Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by autocole 639 days ago
I’m not sure I understood the author’s point. This write up sounds like a collection of thoughts and observations about trends and the now saturated landscape of “build in public”/“indie hackers”

I’d like to have heard some perspective from people actively participating in this and how their experiences have been
2 comments
candiddevmike 639 days ago
IME, people who are building in public seem to spend more time letting people know they're building in public than actually building.
link
barrell 639 days ago
When I started indie hacking, I looked around for how to grow an audience. Tried to model what various successful posters were doing, which lasted about a week, because turns out it’s like a full time job.

References, spreadsheets, scheduling, analytics, sourcing, markets, targeting, timing optimization, drafting, research, etc.

It gave me a lot more appreciation for the people who grow a large audience in this sort of manner, but also made it clear that it’s not for me. There isn’t enough time in the day for me to build the products I want to, I’ll just have to settle for posting randomly whatever I feel like.

PS:, recently there seems to have been some changes to the x algorithm. Just spontaneously posting and even shitposting seems to be doing a lot better than the formulaic stuff from a few years ago. YMMV

link
blitzar 639 days ago
Letting people know how strong your grindset is requires 4am starts and grinding out social media threads all weekend.
link
DistractionRect 639 days ago
I think the idea is as a growth hacking strategy, people lost their way. The space is crowded and now it usually means people are posting positive numbers go up charts. What value is in that? Why is my chart more engaging than other people's charts?

It's not interesting, engaging, or educational. So as an growth strategy, it sharply slumps off after the initial launch post, and there's zero value to the reader aside from knowing it exists (again, initial launch post).

So it's a call to arms to reevaluate what you're doing. If you're posting number goes up, it's really no different from building in private, it's likely a wasted effort on your part and unnecessary noise to the community. Or maybe return to the old meaning of building in public. Create value for people, actually have a dialogue, and that'll pay dividends (that's the hope anyways) .

link