Are you struggling to just get started? - **One of the biggest traps that founders get caught up in** is failing to start. These tips can help you identify what's holding you back, and finally launch! - **We talked about the viability of no-code tool
Are you struggling to just get started?
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One of the biggest traps that founders get caught up in is failing to start. These tips can help you identify what's holding you back, and finally launch!
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We talked about the viability of no-code tools last week, but what are some of the opportunities and major risks? Dru Riley breaks it down below.
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Founder Vidya Pottabattula launched her newsletter, The Curious Bunch, in 2020, and has grown it to over 1,000 subscribers. Here's her advice on tapping into cross-promotion and sponsorships for growth.
Want to share something with over 85,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
👣 Taking the First Step
by Arytor
Getting started on a new idea can be intimidating. Almost every founder has experienced being held back by various factors, whether physical, mental, professional, or otherwise. Here's how to finally take the first step!
Start with the why
Courtland Allen provides a simple, easy step to start with: Identify why you're not doing anything.
Is it because you're paralyzed by too many ideas? Is it because you don't have any ideas? Maybe you don't know how to get started? Perhaps you don't have free time? Are you getting distracted by TV or video games? Do you keep putting off work sessions?
The solution to your problem depends on the nature of your problem, so you need to figure that out first.
One good thing is that, for many problems related to motivation, one of the best solutions is accountability. Partner up with someone who has expectations of you. Set a regular meeting time. They will expect you to be there, and it'll be hard to let them down. As humans, we're social animals. We're used to working in teams as part of a tribe, and it's built into us to care about our reputation with others. Use that. It's not just cofounders who can provide accountability; eventually, investors, employees, and customers can, too.
Maxwell Davis agrees, adding that he had the same problem. He approached it in two ways this past year:
- Find a cofounder.
- Join a set of communities to help with accountability. Indie Hackers, Product Hunt, and the Wannabe Entrepreneur Community are top suggestions.
Cut costs
The most important change that Michael Forrest made to become a full time founder was to cut costs down to a minimum.
It's easy to fall into the "middle class trap" as a highly paid software developer. In 2017, I was paying over $2.7K per month just on rent, and wondering why I couldn't get free of my day job. Now, my costs are less than $1.3K for everything.
You become trapped by high rent and lifestyle habits, but to be an indie hacker, you need to be in a position where you don't have to work for a living. The more money you have going out on regular expenses, the less runway you have to build a business.
It also means that when you make your first $50 sale, instead of feeling like a drop in the ocean compared to freelancing rates, it actually makes a difference.
Social motivation
Edward Dixon recommends looking at the problem through a social perspective: I'm currently running my own little company with five employees and margins we are very happy with, building new things, and very optimistic about future growth. I had your problem, but I also have your solution!
I started lots of little side projects that went nowhere. My poor wife would roll her eyes at each new project, already knowing the outcome. However, some were much more successful: Articles, a book, etc.
It turns out that the motivation I needed to keep me focused on shipping the current project was social. The action part is usually going to be harder and less fun than the dreaming, so you need to account for that by designing in some motivation. Long-term goals like "autonomy over my working life" or "financial independence" aren't enough. People usually need short-term emotional rewards (and penalties!) to keep them moving.
I've found that for long-term projects where you don't really have a boss, like writing a book or building a business, it really helps to have collaborators of some kind, whether they work with you (a business partner) or for you (employee, contractor, etc.). For example, I really have no interest in carefully filing small invoices, but I don't want to make life hard for Orla, my really excellent accountant. So I try hard to stay very up-to-date with that boring administrative task. Previously, I struggled with revisions to book chapters. Then, I hired my own copyeditor, and felt obliged to be extremely responsive to his queries.
Take your current most viable idea and involve at least one other person in whatever the next step is to make it real. You could even use this community as your social motivator! Tell us that you'll have a basic landing page up a week from today, and you'll probably feel obliged to deliver.
Forcing functions
James Marks suggests leaning into "forcing functions." You need some kind of backstop that makes you push through whatever discomfort, fear, and uncertainty is holding you back.
When I was starting my first business, I had to hustle to find the next paying customer, or I couldn't pay rent. The fear of falling (further) behind was greater than the fear of talking to customers and getting real about my idea, so I got over the ledge.
Others have talked about complacency, which is very real. Things that I started while already running a scaled up company never took off; the demand of my day job was always too great, and I had too much to lose. Eventually, I had to leave that role so I wasn't constantly get drawn back into my comfort zone.
Following through on an idea is a scary thing by default. Ideas are raw potential, unblemished by having tried to execute on them. It's hard to get over that ledge, and sometimes what you learn is that the idea wasn't what you expected. But that's where the good stuff happens.
What's your best advice for getting started? Share in the comments!
Discuss this story.
📰 In the News
from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani
🤬 Mean bosses are ineffective and outdated.
🏥 A billionaire tax could fund universal healthcare in 80 countries.
👀 This crypto exchange platform has paused withdrawals due to suspicious activity.
🏅 China will not sell tickets to the Winter Olympics.
👜 Hermès is suing an NFT creator over MetaBirkin sales.
Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.
💻 Trend Alert: No-Code Tools
from the Trends.vc newsletter by Dru Riley
Why it matters
No-Code makes building products more accessible.
Problem
Duplicating work wastes time, money, and energy.
Solution
No-code tools help you automate work and build products faster, cheaper, and better, without writing code.
Players
No-code tools:
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Zapier: Connect apps and automate workflows.
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Webflow: Build websites.
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Bubble: Build web apps.
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Bildr: Web3 tools, templates, and building blocks.
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Juicebox: Funding for people and projects.
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Aragon: Build a DAO.
Apps:
Who to follow:
Predictions
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No-code tools will give individuals more leverage. This leads to smaller firms, and more million-dollar, one-person businesses. Newsletter writers, podcast hosts, and course creators benefit from no-code tools.
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No-code tools will make Web3 building more accessible. Fractional helps you fractionalize NFTs. MintGate helps you sell token-gated content. NFTX helps you build liquidity pools for NFTs.
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The types of products that you can build with no-code tools will expand. Blogs, online stores, and marketplaces are table stakes. SaaS, mobile apps, games, cryptocurrencies, and DAOs are becoming easier to build.
Opportunities
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Build a portfolio of work to break into no-code. Show proof of work to land a job or clients for your agency. Héctor Reyes built and sold Coda templates before joining the Coda team. Lola documents her no-code journey on the Lunch Pail Labs podcast. Doc Williams makes no-code tutorials.
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Join a no-code community. Meet peers, build habits, and discover opportunities. See No Code MBA, NoCodery, and Nucode.
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Automate tasks to save time and build no-code skills. What are your routine, boring tasks? Zapier, IFTTT, and Integromat have thousands of integrations. Here are some ideas: Automatically share Instagram posts to Twitter, get alerts when new leads come in, or track Shopify orders in Slack.
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Start a no-code agency. Time-to-revenue for services is shorter than products. See Minimum Studio, 8020, Lunch Pail Labs, and Finsweet. Build the first version of your product with a no-code tool. No-code helps you validate ideas faster and cheaper. Alex is building a video editing app with Bubble.
Risks
- Platform risk: What if a no-code tool shuts down, changes policies, or gets acquired? Unlike open source frameworks (such as Ruby on Rails and React), most no-code tools are closed source.
- Missing concepts: No-coders may not understand database design at first. This can lead to technical debt. Or is it non-technical debt?
Key lessons
- You don't have to understand how everything works to use it. Most developers have not built an operating system or programming language, yet they use them. You can use no-code tools without understanding every aspect.
- No-code gives you a competitive advantage. Why recreate the wheel? No-code apps are easier to build and maintain.
- No-code is a gateway drug to code. Building end-to-end products with no-code tools helps you become comfortable with code.
Hot takes
- The no-code movement will create more developers, not less. No-code is on-ramp for those initially intimidated by code.
- The best developers focus on outcomes. They don't have not-invented-here syndrome. They embrace no-code tools, keep things DRY, and understand opportunity costs.
Haters
"There's code under the hood. Why is it called no-code?"
There's code, but you can build things without writing code.
"No-code apps can't scale."
Most can. The need to scale is a good problem to have. Most products don't get that far, anyway. Solve it when you get there.
Links
More reports
Go here to get the Trends Pro report. It contains 200% more insights. You also get access to the entire back catalog and the next 52 Pro Reports.
Subscribe to Trends.vc for more.
🛠 Crafting Your Sales Page
by Ivan Romanovich
Social proof adds instant credibility to the value you promise. If you have no social proof, use your total number of sales.
Discuss this story.
📰 Vidya Pottabattula and The Curious Bunch
by Teela Fleischmann
Vidya was first introduced to indie hacking in 2020, and by 2021, she’d grown her free newsletter, The Curious Bunch, to over 1K subscribers. Through The Curious Bunch, Vidya shares productivity tools, maker resources, and bite-sized interesting reads. She’s got a fresh perspective and can-do attitude that makes indie hacking feel possible, no matter who or where you are. In this interview, she breaks down her processes for cross-promoting and finding sponsorships!
On starting The Curious Bunch
None of my friends are founders, or on a startup journey of any kind. In India, most parents have a lot of influence over their children, and they prefer that they go into traditional jobs. I didn’t even really know that this way of living existed until COVID-19 started. At that time, I happened upon a Twitter community where everyone had more time on their hands because of the restrictions, and they were using that extra time to build products and newsletters.
I’d been writing articles and blog posts on and off since 2010. I’ve always loved going down rabbit holes to pick out the most interesting details, then sharing that information with friends. So when I saw other people writing and curating newsletters, I got excited.
Watching people build in public from zero showed me that everyone starts somewhere. I launched my newsletter in November 2020. Starting at zero is way less daunting when you know that everyone else starts there, too.
Successfully cross-promoting
I remember my first 300 subscribers really well because that's when I made the most effort to reach out to my ideal audience.
As a physics student and analyst, I didn't have any marketing background, so I had to get into the marketing mindset somehow. Everyone was talking about Indie Hackers, so I just started reading posts here and on Twitter, and reaching out to people to understand how to acquire subscribers.
Then, I learned about cross-promotion, and that's been one of the things that’s worked best for me. I’d say that 50% of my subscribers are acquired through cross-promotion. I reached out to other writers who were in the same niche as me, and none of them said no to my request. When I had only 700 subscribers, I cross-promoted with someone who had 1.7K+ subscribers. Most of the time, writers are more interested in the overlap between our audiences than in the number of subscribers I have:
Here are a few tips:
- Make sure to get the basics right when approaching writers. Find out whether their audience would actually be interested in your newsletter.
- Join communities, groups, and platforms relevant to your niche. Invite others to collaborate with you, and provide value to them while doing so.
- Experiment with the copy that you’re providing to the writer to maximize your cross-promotions.
- If one party doesn’t get the desired results, try to understand what went wrong to avoid repeating the mistake. Then, improve upon it!
Here’s an example of cross-promotion in my newsletter:
And here's an example of how my newsletter has been cross-promoted:
On attracting paid sponsorships
Everyone says that you need to have at least a thousand subscribers to attract sponsorships. But why is a thousand this magic number? I decided to try with just 500 subscribers and see if anyone was interested. At that point, I’d sent out 10-12 issues of my newsletter, and I felt ready.
I approached a few sponsors who were really in line with my audience. One of the very first sponsors I got was Email Octopus, a marketing service. The company booked a one-month sponsorship, and that was how I first monetized my newsletter. My newsletter has been consistently sponsored now for more than six months.
A few suggestions about sponsorships:
- Cold emailing sponsors is a skill. Learn it and practice it.
- Find relevant sponsors for your audience.
- Start with a lower sponsorship price, then increase as you go.
- If possible, add a personal note in your newsletter before introducing the sponsor to your readers.
Here's an example of my sponsorship outreach:
Advice for indie hackers
Give yourself permission to explore your interests and see the magic unfolding in front of your eyes.
Everyone says that it's difficult to be a successful indie hacker or maker, but making a hundred dollars per month through your indie hacking journey feels like success to me. I think that indie hacking becomes easy when you realize that so much of the journey is just about starting, and then defining success on your own terms.
Discuss this story.
🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick
by Tweetmaster Flex
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
🏁 Enjoy This Newsletter?
Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.
Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.
Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Arytor, Priyanka Vazirani, Dru Riley, Ivan Romanovich, and Teela Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing
