🗞 What's New: Am I too old to start indie hacking?

Are older indie hackers at a disadvantage?

• Some would-be makers worry that they are too old to start building. If you're an older founder, take heart! Studies show that most successful founders are in their forties or older.
• When's the last time you ran a Google speed test on your landing page? Once you have your results, these simple tips will help you speed up your landing page in just 2 hours.
• Founder Camellia Yang reflects on her 5 years as a content creator, including her battle with depression and fear of embracing her creativity. Here's how she broke out of the corporate grind and found indie hacking freedom.

Want to share something with nearly 90,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

🔎 Am I Too Old to Start Indie Hacking?

from the Indie Economy newsletter by Zaesar

I'm 40 years old, and I sometimes feel that I'm too old to create and build.

My impression is that most indie hackers are quite young. Are there any older indie hackers? If so, how many projects do you have, and what are you working on currently?

Older founders are more successful on average

The idea that successful startups are started by people in their twenties is a meme that I think originates from Paul Graham's ideas about what he looks for in a startup, says Ben Woodward. However, the data shows that people in their forties are more likely to be successful on average.

I'm 40, and personally, I feel like I've never been in a better position to build a successful startup. I have broad experience and hard-won skills in dev, marketing, UX, and business development. I have years of trial and error behind me, due to building different things. Plus, I'm no longer the naïve 25 year old who thinks that he can just build a codebase that magically turns into a business. I've witnessed all of the mistakes that startups make from both an insider and outsider perspective. All of this experience counts for a lot! Regardless of what your career experience is, having a couple of decades under your belt is an advantage. You just need to figure out how to leverage it and keep building. Keep placing bets.

I think another key thing that comes with age is a healthy balance of optimism and realism. In my younger years, I alternated between extreme optimism and extreme pessimism, and it was only because I didn't have enough experience to know what was realistic. But with age, you develop the ability to temper your optimism with realism. This allows you to be measured and effective, rather than haphazard and ineffective.

Yes, there are many examples of founders that seem to have the magic that allows them to build unicorns at age 19, but these are actually anomalies. Tech media tends to amplify these one-in-a-million founder stories because they are anomalous. This has the effect of making it seem like if you aren't a genius 23 year old who just dropped out of MIT and got into Y Combinator, then you won't make it. But the facts don't align with this view.

Discipline is key for older founders

Craig Campbell is 43, and is always coming up with ideas and trying to build them as fast as he can:

My problem is that there isn't enough time in the day to work on my ideas, fulfill family duties, work, and get stuff done around the house.

Right now, I am working on trying to re-motivate myself to finish a usable MVP of Eurotripr, a Europe travel planning app. After this, I will start in on my laundry list of other projects: Soccer community and score predictor app, soccer training app, cycling a century app, a book list and reading tracker app, an automated system for tracking interviewees for journalists and podcasters app, and the list goes on.

You're not too old. You really just have to have the discipline to plug away at your ideas and projects a little each day, despite your other obligations.

My biggest problem used to be listening to all of the overnight success stories and failing to realize that none of them were actually done overnight. I'd think I was too far behind, that I'd wasted my youth and could never catch up, etc.

I listen to the Indie Hackers Podcast, and quickly realized that the vast majority of successful indie hackers featured there took months or years to become successful. And many of them spent a couple of hours each day when the rest of the house was sleeping, before or after work, on the commute to and from work, or on lunch breaks working on their projects.

Again, you're not too old. You just need to force yourself to find a couple of hours to focus on your creative projects. Once you step back and realize that even one hour per day is 365 hours spent on your project per year, and a usable MVP could potentially be built in one month (~160 hours), you'll realize that even modestly consistent effort pays off over time. We can all scrape together an hour each day if we really want or need to.

It's never too late

Steven Kim recommends checking out this article on startup founder profiles for a bit of encouragement.

I'm 42, turning 43 shortly. It's never too late to start. I was a financial investor from ages 22-36, then I quit my job and became an indie hacker. I wish I had started indie hacking when I was 22, but I didn't know that it was a viable path at the time, and I don't have a time machine.

I'm building a productivity app that combines to-do lists and time-tracking. I like to work on one major project at a time since I'm not great at working on multiple projects simultaneously. At the beginning, I might investigate multiple projects, but then I pick the best idea and run with it.

Indie Hackers shared this tweet as our Tweetmaster's Pick in a newsletter edition last month, and John Champ reminds us of its continued relevance:

Just get started, regardless of age!

Is there a cutoff age for indie hacking? Share your thoughts below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 Bumble has bought French dating app Fruitz in its first acquisition.

📱 Apple will soon let people spend money by holding their iPhones together.

🤖 Bots are now targeting younger crypto networks in a hunt for profits.

🤬 Web3 advocates are blasting BuzzFeed for revealing BAYC founders.

💋 Porn sites in the UK may soon be legally required to verify user age via credit card.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

⚡ Speed up Your Landing Page in Two Hours

by Pragyan Tripathi

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Here's how to speed up your landing page in just two hours. And.....go!

Prep work

Before getting started, run a Google speed test on your existing landing page. You might not understand everything that comes back, but you will at least get a decent idea of what’s blocking performance for your landing page on both desktop and mobile. If you’re confident in your technical ability, study the individual issues and improve them until your landing page hits a score of at least 90. Otherwise, reach out to a developer!

Speed deed

Here's a list of simple things that you can do to speed up your landing page within two hours:

1. Compress and optimize your assets.

(Difficulty: Easy. Expected time: 30 minutes.)

This is probably the number one reason why sites load slowly. Your Google speed test will point out the heavier assets, but it does not hurt to also go through each one manually. A few things to keep in mind when optimizing images:

• First, check the size of the image. You definitely do not want images crossing the 500KB mark, though ideal sizes are less than 100KB.
• Next, check the image dimensions. Many times, we are using 2048 x 2048 images when 512 x 512 would be enough. Simply reducing the image to optimal dimensions can go a long way.
• Finally, check the image extension. JPG images are usually smaller than PNG images, so you can try converting PNG images to JPG and see if that works for you. Note: JPG images do not have an alpha channel, so if you have a transparent background, you have to use PNG.

2. Minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

(Difficulty: Medium. Expected time: 30 minutes.)

If you’re using something like WordPress to create your landing page, you will have plugins like Autoptimize that do this for you. However, if you are doing it with code instead of using a bundler like Webpack, be sure to take a look at this.

3. Use asynchronous loading.

(Difficulty: Easy. Expected time: 5 minutes.)

Scripts like CSS and JavaScript can be loaded in two different ways: Synchronously or asynchronously. If your scripts load synchronously, they load one at a time, in the order that they appear on the page. If your scripts load asynchronously, on the other hand, some of them will load simultaneously. This can be done just by adding the "async" keyword while calling the script.

4. Use deferred loading for JavaScript files.

(Difficulty: Easy. Expected time: 5 minutes.)

Deferring a file means preventing it from loading until after other elements have loaded. If you defer larger files like JavaScript, you ensure that the rest of your content can load without a delay. If you have any script that’s not super important to load on page load, meaning that it can instead be loaded at a later stage, just use the "defer" keyword.

For example, if you have some JavaScript animations, or are using JavaScript libraries, these can be loaded once your page has loaded, and should be deferred.

5. Consider using a CDN.

(Difficulty: Hard. Expected time: 45 minutes.)

This one is not as simple if you have not used a content delivery network (CDN) before. However, this can work wonders if your landing page audience comes from different geographical locations, or you expect a large number of people to visit your landing page at the same time.

The way data transfer works is that people closest to the physical location of the server get served the fastest. Having a CDN can help your users get faster load times, even in times of heavy traffic. If you are new to CDNs, you can get started with MaxCDN and Cloudflare.

Following these steps will get you off to a great start! Feel free to reach out to me if you’re still getting stuck and need further advice.

What are your tips for speeding up a landing page? Let's chat below!

Discuss this story.

🧠 Harry's Growth Tip

from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry

Copywriting tip: Avoid “dictionary words.”

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

Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.

💡 Camellia Yang on Embracing Creativity

by Camellia Yang

Hi! I'm Camellia Yang, founder of the Chiwi Journal podcast and newsletter.

2022 marks the fifth year of my content creation career. Here's the overview at a glance:

• 150K+ followers on Weibo (Chinese Twitter).
• 7K+ subscribers on WeChat.
• ~1.2K subscribers to my newsletter in English after six issues.
• CY Circle, my 100 true fans experiment, has gained 50 paid customers within five months ($14K+ in total revenue).

When I interviewed Pieter Levels on my podcast, we discussed the unbalanced ratio between male and female indie hackers. Role models are so important in our making and building journeys, and I love hearing female founder stories! That's why I wanted to share my own journey, including lessons learned along the way.

The background

I was trained in marketing and communications, and started my career as a part-time journalist while studying in New Zealand. I got a full-time corporate job offer as a social media specialist, then later switched to the finance world to focus on content creation, PR, and community management.

Since I was a non-native English speaker living in an English-speaking country, I worked extremely hard to prove myself at work and learn the rules for climbing corporate ladders. I wasn't even aware that I had entered a vicious cycle: After two years of the workaholic lifestyle, I was diagnosed with severe eczema. My doctor told me that I had to stop working day and night without rest, or I could die. I immediately quit my job.

Depression

I organized a gap year for myself, toured around the US and China, and used my savings to enjoy material goods. Those times of leisure were only a temporary cure, and they didn’t bring me any long-term fulfillment. After six months of traveling without doing any actual work, I ran out of money and fell into depression.

I moved back in with my parents, and my former manager contacted me with a job offer at a bank. I accepted right away, and treated this opportunity as a lifeline in the darkness. I was grateful for the opportunity, but eventually, being back in the corporate environment pushed me into an abyss again. I threw myself into alcohol and parties to find happiness, and I began to have panic attacks.

Creativity

Around the same time, I came across The 4 Hour Workweek and James Altucher’s podcast. They inspired me to start my side hustles and embrace my inner creativity.

Ever since I was a child, I have practiced singing, drawing, writing, dancing, and calligraphy. I even published a novel in primary school. Writing and artistry are embedded in my DNA, but these are not always seen as acceptable paths to pursue into adulthood. So, I stopped doing the things I love, and dedicated myself to the socially-accepted way of living: Attend a good school, find a good job, work hard to get a promotion, get married, have a baby, and raise a good kid to repeat your path. I understand that people have different approaches, and some may enjoy this way of living. But it’s not for me.

Once I realized that I needed to embrace my inner creativity, I started a newsletter and podcast in 2018 to replace partying and drinking. I wrote about my life living abroad as a Chinese international student, and offered career tips from my own experiences. When I devoted my work ethics to doing what I really loved, the results didn’t lie. My follower and subscriber base grew slowly, but steadily.

Pandemic

Reinvigorated by these early successes, I bootstrapped a content consultancy company to work with founders. Many of my friends and networks noticed how I leveraged original content to gain exposure and form an engaged community, and began to ask me for tips on doing that. So, why not make a living from it?

I eventually earned enough money to quit my bank job and move from New Zealand to the UK to start a new chapter. Six months into this new life, the pandemic demolished my dreams. I was in lockdown in a new country alone, and suddenly without a stable income. I didn't have financial or mental support during the pandemic. I was anxious and worried.

While lockdown was challenging, it provided me with solitude and time to reflect on myself. I kept morning journals, walked 10K steps every day, learned new skills (coding and design), and published a memoir in Chinese and a novel in English.

I also joined Nomad List and began working remotely with clients from China, New Zealand, and the UK.

I’m happier and more at peace now that I'm an indie hacker, and I enjoy the process that I’m going through.

Advice for indie hackers

1. When in doubt, listen to your body: It's smarter than you. As builders and makers, we rely on our decision-making process to provide services and products to people in need. When we are surrounded by noise and information overload, we have to listen to our bodies (or gut feelings) and develop the ability to intellectually interpret our body's needs, and take action accordingly.

2. Recently, I interviewed David Senra, the host of one of my favorite podcast shows, Founders. In the interview, he summarized three common traits of founders after reading 200+ founder biographies: Self-faith, persistence, and focus. Develop all of these.

3. The only journey is the one within: As the number of indie hackers grows, more people are ditching the conventional road and pursuing their true callings. The biggest question that we need to answer is whether we are brave enough to follow our interests, step into the unknown, and cultivate our own paths.

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 Zaesar, Priyanka Vazirani, Pragyan Tripathi, Harry Dry, and Camellia Yang for contributing posts. —Channing