I fell out of love with indie hacking

I’ve been mulling on this for a while. I loved my time leading the community at Indie Hackers, but along the way I got bored and fell out of love.

Boredom is only part of the story.

A big part of it is probably me out growing it and my own reality of needing to keep my head down and focused on my own business. As businesses grow it becomes harder to talk about what’s really going on.

I got tired of the transactional aspect too. People asking for feedback on their idea. The spammy DMs asking for Product Hunt upvotes. The constant hustle of trying to get upvotes, wherever it may be, in the hope and belief that is what will make them succeed. As if that is what makes a business successful.

Disappointed is another part of it. a big part of this relates to indie hackers continuing using X as a platform. I just can’t. Each to their own I suppose. It’s definitely made me question where I want to spend my time. It’s definitely not on X.

I’m sad that everything got so fragmented, that’s not on indie hacking, more just where the world is at.

I’m sad that IH, the website, didn't continue to be supported. It could’ve been something good.

I’m sad there aren’t enough real success stories. The post Covid down turn, combined with AI has been a reality check. Some got lucky in the boom, some people definitely made much more money than their worth. That’s the way these things go.

I mostly find myself disinterested in the conversations and not willing to participate in the superficial games played. Is it unique to indie hacking? No, superficial engagement is everywhere and I‘m not here for it.

The current discussion around indie hacking being dead is interesting. The idea of it being a pyramid scheme, I would say, is partially true. A tech bro pyramid scheme is probably more accurate.

But also the market is wild. Small businesses everywhere are struggling, it makes sense that many indie hacker attempts are failing too. There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t question my business place in the world. I feel for those that were doing well, but are now struggling. Its exhausting.

What feels true is the ADHD aspect of indie businesses, there are so many businesses that were into something great, but their attention span was lacking. The lure of the pivot often proved too strong. If there’s something I’ve learned is that growth comes from keeping going, staying alive as your competitors either die or fail to innovate. You’ll one day compare yourself to others in your space and realise how far you’ve come.

It’s been great to switch off from it. For me, I had to get back to my business and focus. I had to deal with the many things that arise in business that are never spoke about. Real business doesn’t happen in the analysis of MRR, it’s all the things that happen around it.

However this shouldn’t take away from people doing good work. Which there are examples of, and I’m sure there are many of which I am not aware of as I don’t stay up to date with it in the way I use to, and I would say the ones that have built real business, even as solo founders, are the ones that avoided the noise and really want to create something good.

Maybe I’m out of touch, and that’s ok too. I accept that.

Overall, this is more of a reflection. I hold no bitterness. I guess I feel sad to feel like I can’t call myself an indie hacker anymore. I’ve gone back to being a founder/CEO, and that’s fine.

Building a business can feel incredibly lonely at times, but what’s gotten me through it was not external community and validation, the reality is that advise from outsiders is often the worst advice, rather it was those within the business that helped me get through it, in combination with keeping my head down and doing the work of understanding the system we operate within.