What Have I Done In The First Three Months As An Indie Maker(1/3)
I’m Julia, currently an indie maker. This is a new path for me; I used to be an employee (I have been in different roles, language engineer at Alexa was the last one) until three months ago, when the right time came for a change.
The last three months have been a mix of fun and challenges. As an indie maker, I’ve enjoyed being creative and making choices on things like building products, marketing, and choosing my work hours — something different from my previous 9-to-5 jobs. I think it’s a good time to write down:
- What I’ve done well
- Tools used
- The tough lessons I’ve learned
as a regular self-reflection. Maybe it can help others too. To keep it short, I’ll split it into 3 articles.
Done List
My partner and I:
- Created the website for Pacebits, our digital hub as indie makers. We chose to use one domain to host all our projects at this early stage.
- Decided to build 12 apps in 2024 (initiated by Pieter Levels levels.io @levelsio on Twitter). The aim is fast and committed delivering and iteration.
- Built and launched first project (Gift Note Writer) on ProductHunt. The result is better than expected, especially since we started without validating our idea, missed the gift season, and did NO social media promo before launch (even no accounts) at all. None of these approaches were ideal, and I’ll delve deeper into that in the lessons section.
- Created social media accounts (after launched the first product) and started to build online presence (Linkedin, Twitter, Indiehacker, Instagram, ProductHunt, Reddit), and try #buildinpublic with the indie maker community on twitter.
- Participated in an offline hackathon and pitch, hosted by Techstars Startup Weekend in Vancouver. We turned Sneha Soni’s idea into a prototype and pitched it to the judges within 54 hours. We conducted interviews with 20 people (in Starbucks and Tim Hortons), and pivoted several times based on advice from mentors who were passing by. This experience was eye-opening, highlighting the value of validating ideas early on. It really forced us out of our developer comfort zone. This lesson aligns with what we learned from launching our first product: it’s crucial to connect with customers before starting to build.
- Explored various communities to see if an ‘AI Newsletter’ for early startup owners was a viable idea. Learning from my hackathon experience, I asked around on Reddit, IndieHacker, and ProductHunt before starting. I quickly realized it wasn’t a great idea, allowing me to fail fast.
- Kept learning to grow better at what we do. Every day, I spend an hour reading tech news from sites like TechCrunch and newsletters like ‘Just Ship It’ by @marc_louvion. I look at new stuff on Product Hunt and read articles on Medium, especially the ones by @Maddie Wang. Plus, I started reading two books: ‘Product-Led Growth’ by Wes Bush and ‘Building a StoryBrand’ by Donald Miller, which helped a lot understanding growth theory.
These are the key things I’ve been doing lately. I’ve been learning, trying out new ideas, and sometimes realizing they don’t work. I’ll talk more about the helpful tools and important lessons I’ve learned in my next two articles.
