🗞 What's New: Is it time to give up on your idea?

How do you know if it's time to give up on your product?

• If the friction is too high, or your target audience doesn't see the value in it, you may want to let the idea go. Don't be fooled by the sunk cost fallacy.
• Organic content can go viral on TikTok, but you'll need to be strategic. Find your content direction, do weekly research, and target by country.
• $100 MRR. 21 years old. Mikro Yazılımcı is living with his parents while building his business, and is being intentional about investing in himself.

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by Mac Martine

As founders, many of us come to a point where we have to make the decision to:

• Keep going on the same path.
• Pivot.
• Find a different target audience.
• Move on from a product altogether.

How do you know if it's time to call it quits?

The friction spectrum

Each project we take on has some level of friction, but ultimately, it should be an amount of friction that we are able to overcome.

It’s the difference between rolling down a flat hill versus trudging up a steep road. Is it such a tough road that you can't sustain the energy needed to keep going?

Be honest about your effort

A common trap that bootstrappers fall into is abandoning a project when they should actually be going out of their comfort zone.

For example, developers have a tendency to get stuck in coding land, tricking themselves into thinking that more features are going to move the needle, when they haven’t even been getting in front of customers.

Before moving on, be honest with yourself about the effort you’ve put into it.

Be open to change

You should always believe in your idea, but don't be married to it.

Be open to adapting as you learn more about your customers’ needs. Does your target audience consider your solution to be valuable? If not, it may be time to pivot or close.

Make a decision

Oftentimes, we are swayed by the sunk cost fallacy, and stick with something longer than we should just because we’ve already put time into it.

Although you should be careful and deliberate before making a decision, eventually, you will need to act.

As a founder, the weight of all decisions falls on you. The good news is that, through honesty and well-developed intuition, you’ll get better and quicker at making these judgment calls. Spinning your wheels gets you nowhere.

Discuss this story.

from the Growth Trends newsletter

🧵 Threads is preparing to bring ads to the platform.

🤖 Frame is a simple, unified suite of AI-powered apps built for teamwork. #ad

💻 Building a sustainable online presence.

🔎 Avoid these Google Ads location targeting mistakes.

💳 Here's why you can't buy weed in the US with a credit card...for now.

🛩 Extreme tourism is more popular than ever.

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

by Justin Alb

Ratepunk has been building its TikTok presence for around five months. We finally hit that gold vein and went viral, reaching almost 3M views from a single video.

Here's our strategy!

Finding your content direction

When starting on TikTok, you need to find the direction that works for you, both time-wise and engagement-wise, and stick to it.

When audiences find a relatable video, they follow. If you change the content too much, it annoys them and they unfollow you. They expect the same content that initially drew them in.

Targeting different countries

Targeting a certain country on TikTok for your organic content (not ads) is not as simple as using the right hashtags. You need:

1. Preferably a different mobile device for every account. Or, a different SIM card with a phone number from the particular country you want to target.
2. A VPN.

Weekly research

Find the best trends for you by scrolling your TikTok feed and looking for the same sounds or types of videos that pop into your feed about 10 times per half an hour.

Your own feed is the best source of ideas for what people who like similar content to yours might also like.

Grow your followers

My strategy is to use search to hop on the follow train trend, like all the comments in a row, and comment on active posts that were created no later than a day prior. Prioritize those that have good reach.

Be a part of the community

Understanding TikTok slang and abbreviations, replying to other videos, and responding to comments under your videos is critical.

It's easy to become cringeworthy on TikTok, but with a few good replies, you can seem legitimate and trustworthy...or mess up very quickly.

Your credibility heavily depends on your communication and insight into the TikTok environment.

Discuss this story.

from the One Page Love newsletter

Strengthen your landing page with these design, development, and conversion tips:

Illustrated characters, devices, and elements can really bring a landing page to life. If you have the budget, aim to commission custom illustrations from a designer.

Subscribe to Rob Hope's One Page Love newsletter for his favorite UI, design, and development finds.

by James Fleischmann

Mikro (Tarik) Yazılımcı is living on $100 MRR from his product, without any additional income.

Let's take a peek at his finances!

Growth hack: Live with your parents, if possible

Tarik is a 21 year old indie hacker living in his parent's house while he builds ytbe.one, a company that allows you to open links directly in the YouTube mobile app. He's been at it for a year now.

Tarik lives in Turkey, and living with one's parents is pretty common at his age. He's in no hurry to move out, especially since rent prices in the area are pretty high.

The numbers

• Revenue: $100 per month.
• Founder pay: $20 per month.
• Personal account: $150.

Business expenses:

• Hosting: $20 per month.
• Domain name: $15 per year.
• IP API: $8 per month.
• Total: $29.25 per month.

Living cheap

It isn't just living at home that keeps Tarik's expenses so low. He also lives cheaply. His two splurges are books and mineral water. That's it.

He only has a few pieces of clothing, and doesn't go out for fun. So, when he isn't indie hacking, he mostly reads, watches movies, and sees friends.

As for his business expenses, he keeps costs low by doing everything himself.

Invest in yourself

Tarik doesn't have any debt, and he's not interested in taking out any loans. He does invest, but not in stocks...for now, he invests in himself.

His advice? Start early. Every time you procrastinate, someone else is getting ahead of you. So, start now. Right now!

Discuss this story.

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 Mac Martine, Darko, Justin Alb, Rob Hope, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing