It's easy to get stuck comparing yourself to indie hacking success stories: - **Here's your reminder that founder success is a long game.** Don't get wrapped up in comparing your MRR to that of others! Below, check out more encouraging reminders to h
It's easy to get stuck comparing yourself to indie hacking success stories:
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Here's your reminder that founder success is a long game. Don't get wrapped up in comparing your MRR to that of others! Below, check out more encouraging reminders to help you keep going.
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Traditional communities suffer from noise and spam. Dru Riley outlines how token-gated communities can build deep alignment between members by incentivizing them to add value.
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Founder Rob Santoro left a high salary job to bootstrap his business. Here's what pushed him to the edge, how long it took him to leave, and why he has no regrets.
Want to share something with over 90,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
🥺 Is Your Self Worth Tied to Your MRR?
by John Joubert
In late 2020, at the height of the pandemic, I left my six-figure job to head out into the unknown as a solo founder.
My plan was simple: I’d build SaaS products until I hit something that stuck, and wait for it to take off! Easy, right?
I’ve written previously about my motivation and why I decided to set out on this journey. I’ve also written about my first product launch, Thread Creator, and how I set out to create something that I really wanted to see in the world.
What I haven’t written about, however, is what happened since, and what I’ve learned along the way. Below, I share some lessons and advice for other founders. I’d also humbly suggest that this post is both a cautionary tale and a motivator. But the ultimate message is to get out there and keep creating!
Lesson one: SaaS is a long game
I launched Thread Creator on Product Hunt almost a year ago. Since then, it’s kept me really busy. Over 4K new users have signed up, and paid subscriptions have grown to over 140.
But I still have a long way to go before the revenue catches up to my previous salary. SaaS products can take a while. Don't let the long road discourage you!
When you set out to build something, it can be motivating to look at the achievements of others who have reached $10K+ MRR. If they can do it, you can too! However...overnight success does not exist. It may appear that way, but these folks have often spent years working on projects and building an audience.
We often only see the big successes without seeing what was required to get there.
Lesson two: Don’t be afraid to move on
Since launching Thread Creator, I’ve also built and launched one or two other products. I realized very quickly that they weren’t working out.
That doesn’t mean that they were bad ideas, or that they couldn't have been successful over time. Rather, I had to be very intentional in deciding where to spend my time.
If something isn’t working out, and I’m not feeling motivated to work on it, I give myself permission to stop. It’s totally fine to abandon the project and move on to the next thing. Don’t get stuck working on something that isn’t going anywhere.
Lesson three: Set milestones and measure them
So, how do you know if a project isn’t working out? My suggestion is to set out some core metrics or targets that you’d like to hit. Do this before you start working on the project. These will differ depending on what your personal goals are, and what product you are trying to build.
Just make sure that you know what success looks like in the early stages, and if your gut is telling you that this isn’t working out, be ruthless and move on to the next thing.
The reason you should be so ruthless is that, for most folks, time is an extremely valuable resource. You only have so much time in the day, and you can’t afford to spend it on something that won’t work out.
Learn all that you can from your failures, then take those learnings into your next idea.
Lesson four: Don’t suddenly quit your job
I quit my job to become a full-time founder, but I don’t recommend this approach for most people.
Creating a thriving business is harder than it looks, especially if you have pressures around money. Make sure that you are taking care of yourself and your family first.
If you have never created a business or product before, build one as a side project first before taking the leap. You’ll learn a ton, and you’ll be so much better prepared to eventually go full-time.
Ideally, your side project will start generating an income that is at least able to pay your bills before you quit your job.
Lesson five: Loneliness is a mind killer
One area that is less talked about by solo founders is the emotional and mental toll that this journey takes on you. It can be pretty lonely at times.
I’d recommend that you stay active in communities like Indie Hackers, WIP, Makerlog, and others to make sure that you are still engaging with people. Human interaction is so important, and the further you go on this journey, the more you will need this.
Lesson six: Your self worth should not be linked to your MRR
I’ve watched my MRR increase slowly but steadily over the course of the year, but I’ve also experienced the crushing feeling of moving three steps forward and two steps back. I’ve noticed that the days where I feel a little down are usually the ones where a user has churned. I find that it definitely affects my morale and my motivation.
On those days, I have to remind myseIf that I am more than my MRR.
Here’s to another year of indie hacking!
How do you practice self-care as an indie hacker? Share below!
Discuss this story.
📰 In the News
👃 Digital scent tech is on the horizon.
🏖 Here's how LinkedIn is normalizing job gaps.
📱 Twitter is trying to fully restore service in Russia.
🏢 Apple, Google, and Microsoft are mandating a return to the office.
🍎 What to expect from Apple's "Peek Performance" March event.
🪙 Trend Alert: Token-Gated Communities
from the Trends.vc newsletter by Dru Riley
Why it matters
Token-gated communities align incentives.
Problem
Traditional communities suffer from noise, spam, and other extractive behaviors.
Solution
Token-gated communities build deep alignment between members. Members are incentivized to protect, and add, value.
Players
Token-gated communities:
Tools:
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Collab.land: Gate access to Discord and Telegram.
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Guild: Set token requirements and build communities.
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MintGate: No-code store builder for NFTs and token-gated content.
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POAP: Digital mementos for shared moments.
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Aragon: Open source infrastructure for DAOs.
Predictions
Opportunities
- Allow members to earn tokens. This acts as proof of work. Subreddits reward high-quality contributions. See MOON and BRICK. FWB lets members earn tokens by hosting events. Bankless pays BANK for completing bounties.
- Offer fiat and token-gated access. Some communities are Web 2.5. MetaTrends is an NFT, but we also accept fiat. Water and Music is token-gated and fiat-gated. Serial Marketer accepts fiat, and has a $CMO token.
- Create and curate content as a community. Forefront pays writers with $FF.
- Create a permissionless community. Guild has 400+ groups.
Risks
- Financial accessibility: As tokens grow in value, it becomes expensive to join. The floor price for PROOF access is $80K+ at the moment.
- Technical accessibility: We're in the early adopter phase of DAOs.
Key lessons
- NFT-gating is simple, but less flexible than using fungible tokens. These are not mutually exclusive.
- Think from first principles. Don't force solutions. You may not need tokens.
Hot takes
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DAOs, like NFTs, are primitives. These technologies are defined by early use cases, although they are flexible and agnostic. A DAO can be a community, company, protocol, investment fund, city, country, or who knows what else.
- Token-gated physical communities will gain traction after digitally-native communities. We have unsolved problems in governance, usability, and tooling. Physical implementations compound problems. This won't stop us from trying.
Haters
"Transaction costs are high."
You want security for high-value tokens. There's no free lunch. Some token-gated communities use L2s and centralized apps for operations.
"What about speculators?"
They're incentivized to add value to the community. To do otherwise puts their investment at risk.
"This is exclusionary."
This is a critique of gated communities, not token-gated communities. That's beyond the scope of this report.
Links
Related reports
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DAOs: DAOs are a primitive for token-gated communities.
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Social Tokens: NFTs and fungible tokens become social tokens in token-gated communities.
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NFTs and PFP projects are art with network effects.
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Paid Communities: Token-gated communities are alternative paid communities.
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The Creator Economy: The direct-to-consumer nature of token-gated communities is reminiscent of the creator economy.
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.
👥 10M Users, Zero Funding
by Aytekin Tank
Growing and scaling your startup:
Scaling a business requires constant re-orientation.
Each new stage brings different challenges, and growing a startup is like cell division. At first you have a big, amorphous company with overlapping roles and responsibilities. As you add more people, the work becomes increasingly granular. For example, HR splits into HR and recruiting, then recruiting splits to focus on different roles or geographical areas, and so on.
Discuss this story.
✌ Rob Santoro Left a High Salary Job to Bootstrap His Business
by Rob Santoro
Hi indie hackers! I'm Rob Santoro, and I gave up a large salary to bootstrap my own business. I am very grateful to even have the ability to leave a big, fancy, titled job and salary. This is a very good problem to have, as there are people facing bigger problems than being unhappy with their jobs. Read on for more about the road to my decision!
The build up
I went from helping build and grow a small company, to being thrust into a large, multinational corporation following an acquisition. When I was first hired at the small company, I had a blast helping to lead it through the challenges of startup life. We were in survival mode, working long hours, and doing everything from product development to customer support. After the acquisition, I found myself left with no control of my destiny. I was trying to determine which levers I could pull to make something (anything!) happen.
I was miserable every day, and hated the work that I was doing. I had zero motivation to get out of bed each morning and go into the office (back when we were doing such things). One day, I was acting in a manner that I find unacceptable: Cranky, short-tempered, and not treating others the way I wanted to be treating others. It made me stop and think: Why am I acting this way? Why am I not behaving in a manner consistent with my core values?
Quitting my day job
I had gone from productive and empowered, to basically someone who updated Excel spreadsheets, communicated status, and talked in meetings all day long, essentially getting no real work done. I spent more brainpower understanding politics and internal matrix organizational dynamics than on solving customer problems or using my engineering skills. I was a cog in the corporate machine, and as I looked around at other big companies, I felt that we weren't all that dissimilar.
I do want to be clear here: I have nothing against the organization I worked for, and I worked with some amazing people, got to travel the world, and had some great experiences. I just found that the environment that I was in was not the right environment for me.
After much deliberation, and getting over the fear of stepping away from a nice comfortable salary into the unknown, I left. It took about six months to finally pull the trigger.
The aftermath
After quitting, I was burned out, so I took a quick break. Soon thereafter, I started working with some friends who were running their own small businesses. In examining their businesses, I recognized areas where I knew that I could help. I was having fun solving problems again, and working with people to build something.
Before quitting, I had set myself up financially for such a move. Living beneath my means enabled me to save and invest enough to have a three year runway as I bootstrapped my company. I'm still in that process. There is a bit of stress in the background since I will need to be making money soon, but that stress does not outweigh how happy I've been over the last few years.
When I ponder what I may be thinking towards the end of my existence, I know that I will ultimately not regret leaving that fancy job. What I would have regretted would have been not taking the chance.
Good luck to anyone thinking about doing the same!
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?
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to John Joubert, Dru Riley, Aytekin Tank, and Rob Santoro for contributing posts. —Channing
