[jascination]

It's a cute quote, but it seems about 5 years out of date. There was a golden period for a while there that indie hackers and self-funded devs could create a useful product and grow it themselves and could 'beat' VCs.

But now you can create some AI generated slop in a day that used to take months. Being an indie hacker used to be a sort of badge of honour, now it's where everyone starts.

I think the VC-backed companies who have budgets to do actual marketing, actual sales, actual outreach beyond "I have a good following on X, I'm gonna sell them stuff" will win in the end.

As a customer, for me I don't care whether the company is profitable, I care about whether it works, whether it's in my budget, whether the company will be around in 2 years regardless of if the founder loses their passion for it.

[Aurornis]

I followed a lot of indie hackers and “build in public” accounts on Twitter over the years.

Most of them struggled for a while and then pivoted into some variation of being an influencer: Selling courses, selling services to other indie hackers, or just Tweeting trend-following engagement bait 50 times a day and then bragging about the size of their X payout checks.

Everyone talks about the levels.io guy as the epitome of indie hacking, but many don’t realize (or don’t want to admit) that his projects are making that amount of money because of his Twitter following. His current project is a simple vibe-coded game that sells in-game advertising, and the advertisers are paying largely for the novelty and to get in on the conversation. Nothing about that revenue model could be replicated by anyone with such a large Twitter following. Fantastic for him, of course, but it’s so far removed from what people imagine when they talk about being an indie hacker that it’s just not a relevant example of the space. Yet he continues to be held up as an example of what indie hackers can attain.

I think there’s space for individual entrepreneurs, app creators, and business operators. I just don’t see it coming from the self-described “indie hacker” space at this point because indie hacking has turned into a marketing and self-promotion meta game. The real independent devs are operating out of sight at this point.

[guyfromfargo]

This is me! I have bootstrapped two SaaS companies, and used to hang out on Indie Hackers all the time from 2016-2021. Then the vibe completely shifted, and the self promotion and influencers took over.

I had a modest following on Indie Hackers, and my posts always did well. But after 2021 none of my posts ever could cut through the “7 tweets you need to make right now to generate signups”. I just stopped posting and that’s when I came over to Hacker News.

I hope something pops up like Indie Hackers again, because there are a few of us who build small products and don’t want to be Twitter influencers.

[nullderef]

I've recently started an indie hacker journey and cannot emphasize how much work it takes. It's incredibly hard to develop the technical side, listen to feedback to improve the product/UX, do SEO, viral marketing, and more.

Hiring more people seems necessary to stay sane -- at least for my project. But you need money for that, which you won't have for a long time. Even tools for all these aspects (Claude, Revid.ai, ahrefs, etc) stack up in subscription costs.

Maybe this is just because I'm getting started, though.

[mikigraf]

100%. We tried to compete with a few VC-funded startups and they all have been able to outgrow us while we struggled to get enough money for SOC2.

[nozzlegear]

I tend to be wary of AI slop products as well, but I don't think indie developers are particularly more prone to creating AI slop than VC-backed devs. It seems to me that AI has lowered the barrier to entry for creating slop products for indie devs. On the other end of the spectrum, the number of VC-backed SaaS products out there that haven't completely pivoted to becoming some kind of AI wrapper is approximately zero.

Regarding the topic at hand, I'm more likely to purchase something that's not VC-backed, and does not mention AI at all these days.

[ipsento606]

Can you give any examples of "AI slop products"?

[nozzlegear]

Sure. I build Shopify apps and maintain an open-source .NET library for the Shopify API, so naturally I get a lot of emails (solicited and unsolicited) from people regarding their Shopify apps. Just this morning I got an unsolicited (spam) email from someone offering to sell me their Shopify apps. These are the descriptions they gave me, with app names redacted:

- App A: AI Virtual Try-On. Lets customers try products virtually, reducing returns.

- App B: WhatsApp Chat Button. Seamless WhatsApp integration for instant support.

- App C: AI Product Blocks. AI-generated insights to boost trust and conversions.

App B doesn't have AI, but Apps A and C are products that have existed in various forms on the Shopify App Store for years before AI became a buzzword. AI doesn't add anything here – especially in the case of Product Blocks, if you're familiar with what a block is in a Shopify theme, or the privacy restrictions enforced on them. And AI virtual try-on? What is AI going to add to a virtual try-on?

[lmz]

> What is AI going to add to a virtual try-on?

I can imagine words of praise, rendered in an emotionally convincing tone of voice would be good for conversion.

[bigstrat2003]

> But now you can create some AI generated slop in a day that used to take months.

Yeah, but it won't work. Not a very good look if you're trying to grow your business.