open to support that. [1] https://timenomad.app https://timenomad.app
- briandear 2y ago
  The app itself isn’t something that interests me, but wanted to complement your beautiful home page. Nicely done. You’ve executed it very beautifully. I wish more apps were like yours.
  - deze333 2y ago
    Oh, wow, thank you! I am touched. Since the very beginning I've been using a simple Jekyll template and added some graphics to make it more interesting and appealing. Perhaps the amount of features that the app offers is helping here. Each feature has enough depth to ensure its own slot in the broader narrative.
- criddell 2y ago
  Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk?
  - diggan 2y ago
braza 2y ago
Most of the success cases for Indie Hackers comes from B2C or personal apps usage. Does someone knows great public cases related with B2B? My impression is that in the B2B sales there’s a huge component in terms of being a corporation to give some sort of credibility.
- mnahkies 2y ago
  I've been thinking about this a bit, and am also interested in others views of this. Increasingly I think the way to increase your chances of success is to pick a problem space that applies to both large and small businesses, and forget about the large businesses for a long time. Small businesses are generally going to be more open to building with you, taking a risk, accepting that you don't yet have SOC2, etc. Often they are in a similar place maturity wise so they are (more likely to be) understanding I'd love to hear others views on how to approach this though - most of my ideas for side projects are inspired by friction/frustration I'm encountering in the workplace, and therefore b2b. Even with targeting small businesses I'm still uncertain where the bar is, and how to balance financial risk when looking for product market fit in a bootstrapped/side gig fashion. I don't yet have anything ready to attempt to sell, but I'm thinking entrepreneur meetups or something might be a good route - assuming I've built something that solves an acute problem experienced early in a companies life might be the best way to go
- conception 2y ago
  I think you should incorporate regardless for b2b but I know a couple of one person corporations that deal with fund accounting tools. It’s a bit niche and the finance tools are few and far between.
- mtlynch 2y ago
  My sense is the opposite. I meet and hear about many more successful B2B founders and a lot more struggling B2C founders. If you look at who's speaking at conferences or who's appearing on podcasts to talk about their successful business, it's almost always B2B. Look at the schedule for the last listed Microconf: all B2B.[0] Arvid Kahl's maybe the exception, as he does more B2C stuff now, but he was there presenting about his experience with his B2B SaaS. [0] https://vault.microconf.com/watch/americas-23 https://vault.microconf.com/watch/americas-23
thomascountz 2y ago
A bit off-topic, but I have been searching extensively for exactly your Timelines app.[1] After listening to an episode of Hidden Brain, with guest Cassie Mogilner Holmes who studies the "illusion of time scarcity"[2], I've wanted to reproduce her self-reflections on where she was spending her time. Edit: After just an hour or so, I'm inspired. Not only am I excited to use your app to track my time, but—as an app developer—I'm inspired by the user experience you've designed. I can't thank you enough for the "export to file" feature. [1]: https://timelines.app/ https://timelines.app/ [2]: https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/taking-control-of-your-time/ https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/taking-control-of-your-time/
zerop 2y ago
With the current advancement of AI in code generation, freelancers and Indies are going to have different trajectory than ever before
grayprog 2y ago
As some who started similarly as an indie developer (albeit mostly for macOS) back in 2005 and still doing it (on the side now), it's a dream and lifestyle that are very desirable for me since (similarly to the OP) I've learned that people made a living this way in the Mac world. I left a well-paying engineering day job in 2009 while earning only $500/month on my indie apps in the hope of growing the business. The Mac/iOS developer conferences scene was great at that time ( NSConference, anyone) and I made a lot of connections and dev friends with whom I'm in contact still many years later. The dev community is still pretty good and helping. Marketing apps has become a real hard problem these days, though, because most of the press doesn't care about apps anymore, unless they are from the big corp, or they just focus on Apple's own news and rumours. Still, it's very fulfilling to see people who use your apps and recommend them.
justanotheratom 2y ago
Thank you for sharing. Can you tell us more about this: "He told me about a small group of successful indie developers that he was a part of and alluded that maybe once they are looking for more members, I could try applying to join them. Half a year later, I applied and I got in."
ozim 2y ago
I don’t like part where equation is „do your creative thing but not earn much” or „be a drone but earn easy money”. That’s not true. To thrive in corporate you still have to be creative to navigate all the BS plus you have to do whatever you have to actually do. Not to downplay solopreneurs as they have their own challenges but still…
arresin 2y ago
This is a very generic list that reads like a ChatGPT “advice for ____”
mdbauman 2y ago
> Truly understand your motivation Sad to say I've only recently come to this realization. It applies to pretty much anything, whether it's building a business or exercise or learning to draw. And if your motivation can't sustain you long-term, change your perspective so that you have a motivation that will let you see it through. "Make something cool and get rich" doesn't take you very far once you step back for a moment.
dabinat 2y ago
I’ve had my own software business for 17 years, and a lot of this article read like my own life story. My advice would be to create a product that YOU need and design it how you would want it to work if it was an app someone else made. Then dog-food the hell out of it. Also, make sure not to compete directly with enormous companies because you will always lose. If an enormous company creates a feature that could Sherlock your app, find a way to pivot. Always be on your toes. Finally, recognize the strengths you have that large companies cannot provide. For me, that is support. My customers can instantly get access to the person who wrote the software and don’t have to go through multiple tiers of support to get the correct answer. Several customers have said the support I provide is the main reason they do not use my larger, better-funded competitors.
mfld 2y ago
Wonderful writing, thanks for sharing! I particularly like how it's staying away from over-generalizing "do this" advice while giving hints how OP overcomes some challenges of being a solo dev (e.g. therapeutic writing). May the luck be on your side :)
croisillon 2y ago
@OP: surprised to see glimsoft doesn't have https?
wqtz 2y ago
I’ll be the jerk here: I’ve stopped reading articles that include the word "lesson" unless they provide tangible impact metrics—like how much money you actually made as an indie dev. I have skimmed the article and to me it is generic. It might sound harsh, but that’s the reality. Hacker News has become nothing more than a launchpad for new apps and services. These posts are often just veiled advertisements, like yet another "Show HN: Timelines.app."
- indigoabstract 2y ago
  I think he has been open and honest about his journey. It's much better to look at these articles for inspiration and to know that if others have done it, than so can you, if you want it bad enough. Or at least more than your present situation. We're all different and each must find their own way. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't help it he would spill out all the details for you, because what works for others will not work for you and vice versa.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

207 points by Lukas_Petr 2y ago

OP, just a heads up that none of the "Download on the App Store" links on your main website (http://www.glimsoft.com http://www.glimsoft.com) resolve.

Lukas_Petr 2y ago
Thank you so much! I will get that fixed asap. I don't understand how the links that were officially shortened for App Store can stop working, but somehow they did. It's unfortunate that this could've been broken for a very long time now, it's just not something I would think of periodically verifying that it's still working.
- MarkSweep 2y ago
  One idea for catching this sort of break in the future is monitoring the source people use to acquire your app. It looks like the App Store might support tracking which website referred people to download your app: https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/view-app-analytics/view-acquisition-sources/ https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/view-app-...

klabb3 2y ago

What about marketing? I don’t mean necessarily traditional ads but more how to get the word out if you have a good product? I’ve personally find it easy to reach “tech enthusiasts” but much harder to penetrate towards normies who would really benefit from the product but don’t read HN, tech blogs etc.

gcheong 2y ago
You can try doing a press release, for example through PrWeb or similar, that will send your announcement to multiple outlets that might write it up if it fits their audience. It’s kind of a shotgun approach though.
- hermitcrab 2y ago
  I've done a few press releases for my products over the last 20 years. Unless you are already very famous or are doing something very innovative, it is almost certainly a complete waste of time and money.
1123581321 2y ago
If you’re working in a domain you know, use your contacts in that industry. If you’ve learned a random domain just to sell software into it, do it in a way that puts you in touch with people. (If you’ve a mass market retail app, good luck!)
veyh 2y ago
I've been trying to sneak into some relevant discussions on Twitter lately. Too early to say whether that helps at all but at least my posts haven't (yet?) been deleted as self-promotion like on Reddit.
- misfitgentleman 2y ago
  There’s plenty of self-promotion allowed on r/macapps.
fakedang 2y ago
Consumer app? Instagram Reels and TikTok. Especially TikTok.
- wahnfrieden 2y ago
  Reels are friendlier to shorter form content these days
ipaddr 2y ago
Go where the normies are and speak to them in the medium they understand.
BlueTemplar 2y ago
The most important advertising step for smartphone apps is probably to put the app on the App Store / Play Store. But of course only developer scum do that in this decade.

indigoabstract 2y ago

I love this, thank you for sharing your story, and congratulations on achieving your dream at 31!

Lukas_Petr 2y ago
Thank you so much!
smallhands 2y ago
Congratulations,where can I Find machine learning communities online

indieofone 2y ago

I would add this advice: 1) start by working on your apps on the side while working another job, 2) while working said job, save and invest. Over time this can provide the cushion necessary to jump to full time indie.

tropianhs 2y ago
This is excellent advice. I have done side hustles for a while before jumping full indie, when I had enough runway to make me comfortable. Some people wait to jump full time once their side income replace their salary. For me, it's a recipe to procrastinate forever
- indieofone 2y ago
  My strategy was interest income + indie business income. I went full time indie once my interest and dividend income was a few thousand per month.
Lukas_Petr 2y ago
That's a good advice. For me I was doing freelancing on the side for many years, and then naturally as my app was starting to make more money, I'd decrease the amount of freelancing I was doing, and then eventually I stopped freelancing altogether.
auspex 2y ago
Just be careful of inventions assignments. If you live in the US you probably signed paperwork that says anything you invent or create is property of the company you work for. If you signed one of these and hack on the side… successful business could be owned by your previous company. You can always ask that they release the IP which requires the lawyers to officially sign it over to you. Before you quit your job make sure you own it.
- herval 2y ago
  that's not exactly how those work (they can claim an invention if it's done during work hours, with company equipment, in the business area of operation. Might differ from state to state, but that's the gist of those contracts

galaxyLogic 2y ago

"What if I am not good enough?" I just heard this quote somewhere: What is success? It's being able to do what you want to be doing. If you're not able to do that then of course you will need to do something else. But if you are able to do it, then you are "good enough".

Lukas_Petr 2y ago
Thank you. That's a great quote. Obviously it's such an unclear question, and it stems from something deeper than just the performance of my work. The whole mental health / psychological resilience is a big piece of it, but I didn't want to overshare too much in the article (it's already super long without it). In general, that's something that I've always tried to do in my other posts too - trying to be vulnerable and share stuff to an extent, but hopefully in a way that helps/inspires people who can relate to feeling that way.

benoau 2y ago

> Some lease company somewhere is getting data on wherever I go. Quite frustrating to figure out who too, unless you can find some debug ports or an SD card holding configuration.

probably_wrong 2y ago
I think you commented in the wrong story
- nayuki 2y ago
  Good observation. That would be for https://blog.koenvh.nl/what-does-this-button-do-cm42u2oi7000a09l42f54g2pr https://blog.koenvh.nl/what-does-this-button-do-cm42u2oi7000... , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276620 .
  - benoau 2y ago
    Yeah my bad!

lukasb 2y ago

He mentions that making a living from an indie app is like winning the lottery - that would make it much more unlikely than having a reasonably successful startup. Why is a successful indie app harder?

ipaddr 2y ago
Having a successful startup is like winning the lottery too. Getting funded if you are not in a circle of reputation is like winning the lottery. Getting into ycombinator is like winning a lottery then you get to win another. Any business is like a lottery. But some have better odds like setting up a plumbing service in a growing underserved town.
- lukasb 2y ago
  Well, no, winning a lottery is one in a million. A successful startup - assuming you get funding - is more like one in ten (that's not exact but no more than an order of magnitude off.)
  - pavlov 2y ago
    There’s also the time and effort that you need to invest. You can buy a lottery ticket every week and it costs $2 (just guessing — I don’t buy them). With that minimum spending over three years, you get 150 shots. You paid $300, but no time or effort. A typical startup takes three years, and you pay for it in both real money and opportunity cost. Let’s say your chance of getting funded is 1:100 (assuming you don’t have an existing network). And then your chances of success are 1:30 (a more realistic figure for first-time founders than one in ten, IMO). That means the odds are 1:3000 with great personal investment, versus the lottery where in the same timeframe you get to take 150 shots at a 1:1,000,000 chance at no personal cost. Looking at these numbers, it does feel a lot like lottery. Of course I’m downplaying the career growth value of a startup. You learn nothing from the lottery, but going through the startup grind offers experience that you can’t get elsewhere.
    - 2y ago

manx 2y ago

Can anyone recommend good learning material for the non-tech part? I'm good at building stuff, but not on the other parts.

tonyedgecombe 2y ago
Andy Brice has some great material at https://successfulsoftware.net/articles/ https://successfulsoftware.net/articles/ Including a list of books at https://successfulsoftware.net/reading-list/ https://successfulsoftware.net/reading-list/
LVB 2y ago
I'll say, this has been the worst part of my little indie dev adventure. I knew I'd be uncomfortable with a lot of it, but I also didn't realize how flat out bad I am at it. I've spent so much time fiddling with keywords, refreshing splash pages for app stores, making a good landing page, buying ads, adjusting paywalls, etc. But the uptake has been depressingly low. A few people downloaded the app, but not only have I had no paying customers and no reviews, no one has even tried the sync aspect of the app that I built a backend for! I really misjudged how little attention it would get in the app store, and how rapidly they'd bail from it. My wife and I use the app. I find that code improvements bring some satisfaction even if there is no external ROI, whereas marketing type efforts are just a drag.
- hermitcrab 2y ago
  IIRC quite a large percentage of apps in the Mac apps store have 0 downloads. You definitely can't rely on the app store to do your marketing for you.
  - LVB 2y ago
    I fell victim to the line offered by certain indie devs along the line of, "Sure, it's hard to get a big piece of the pie, but with a BILLION users even a small piece is significant." I'm seriously considering a simple web app for my next project. Yeah the UX will be worse, but I'll completely bypass trying to appease Apple, and it will get into the world much quicker, mostly likely. If it's a dud, I might as well fail fast.

jamil7 2y ago

I’m trying to relaunch my indie app which did have success getting a lot of users. But I failed to properly monetise it and the support burden and stress on top of a full time job drove me to pull it from the store. I’m attempting to relaunch with a proper paid tier. I guess my point is don’t neglect the getting paid part too long or you can also burn yourself out.

deze333 2y ago

As an indie developer for the last 10 years my key learning is writing apps for “under privileged” communities. Firstly, it’s a niche. Secondly, people really value your effort and appreciate giving. This creates a nice feeling. I have created my major app, Time Nomad [1], out of pure curiosity. Don’t laugh, scientific minds… I wanted to see how astronomy and astrology coexisted for hundreds of years without all that new age nonsense that corrupted the ancient discipline. So I made it different. It’s more of a toolkit to calculate and grok movements of celestial bodies and find moments of specific alignments. That is pure fun. I have enjoyed maths and computational challenges, while the users surprised me by liking the app’s ability to give quick answers about what (and equally importantly when) is happening in the sky — from an astronomical standpoint. No voodoo language needed, just pure geometry. Why am I saying all this? Taking an old idea and giving it a new modern spin can win hearts. There are communities of people who are open to support that. [1] https://timenomad.app https://timenomad.app

briandear 2y ago
The app itself isn’t something that interests me, but wanted to complement your beautiful home page. Nicely done. You’ve executed it very beautifully. I wish more apps were like yours.
- deze333 2y ago
  Oh, wow, thank you! I am touched. Since the very beginning I've been using a simple Jekyll template and added some graphics to make it more interesting and appealing. Perhaps the amount of features that the app offers is helping here. Each feature has enough depth to ensure its own slot in the broader narrative.
criddell 2y ago
Isn’t a big part of your userbase into new age stuff? If you think of it as nonsense, how do you earnestly try to serve them? Aren’t they asking for features you think are bunk?
- diggan 2y ago

braza 2y ago

Most of the success cases for Indie Hackers comes from B2C or personal apps usage. Does someone knows great public cases related with B2B? My impression is that in the B2B sales there’s a huge component in terms of being a corporation to give some sort of credibility.

mnahkies 2y ago
I've been thinking about this a bit, and am also interested in others views of this. Increasingly I think the way to increase your chances of success is to pick a problem space that applies to both large and small businesses, and forget about the large businesses for a long time. Small businesses are generally going to be more open to building with you, taking a risk, accepting that you don't yet have SOC2, etc. Often they are in a similar place maturity wise so they are (more likely to be) understanding I'd love to hear others views on how to approach this though - most of my ideas for side projects are inspired by friction/frustration I'm encountering in the workplace, and therefore b2b. Even with targeting small businesses I'm still uncertain where the bar is, and how to balance financial risk when looking for product market fit in a bootstrapped/side gig fashion. I don't yet have anything ready to attempt to sell, but I'm thinking entrepreneur meetups or something might be a good route - assuming I've built something that solves an acute problem experienced early in a companies life might be the best way to go
conception 2y ago
I think you should incorporate regardless for b2b but I know a couple of one person corporations that deal with fund accounting tools. It’s a bit niche and the finance tools are few and far between.
mtlynch 2y ago
My sense is the opposite. I meet and hear about many more successful B2B founders and a lot more struggling B2C founders. If you look at who's speaking at conferences or who's appearing on podcasts to talk about their successful business, it's almost always B2B. Look at the schedule for the last listed Microconf: all B2B.[0] Arvid Kahl's maybe the exception, as he does more B2C stuff now, but he was there presenting about his experience with his B2B SaaS. [0] https://vault.microconf.com/watch/americas-23 https://vault.microconf.com/watch/americas-23

thomascountz 2y ago

A bit off-topic, but I have been searching extensively for exactly your Timelines app.[1] After listening to an episode of Hidden Brain, with guest Cassie Mogilner Holmes who studies the "illusion of time scarcity"[2], I've wanted to reproduce her self-reflections on where she was spending her time. Edit: After just an hour or so, I'm inspired. Not only am I excited to use your app to track my time, but—as an app developer—I'm inspired by the user experience you've designed. I can't thank you enough for the "export to file" feature. [1]: https://timelines.app/ https://timelines.app/ [2]: https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/taking-control-of-your-time/ https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/taking-control-of-your-time/

zerop 2y ago

With the current advancement of AI in code generation, freelancers and Indies are going to have different trajectory than ever before

grayprog 2y ago

As some who started similarly as an indie developer (albeit mostly for macOS) back in 2005 and still doing it (on the side now), it's a dream and lifestyle that are very desirable for me since (similarly to the OP) I've learned that people made a living this way in the Mac world. I left a well-paying engineering day job in 2009 while earning only $500/month on my indie apps in the hope of growing the business. The Mac/iOS developer conferences scene was great at that time ( NSConference, anyone) and I made a lot of connections and dev friends with whom I'm in contact still many years later. The dev community is still pretty good and helping. Marketing apps has become a real hard problem these days, though, because most of the press doesn't care about apps anymore, unless they are from the big corp, or they just focus on Apple's own news and rumours. Still, it's very fulfilling to see people who use your apps and recommend them.

justanotheratom 2y ago

Thank you for sharing. Can you tell us more about this: "He told me about a small group of successful indie developers that he was a part of and alluded that maybe once they are looking for more members, I could try applying to join them. Half a year later, I applied and I got in."

ozim 2y ago

I don’t like part where equation is „do your creative thing but not earn much” or „be a drone but earn easy money”. That’s not true. To thrive in corporate you still have to be creative to navigate all the BS plus you have to do whatever you have to actually do. Not to downplay solopreneurs as they have their own challenges but still…

arresin 2y ago

This is a very generic list that reads like a ChatGPT “advice for ____”

mdbauman 2y ago

> Truly understand your motivation Sad to say I've only recently come to this realization. It applies to pretty much anything, whether it's building a business or exercise or learning to draw. And if your motivation can't sustain you long-term, change your perspective so that you have a motivation that will let you see it through. "Make something cool and get rich" doesn't take you very far once you step back for a moment.

dabinat 2y ago

I’ve had my own software business for 17 years, and a lot of this article read like my own life story. My advice would be to create a product that YOU need and design it how you would want it to work if it was an app someone else made. Then dog-food the hell out of it. Also, make sure not to compete directly with enormous companies because you will always lose. If an enormous company creates a feature that could Sherlock your app, find a way to pivot. Always be on your toes. Finally, recognize the strengths you have that large companies cannot provide. For me, that is support. My customers can instantly get access to the person who wrote the software and don’t have to go through multiple tiers of support to get the correct answer. Several customers have said the support I provide is the main reason they do not use my larger, better-funded competitors.

mfld 2y ago

Wonderful writing, thanks for sharing! I particularly like how it's staying away from over-generalizing "do this" advice while giving hints how OP overcomes some challenges of being a solo dev (e.g. therapeutic writing). May the luck be on your side :)

croisillon 2y ago

@OP: surprised to see glimsoft doesn't have https?

wqtz 2y ago

I’ll be the jerk here: I’ve stopped reading articles that include the word "lesson" unless they provide tangible impact metrics—like how much money you actually made as an indie dev. I have skimmed the article and to me it is generic. It might sound harsh, but that’s the reality. Hacker News has become nothing more than a launchpad for new apps and services. These posts are often just veiled advertisements, like yet another "Show HN: Timelines.app."

indigoabstract 2y ago
I think he has been open and honest about his journey. It's much better to look at these articles for inspiration and to know that if others have done it, than so can you, if you want it bad enough. Or at least more than your present situation. We're all different and each must find their own way. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't help it he would spill out all the details for you, because what works for others will not work for you and vice versa.

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