Mindset for Indie Developers
Post-workout soreness isn't a betrayal by your body; it's the echo of muscles rebuilding themselves.
Through learning and realization, this article records some of the "Dao"—the mental frameworks—of indie hackers that I have recently comprehended or learned.
Anything is actually easy as long as you follow its objective laws and structure.
Everything has its periodicity. Don't always try to be clever and take shortcuts; taking shortcuts will ultimately backfire. This reminds me of a case study shared by the creator of Convict Conditioning, which I was studying recently. There were two fitness enthusiasts: one always wanted to jump straight to the hardest movement among the "Six Legendary Exercises" without building a solid foundation or studying the principles of fitness, constantly chasing quick results. The other followed the cyclical nature of fitness, progressing steadily through the 10 steps of each exercise from easiest to hardest. The ultimate result was that the former suffered from various joint pains due to impatience and gave up halfway, while the latter completed all six exercises and ten steps, achieving an incredible physique even before finishing every single progression. Therefore, be a "fool," follow the laws of things, and understand the true purpose of what you are doing. I believe you can master any endeavor you are willing to undertake.
The ultimate and best exit for programmers is to be an indie hacker.
In talking with many programmers, including former colleagues, I've found many want to switch industries because they feel programming is a youth-dependent career. I strongly advise against this. Switching to other industries is just as competitive. Instead, become an indie hacker, settle down, unearth needs in niche markets, and cultivate them deeply for 3-6 months. I believe you can make it work, and this is a compounding endeavor that you can build upon for a lifetime.
Marketing and promotion boil down to backlinks and social media.
Running a website essentially comes down to backlinks and social media. Backlinks are a medium-to-long-term approach, mainly for SEO. Social media here focuses primarily on overseas markets:
Find needs and customers on Reddit (when your karma is low, direct messaging works).
Do "build in public" on Twitter; by sharing the entire process, you will attract users.
YouTube and Facebook can likewise be used to introduce your product, just in video format.
Pinterest introduces your product through images; I believe many programmers will really like this approach.
Early users often come from your own private traffic pool. Leverage your influence to acquire your first 100 users.
Do things that compound.
This is the phrase Naval advocates most. For programmers, building your own product as soon as possible is the most compounding and advantageous path.
If you have enough savings to sustain your life for over 2 years, quit your job, find what you love to do, cultivate it deeply, and share your journey via self-media.
The current AI era is the best era for entrepreneurship. When many people see this sentence, their first question is: What if I don't make any money within 2 years? I think you should just do it for the first half year and then come back to think about this question.
The next wave is information-source platforms.
With the arrival of the AI era, the backing for AI is data. Therefore, having an information-source platform for data in a specific field will be in huge demand. However, I haven't researched this point in depth yet.
As I am writing this article, a paid order for one of my SaaS products came in. As analyzed through Google Analytics below, it came from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
I use Lark to monitor my Google inbox. If a new email arrives containing words related to "payment," it gets pushed to my Lark messages.
Alright, let's continue.
Build more of your own websites.
In the AI era, websites will serve as backend support for AI. If your website is truly trustworthy, it will often be recommended by AI through keywords or frequently used as an information source, acting as a root of information for AI. Over time, you will reap the compounding returns brought by your website.
If you can understand all of the above mental frameworks, you won't feel anxious in this era; instead, you should feel comforted. If you don't understand, leave a comment or ask GPT yourself. Once you understand, you will feel extremely happy.
Alright, that's enough work for today. I'm going to forge my body using the mindset of Convict Conditioning.