[tirpen]

This sounds like it will be a great place for less ethical hacker to find product ideas to steal outright and beat the people who came up with them to the market.

Why would I as a developer post my ideas so openly on your page, just inviting competitors to copy me, before making an MVP? Sounds very high risk/mid reward to me.

[tnolet]

In the grand scheme of things, this is irrelevant. The problem an indiehacker has is that no one knows they exist and they have no users. Being copied should be very, very low on your risk list.

[itsoktocry]

>The problem an indiehacker has is that no one knows they exist and they have no users.

Does anyone outside of the Silicon Valley echo chamber believe this? You aren't indie hacking anything without a good idea. It's the literal foundation. Execution is also important, and hard.

Can someone point me to all of these terrible-idea-awesome-execution businesses?

[mathgladiator]

And for some of us, being copied would be fantastic!

[ratsimihah]

Wouldn't the same apply to https://www.indiehackers.com? Can't see this as a huge problem. At that stage the idea hasn't been validated yet so all the work is still there to do

[fxtentacle]

It does. I'm pretty sure that guy who was honest about the finances of his Ark server hosting business has since regretted it multiple times, because suddenly everyone was offering Ark servers.

[motoxpro]

I agree, but I would also say the difference is I can't see the traction on Indie Hackers (unless you tell me).

This is more similar to me saying, I am I going to create a TikTok video where I do this cool dance and me ACTUALLY creating the TikTok video where I do a cool dance and it gets a million views. The first doesn't invite copycats so much while the second one does because the idea has been eternally validated and, in both the TikTok and software case, it looks easy to replicate.

[goatnometry]

If you are starting a startup it doesn't make sense, but if you want a specific project to exist but you don't have the time or knowledge needed to create it, seems legit to publicly post the idea hoping that somebody will copy it, or at least give you the money to pay somebody else to do it.

[rmbyrro]

The idea isn't worth anything by itself

If you're worried about sharing your idea, you probably still didn't understand what makes a business successful.

[wfhBrian]

Maybe from a VC business standpoint. But I'd disagree as far as "indie" (small cap) businesses go.

[rmbyrro]

I think it's less important for indie businesses.

VC-backed startups tend to have ideas with a higher level of "originality", I think.

But that's my personal perspective...

[mistrial9]

no - from the point of view of the author of original content, the choice of aesthetics, markets, platform, toolchain and other are very important. "results oriented" management dismisses this side, since so many wandering authors have lost their way.. a product needs all of this

[hipadev23]

ideas have near zero value, execution is the only thing that matters.

[itsoktocry]

>ideas have near zero value, execution is the only thing that matters.

This is laughable, and straight from the VC/Big Tech Co playbook. You know, the kind of places who can more easily spend huge money executing on someone else's good idea.

Of course execution is important. I'd even accept more important than an idea. But ideas are not "near zero value". There's nothing to execute on without them, and unlike "executing", there's no system to repeat it.

[hipadev23]

You sound like every failed non-technical founder trying to convince an engineer why they get to be the first employee and should be thankful for 5% equity. To reinforce my point, take YC's top 3 outcomes so far:

* Stripe - Paypal but better and dev-focused

* AirBNB - Couchsurfing.com but better and we charge for it

* DoorDash - Seamless and GrubHub but better

Those ideas, on the surface, are all garbage. Yet they had by-far the best outcomes for YC. Why? Execution. That's why YC invests in so many poor ideas -- they're investing in people are likely to be able to execute, not the ideas themselves.