[gchp]

> What's your advice for indie hackers who are just starting out?

> Honestly my single piece of advice would probably be to stop looking for so much advice. Shut the fuck up and go and build something.

I like this. I see a lot of people, and I fall victim to this myself, over analysing the best way to do X, rather than just trying it and learing / adapting as you go. I think there is some value in figuring things out up front, but not at the cost of never taking the plunge.

[notheguyouthink]

The little success i have in life is largely due to this exact model. I have home-built so many big grandiose apps and solved many problems learning them myself. I didn't make any hits, hell i didn't even finish half of them, but i largely solved a lot of problems myself, figuring and learning.

Now (for better or worse) i think i'm at the stage where i need to actually improve and deploy them fully. Learn maintenance, learn upkeep, maybe even learn some minor advertising and metrics.

Self taught experience has been so insanely valuable. Value derived from pain.. but still value.

[gchp]

Yeah I think at the start there is a lot of value in just starting, perhaps without even finishing. It's that stage of just getting over the first hurdle and getting into it.

That's fine for a while but then as you say you get to the place where you have to finish. I think this can be almost as big of a hurdle as starting as it can involve a whole host of new challenges, some of which you've mentioned above.

Finishing is also, in my opinion, typically not as exciting. You've likely already solved all the intersting problems and are left with the "lesser" tasks involved in getting it over the line. This is something I've been learning myself over the past year or two.

[koonsolo]

Nice to hear you improved your technical skills. But your next step is probably not extending those skills more, by learning maintenance etc. Your next step is going to market.

Re-read the article: only a tiny part of it explains the technical challenges/mistakes. Most of it revolves around finding the problem people face, presenting them the right solution, etc. Checking if people are willing to pay for such a solution.

As said in the article: > Market-specific experience is probably the biggest and most under-valued asset that you can bring to any project. Few people ever talk about it.

Solving the technical problems is the easy part. Knowing which problem to solve, which solution to offer, how to get the right people to notice you, how to get them to give you money. That is the hard part. Start learning that part now.

[sharkweek]

I think this is so true across the board.

One of my favorite hobbies is writing. But it's so easy to get stuck into overthinking it, reading about writing, reading how other people write, etc etc etc...

Instead, I've noticed the best feeling comes from staring at a blank page and just letting the mind work things out in real-time. Sometimes it sucks (maybe most of the time), but it seems like there's plenty of times where it also goes really well.

[gchp]

Totally agree. What I've found too is that once you actually start and get /something/ down on the page (or whatever the medium) you actually find yourself getting into a bit of a productivity flow. It might start off bad, but I find I quickly slip into actually getting stuff done once I get over that initial paralysis.

[returnbuyer]

Yeah that's really cool. Resonates with me. Analysis paralysis is a big problem for introverts.

[melling]

I just keep in mind a few words from the early 1980's:

"Real artists ship".

That pretty much distills it down, right?