Many indie hackers are facing well-established competitors: - **Carving out your own lane in a market full of** major competitors can be intimidating. Below, founders weigh in on how to stand out. - **Many entities face geographical, political, and o
Many indie hackers are facing well-established competitors:
-
Carving out your own lane in a market full of major competitors can be intimidating. Below, founders weigh in on how to stand out.
-
Many entities face geographical, political, and operational coordination challenges. A solution? DAOs. Dru Riley breaks it all down with this comprehensive DAO primer.
-
Founder Marek Sotak launched Inline Manual and Kairo, and maintains an asynchronous work environment. Here's his philosophy on working "calmly," and why he only works on one side project at a time.
Want to share something with nearly 90,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
💪 Are You Competing With the Big Guys?
by Upen V
Every week, I write about micro-SaaS ideas for devs and marketers looking to build profitable products. I also analyze various newcomers, and note whether they're taking on the big guys.
Here are a few:
-
Microns is competing with MicroAcquire.
-
Superblog is competing with Medium and WordPress.
-
Potion is competing with Super.
Anyone else here competing with big guys? What are you doing to carve out your own lane?
Focus on a different crowd
Wim Cools is competing with Notion and Confluence:
We had a large competitor when we started, and an even larger one emerged afterwards. Around ten years ago, we launched a wiki tool for small companies. Lots of the software at the time was either very slow and clunky, or enterprise-y and complicated.
The biggest competitor at the time was Confluence; next was SharePoint. Notion launched afterwards.
We're a small indie shop, and for us, it's still a great market. We focus more on companies than individual consumers, and that has worked out for us.
The important part is to stay focused on your own vision and don't mind the competition too much. We're in the same space, but our product is different. We just build what we know our customers love. The internet is a big place, and even with large competitors who will out-market or outspend you, there will always be plenty of people who will prefer your approach!
KISS
Peter Askew follows the old adage of KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid!
I run RanchWork, and I compete with:
- Indeed.
- SimplyHired.
- ZipRecruiter.
- Monster.
I've been able to carve out a niche by keeping my product simple, lowering my overhead costs, providing listing options at reasonable rates (paid options start at $55), supporting the ranching industry by advertising in trade magazine and local state associations, and just being consistent in posting jobs several days a week. It's the KISS framework, essentially.
Hone in on the details
For HJ Barazza, it's all about the details:
At Whitepaper, we are competing against the major national and international business newspapers (The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, etc.).
Our publication is a tiny organization compared to our competitors. Up until six months ago, we were a three person team. We are now a team of 14, split between full-timers and recurrent freelancers.
We cover business in a more profound, detailed manner than the big players can, and since we are subscriber supported, we don't have to aim for millions of page views. Rather, we aim for the highest quality business journalism we can create.
While we do have ads, we never compromise the reader experience or content. Larger publications have to worry more about the page-view business model promoted by Google and Facebook.
We are growing fast in both reach and paid subscribers, and now the big boys are starting to notice us. Almost all of the large national newspapers have approached us with intentions of acquiring.
It's still too early in the life of our publication to know how large we can make it. For now, we are already planning the next stage of expansion.
Jaap Badlands agrees with the strategy of perfecting the details:
I'm about to launch a drumming education site, The Lands Rumbled, with lessons, essays, and software tricks to make the learning process more fun. My competition is well-established, including sites like Drumeo, plenty of YouTubers, and magazines.
I hope to distinguish my site by going into greater detail than others. Providing a platform that brings the drumming workbook online, in my opinion, is a better way to structure practice sessions and track one's learning, than through video. I'd like to build a platform where other teachers can publish lessons for their own students. I will be working to write with a passionate and profound voice.
Find your voice
Allen U believes that finding your voice is a key element when competing against larger players:
I've built a flashcards app called Fresh Cards for macOS and iOS. My main competitor is Anki, which is technically free (there is a charge for the iOS version), and is extremely popular. There's also Quizlet and other online flashcard apps.
The biggest difficulty is that, whenever I post about it, everyone wants to know how it compares to Anki. There is a very strong fanbase for that app, and a lot of haters come out of the woodwork to question why my app even exists.
When I first released it about a year and a half ago, I was still trying to figure out the "voice" of the app. Now, I've started to find it. In terms of features, I'm starting to innovate in the space in my own ways, but I still need to do better at communicating it to potential customers.
Like a lot of devs, I do very little marketing. (My excuse to myself is that this is a side project and not my main job.) I definitely need to improve on the marketing and message of the app so that people get what makes it unique and better.
What's your advice for competing with the big guys? Let's chat below!
Discuss this story.
📰 In the News
from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani
🌊 OpenSea admits that over 80% of NFTs minted for free are fraudulent.
🥊 Binance is building a $1B insurance fund to counter crypto hacks.
🪑 Pinterest has added AR furniture shopping to its app.
💰 Sony is buying game developer Bungie in a $3.6B deal.
💻 Another woman has been virtually groped in the metaverse.
Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.
🛠 Trend Alert: DAOs
from the Trends.vc newsletter by Dru Riley
Why it matters
DAOs make it easier for groups to:
- Coordinate,
- Withstand powerful enemies (i.e. nation-states), and
- Rewrite the rules of fictional entities (i.e. corporations) without permission.
Problem
Groups face geographical, political, and operational coordination challenges.
Solution
DAOs are a way for groups to align interests and organize to reach shared goals.
Players
Protocol DAOs:
-
ENS: Readable Web3 usernames.
-
Uniswap: Decentralized exchange.
-
Curve: Stablecoin liquidity pools.
Investment DAOs:
Collector DAOs:
-
HerstoryDAO: Incubating stories of marginalized crypto creators.
-
PleasrDAO: Acquiring culturally significant NFTs.
-
Whale: Social currency backed by rare NFTs.
Research DAOs:
-
Water & Music: Building a guide to the music business.
-
ResearchHub: Accelerating the pace of science.
-
VitaDAO: Researching, financing, and commercializing longevity research.
Social DAOs:
-
FWB: Cultural membership powered by Web3 artists, operators, and thinkers.
-
Developer DAO: Accelerating education for Web3 builders.
-
Meta Gamma Delta: Society supporting women-led projects.
Service DAOs:
-
Raid Guild: Decentralized collective of Web3 product developers.
-
MetaFactory: Produces "digiphysical" goods that connect worlds.
Media DAOs:
-
Forefront: Content and insights aggregator.
-
BanklessDAO: Helping the world move towards a future of greater freedom.
NFT DAOs:
Who to follow:
Predictions
- VC-backed protocols will be followed by DAO-native protocols. Aggregators may capture most of the value. Think Google Flights for DEXes, NFTs, and DeFi loans. For instance, Uniswap was followed by SushiSwap. Zapper aggregates. OpenSea was followed by LooksRare. Genie aggregates. Compound was followed by Aave. Pickle aggregates.
- NFT DAOs will thrive. One NFT, one vote, instead of one token, one vote. See the Nouns DAO. Economic value of NFTs is uneven. Governance value will be equal.
- Liquid democracies will lead to nuanced policies. Do you support reproductive rights? No problem. Delegate your vote to yourself. This is direct democracy. Or, you can delegate to a protocol politician, i.e. representative democracy. Either can be done outside of designated term windows. This is a liquidity democracy. See ENS delegates.
- Search Fund DAOs will emerge. PartyBid is a tool used to buy specific NFTs as a group. We're a small step from specifying NFT criteria instead of specific NFTs.
- DAOs supporting social causes will become common. ConstitutionDAO did not win its bid, but Abolition in Progress won the Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention. #CryptoCookout came from seeing brown CryptoPunks consistently on the floor. FreeRossDAO is a SubDAO of PleasrDAO aimed at freeing Ross Ulbricht.
Opportunities
Risks
- Smart contract risk: The DAO, BadgerDAO, FWB, and others were compromised. Are your smart contracts battle-tested and audited?
- Social engineering: A CityDAO admin was hacked, and his account was used to trick community members. The hacker snagged 29.67 ETH.
Key lessons
- Progressive decentralization helps DAOs move fast. They decentralize as systems stabilize.
- DAOs and NFTs are primitives. They're building blocks. We have yet to see the full potential of trustless coordination (DAOs) or digital scarcity (NFTs).
Hot takes
- DAOs should focus on digitally-native use cases first. Webvan lost by chasing grocery delivery too early. Instacart came a decade later. Wikipedia, a new form factor, was implemented before we disrupted pre-existing models. Digitally-native DAOs have unsolved problems. Tackle these before taking aim at Uber and Airbnb. ConstitutionDAO would have had to solve custody and security problems if they had won the bid, not to mention the information problem that stood in its way. We'll get there. But let's focus on new form factors, like AMMs, instead of trying to replace Uber right now.
- Governance token holders will vote to reward themselves over time. See Yearn, which recently revised tokenomics. The proposal passed with 99% approval. Brantly says ENS token holders were airdropped responsibility, not free money. Time will tell. Like other governance token holders with decision-making power, ENS holders may opt to capture some value. The conversation has started. It takes two-thirds approval and at least 1% of participation to change the ENS DAO Constitution.
- Ethereum and Bitcoin, the most decentralized, autonomous organizations in the world, are DAOs.
Haters
"These are not unstoppable organizations. They can be stopped."
Does the Chinese government want to stop Bitcoin? Probably. Can it? Probably not. The US government fought cryptography, but...unsuccessfully. DAOs have the Streisand effect on their side. Martyred DAOs may come back stronger.
"What's wrong with centralization?"
Nothing, in most cases. But in others, corruption, waste, and regulatory capture are examples of what's wrong.
"Barriers to entry are still high."
See the diffusion of innovations. Aside from awareness, financial inaccessibility and poor UX slows adoption. Think early cell phones and laptops. But they were eventually democratized.
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.
Discuss this story, or subscribe to Trends.vc for more.
👥 10M Users, Zero Funding
by Aytekin Tank
Getting started:
Don’t try to brainstorm your way into business.
It’s nearly impossible to conjure a great business idea from thin air. The most successful startups spring directly from need, frustration, incomplete experience, or the burning desire to do something better.
Discuss this story.
🧘♂️ Marek Sotak's Philosophy on Working Calmly
by Marek Sotak
Hey everyone! I'm Marek Sotak, founder and CEO of Inline Manual, a user onboarding and staff training platform that works asynchronously with employees on three continents. As a maker, I also started another side project called Kairo, a time and habit tracking dashboard that became popular in a very crowded space. Here's a view of it:
I am not a fan of hustling and grinding, so Inline Manual is asynchronous and calm. We work 40 hours a week. I appreciate focus, as it allowed me to calmly work on another side project. I always work on only one side project, and stop only if I see that it is not working.
When it comes to my work, I set up constraints. Here are the constraints that I have set for Kairo:
- I wanted to build a product that would be easy to maintain. Also, if I don't want to continue working on it, I want something that will keep running as long as customers are using it, without being a burden to me. Going server-less was a great choice. I have created a calculator of costs to stay calm and make better decisions.
- I don't worry about whether the product will be successful or not. Overall, I remain calm. Spikes in traffic or popularity should not affect my approach. I still have a CEO job, which is my primary focus. This constraint has had a very liberating effect.
I started building Kairo in public 10 months ago, spending less than 40 hours a month. I always thought that entering a crowded market was challenging, but it turned out that it was easier than being one of the three first companies in the space (which happened with Inline Manual), and developing something new and innovative.
Kairo has attracted over 20K unique visitors each month for the last six months.
AMA!
How have you approached growth and marketing?
I started building in public on Twitter. I also shared my work in a few relevant subreddits where I was active previously. This is how I was getting a lot of feedback and motivation.
When I introduced support for Notion, allowing users to embed Kairo blocks into Notion, the product skyrocketed.
Kairo was shared by users in various Facebook Groups who were excited about the product. The embed blocks are free (with limited features), and have branding on them with a link to Kairo. I have also seen a lot of creators make free templates and add Kairo widgets to them. Some of the traffic comes from those free embedded blocks.
I still have plenty of ideas on where to take Kairo's marketing over time!
How do you share on Reddit without sounding spammy?
Follow the rules of each subreddit and try to add value with your posts. Certain subreddits have show-off days where you can post your project (if related).
Basically, make it interesting, free, and easy to use. Remove the need to sign up or enter an email. Your goal is to make it as seamless as possible for people to experience the product that you are working on.
You can also use the comments. Again, make sure you are adding value.
What are your biggest pain points as an asynchronous company?
Running an asynchronous company has been my goal for the last nine years. But it is not for everyone, and it's easier to start with like-minded people.
At one point, I realized that I couldn't convert some of our team over to an asynchronous mindset. The mental shift was too significant for them, and at that time, as the CEO, I didn't know how to make it easy. I tried many things, but they didn't work. We parted on good terms with most of them, which was necessary for moving forward.
It was a hard decision, but looking back, it was also one of the best decisions I have made.
When we are hiring, I know what questions to ask and how to set the right expectations for anyone who applies for a job with us. This includes talking about how sometimes it can get lonely, and how we embrace the local community instead of replacing real life events at work. All of this allows us to hire the right people for our environment.
My most significant pain point is keeping new colleagues in sync with how we want to operate. Many times, they unknowingly sneak in their ways of communication from real life. On the other hand, this pain point tests our knowledge about how we want to operate. For example, I just had a two-week async argument with a new colleague who was challenging the way we work, and wanted to work differently because a few things weren't understood. I believe that having an async argument is excellent because it gives you so much time to think through it properly and take emotions out of the equation.
The second pain point is that I have not yet found a good platform for async communication in the way that I would like to work. But I still believe that async is life-changing. It allows people to make their work revolve around life, not the other way around.
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 Upen V, Priyanka Vazirani, Dru Riley, Aytekin Tank, and Marek Sotak for contributing posts. —Channing
