Quit 🤬'n around! Join my 30-day hustle to build our damn startups together
Indiehackers! Are you tired of dreaming about your startup and ready to start taking serious action? Me too! I'm starting a 30-day productivity sprint. Join me!
Here's the deal: for the next 30 days, we'll commit to doing at least one productive thing a day aimed at building our startups. Whether it's coding, designing, networking, or hustling for customers, we'll each decide what's most important for our own businesses and get to work.
But here's the kicker: we're not doing this alone. We're doing it together. By sharing our progress and holding each other accountable, we'll motivate ourselves to stay on track and push through any roadblocks.
It's never easy. We're going to have days when we're tired, stressed, or just plain unmotivated. But that's why we need each other. We'll be there to encourage, support, and kick each other in the ass when needed.
Let's do the damn thing!
Want to join? Drop a comment below with an overview of where you're starting. Then each day - post an update about what you did that day.
Great concept, thanks for starting this thread.
I am working on an Invoice App and Webflow Design Agency. My goal for the next 30 days is to get paying users for each. The app will take longer to catch up, so I want to jumpstart cash flow with a service-based offerings. Both are work in progress.
App landing page: https://www.prontoinvoice.com/
Service landing page: https://www.okason.com/
Day 1:
Working on implementing the Settings screen for the app.
Started Google App Campaign
Love it. Targeting contractors is a great idea. Such an underserved market with insane upside.
OK, I'll bite. I'm working on finishing one web app (B2C) and doing the UI/UX on my next one (B2B). Both involve Stable Diffusion / image generation. My next few days will be focused on understanding & implementing ControlNet: https://huggingface.co/spaces/hysts/ControlNet.
1 week later: installed & still learning ControlNet. Installed and 95% done on developing the B2C web app using ControlNet. Testing out to client tomorrow for validation. The B2B solution will take the month as I am relying on others to do the software engineering + web development.
2nd week later: foundations of ControlNet are done. Now I am experimenting with additional modes & postprocessing to make the images come out better / more realistic. In turn I am taking that knowledge to mockup my B2B solution in Adobe XD. Based on the meetings with my devs today, the initial XD boards and UX research seems to be going in the right direction. In addition, my client validated the SD images I've been making and we're looking to make a case study out of it.
Lots of work to go, but I'm seeing some good traction.
3rd week later: After some research + web developer discussions, I've decided the B2B solution will have a simplified version coming first to gain interest. If it's working well for our competition, why not us? We'll then spend another month or two developing the system that will separate us out from that competition.
I continue to test and validate with clients on a local level. I introduced some variations and utilizing inpainting to one client so we can get an idea on different types of landscaping. Worked like a charm and no waiting on doing it all perfectly in 3D. I've also mentioned this process during a potential client design meeting in hopes it separates my company from others and land a decent-sized 3D job. Let's hope it worked...
4th week later: full interactive XD mockups are complete for the B2B project & explained the details to my local developer working on the project. Next week is all about organizing and developing materials for the marketing push.
Explaining the process did not go well as expected. Discussing an AI in theory / concept tends to make others uneasy about the future. Unless I have visual examples, I am much less likely to explain unless they are engaging me.
5th week later: B2B project developer is exploring existing systems based off the mockups and is integrating some of them next week. I am working on the prompts and started purchased some marketing materials to help launch the web app. I'm also organizing my blog post topics & Twitter posts.
B2C web app is going through the "last mile" phase. The focus is on code cleanup, bug fixes & UX testing. Hosting changed to AWS due to some fundamental parts of the web app not working with the current host. It will be more expensive but more secure & scalable. I expect alpha testing to start in the next few weeks.
I'll combine week 5 & 6 as I am taking a week off for vacation.
Right now as a side project I'm working on a gamified productivity framework that can be used on any system like Notion, Airtable, Google Docs, etc:
https://dayquest.carrd.co/
Day 1:
30-Day Goals:
Day 1 Outcomes:
2 new email waiting list signups (18 total)
Day 2 Goals:
30-Day Goals:
Notes:
Talked to one of my main startup's advisors briefly about https://dayquest.carrd.co/ and they were excited about the conversion rate on the page. The conversion rate goes up/down depending on how aligned to "gaming" the traffic is. Really need to start sharing on Reddit.
Great landing page, signed up :) Looking forward to seeing what you're building.
Love how organized this is. And huge fan of anything gamified :)
We are building MealCoach - Gamified Guided Mindful Eating! https://getmealcoach.com/.
MealCoach is like your free personal coach at mealtime to help overcome overeating and lose weight.
Day 1: watchOS App was already built and deployed to the app store. Created companion iOS App with 2 basic pages. More functionality is being added to bring iOS app in feature parity with watchOS App
30 Day Goals:
App
Day 2: Got the MealCoach iOS App working with basic features ported from the watchOS MealCoach app. Currently working on improving the UI/UX of the iOS app and fixing audio bugs.
watchOS app download count: 13
Day 3: Delegated a coding task on Replit Bounties since I was running short on time due to 9-5 job and personal commitments
I’m building refro (https://refro.space), an app that focuses on helping team owners 10x the productivity and overall output of their teams through processes like daily work reporting and appraisals.
Awesome idea!
Currently building Evoke
Hosting open source AI models on the cloud accessible through API for devs and businesses building AI apps.
This awesome!
Ok, I'm in. I'm working on the desktop app that helps you manage files on S3. You can imagine it like a Dropbox for S3. Let me know if you're interested the idea!
Day 1: do some research on UI/UX :D
This is exactly what I'm building with YRC.
It's kinda like an online MMA gym but for makers instead of fighters.
The sessions are half education and half implementation.
I love this concept! I scanned your site, read most of it.
I see you are still marketing for Mar 2022. Typo, or last year? How did it go? Are you still building this? Any courses upcoming?
$1800 EUR is way out of my budget right now - I'm fully broke, single parent, unemployed. I'm looking for collaborate masterminds and shared creative energy. I have a lot of value to contribute in that - my current finances are not an accurate reflection of my value. Are you interested in getting on a call together? Do you know of any groups currently operating (in the theme of this thread)?
Oh, thanks! I'll get that fixed.
It's a mixed bag. It's partly going extremely well because I deeply care about my students and there's virtually nothing I don't do for them.
But the drawback is that I'm not selling software or a quick fix... Meaning, I'm still limited to the student's willingness to do the work.
I.e. It's much easier to make money selling Tinder than it is to have a service that solves the real problem of addressing the lack of social skills. Most people are Amateurs not Pros (in Steven Pressfield's lingo; they're not willing to do the work).
Just so happened that I wrote about that yesterday here
I do offer a payment plan for people with a smaller budget but I currently don't have any free plans.
I'm not aware of any free alternatives.
As much as it may suck for you, typically you get what you pay for. I believe you when you say that you're an anomaly but a free group would just attract the worst of the worst. Hell, just look at the dumpster fire that is Reddit.
I do have a more affordable group coaching program here. You can have a look if that's within your budget. That might be what you're looking for as in: a bunch of founders with a Pro attitude who're actually getting shit done.
But the point (as is the case for all my products) is not to shoot the shit. In my "gym" there's 0 points for intellectual/theoretical business as that tends to attract people who're scared to walk the walk so they try to fix that by talking the talk.
I hear you, and strongly agree. I just read your new post, and it's excellent. Definitely a pitfall identified that I'm aware of, but have not yet mastered. I'm still working on cutting out the cruft and finding the core things that "move the needle" as you say. I read "The One Thing" about 5-6 years ago and I think it's pointing in the same direction. You seem to have excellent clarity on deep work and getting results.
I appreciate the generosity of spirit that has you say " I believe you when you say that you're an anomaly" - thanks. Because outliers do exist, and they are at least as important as norms (this right here is one of the central failings of modern science and medicine, always looking to averages).
FYI the link you shared to "more affordable group coaching" points to the same page, $1800 EUR program. If I've missed something, please let me know.
Also FYI I really appreciate the gym and lifting metaphors; I used to be a CrossFit trainer and high-level snowboard instructor, and have found the same life lessons in exercise: it is goal-getting embodied, and there is no theorizing that will replace the work.
Godspeed in your work. We share some mission and if we can ever find a way to combine energy and talents, I'm up for it.
Oh sorry about the link. Here is the link to the group coaching. Incidentally, I've got a session in twenty minutes :)
There's a complementary session there so you can have a look and see if it resonates.
---------------
Thanks :)
Don't think of it as "mastering". That puts a ton of pressure on you. Everyone has to fight the Resistance (Steven Pressfield's terminology) every day anew.
You'll always be pulled to Surface Work (Cal Newport terminology) and away from the meaningful, needle-moving Deep Work.
Unfortunately, the same "illness" plagues both tech and non-tech founders.
It just expresses itself with different symptoms.
For tech founders, that's fucking around with perfect code and using that as an excuse to do the one thing that matters: trying to get sales.
For non-tech founders, that tends to be hiding in never-ending education (usually with the excuse of perfection or "learning" to avoid the one thing that matters: trying to get sales.
As an aside, very few people understand what marketing actually is and what it's for:
Fundamentally, it's the studying of selling. That's why any marketing educator spends a disproportionate amount of time teaching research, be it quantitative or qualitative.
Unfortunately, that's boring and not sexy which means it doesn't get views. Hence, everything you read about marketing is about distribution (which falls under the communications umbrella).
If we look at the work done by Professor McCarthy in the 60s, we see that he simplified the grouping of marketing efforts into 4 categories: Product & Price, Place & Promotion (where comms sits).
But in order to even "do" anything in marketing, you first need to diagnose a problem or an audience/market, then you need to formulate a plan of attack (i.e. a strategy), and lastly, you turn that into actionable tactics you can take.
So if we look at all the Twitter threads, blog posts, and Indiehacker threads that talk about distribution tips and quick hacks, those are distribution tactics, they're talking about 1/3 * 1/4 = 1/12 = 8% of the field of marketing (depending on how you wanna classify/group things).
No wonder people don't understand/respect marketing.
When's the last time you saw a post on how to do qualitative research to understand REAL pains your audience has? Or how to get a good first draft of how much a consumer is willing to pay for a service (which sits in the pricing bucket).
Imagine if the field of programming was entirely reduced entirely to for loops...
Great idea!
Launching https://useaware.co/ - enabling creators to engage on LinkedIn, at lightning speed, with curated, dynamic, and custom feeds. Also: Analytics, and more.
Currently gathering feedback and welcoming more early users at our early bird pricing before we do the big push.
Day 4: Added ability to post as company/page. Added new business plan
Day 3: Couple bug fixes and try to finish up Feed Sorting feature
Today is marketing day. Going to schedule some LinkedIn posts and Tweets, and do some engaging.
Day 1: I don't have an idea but want to start building/shipping small experiments. I would most likely have to copy something that already is generating revenue and improve on it.
Day 2: I decided I want to make a coverletter ai generator. I brainstormed some name i can use. i ended up with kabaleta (japanese way of pronounciation). I watched a couple of youtube videos on how people use chatgpt to create resume/cover letter. The immediate problem I have right away is that the output of chatgpt sounds very generic. My next step is to figure out how to make GPT3 or chatgpt write using my voice/writing style so that the generated cover letters dont sound too similar for applicants. That'll be my task for tomorrow.
Day 3: I struggled to make chatgpt generate a good cover letter. I was able to partially make it sound like me, but 2 more problems came up. First, it made stuff up about what my qualifications are (i.e saying I'm experienced with RabbitMQ even though i dont). It's probably due to its effort of trying it make it tailored to the job posting . Second, it was really hard to make it more concise and less verbose (it would cut out too much information) and make it sound generic.
However, one good result I was able to have is to ask ChatGPT to convert my original coverletter into a bullet form, and it looked nice and was easier to read. But that alone is not helpful for a cover letter generator for job postings. So I might pivot to a different idea instead.
Day 4-5: Played around with GPT-index and do some preliminary research into company knowledge base to chatgpt bot saas. Probably a lot of people building this. So far i have 3 things im thinking about building ordered according to least to most competition and least to most exciting for me
1.) a rentroom/rentcafe alternative
2.) a premium AI therapist chatbot (like wysa or replika).
3.) Quickchat alternative (company knowledgebase) focused on reducing support calls.
I'm gonna start with idea #3 tomorrow, and understand the intercom ecosystem a little better, try to come up with simple prototype, and also try quickchat. And figure out which niche to initially target for beta testing. Also, I saw HeyBot already launched on producthunt recently, so many people are building it.
Yeah, ChatGPT is a bit of wild horse. I use it everyday. But when I've attempted to integrate it into a project, things get pretty wonky. I think you have to spend a decent amount of time (or have a good amount of data) to help train it to act how you want. Something I've yet to accomplish.
Building designpulse.co, thanks I will post any update from now
I'm also looking for driven people to push each other! To make things more fun, I'm building a discord bot that keeps track of our TODOs and streaks and ranks people in the server 😁
Join me!! https://discord.gg/AN74ZXJ
I just joined and shared an intro :) Let's get it going!
I'm building powertweet,
Currently, the development is launched. At the same time, I'm posting on the networks to get people on my waiting list.
I'm in the process of creating the business as well so I can open a stripe.
Awesome. Can you share a link to your product? I love the waitlist idea too. Feel like it's such a good way to validate an idea and work out kinks before launching. I've tossed around the idea of doing the same thing. We made a slight pivot from our MVP - so had considered starting a waitlist for our pivot idea before actually building it.
https://www.powertweet.io/ ; and what's your's?
I think it's a good idea too.
I reach 20 peoples on my wl with just 1 post about it on a growth hacking forum.
My goal is to have around 100 peoples before launching the final version of my tool and give them a big discount for support.
Maybe you can do the same on IH with your tool?
Day 1: I'm working on a visual diary for your goals. It's a mobile app called Journaleo. Today's goal is to finish the create goal flow!
Day 7-10: Oops. Forgot to update here. Finished the create recording flow. Now I'm working on giving the user the ability to select 30 seconds of a video.
Day 6: Just keep cleaning up code! Yesterday, cut 600 lines to 200 :). Now, have one other flow to clean up.
Day 5: Some refactoring on labeling a goal so I can make my code smarter and reduce extra load/duplicates.
Day 4: Try to wrap up saving a photo recording flow.
Day 3: Continue hacking at the camera experience. Yesterday, set up the page and authorization. Today, I'll see if I can display the camera roll in a grid.
Day 2: Set up the camera to pick between capture and gallery. This will let people choose between their photos/videos in their camera roll and pick one at the moment.
Nice! And love this idea. Also, the sample pics on the app are making me jealous. Love Queen K. Park :) II need a trip back to HI ASAP.
Ah! Love it. That's from last spring! We found this pullup set behind the tennis courts. Perfect view of Diamond Head, so peaceful, and away from the more crowded outdoor gym.
It really is. My co-founder lives a block away from there. So I love visiting. Sadly, I'm stuck in, currently cold, California. App looks great though!
Day 1:I am a beginner and I am learning about the validation process for products. Today's task is to check out Indie Hacker posts and see what everyone is talking about.
Day 2:I browsed the website Product Hunt today and discovered many interesting products. I started a discussion about a dream interpretation website.
discussion address:https://www.producthunt.com/discussions/create-a-website-about-dream-interpretation-using-chatgpt
Day 3:Today, I continued to browse the Product Hunt website and looked at the main modules of the site, especially the "hall-of-fame" module in which the products are amazing!
Day4:This morning, right after waking up, I suddenly had a very good idea and was very excited to build an MVP as soon as possible. However, the problem was that I didn't know which suitable tools to use. So I spent the whole day researching tools for building MVPs, including Sketch, InVision, and Figma (these were the answers given to me by ChatGPT). Ultimately, I chose Figma because it is a cross-platform tool with a Linux version. Tomorrow, I will continue to dive deeper into Figma and build a simple interactive prototype.
Day5:Today, based on my inspiration from yesterday, I created an interactive model using Figma and I feel pretty good about it. Tomorrow, I will take this interactive model to discuss with my friends and hear their opinions, to determine whether this is a product worth pursuing.
Anything stand out or resonate with you more than the others? I've heard some of best business ideas come when people try to solve a problem they've personally experienced, but can't find a solution to.
Or finding a product you like, but think you can make twice as good.
Thank you for your advice. I currently have an idea that I believe exists in my life but I haven't found a suitable solution yet. I want to build an MVP, but the new problem is that as a beginner, I don't know what tools I can use to quickly build an MVP. Do you have any recommended tools or websites?This is my post for help:https://www.indiehackers.com/post/are-there-any-tool-recommendations-for-building-mvp-7e1a5d58c5
Welcome! And the best community for curious minds like yourself :)
Day 1: I talked to a potential customer last week and realized I completely built the wrong thing. I have an idea on how to iterate and I’m going to spend today making wireframes on how it’s going to look like.
https://testparty.dev/
Day 2
I've finished my wireframes and I've scoped out two potential features.
One will let you run your test automation on demand. The other will be an interactive git bisect with preview environments created for each revision.
I'm not really sure which direction I'll go in, but I don't have a customer call tomorrow - so that will be awesome.
Any advice on them would be awesome: https://whimsical.com/wireframe-RPuNEFSABBdFCfiLX6PE4y
They say talking to potential customers should be the first step to validate an idea (before you start building). But I can't count how many times I assumed our users wanted something, built it, then just watched it gather dust because nobody used it. Frustrating - but better late than never to get that kind of insight.
Can't access the website buddy
should be fixed now :)
I'll get it started.
Company: https://chirrup.chat
Users: 3
MRR: $592
Team size: 2
Background: launched the product in mind 2021 - but due to having full-time jobs and life, we got distracted and fell off track. Time to suck it up and get back to work.
here's an idea -- do a challenge similar to: https://speedrun1000.com
That's a great format! Love how organized that is for growing subscribers :) It would be awesome to organize something similar for those of us looking to grow or launch a product.
DAY 1 Steps:
a.) needing to revamp how we talk about our product, I did a bunch of market and customer research. This helped bring some clarity on how we should approach our market and talk to potential customers.
b.) updated my new user workflow. Really trying to embrace PLG methodologies, and make it as easy as possible to start a free trial.
DAY 2
Started to try and add mobile push notifications using Pusher Beams. Since our users send/receive messages in app - notifications have always been crucial. But I've been super intimidated to touch this issue since I had someone else build our MVP (in Ruby, which I don't know). But can't put it off any more. So today was a lot of research and writing in a new language to try and add this new notifications method.
DAY 3
Price study time. Currently have tiered usage based pricing, but spent a fair amount of time reading about different pricing strategies. Anyone interested in learning solid PLG (product led growth) strategies, I highly recommend this newsletter by Kyle Poyar.
DAY 4
Bug fix! One of our users reported some odd behavior in the search feature. It turned out to be a fairly complicated issue so spent the day fixing it.
Day 5
More pricing and financial stuff. Had been in some casual conversations with a potential angel investor. We're pretty set on not going all-in on taking VC money (not that we've had any offers). But we do think some early stage funding would let us scale a lot faster.
Anyhow, I worked on some forecasting models and writing up a budget summary for the next 2 years to break down how we'd spend the money, should someone be willing to give it.
DAY 6
More fumbling notifications. Trying to trigger mobile push notifications from our web app but keep getting stuck 😖
DAY 7
Back to the bug from above. Spent more time fixing the search issue after finding some backdoor glitches.
DAY 8
Emailed a potential customer to give them an extended trial offer. That led me down a Stripe rabbit hole - fixing and tweaking the payment pages.
DAY 9
Back to notifications. Started looking at Rpush, a push notifications service for Ruby. Our web app is built on Ruby, so trying to find something that integrates nicely. Only bad part is that I don't know Ruby!
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