What are some things you should *NOT* do as an indie hacker?

I was recently on @ProductHunt Radio (https://t.co/IuSMrZTaYG) where @Abadesi asked me this question about all sorts of challenges that founders face.

Here are a few of my thoughts…
@ProductHunt @Abadesi Don't blindly follow advice without considering the context in which the advice was given (from who, to who, when, for what) and adapting it to fit your personal situation.

E.g. advice that works for a high-growth VC-funded startup might be disastrous to your indie business.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi (This applies to any and all advice in life, btw, not just advice for how to start and run a company. It's almost never a good time to turn off your brain and blindly follow what others are saying.)
@ProductHunt @Abadesi Don't equate being a founder with being an inventor. It's an analogy that can easily go too far.

You'll end up overvaluing and over-protecting your pet ideas. Or worse, you'll never come up with an idea at all, because you'll assume that it needs to be something completely new.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi There are many thousands of businesses that solve more-or-less the same old problems, but in unique ways, or for a unique segment of customers, etc. You're probably better off picking a very straightforward problem to solve, and then getting innovative with your solution.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi Don't wait to start learning from your customers.

Talk to customers about what you're doing from day #1. Figure out where they hang online and learn from their conversations. Try to get a strong sense of what they'll think about your product before you waste months building it.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi Don't try to be too clever when finding your first users.

Going from 1M to 2M users requires a bulletproof strategy, considerable knowledge, and a healthy dose of luck. Going from 1 to 2 users requires… a conversation.
@ProductHunt @Abadesi More broadly, don't copy founders or companies who are way further ahead than you are. If you're going to copy them, copy what they did in the early days, not what they're doing now.

Many of the strategies that work at scale are often deadly to early-stage companies.

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Making a thread of makers & entrepreneurs who inspired me, and what they taught me.
#thread
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Strong marketing game, super hard work, can stream for 24 hours and currently leading a new streamer movement with the #24hrstartup challenge.
Make it bigger than yourself.
👉 @thepatwalls

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https://t.co/lBYn9nP3KJ which works perfectly and saved me hours and hours.
Make a simple, helpful product.
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Raise the bar for quality, look for seamless integrations.
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A small engaged community is enough.
👉 @marckohlbrugge
Results from yesterday’s poll. I’m inclined to agree. And this is something I’m going to fix in my next move.


As an indie maker you have a huge advantage if you can genuinely dogfood your product. Don’t do what I did and try to make a product for teams if you’re just one person. That’s really, really dumb 🙃

Before searching for product-market fit, ask yourself if you have founder-product fit. It is a humbling question but one worth investing the time to answer truthfully.

In hindsight, I have low founder-product fit with Talkshow. It’s for teams but I’m solo. It’s a big broad idea but as an indie I should be focused on a niche.

Just braindumping 🤪 Again thanks to @tylertringas for the micro-saas content on his blog, it helped me navigate / articulate some thoughts I was having.
First update to https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL since the challenge ended – Medium links!! Go add your Medium profile now 👀📝 (thanks @diannamallen for the suggestion 😁)


Just added Telegram links to
https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL too! Now you can provide a nice easy way for people to message you :)


Less than 1 hour since I started adding stuff to https://t.co/lDdqjtKTZL again, and profile pages are now responsive!!! 🥳 Check it out -> https://t.co/fVkEL4fu0L


Accounts page is now also responsive!! 📱✨


💪 I managed to make the whole site responsive in about an hour. On my roadmap I had it down as 4-5 hours!!! 🤘🤠🤘

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1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.

Please add your own.

2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you


3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.

“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”

“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”

4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:

“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”

“What’s end-game here?”

“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”

5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:

“What would the best version of yourself do”?
Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.