Welcome to Listen Up IH - Episode 39.
There's no one-size-fits-all answer for success as an indie hacker, everyone is on their unique journey.
Yet some common patterns emerge that help founders succeed with their startups.
Over the last 11 months, I’ve deeply analyzed 30+ indie hackers and their startups. This is the documentation of traits that I’ve found common to these stories. Hope it helps you in your own journey.
These are the 7 Habits of highly effective indie hackers.
Let's go👇
Being good at coding is different from being good at business.
For startup success, you need to understand the domain and the end-user better than most people.
It also helps them have spiky opinions about their domain. Opinions that none of the current tools solve.
That’s why some indie hackers succeed even when they are just scratching their own itch.
Examples -
Successful Indie Hackers ship fast and put their work out often. Learn from the feedback, iterate, and improve.
Especially in the early days.
During the MVP stage, before reaching product-market fit, it makes sense to ship fast.
Examples -
You can not build the right product without talking to your users.
That's how you recognize the right problems to solve, the right positioning, and the right pricing strategy.
Examples -
As an indie hacker, you don’t have a sales team at your disposal. If you try to sell a $5/month product you will have to convince 200 people to reach $1000 MRR.
But if you sell a $50/month product, you will only have to convince 20 people to reach $1000 MRR.
Most successful indie hackers realize this and don’t shy away from charging a premium for their product.
In most cases, they start small but then raise prices as they get some validation.
Examples -
Accruing an audience is different from actively building an audience.
It's a result of being a domain expert and shipping fast and often for many years.
And even by building in public, sharing their journey openly helps accrue an audience over time.
Examples -
Working solo means you don't have a ton of resources for your startup. But constraints can spark creativity and even help you position the product better.
Examples -
Finding success takes time.
Most solo founders don't succeed with their 1st project. But they learn from failures and apply the lessons in the next projects.
They don't give up and eventually find success. Staying in the game long enough also gives you a great chance of getting lucky.
Examples -
Hope you can apply these patterns in your own journey.
It’s not about getting the 7 habits right, it’s about learning from the success of others and maximizing your own chances of success.
You can read all stories of all these indie hackers in the archive of this newsletter here - ListenUpIH.
Thank you for reading🙏
Every week, I share the most actionable insights and inspiring tips from successful Indie Hackers FOR aspiring Indie Hackers
Ideas + Insights + Inspiration for building profitable internet businesses💪
Sign up to Listen Up! IH and join 1850+ spirited Indie Hackers who read this newsletter every week.
Cheers,
This article deserves more likes!
Thanks Greg, glad you liked it.