🗞 What's New: Will the subreddit revolt kill Reddit?

Reddit's recent price hike has caused widespread protests:

• For founders, Reddit can be a valuable user acquisition channel. But is this the beginning of the end for the platform? Founders weigh in below.
• With all the AI tools out there, it can be difficult to pinpoint where to start. Check out this list of helpful AI tools for indie hackers (and feel free to add the ones you love!).
• Founder Frankie Johnson hit $1,250 in monthly revenue in 4 months with ScatterMind, a coaching and support tool for professionals with ADHD. Here, he shares how building healthy habits helped him manage his ADHD, overcome procrastination, and launch his business.

This issue is sponsored by RocketHub! Want the highest-quality lifetime deals to run your startup? RocketHub is the hot new platform that negotiates amazing lifetime deals for indie hackers and marketers.

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🤔 Reddit: The Beginning of the End?

by Darko

Thousands of subreddits went private the other day in protest of Reddit's new API policy. Some subreddits, like r/iPhone, said they will go private indefinitely. Reddit also banned any mentions of competitor platforms or APIs.

Remember Digg, Reddit's biggest competitor? Remember how a single bad decision caused its downfall?

Some say this could be the beginning of the end for Reddit. More below!

Staying power

Courtland Allen says that Reddit isn't going anywhere:

Reddit will stick around for three reasons:

1. Most Redditors don't actually know or care about this change. We're seeing a vocal minority take action.
2. Even if most Redditors cared, Reddit still provides a ton of value, way too much to simply abandon the site. This API price hike doesn't change that.
3. Even for those who do think the price hike ruins Reddit, there isn't a solid alternative for them to flock to.

Crumb4059 agrees:

My theory is that it's a mark of decentralization, not necessarily the end. We've seen lots of people flee Reddit for alternatives, but there are also loads of people on the site today who have no idea whats going on (or they don't care).

Some will stay, many will go. It might not be the go-to for online forums anymore, but it probably won't die either.

SDE agrees, but with a caveat:

The vocal minority are also the ones that contribute the most to Reddit.

I agree that Reddit is here to stay, but I will be interested to see if the quality of the content goes downhill.

Probably the end

Mark believes that the magnitude of the protests could spell the end:

This is one of the biggest online strikes in modern online history, so I think there's real possibility that the answer could be "yes."

Tidyrise agrees:

I feel that the success of any platform lies in its extensibility via APIs, and building apps around it. This is core to any app, be it B2B or B2C.

Affordably providing APIs opens up infinite ways for a platform to be extended by community, as people build apps around it. People build community around the main product, which strengthens it. Hopefully, they reconsider and change it back, for the good of everybody.

The fatal mistake

Channing Allen reflects on the lack of alternatives:

Digg's fatal mistake was that it changed core elements of the app experience for users, like removing downvoting and DMs. Here, Reddit's API charge is a behind-the-curtain detail for most users.

Also, when Digg dug its own grave, its massive user base had Reddit itself to flee to! Today, when I consider what platforms are good Reddit alternatives, no answers pop into my head.

It's similar to Twitter charging for API access. There's no real alternative, so two things happen:

1. The incumbent survives and is generally unscathed, and
2. Tons of new competitive startups crop up to challenge a business category that was previously thought to be unbeatable.

Just like we're seeing tons of new social networking apps (Instagram's competitor to Twitter being the latest), maybe we'll also start seeing new Reddit-style discussion apps soon.

Is Reddit digging its own grave? Share your thoughts below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko

🤖 TikTok has added a new AI ad script generator tool in its Creative Center.

🎯 Here are the most personal ways that advertisers target you.

👥 How to get your first 1K users.

😍 15 Reels and TikTok video ideas that your users will love.

😹 ChatGPT prefers repeating the same 25 jokes over and over.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

🛠 Useful AI Tools for Founders

by Dovydas Radavičius

In my last newsletter post, I spoke with a data scientist and AI expert who shared a list of great tools that may be helpful for startup founders.

Read on for more!

For your daily tasks

• Mem.ai: AI knowledge assistant.
• Getodin.ai: An advanced ChatGPT alternative that will do the work for you.
• Lavender: Sales email coach and personalization assistant.
• Otter.ai: A tool that will take notes while you speak in meetings.
• Browse.ai: An easy way to extract and monitor data from any website.
• Tome: Build storytelling presentations with the help of AI.
• Spellbook: Create contracts, human resource documents, NDAs, etc.
• ScribeHow: Makes a step-by-step visual guide of your process.
• CodeWhisperer: Generate unit tests.
• GitHub Copilot: Offers autocomplete-style suggestions as you code.

For teamwork

• Notion AI: Use as your team’s virtual headquarters, and to generate content and new ideas.
• Slack AI: Helps you to communicate in a faster, smarter way.
• Box AI: Makes your organizational files more valuable and useful.

For marketing and content creation

• ChatGPT: A no-brainer!
• Midjourney: Create visuals with a few steps.
• Runway: Helps to convert text and story into video or image.
• Jasper.ai: A great tool for copywriting.
• Copy.ai: Helps generate blogs, product descriptions, sales emails, and more.
• RYTR: An AI assistant for emails.
• Writesonic: Large scale content creation.
• Quillbot: AI-powered paraphrasing tool.
• Mind-video: Translate thoughts to videos.
• WatermarkRemover.io: Remove watermarks for your images.

If you're interested in more resources that could be beneficial for your business, check out the Exponential Founder Newsletter here!

What AI tools have you found useful? Share in the comments below!

Discuss this story.

🧠 Harry's Growth Tip

from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry

“You only notice milk when you run out of it.”

— Jeff Goodby

Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.

💰 Frankie Johnson Hit Nearly $1.3K MRR

by Frankie Johnson

Hey, indie hackers! I’m Frankie Johnson, and I'm a founder with ADHD. Building healthy habits is challenging, but it's so important. It helps you save time and live your ideal life.

I'm sharing more about how I built healthy habits below!

Getting off autopilot

When I had bad habits, I lived on autopilot. My days went by according to whatever my mind wanted. I was a hostage to my mind, and not intentional with my time. I’d squander my time by:

• Getting distracted and avoiding tasks.
• Thinking about what I needed to do instead of doing it.
• Looking for things because I misplaced or lost them.
• Redoing things because I couldn’t understand my notes, or I forgot that I did it.
• Putting out fires because I forgot to prepare, or didn’t do something.
• Spending an hour on a task that should have taken five minutes.

Most of my time was spent accounting for my bad habits instead of propelling forward. Bad habits generated problems, slowed me down, and built time debt. On top of that, habits compound with time, becoming harder to unlearn.

Luckily, good habits work in the opposite way. By building good habits, I save time, solve future problems, and empower myself to achieve more. Plus, I was able to learn other habits faster. That’s why it’s essential to unlearn bad habits and replace them with good ones.

Building good habits

After six months of struggling in my first job, I started reading a few books to learn more about myself and how to manage my ADHD. The two books that helped me the most were Deep Work and Driven to Distraction. I also loved the book Atomic Habits. Driven to Distraction helped me with accepting my ADHD. Deep Work gave me the framework to use my time effectively. Here are my key learnings from Deep Work:

• If I want to improve, I have to measure myself.
• I have to focus on impacting my actions rather than the results.
• It's important to review my actions and results regularly, and make adjustments.
• Start timeboxing tasks.
• Giving myself deadlines generates urgency and creates pressure.
• I can't let my phone blow my time.

I started with a couple of easy habits, and performed them daily. Here are a few things that I did:

• Made my bed every morning: I had to build the habit of consistency first. I started with this easy habit, then let it carry me into other habits.
• Reviewed my day: Reviewing my day helped me assess things, identify improvements, and iterate on my solutions.
• Started using a progress tracker to ensure that I was growing.

This allowed me to create an easy feedback loop to ensure that I was getting things done, and when I was missing the mark, I knew quickly. When I was missing the mark, I iterated and tried something new.

How I implement my learnings

Here’s how I’m implementing these learnings for my coding journey:

• Send myself a text message to remind myself to code.
• Remind myself of the reward (in my case, it's DJ turntables!) that I promised myself when I complete my task.
• Follow along with the Odin Project during my allotted time for programming in the morning when I have nothing else to do, and have energy.
• Reward myself daily with affirmations, and monthly with a tangible reward.

Enter ScatterMind

I'm following these exact steps in my coding journey, and they have allowed me to stay consistent with coding since January. I’ve productized my systems into ScatterMind to help others overcome procrastination, build new habits, and achieve goals.

I launched in January, and hit nearly $1.3K MRR by the end of May. If you’re struggling to overcome procrastination and achieve your goals, check it out!

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Darko, Dovydas Radavičius, Harry Dry, and Frankie Johnson for contributing posts. —Channing