Distribution & Customer Acquisition
Customer acquisition through niche communities, SEO, Reddit, outreach, content, launches, and choosing one effective channel.
48%
Best tweets about Indie Hackers
50 Best Tweets About Indie Hackers (2026)
A curated collection of the sharpest, most-shared X posts about indie hackers—saved so you do not have to dig through the timeline yourself. Updated weekly.
Solo builders sharing real revenue numbers, launch days, and the projects that died quietly.
- Creators
- 39
- Updated
Original Xholic analysis
What 50 top Indie Hackers posts reveal
Across this 50-tweet Indie Hackers dataset, distribution and customer acquisition are the largest theme (48%), while revenue and bootstrapped-business posts have a higher supplied theme median score than building-in-public posts. The evidence includes practical advice on validation and customer channels, alongside posts about launch failures, $0 MRR, solo constraints, and differing views on build-in-public, bootstrapping, and iteration speed.
- Dominant tone
- Positive
- Median score
- 23.0
- Leading format
- Opinion
- Recent posts
- 38%
60% of posts
All-time engagement
38% of posts
Published in 90 days
Conversation map
The themes creators return to
Revenue & Bootstrapped Businesses
Revenue milestones, MRR breakdowns, bootstrapped profitability, pricing, and the reality of making a sustainable solo business.
34%
Building in Public
Using public progress updates, transparent metrics, audience-building, and creator relationships as a growth strategy.
30%
Indie Hacker Culture & Community
Indie-hacker identity, community culture, peer connections, lifestyle aspirations, and critiques of common indie-hacker advice.
22%
Fast Shipping & AI Building
Fast MVPs, AI-assisted coding, shipping habits, feature restraint, and the changing ease of creating software.
20%
Idea Validation & Customer Discovery
Finding validated problems through customer pain, competitor reviews, interviews, waitlists, and testing demand before building.
20%
Solo Founder Tradeoffs
Solo-founder constraints and tradeoffs: limited time, support burden, focus, burnout, co-founders, teams, and funding versus bootstrapping.
20%
Failures, Pivots & Honest Setbacks
Postmortems on launches that flopped, zero-revenue periods, failed products, pivots, and lessons earned through repetition.
18%
Tone and stance
Sentiment Positive leads
Author posture Supportive leads
Performance benchmark
- Median likes
- 51
- Median reposts
- 2
- Median replies
- 19
- Median views
- 2.4K
Posts with media make up 38% of this collection. Their median all-time score is 32.4, compared with 12.4 for text-only posts.
Format mix
- Opinion 38% · score 11.9
- List 22% · score 74.6
- Case Study 16% · score 8.04
- Announcement 14% · score 32.3
Consensus and debate
Where creators agree, and where they do not
Shared view
Distribution is a recurring practical focus
Several posts prioritize reaching a narrow audience where it already gathers over launching to founder-heavy channels. Examples point to niche communities, Reddit, Facebook groups, and audience-building before launch.
Shared view
Validate before expanding the build
Posts commonly recommend testing demand through complaints, competitor research, waitlists, and conversations before—or alongside—a focused MVP. These are recommendations from the authors, rather than demonstrated universal rules.
Shared view
Some creators call for more candid setback reporting
A set of posts explicitly calls for sharing launch failures, $0 MRR, bugs, pivots, and periods without customers alongside progress updates.
Open debate
The limits of building in public
Some authors describe build-in-public as a source of distribution, followers, connections, or revenue progress. Another argues that money posts generally bring engagement rather than customers and that useful teaching is more effective.
Open debate
Bootstrapping is debated
Posts criticize penny-pinching and what they characterize as anti-business indie norms. Another author argues from personal experience that funding provides salary, advertising capacity, hiring, and enterprise credibility advantages.
Open debate
Rapid iteration versus longer commitment
One post recommends shipping in weeks and pivoting quickly if revenue does not arrive; others favor staying with one project for 12 months or describe repeated failed attempts as useful experience.
What performs
Patterns behind standout posts
Lists lead the supplied format medians
List posts have the highest supplied format median all-time score, at 74.57. The three cited list examples include stated revenue figures of $1.7M+ per month, $375,000+ per month, and $9,000 per month.
Revenue theme median exceeds the building-in-public theme median
The supplied median all-time score for Revenue & Bootstrapped Businesses is 43.748, compared with 14.818 for Building in Public. These are theme-level median comparisons, not evidence that one topic causes stronger performance.
Distribution is the largest supplied theme
Distribution & Customer Acquisition is the largest supplied theme: 24 tweets, or 48% of the 50-tweet dataset. Its cited examples discuss niche audiences, underused marketing channels, and AI-assistant visibility.
Two Hridoy Reh posts top the outlier list
The two highest supplied outliers are Hridoy Reh’s posts, with all-time scores of 428.51 and 379.67 respectively.
Statistical standouts
- View standout post 1 Score 428.5 · 18.61× median
- View standout post 2 Score 379.7 · 16.49× median
- View standout post 3 Score 317.8 · 13.81× median
- View standout post 4 Score 217.2 · 9.44× median
- View standout post 5 Score 185.6 · 8.06× median
Creator landscape
Who shapes this conversation
The five most represented creators account for 20% of the selected posts.
-
1. Alex Cloudstar
@alexcloudstar
2 posts
-
2. Andrew Zacker
@andrewzacker
2 posts
-
3. David Ch
@chhddavid
2 posts
-
4. Hridoy Reh
@hridoyreh
2 posts
-
5. Kyle Gawley
@kylegawley
2 posts
-
6. Marc Lou
@marclou
2 posts
Hridoy Reh’s revenue-list posts lead the supplied outliers
Hridoy Reh’s two supplied posts are the first- and second-highest all-time-score outliers in the dataset (428.51 and 379.67). Both frame lists of “boring websites” around stated monthly-revenue totals.
Marc Lou covers solo lifestyle and AI discoverability
Marc Lou’s supplied posts cover a solo SaaS lifestyle profile and a view that AI-assistant discoverability should shape product distribution.
Starter Story’s cases emphasize niche distribution
Starter Story’s two supplied case posts describe niche targeting and distribution choices: one cites content where a tiny audience gathers, and the other describes Reddit and niche Facebook groups.
Since the previous snapshot
What changed since Aug 7, 2026
- 80% of the selected posts remained.
- The creator count changed by -1.
- The leading sentiment remained stable.
How this analysis was made
Themes, sentiment, stance, and post format are classified per tweet. All counts, shares, medians, creator concentration, freshness, and performance comparisons are then calculated directly from the published snapshot.
Xholic's all-time score compares engagement while accounting for reach, post age, and creator consistency. It is used for relative comparisons within this collection.
This report analyzes the exact 50-post snapshot shown below. AI identifies editorial categories and drafts explanations; all statistics are calculated from the snapshot, and every narrative claim is checked against cited posts before publication.
Best Indie Hackers tweets
Top Indie Hackers tweets from 39 creators
Ranked 01–50
- 01
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@starter_story ·
You don't need a BIG idea. @jonathanfishner generates $9,000 per month with a TINY one. 3 lessons from his micro SaaS: 1. Pick a weirdly tiny audience 2. Don’t monetize too early (or too late) 3. Distribute content where that audience hangs out
Watch video
- 04
@marclou ·
I met OG indie hacker @jessethanley in Japan 🇯🇵 He's living such a crazy life, and I don't know where to start, so here are random facts: - He's running his SaaS @Bento solo and makes a ridiculous amount of money - Unlike most founders, he knows how much is enough and works 4 hours/day - He started indie hacking in 2015 - He ran a marketing agency for 5 years before building a product - His SaaS was profitable from day 0 because he built it for his agency. - He designed his SaaS with a real human touch, and it feels like you're entering his world when you sign up - He taught himself how to code (pre-AI) - He speaks Japanese and has lived in Japan for 7 years - Being a dad made him more productive, not less - He bench presses 135kg - He's happy, positive, kind, and a great conversationalist Thanks for showing us around, Jesse 🙇❤️
- 05
@alexcooldev ·
If you’re an indie hacker without much capital (like me back then basically $0): Don’t reinvent the wheel. > Pick an app with a proven market > Build a version that’s slightly better, cleaner, more polished > Add small but clear differentiation > Market it on channels they ignore or underuse This path gets you to $5k–$10k MRR way faster. Once cash flow is there → go big on differentiation and scale. Simple. Boring. Works.
- 06
@marclou ·
My friend @AlexandruGlv is building a micro SaaS while working a 9/5, but the growth is very slow, so he asked for my opinion. (for context, his product is a database to find YouTube influencers to sponsor) I went to ChatGPT and asked: "How to find youtubers to sponsor?" It came up with DIY solutions or large generic databases, nothing that fit my use case. If I had to start a new SaaS today, I'd think "How will people interact with my product in 5 years?" In most cases, the answer is through AI assistants, so I'd set AI visibility as my North Star metric and build everything backwards. I'd do everything so that potential customers can 1. Find my product on ChatGPT 2. Onboard on ChatGPT 3. Get value from ChatGPT llms.txt, markdown files, get mentions on Reddit/YouTube, etc... It's still unclear what you need to do to get mentioned, but I'd try everything to become an AI agent first startup, as @wickedguro did with Postiz ($150K MRR). And who knows, maybe along the way I'd discover a new product worth 100x more than my current SaaS? Fuck Around and Find Out 😊
- 07
@dramaricic ·
Only way for solo founder like me, to distribute product is to build in public. After 40 days of building in public: - I wrote 2.5k posts - Got 1710 followers - Viewed by 1.4M people - Connected to other builders - Learned a lot I would say things are going great so far. Love it. Are you building in public? 👇
- 08
@maubaron ·
it took me 3 years to make $100,000 with software because i followed indie hacker advice - invest as little as possible - build everything yourself - focus on building, not selling i lived this way for years i used free zoho emails instead of paying $7/month for google workspace i waited too long to invest in ads and tools that would've 10x'd my results i told myself it was necessary because i was broke the moment i stopped pinching pennies i stopped obsessing over saving and started obsessing over making more funny how that works i've never spent more per month than i do right now i've also never made more
- 09
@andrewxroas ·
If you want to build a successful app AVOID indie hackers like the plague You might think it's just a group of people building software like you but they literally have the most anti-business mindset possible For starters: - They believe competition = bad - Their ultimate goal is 10k MRR (such low goal) - They think product > distribution - They avoid all forms of paid marketing - They all glaze the same X creators that made them think this "indie hacking" path is feasible You must unfollow all of these people and get them off your timeline otherwise you'll soon adopt their limiting beliefs
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@eliana_jordan ·
If I had a 9–5 and had to start my indie hacker journey from scratch, this would be my exact strategy: • Build a better version of a proven saas/app (1 core feature) • cursor codes while you work on your 9-5 • Ship in 2–3 weeks • Grow on X + SEO in parallel • No code changes until first $ → only marketing • No $ in 2 weeks? Fix marketing strategy • No $ in 4 weeks? Pivot Repeat until it works
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@Layton_Gott ·
Step by step guide on how to validate your product idea... The RIGHT way. Step 1: Go where people complain. Reddit, X, App Store reviews, YouTube comments. Search your niche. If 10 different people in 10 different places are frustrated by the same thing, that's signal. Step 2: Check if people already pay for bad solutions. Find competitors. If they have thousands of users and charge $20/month, the market is validated for you. Your job isn't to invent a market. It's to build something better. Step 3: Build a simple MVP with a waitlist. Something that shows what the product does and lets people sign up for early access when the full version launches. Use AI to build it in hours, not weeks. You're collecting future users while proving the concept at the same time. Step 4: Post it everywhere your target audience hangs out. X, Linkedin, Reddit, Indie Hackers, relevant Discord servers, communities. Share the problem you're solving and ask for feedback. Step 5: Talk to the people who signed up. DM every single one. Ask what they're currently using, what they hate about it, and what they'd pay for a better solution. These conversations are worth more than any survey. Step 6: Look at the data. If 50+ people joined the waitlist and 5+ said they'd pay, you have something. If nobody signed up and nobody replied, the idea needs work or the audience isn't there. Most devs skip all of this and spend 6 months building and "marketing" something NOBODY wants. Test the idea before you build the product. Always. (Bookmark this for later)
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@starter_story ·
He spent months emailing 300+ influencers and got ONE reply. Then Avneesh found two free platforms that took SaveWise from single-thousand users to tens of thousands - without spending a dime on ads. His product helps people stack credit card points and airline miles on stuff they already buy online. After Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Indie Hackers all flopped (95%+ bounce rate), he flipped his approach: stop posting where founders hang out, start posting where his actual users hang out. Reddit and niche Facebook groups about travel + credit card points. The Facebook unlock: he found a group called “Rakuten Stacks” where thousands of people were manually hunting for offers his app already aggregated. He wrote a SQL query, dropped the spreadsheet (with a link back to SaveWise), and pulled 1,500+ visitors from a single post. The Reddit unlock: he lurked for weeks, posted in weekly Q&A threads in the comments only, built features users were literally asking for over 3.5 months, then DMed the mod for permission to do a top-level post. It blew up. Now SaveWise does $25K/month with ~1,500 paying customers - and 97% of revenue comes from a lifetime plan he only added because users emailed him begging not to subscribe. Takeaway: don’t market where founders are. Market where your customer already is, and earn the right to pitch by being useful first.
- 14
@wickedguro ·
Going to reach $120k MRR soon. But here is the thing, it's not exciting anymore. Yes, I know it sounds pretentious, but I definitely understand indie hackers who build many products. Because once you reach that number, it becomes a game of scaling, it's boring, and you know you can't create a new product because you will start losing revenue for your current product. So I guess, let the grind continue.
- 15
@andrewzacker ·
Just hit 1,900 followers 🎉 I started posting my build in public updates just 4 months ago, and: • Got accepted to the biggest indie event of the year - Hacker Residency • Found an AMAZING co-founder with 200K followers (@FlorinPop17) • Grew my first SaaS to $1k MRR INSANE what building in public can do to your life. Back to HARD WORK. Next goal: 3K followers and $10K MRR 💪
- 16
@Hartdrawss ·
this is NOT the time to chill and keep building features nobody asked for in your vibe coded app... you're holding the biggest leverage you'll ever get in your life — a $200/month AI stack that can research markets, find paying customers, and automate distribution in the time it takes you to deploy one useless feature (short of winning the lottery tomorrow) the window won't last so lock in on DISTRIBUTION, on getting your app in front of people who will actually pay, nothing else here are 5 plays with drastic impact on how much revenue your app makes: - run deep research on App Store top gainers in your category, find the ones with 3-star ratings, build the one feature their users are begging for in their reviews - scrape 500 people who commented "I wish there was an app for X" on Reddit or X, cross-reference with active threads, DM them a link to your beta with "built this because of your comment" - create a launch checklist that ships your app to Product Hunt, Hacker News, and 3 niche directories in the same week — launch day momentum compounds - hack App Store SEO by finding low-competition keywords your competitors ignore, stuff them in your title and subtitle, watch organic downloads trickle in - deploy a "build in public" thread on X showing your daily numbers (downloads, revenue, crash reports) — transparency converts lurkers into users pick one tomorrow. stop building. start selling.
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@joncphillips ·
The fear of building another SaaS that nobody uses is quietly keeping me stuck. I’d rather brainstorm domains than validate ideas because brainstorming feels productive without any risk of rejection or failure. At some point I need to admit that the newsletters are the fucking business, and everything else is me trying to build something that feels more “legitimate” for no good reason. Like, there’s a weird shame in the indie hacker world about making money from newsletters instead of a SaaS. As if it doesn’t count somehow or whatever. $10k/mo profit from a few email newsletters is a solid business by any measure. Why does my brain refuse to accept that? *proceeds to buy one more domain.
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@wickedguro ·
Postiz is on $159k MRR. I don't think you should build in public to get customers for your business in the traditional way: talk about your work and make a lifestyle video about your work. Usually, to make money, you need to give value. So if you build in public + teach really valuable stuff, it can work. A few years ago (same as digital nomadism), building in public was not something everybody could do; it was new, and people wanted to try it, so it had a lot of value for people who didn't build in public. Today, everyone is building in public on X, so it's less attractive. So for me: 1. I make money posts to grow engagement, reach, and authority. Don't worry, those posts usually bring no customers; they do tend to bring people who want to interview you, so it's nice. 2. Once a week, I will release a video with tons of value you can implement. 3. Work with other creators to produce valuable articles.
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@tibo_maker ·
I flew 10,000km to feel normal 👀 I live in a tiny town in France and the closest indie hacker is 3 hours away by car so I flew to Da Nang, Vietnam to live and work with other indie hackers for a few weeks and it's been amazing 🤩 I still love my remote + no-call policy, but being around sharp people in real life gives you a different kind of energy I just have so many new ideas now new rule: - default remote - but make in-person energy non-negotiable once in a while 🔥
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@kylegawley ·
Indie hackers launch loads of products because they're shit at talking to people If you talk to lots of people and build up a network you will learn where the real business problems are It's hard work and it's much easier to just launch a bunch of random stuff, post about it on X and pray BUT the hit rate will be very low because you are now dependant on blind luck for something to take off Get out of your room Get out of your head Go talk to real people with real problems Then you can solve a real problem for people and get customers Much better than launching startup #25 and asking Reddit how to get your first user for a product no-one asked for
- 32
@victor_bigfield ·
your marketing plan as an indie hacker is probably "post on twitter and hope" mine was too. for 9 products. the one that actually worked? i went where people were already searching for a solution. not where other founders were posting screenshots of their dashboards reddit > twitter for early users. i'll die on this hill
- 33
@elgermerlo ·
For the first 6 months I was selling to indie hackers when my product was clearly built for small agency owners Same pain, completely different willingness to pay Indie hackers would say "cool" and churn after trial. Agency owners paid without blinking and asked for invoices The product didn't change. The customer did. That's where the revenue was hiding the whole time Next time I'm doing 20 customer calls before I write a single line of code — not to validate the idea, but to validate who actually has the money and urgency
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@rcmisk ·
how to validate, build, and ship your indie SaaS (fast, with AI): first, i'd kill bad ideas early. use Claude to stress-test your assumptions before writing a line of code. scrape Reddit and X for real complaints in your niche. build a fake landing page. measure clicks, not compliments. if nobody opts in, nobody cares. then i'd ship something ugly but real. spin up an MVP with Cursor or Replit in a weekend. one pain, one fix, one CTA. no perfect branding. no waitlist theater. just a working thing people can poke at. post it publicly. let strangers break it. then i'd automate the distribution. use Claude to turn one insight into a thread, a post, and a short demo video. repurpose your build log into content. every "i just launched X" post is a lead magnet if you frame it right. document the process, not just the outcome. then i'd become a testing machine. ship 5+ hook variations per week. let the algo vote. what gets bookmarked, copy that pattern. what gets ignored, kill it fast. treat distribution like a product. iterate on it. and i'd drop a lead magnet every few weeks. a free tool, a public dataset, a template, a calculator. something useful enough to share. value compounds. vanity doesn't. then repurpose like crazy. one build becomes a tweet, a demo, a blog post, and a microsite. build once. distribute forever. AI lets one indie hacker do what used to take a team. but you still need to know who you're building for and why they'd care. that's how i'd launch a SaaS solo today.
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@sandislonjsak ·
Most indie hackers don’t understand that after you build an app there must be someone doing customer support and regular maintenance/regression testing. Building an app that manages itself is super complex and only some of them can actually pull it off. Most of the thing I try from indie hackers is buggy and gets shutdown in a year, which is bad if you actually depend on it. Having a team behind you is much better than being a lone wolf. I am not saying “don’t go for it” and “they all suck”. I am just saying it’s super hard when an app actually becomes a success.
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@rcmisk ·
here's the actual irony of indie building: most founders spend 90% of their time on the product and 10% on distribution. but the product can be rebuilt in 3 months. a real audience takes 3 years. you're optimizing for the thing that's replaceable and neglecting the thing that isn't. building in public isn't cringe. it's the only compounding asset most indie hackers have access to without a budget. every week you ship without talking about it publicly is a week of distribution you'll never get back. the founders who win aren't always the best builders. they're the ones who shipped AND shouted, consistently, before they had anything to prove.
- 38
@ybouane ·
The biggest lie in the Indie Hacker world: Product Hunt. Today I launched Clawly on Product Hunt… and it got 0 upvotes. Not because nobody saw it — but because nobody could. We like to think PH is merit-based, where the best products rise to the top. In reality, visibility comes first. And visibility is curated. Products featured early get the exposure → exposure drives upvotes → upvotes justify ranking. Everything else gets buried. That’s not a leaderboard. That’s a feedback loop. I’m building an alternative over the next few weeks — one where distribution isn’t gatekept. Stay tuned.
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@nikita_builds ·
The great filter of startups is gone and I find it a little sad we used to be a niche group on the internet called indie-hackers (thank you @csallen) we would grind our asses off to ship half a page in a day, it was fun because no one could do it. We were alone. The cost to start something is basically 0 now The filter that used to kill ideas was effort. Now the filter is quality and distribution. We still live in a time where it matters to be semi-technical, enjoy it while it lasts my friends, soon it wont matter.
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@marcusleovn ·
The lesson you missed as solo founder 👇 Omnipresence is a scam invented by marketing gurus with 50-person teams. You are one person coding in sweatpants. Act like it. I caught myself doing this exact idiot behavior this morning. The fastest way to kill your solo startup is trying to be everywhere at once. I had a dozen tabs open. I was planning a newsletter launch, mapping out a LinkedIn strategy, and wondering if I needed to buy a ring light for short-form videos. Then it hit me. I was just avoiding the real work. When you try to post on five different platforms, you aren't doing marketing. You are just checking boxes so you can tell yourself you had a productive day. It feels like progress, but it is actually procrastination. You spread your focus so thin that none of your content actually hits hard. It’s all aggressively average. Every time you switch from writing a thread to filming a video to formatting a blog post, you pay a massive mental tax. As a solo founder, your brain capacity is your only real asset. If you dilute it, nobody sees your product. And if nobody sees your app, it doesn't exist. Building features in the dark does not pay the rent. The harsh truth for indie hackers? You don't need to be everywhere. You just need to be exactly where your customers already are. Finding your channel isn't a guessing game. It’s basic logic. If you are building a B2C diet app, your customers are scrolling TikTok and Instagram. They want visual proof and quick dopamine hits. Go there and make videos until your eyes bleed. But if you are building B2B software for corporate accountants, stay far away from TikTok. Nobody is buying complex financial forecasting tools because you pointed at some floating text on a screen to a trending pop song. You need to be sending ruthless cold emails or dominating LinkedIn with case studies. It sounds obvious. But as founders, we constantly lie to ourselves. We see some random influencer go viral on YouTube and suddenly think we need to pivot our entire strategy to copy them. That is how you end up with zero paying customers, a dead product, and a burned-out brain. I am building a SaaS tool specifically designed for X. My entire target market is right here, reading this exact timeline. They do not care about my blog. They do not want to see my face on a reel. So why was I spending even one second thinking about SEO keyword density or Instagram? It’s pure distraction. It’s shiny object syndrome disguised as a growth strategy. From today forward, I am cutting the noise. I am putting 100% of my marketing energy into X. I am going to make this my primary engine and completely ignore the rest of the internet. Here is the only marketing framework a solo founder actually needs: 1. Figure out exactly who is desperate enough to pay you. 2. Identify the single platform they use to waste time or solve problems. 3. Camp out there. 4. Post every single day. Let the other platforms rot. You do not have the time, the budget, or the sanity to conquer the entire internet alone. Master one channel. Make it the best it can possibly be. Make it print money for your business. Once you hit $10k/MRR, you can hire a freelancer to distract themselves with Instagram for you. Until then, put the blinders on. What are you building, and what is your ONE platform? Drop it below. Let's see if you are overthinking it like I was.
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@kylegawley ·
Building a funded business is 10x easier than bootstrapping Unlike most indie hackers on here posting anti-VC tropes without ever having raised capital, I have raised funding in the past Let me tell you why it's easier so you can make an informed decision not based on clickbait tropes. > 1. Salary I got a salary on day one. I was not worrying about money, paying the bills, side hustles etc I was 100% focused on the business every single day from DAY ONE. > 2. Advertising We could spend money on ads, paying $10/click with a half baked funnel was no problem. Try doing that with your life savings. > 3. Talent We hired talent on day one, my co-founder and I were no longer doing everything and could focus on growing the business. Doing everything solo is a serious disadvantage when you're competing with well-funded companies and big teams. > 4. Clout Enterprise customers took us seriously because we had funding and a team. Big customers simply won't take a solo indie hacker as seriously and view the risks differently. People are going to reply to this saying the trade off is freedom having a boss - those people clearly have absolutely no idea how a company actually works.
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@chhddavid ·
day 1: FINALLY ready to build in public (a vibe coding tool for non-devs) today I set two goals: 1/ get to $10k MRR (now it's $0) 2/ start building in public think I finally understand what it's all about: showing up, showing your face (!!), and sharing the good AND the bad, not just the wins. journey's heavily inspired by @robj3d3, @gus_tiffer, @thepatwalls, @SherryYanJiang, and virtually everyone else who shows up every day. (100% encouraging everyone to do it) —— let's start with today's updates then: 1. soft-launched on reddit and... WOW, a complete stranger said they want to pay for my tool 2. cold DM'ing + talking to warm leads via reddit 3. recording a PH launch video 4. well, started building in public ✅ I think that's enough for day 1. more updates coming soon
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@sergeynazarovx ·
I don‘t really understand how indie hacking works when you have co-founders Products built by indie hackers rarely reach unicorn valuation or achieve a strong exit. In most cases, scaling a product to that level is extremely difficult without venture capital. Of course, exceptions exist, but they are very rare. Most indie hackers are trying to make a living from their products without focusing on an exit. During the journey, one of the co-founders could lose interest in the product or find a bigger opportunity. What happens if the product generates some money, let’s say $10k/month, and one of the co-founders decides to leave? In an ideal world, the other co-founders should buy out his share. But what if they don’t want to do it, or they don’t have that amount of money? These cases should probably be discussed and explicitly specified in the agreement between the founders. But does it really happen?
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@victor_bigfield ·
hot take: the best thing that happened to me was failing 3 times before making $1. most indie hackers ship once, it flops, and they quit. i shipped LearnFast and nobody came. i shipped YTFinder and nobody stayed. i shipped The Visual Hackademy and made some money but couldn't scale. by the time i built RedditGrow i already knew what a bad landing page looked like because i made 3 of them. i knew what no distribution felt like because i lived it for years. all that failure is the reason RedditGrow works. and now i'm building another one. DojoSales. a cold call training tool for french sales reps who want to practice their english pitch and close US deals. people keep asking me why i'd start something new when RedditGrow is working. because that's literally the point. RedditGrow taught me how to build something people actually want. now i get to do it again, faster, with all the scar tissue from the first 4 attempts. i didn't get smarter. i just ran out of ways to mess it up. and apparently that makes you want to build more, not less.
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@ericdjav ·
Everyone panicking about Opus 5 killing the indie hacker dream has it backwards. It didn't kill anything. It killed the excuse. For three years, "I can code and you can't" was doing half the work indie hackers took credit for. That's gone now. Good. What's left is the actual hard part: knowing which 100 people want the thing. showing up in their feed before they forget you exist. If a model update ended your business, you never had one. You had a moat made of syntax.
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@HyperSalesman ·
Last year I got scammed by DocuSign. Woke up to my renewal jumping from $100 to $300 for the same garbage e-signature tool. Went on X to complain about it. @christomitov messaged me saying he'd built an alternative. We met. I fell in love with the product. He asked me to be a co-founder. Within one month we had 300+ signups. Just through organic content on LinkedIn and X. (The tool is still live today. People still use it. It's called https://t.co/7ldGTwxlh2 and it's completely free). Here's the playbook we used that works for any SaaS, even vibe-coded ones: Step 1: Pick your fight - Find an incumbent that's overcharging or underdelivering - Make them the villain in your story - Anger is the most shareable emotion Step 2: Build in public from day one - Share screenshots, struggles, small wins - People root for underdogs they watch grow - Your journey is the marketing Step 3: Post where your customers already complain - Search Twitter for "[competitor] sucks" or "[competitor] pricing" - Those people are pre-qualified leads - Reply with value, not pitches Step 4: Make your co-founder your content partner - One person builds, one person posts - Trade off based on energy and bandwidth - Two voices reach two audiences Step 5: Give it away first - Free users become your evangelists - Word of mouth beats ad spend every time - Monetize after you have momentum The bigger lesson here is about where software is heading. Anything that can be easily recreated will be recreated. DocuSign's stock is tanking for a reason. "We were here first" means nothing when a solo dev can ship a competitor in a weekend. This is the indie hacker moment. The tools are free. The distribution is free. The only cost is your time and willingness to post. Christo and I both got busy and moved on to other priorities. But the project lives on. That's the beauty of building something real and putting it out there. So feel free to check it out ✌️
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@bmykhaylivvv ·
built amplifresh to scratch my own itch - needed better social media automation for my side projects shipped mvp in 2 weeks, now sitting at $500 mrr with 47 paying customers the twitter growth was unexpected but posting daily about building in public really works most users found me through indie hacker communities and word of mouth referrals revenue breakdown: 23 pro plans at $19/mo, 24 starter plans at $9/mo biggest lesson learned - solve your own problem first, then find others with the same pain next milestone is hitting $1k mrr by end of q1, already have the feature roadmap planned the hardest part wasn't coding but learning to price correctly and talk to customers going from 50 to 2000 twitter followers happened mostly from sharing revenue screenshots and build logs amplifresh basically automates content distribution across multiple social platforms with smart scheduling
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