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 every two weeks.
Solo builders sharing real revenue numbers, launch days, and the projects that died quietly.
Original Xholic analysis
Across 50 posts from 41 creators, the Indie Hackers feed splits 64% supportive / 36% critical, with sentiment running 36% positive / 34% neutral / 30% negative. Two themes tie for largest at 18% share (9 posts each): build-in-public — increasingly contested — and solo builder psychology. Distribution-versus-building and indie culture critique follow at 16% each. The two biggest outliers diverge in substance: the top performer (214.18 score, 21.61x the feed median) is a real-revenue case study about a $9,000/month micro SaaS, while the runner-up (203.21, 20.51x) is a builder's warning that a $10M+-funded startup shipped the same two features shortly after he posted about them. Builder posts,
36% of posts
All-time engagement
40% of posts
Published in 90 days
Conversation map
Debates over build-in-public culture: sharing real numbers when they hurt vs. polished journey posts, the value of connections and followers gained, dangers of copycats and funded competitors stealing features, and strategic use of value-te
18%
The inner game: fear of building something nobody uses, procrastination disguised as competitor research, newsletter shame, founder buddy check-ins and delusion management, boredom at scale, and escaping the 9–5.
18%
Pushback against the community's own dogma: anti-business mindsets, low 10k-MRR ambitions, MRR screenshot status games, the audience-first myth, selling to indie hackers being pointless, and abandoning the 'indie hacker' label.
16%
The recurring argument that marketing/distribution is the real bottleneck: launch silence, 'building is 10% of the game,' spending a year on distribution after a week of vibe-coded MVP, and neglecting marketing while adding features.
16%
Posts sharing actual MRR, profit, user counts, and revenue breakdowns — from $0 and $4.99 totals to $159k MRR — including growth stories and case studies from builders like Youform, SaveWise, Postiz, IACrea, and Clawly.
12%
Tactical advice on where to market: Reddit and niche Facebook groups over founder-heavy platforms, Product Hunt's curated visibility being a trap, single-channel focus vs. being everywhere, and adapting content per platform.
10%
How AI coding tools change the game: removing the coding moat, enabling 10x output, vibe-coded competition fears, 'SaaS is dead' panic, and why AI makes building more fun and accessible.
8%
Honest accounts of products nobody used, quiet shutdowns, killing failing products early, and reframing multiple failures as the scar tissue that eventually makes the next build work.
2%
Tone and stance
Performance benchmark
Posts with media make up 34% of this collection. Their median all-time score is 20.8, compared with 9.64 for text-only posts.
Format mix
Consensus and debate
Shared view
16% of posts argue marketing/distribution is the real constraint: 'build a landing page in 1 hour, vibe code MVP in 1 week, spend the next 1 year figuring out distribution' (2061858885661806761); the launch-silence-add-features loop (2045723543770693638); and a from-scratch strategy that forbids code changes until first revenue (2041455545367097574). One builder states it flatly: building is 10% of the game, the rest
Shared view
Multiple posts converge on channel selection over omnipresence: SaveWise went from failed launches on Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Indie Hackers (95%+ bounce rate) to $25K/month by posting where credit-card-points enthusiasts hang out on Reddit and niche Facebook groups (2071669844962091204); 'reddit > twitter for early users. i'll die on this hill' (2073036543997190530); Product Hunt's curated visibility is called
Shared view
AI-themed posts largely agree the coding advantage is gone and what matters is customers: 'removing the coding part means removing a lot of friction' and enabling 10x output (2082304931894321599); a model update killing your business means 'you had a moat made of syntax' (2085788345406279827); 'SaaS is dead' panic only applies to easily rebuildable vitamin products (2108592056356544830).
Shared view
The tied-largest theme surfaces recurring inner struggles: fear of 'building another SaaS that nobody uses' driving domain-brainstorming avoidance (2036770078763737138, 2031569329582383566), competitor 'research' as procrastination in high-definition (2038593106682216745), and weekly founder-buddy calls for 'delusion management' (2080427110477242646).
Open debate
Advocates cite 4 months of posting yielding 1,900 followers, a co-founder, Hacker Residency acceptance, and $1k MRR (2039375003590840403) and connections as the main benefit (2036131495203516501). Skeptics warn it is 'dangerous when you're small' after a $10M+-funded startup shipped the same two features (2088666562580328570) and that sharing revenue invites overnight copycats (2114870190685237254). A middle camp re
Open debate
Jason Cohen (asmartbear) argues building an audience before selling 'does not work for software' (2098854915456016492), while others treat distribution and audience as the compounding asset solo builders have without a budget (2050342083982921953) and as 'SUPER VALUABLE' in the AI era (2036131495203516501).
Open debate
Builders celebrate transparent milestones — $18k MRR for Youform (2034937412636512731), $159k MRR for Postiz (2079170451352510713), $120k MRR approaching (2063100824218198514), $9,000/month micro SaaS (2036167184511369326), $4.99 total revenue after 6 projects (2111038949678362708) — while others argue sharing numbers publicly triggers copycats and team friction (2114870190685237254) and that real build-in-public 'is
Open debate
Critiques of the community's own dogma — 'avoid indie hackers like the plague' over anti-business mindsets and low 10k-MRR ambitions (2036134263733485787), 'I stopped calling myself an indie hacker' over MRR screenshots and status games (2091465479701594440), and the audience-first myth (2098854915456016492) — run against defenders framing indie hacking as building a life you enjoy (1899534615666372690).
What performs
The STORY format has by far the highest median all-time score (22.09) versus the feed median of 9.91, followed by case studies (14.954). Announcements score lowest (5.23) despite being 16% of posts, and opinions are the most common format (40%) at a middling median of 9.
Posts with media have a median all-time score of 20.828 versus 9.639 for text-only — roughly double — with media appearing in 34% of posts.
The five outliers span a revenue case study (2036167184511369326, 21.61x), a copycat-risk build-in-public post (2088666562580328570, 20.51x), a bootstrapped playbook (2006976062279004588, 13.3x), an AI-won't-kill-indie-hackers take (2082304931894321599, 8.97x), and a confessional failure story about following indie hacker advice (2032474022374453336, 8.66x).
Median engagement across the feed is modest: 36 likes, 2,153 views, 17 replies, and 2 reposts — a long-tail distribution where a handful of posts capture most attention.
Despite the editorial angle, failed/dead-product content is a single post — 2% of the feed with the lowest theme median score (3.097): Victor (victor_bigfield) crediting three failed builds before his first $1 (2068545192458645901). Honest failure content exists but is rare and low-reach in this sample.
Statistical standouts
Creator landscape
The five most represented creators account for 20% of the selected posts.
1. Alex Nguyen
@alexcooldev
2 posts
2. Andrew Zacker
@andrewzacker
2 posts
3. Hardik Gohil
@GohilHardy
2 posts
4. Kyle Gawley
@kylegawley
2 posts
5. Ricky
@rcmisk
2 posts
6. Starter Story
@starter_story
2 posts
starter_story (Starter Story) tops creator medians at 127.6 across 2 posts, including the feed's biggest outlier — a $9,000/month micro SaaS case study (2036167184511369326) — plus the SaveWise distribution story (2071669844962091204). alexcooldev (Alex Nguyen) follows at 71.56, anchored by the 13.3x bootstrapped-cloning playbook (2006976062279004588).
Creator concentration is moderate: 41 creators produced the 50 posts, with the top five accounting for 20% of placements — a broad but top-weighted distribution.
wickedguro (Nevo David) authored both a milestone post nearing $120k MRR while admitting 'it's not exciting anymore' (2063100824218198514) and a Postiz post at $159k MRR arguing builders should teach value rather than post lifestyle content (2079170451352510713) — the same creator embodying the milestone/strategy tension in the feed.
Since the previous snapshot
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
Ranked 01–50
@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
@alexwtlf ·
Just BUILD IN PUBLIC, they said. A month ago I posted about my SaaS. Last week a well-known startup that raised $10M+ shipped the exact same two features. Maybe coincidence, maybe not. But competing without a budget and a 100k audience feels almost impossible right now. Building in public on X is dangerous when you’re small. But if you build in stealth, how do you get the traction investors want to see?
@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.
@tdinh_me ·
I don't think AI will eliminate indie hackers. It's true that my 10 years of SWE experience has become more and more irrelevant because AI can now do most of it, but looking back, my SWE skills were only a small part of being an indie hacker. The most important part is still solving valuable problems and looking for customers. If anything, AI created a whole new class of problems that are now open for people to explore and solve. Indie hackers are problem solvers/entrepreneurs, removing the coding part means removing a lot of friction, and it will enable indie hackers to do 10x more at 10x speed.
@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
@asmartbear ·
A common trope of Indie Hacker social media is that you should build an audience, then sell them a product. While that does work for info-products, it does not work for software. My story: https://t.co/gJaBCH5BWr
@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
@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
@thenowhereway ·
Indie hacker fantasy: - I’ll build a SaaS and escape the 9–5. Indie hacker reality: - I launched… why is nobody using this.
@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.
@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.
@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 💪
@alexabelonix ·
matched with another indie hacker who’s basically as startup-brained as me now we have a call every week: share progress, brainstorm, question our life choices he’s applying to the next YC batch today I’m currently deep in CustDev, so we were figuring out how to organize it better honestly, everyone needs a founder buddy like this when you’re fully inside your own project, it’s almost impossible to see it clearly you become emotionally attached to the idea, overthink every detail and slowly dissolve into your own startup someone from the outside can look at it for 5 minutes and say: “yeah… this part makes no fucking sense” very useful so yeah, every 7 days I open a small diplomatic line with Paris agenda: startups, progress, brainstorming, delusion management
Watch video@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.
@andrewzacker ·
Just met my fellow indie hacker @HsanC_ in Bali. He grew his X to 10k and his SaaS to $1k MRR. Exchanged our learnings, knowledge and goals. The main benefit of building in public is the connections you build. In the AI era, connecting with humans is SUPER VALUABLE.
@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.
@pmitu ·
new indie hackers lifecycle: - build a landing page in 1 hour - vibe code MVP in 1 week - spend the next 1 year figuring out distribution
@maxkalashnikoff ·
It's #FollowFriday again. Time to reintroduce myself. Hi, I'm Max. Indie hacker from Prague, Czechia. Proud owner of 2 cats. 100% of my future X earnings are reserved for their food. Also raising 2 small kids, working a 9–5 (15+ years as a backend engineer) -> plotting my way into solo entrepreneurship. In the last 5 months, I've built 6 projects: •1 Chrome extension •2 micro-SaaS •3 iPhone games Total revenue: $4.99. So far. Currently focusing on marketing, UGC, distribution, ASO, and SEO for my main game, Vocal Glide. A pitch-controlled game for vocal warm-ups in a fairy-tale world. Next? More marketing. More building. Probably more mistakes. Sharing what I learn, what works, and especially what doesn't. Looking to connect with solo entrepreneurs, founders, indie hackers, mobile app and game developers.
@HsanC_ ·
Indie hackers are worried "SaaS is dead" because anyone can vibe code their own tools now 💀 That’s only true when: - You're building a vitamin, not a painkiller - Your product can actually be rebuilt in a few days Luckily, I'm in a space (social media management) with @PostPlanify where no one can build their solutions easily. - You need to have a reliable backend - access to 10 external social APIs - deal with API changes + edge cases etc. That brings its own challenges of course, but it seems like the only way to be somewhat bulletproof against vibe-coded competition. So if you're looking for a SaaS idea, this is probably worth keeping in mind 🤞
@GohilHardy ·
Typical indie hacker cycle: Idea → code → launch → silence. Adds more features. Still silence. Finally someone says: Maybe try marketing? Founder discovers users don't magically appear.
@themkmaker ·
i used to silently read Indie Hackers in 2018. today, they published my story 🥲 Here's how we grew Youform to $18,000 MRR in 2-years in a highly competitive market: https://t.co/BPuB1BU2nZ
@Col_ASY ·
The most dangerous thing an indie hacker can do is "research" their competitors You spend 4 hours looking at their landing pages and 0 hours on your own codebase and distribution. You aren't "gathering intel"... you're just procrastinating in high-definition Close the competitor tabs. Open the IDE and a notepad. The market only rewards your output, not your awareness.
@oliverbrocato ·
biggest mistake i made was being too public with numbers. sharing rev and profit gets likes, but: • team members start comparing and want raises • indie hackers spin up copycat competitors overnight all part of the game.
@alexcooldev ·
Being an indie hacker or solo founder doesn’t mean you have to do everything alone just to say “I built it all myself.” When your product is small, sure go solo. But as it grows, hire a few people to help. It frees up your time to focus on higher-leverage work. And remember: time is money. The more you free up, the more your product can grow.
@santoshstack ·
Indie hackers are great people to follow. Terrible people to sell SaaS to. They don’t see a tool they need. They see something they could build this weekend.
@Hartdrawss ·
INDIE HACKER skill levels (1-20) : Level 1-4 : The Start 1. Subscribed to Indie Hackers. Reads every story. Shipped nothing. 2. Built a landing page. No product behind it. That counts, right? 3. Launched on Product Hunt. 12 upvotes. 8 were friends. 4. First product. 3 users. All from your Twitter following. Level 5-8 : Getting Serious 5. Got to $1 MRR. Actual money. From a stranger. 6. Killed a product that wasnt working. Before it wasted 3 more months. 7. Found a problem you have yourself. Built a solution. Other people had the same problem. 8. Learned that distribution is harder than building. Still shipping anyway. Level 9-12 : Figuring It Out 9. One product generating $500+ MRR consistently. 10. Know your conversion rate from signup to paid. And why it is what it is. 11. Stopped building features for 60 days. Focused only on retention. It worked. 12. First piece of content that brought in users you didn't reach out to personally. Level 13-16 : Starting to Scale 13. Product running with no daily intervention from you. 14. Know your churn number by heart. And the story behind each churned user. 15. First month where revenue from existing users exceeded revenue from new users. 16. Built a waitlist before building the product. And actually used the feedback from it. Level 17-20 : The Real Ones 17. Portfolio of projects. At least one profitable. At least one dead. Learned from both. 18. Can validate a new idea in a week without writing a single line of code. 19. Gets DMs asking for advice from people at level 1-8. Gives real answers, not inspiration. 20. Revenue is boring. Predictable. You're bored. You're already thinking about the next one. What level are you at?
@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
@sflorimm ·
I’m not here to sell you a dream about becoming an indie hacker millionaire overnight. With 15 years in IT, a CS degree, and a decade in PM/BDM roles at places like Cisco, I’ve seen the corporate side of success. It wasn't for me. In January '26, I decided to finally build for myself. I’m currently in the messy middle, somewhere between 0 and 0.5. I’m not sipping coconuts in Bali; I’m in the trenches. Because I’m still "figuring it out," I want to help others do the same. I try to provide suggestions and support to every DM I receive. Helping you helps me stay sharp. My biggest takeaway so far? Change your mindset. Forget the 2-week riches. Start small, identify genuine pain points, and create products that solve them. Most importantly: Ask for feedback. Don't hardsell; just solve problems.
@T_Zahil ·
10K€ MRR in a year and a half. Solo. In real estate. We're continuing the resident introductions for the Uneed Residency. Today: @Pauline_Cx ! Her main project, IACrea, is a marketing solution for real estate agents. And the track record speaks for itself: going from zero to that milestone as an indie is no small feat. Today, IACrea is mostly known in France and Belgium. The next step? Going international. And that's exactly why the residency comes at the right time: a full week surrounded by builders from all over Europe is a pretty good playground to rethink your growth strategy 😎. What she's coming for: connect with other indie hackers, learn as much as possible, and have fun building. And if you're wondering why Pauline has a solid instinct about platform dependency risks... She once launched a project built on the X API. Two days after launch, X announces the API is now paid-only: $42,000/month. There you go 😅. Lesson learned. More coming soon, we'll introduce all the residents before the residency kicks off 😊.
@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
@GohilHardy ·
Most indie hackers fail because they: - Ship once a week - Ship when motivated - Ship when inspired Successful ones: - Ship every single day - Ship even when tired - Ship even when uninspired Consistency beats talent. Every. Single. Time.
@kylegawley ·
I stopped calling myself an indie hacker. Indie hacking became about MRR screenshots, chasing likes, virality, status games, 15 slop apps a week. If you do these things, think hard about how a real B2B customer will perceive you.
@rcmisk ·
unpopular opinion: most indie hackers are building a third product because distribution for the first two is uncomfortable and building is not. coding is controllable. audiences are not. so you go back to what you can control.
@RaulOnRails ·
We just launched indie.md, an open knowledge base of real indie hacker case studies with extractable advice. No generic "10 tips to grow your SaaS" lists. Every piece of advice is pulled directly from a real builder's journey: how @zawasp turned a weekend fax project into micro-SaaS, how I built a $5/year anti-hustle job board, and how @vtemian grew an AI video API by abandoning traditional marketing. 29 lessons across SEO, product, distribution, business, and mindset. All open source. Big shoutout to @vtemian for putting this together 🙌 https://t.co/TyKR7Ieang
@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.
@zmbnski ·
8 mental models i keep coming back to as an indie hacker: - jobs to be done: people don't buy products, they buy solutions - distribution first: a worse product with better reach usually wins - activation > acquisition: getting users in the door means nothing if they don't stick - the aha moment: find it fast, show it fast to your users - ramen profitability: survive long enough to find what works - default alive vs default dead: know which one your product is right now - 10x better or 10x cheaper: if you're not either, you're invisible - ship, measure, iterate: perfection is a distraction, data is the answer
@marcus_legia ·
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.
@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.
@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
@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.
@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.
@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?
@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.
@sav_theo ·
Most indie hackers look for app ideas on Reddit, Twitter, and Product Hunt. The smarter play: go read 1-star reviews of apps already making money. Every angry review is a validated problem with a paying customer attached to it. Stop brainstorming. Start reading complaints.
@Tahseen_Rahman ·
Hot take for indie hackers: “build in public” isn’t posting screenshots. It’s posting numbers when they hurt. Right now ours is $0 MRR. Still shipping. #buildinpublic
@iammike0op ·
Most indie hackers share MRR screenshots. Almost none share churn. Here’s mine. →39 signups → 16 active → 14 onboarded → 11 chatted → 1 still paying. That’s ~91% churn. Painful. But it showed the real problem fast.
@adrien_brbr ·
40 users in 2 weeks. Here's exactly how: 1. FIND THE ROOMS WHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS ALREADY HANG OUT Stop guessing. Think about who your product is for, then go where they actually spend time. For me (@postclaw_ targets indie hackers and solo builders): X for daily visibility Reddit (r/SaaS, r/indiehackers, r/smallbusiness, r/EntrepreneurRideAlong) for discovery IndieHackers for deep conversations Your audience has 3-4 spots. Find them. Ignore everything else. 2. SHOW UP EVERY DAY WITH STUFF THEY ACTUALLY WANT Not "buy my product" posts. Stuff that genuinely helps them. X: daily. Quick demos, building in public updates, real numbers. Reddit: 3x/week. Value-first posts across multiple subreddits. Product mention buried in the story, never in the title. IndieHackers: 3x/week. Articles about real problems (saving time, finding customers, shipping faster). The key most people miss: each platform has different rules. What crushes on X will get you banned on Reddit. Adapt your content or get ignored. 3. BUILD A SYSTEM SO THIS DOESN'T EAT YOUR WHOLE DAY If you're writing every post from scratch for every platform, you'll burn out in a week. I built an AI agent that takes one idea and adapts it for each platform. I review it, clean it up with Grammarly, ship it. 30 minutes instead of 3 hours. Write once. Publish everywhere. Spend the rest of your day actually building. Most founders build something great then whisper about it. Building is 10% of the game. Distribution is the other 90%.
@Tahseen_Rahman ·
Indie hacker truth bomb: "Build in public" doesn't mean share everything. It means share the REAL stuff — the bugs, the pivots, the $0 revenue months. The polished "journey" posts? That's marketing, not building in public.
@csallen ·
Making money *while* doing what you love is maybe the hardest challenge for indie hackers. It's exactly that ikigai image that gets shared all the time. We know what we love and are good at, but usually it doesn't make money. We know how to make money, but usually not in ways we love. A good % of the ppl I've interviewed on Indie Hackers secretly hated their businesses and felt trapped by success into doing something that didn't spark joy. They couldn't wait to quit and do it differently next time. That's why all the kids want to be YouTubers now. It's why it's inspirational to watch people like @marclou and @levelsio build in public. They look like they're having fun. In fact that's why all these vibe coded games are so fun to look at and inspirational right now. So many of us love games, and would love making games. But spending 2 years working 80 hour weeks just to launch a beta that flops is a lot less fun than spending a weekend building something that people can play and share immediately. For most people, the point of being an indie hacker is to build a life you enjoy. The best thing about vibe coding and AI in general is that it's making it easier to do so. (h/t to @nealagarwal for sparking these thoughts)
@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
Best Indie Hackers tweets
Xholic studies what works in your niche, drafts posts in your voice and schedules them for the hours your audience is online.
No card needed · Nothing to cancel
Browse all tweet collectionsLive demo: no sign-up or login needed · takes about 2 minutes
Keep exploring