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Indie Hacker Startup Operating System

NonceGeekDAO has more plans for the growth of indie hackers.

If you are interested in becoming an indie hacker, you can dm me on Twitter: https://x.com/0xleeduckgo.

0x00 What is the indie hacker?

"Indie Hacker" literally means "independent hacker".

But in practical terms, it refers to a type of people who are independent, self-operated and develop their own online business to earn income. They "create products" and sell them to make profits.

They are both developers and entrepreneurs. They do not rely on large companies, but develop their own products through their own technical capabilities and business concepts to achieve an independent and free way of working.

https://indiehacker.one/#什么是独立开发者

+-------+  +----------+  +-----------+  +--------+  +--------------------+
| Owner |  | Designer |  | Organizer |  | Seller |  | People Be Organized|
+-------+  +----------+  +-----------+  +--------+  +--------------------+
    |          |          |                  |          | 
    +----------+----------+------------------+----------+
                          |
              +---------------------+  +------------------------+
              | Effective Producers |  | Ineffective Producers |
              +---------------------+  +------------------------+
                          |             |
                          +-------------+
                                  |
                           +-----------+  +---------------+
                           | Producers |  | Non-producers |
                           +-----------+  +---------------+
                                  |          |
                                  +----------+
                                        |
                                      +-------+
                                      | Crowd |
                                      +-------+

Production does not necessarily make money. Because the goods or services produced must be sellable, that is, they can meet social needs in order to make money. Otherwise, all the time and energy spent will be wasted. Therefore, production must be effective production.

—— The root cause of the hardship of life · The truth of wealth by Li Xiaolai

Based on this picture to analyze indie hackers, then ideally indie hackers should be the owners, designers, organizers, sellers and organizers of effective production. Considering that making mistakes is inevitable in the real world, sometimes they will become ineffective producers.

💡 Why is work, that is, the business model where a piece of time can only be sold once, so inefficient, but most people still work?

Because the biggest advantage of working is that workers can get benefits regardless of whether they are engaged in effective production. But its side effect is that it is difficult for workers to exercise the ability to "judge whether their production is effective".

0x01 Why start a business from an indie hacker?

In the past, when we talked about starting a business, we often thought of a startup team composed of experts in different roles, including CTO, CEO, etc., and then wrote a beautiful PPT to explain their ideas to investors to change the world, successfully raised funds and then reached the peak of life...

However, I think that for the current environment, starting from an indie hacker is a more feasible way to start a business. What is the reason?

1.1 The fundamental premise of Startups: survival

A common mistake made by many Chinese entrepreneurs is that they rely too much on venture capital. There is nothing wrong with leveraging venture capital, but it is a misunderstanding to mistakenly believe that Startups must rely on investment and that investors have the obligation to raise their own companies to adulthood.

When entrepreneurs regard maintaining the survival of the company as someone else's business, they lose their survival instinct. At one point, I didn't take it seriously, but later I found that the consequences were disastrous - it's like hoping that someone without a cerebellum will become an Olympic champion.

I believe some people will ask: How can an Internet company make a profit from the first day? But "not making money in the short term" and "completely ignoring the issue of making money" are completely different. If a company cannot make money and spend money according to its own will for a long time, it cannot control its own destiny. The vast majority of startups fail because they run out of money when the entrepreneurs are not prepared enough.

For entrepreneurs, it is not vulgar to talk about money at any time. On the contrary, the attitude towards money is one of the basic values ​​of an entrepreneur: Is the attitude towards spending investors' money consistent with spending your own money? When it is not profitable, does the company spend lavishly? When the company has no money, can the entrepreneur lead the team through the difficult stage? Another question: Can an entrepreneur who is not good at managing funds in the early stage of Startups really build a big company? Can an entrepreneur who can't make money really create massive wealth? ——As the "10,000 hours" theory of Wanyong Wanling shows, making money is a skill, and building a company with high returns and barriers is an advanced skill that requires long-term training. Buffett read through the investment-related books in the library when he was ten years old, which is a good example.

Although the business models are different, there are only two ways for startups to survive: they have the ability to make money, or their business grows fast enough for investors to continue to bet on it. The indicators for selecting the latter are quite clear: Is the number of users growing rapidly? Is the user retention rate high enough? Are the user acquisition costs and maintenance costs very low? Is the barrier established over time? If these points cannot be met, you need to find a way to be self-sufficient as soon as possible. Of course, there is also a special case where the founder has a strong financing ability. But don't forget that there are very few entrepreneurs in the world who can repeatedly raise funds with loss-making businesses, so don't take the initiative to classify yourself as one of them.

—— https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/20047712

—— https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/19878922

—— https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/19973765

—— by Zhang Liang

The biggest reason is that the first prerequisite for starting a business is to survive. In entrepreneurial guidance, everyone always says that you need to find a market that meets "high frequency, rigid demand, and wide audience" and then start your entrepreneurial journey.

However, reality is not always as expected. Before finding a market that meets the conditions, or waiting for your market to meet the conditions, we always have to start when the conditions are not sufficient.

For example, we may face the reality that the number of users cannot achieve high-speed growth for a long period of time.

In this case, satisfying the ability to make money seems to be the only way to start a business.

1.2 Analyze costs and benefits

Okay, we have determined the fundamental premise of Startups that is universal for most people - survive when you are able to make money.

Then let's look at the costs and benefits of Startups. It's very simple. If the benefits are greater than the costs, then you can survive; otherwise, not.

💡The costs here include "money costs", "time costs" and "mental costs".

Wealth Index = One's own production income/one's own consumption expenditure

If a person's wealth index = 1, then this person is neither poor nor rich; if the wealth index < 1, then he is poor, and the smaller the wealth index, the poorer he is; if the wealth index > 1, then he is rich, and the larger the wealth index, the richer he is. Very simple, very direct, and very clear.

—— Factors that react on production · The truth of wealth by Li Xiaolai

There are only four situations for the costs and benefits of starting a business:

  • Low cost, low benefits
  • Low cost, high benefits
  • High cost, low benefits
  • High cost, high benefits

1.2.1 High cost, low benefits

This is the quadrant we must avoid falling into when starting a business. In this case, our wealth index will be far below 1.

1.2.2 High cost, high benefits

This model is much better than the previous one. In fact, the entrepreneurial goal of most startups is to achieve this model. However, the implicit risk of this model is that the factors affecting the benefits are very complex and may change suddenly; however, the cost flexibility is poor, and the cost control measures often cannot keep up with the changes in benefits, so it is easy to slide into the first model.

1.2.3 Low cost, high benefits

This model is a very ideal situation! But it is very difficult to achieve such a goal at the beginning, because a skill is always very clumsy at the beginning. However, we can try to make this one the "goal" of our Startups.

💡Writing a long-term bestseller is a typical low-cost, high-return thing.

1.2.4 Low cost, low return

This is not a "sexy" start, and it is very different from the blockbuster entrepreneurial story.

However, starting with clumsiness is often inevitable, and Startups is no exception.

It’s almost always the same process: once you start trying, you will definitely encounter impossibility first, and you will encounter possibility only after repeated attempts, and you may encounter clumsiness immediately after that, and you may become proficient after a while, and then there may be a long stagnation, and you may only become proficient after a lot of deliberate practice...

Impossible ···> Possible ——> Clumsiness ···> Proficiency ——> Stagnation ···> Proficiency

The most important and difficult part of this is, of course, the leap from impossibility to possibility, which is a breakthrough from 0 to 1.

—— https://1000h.org/self-training/03-trials-and-errors.html by Li Xiaolai

Start with the "low cost, low benefit" model, then optimize our model in the process of "learning, practicing, using, and creating", and finally transition to the "low cost, high benefit" model. This is a very feasible practical path.

💡 What is "learning, practicing, using, and creating"?

The process of self-study actually needs to be broken down into the following four stages, although there are often some overlaps between them:

  • Learning
  • Practice
  • Use
  • Creating

As long as you can read, you can't help reading; as long as you feel that there is something "worth learning", you can't help learning - in fact, everyone is learning all the time, but the choice of learning goals and the way and efficiency of learning are different.

Most people have never distinguished these stages, nor have they studied how to treat these stages respectively. This explains why so many people can’t help reading and learning, but never really master decent skills in their entire lives… Because they make mistakes in the first stage, give up in the second stage, skip the third stage directly, and always “make do”, as for the fourth stage, they never think about it…

—— https://github.com/selfteaching/the-craft-of-selfteaching/blob/master/markdown/Part.2.A.clumsy-and-patience.md#笨拙与耐心

—— Clumsy and Patience · Self-study is a Craft

1.2.5 indie hackers are always in low-cost mode

So, back to the topic – from the perspective of cost and benefit, why is it a highly recommended solution to start a business from an indie hacker?

The answer is: starting as an indie hacker can ensure that the cost is low, that is, to ensure that we are in the third or fourth mode.

In terms of time cost, it is enough to continuously build and maintain a Side Project on weekends - this is very friendly to indie hackers who still have a main job but want to start a business.

In terms of money cost, at least in the early stage, indie hackers take on all the roles in the project (see 0x00 section), as long as they cover the money they have invested in this matter, we call it the indie hacker Startups 1.0 stage.

Further, if the income can cover their living expenses, then they can start a business full-time - that is, they have entered the indie hacker Startups 2.0 stage.

1.3 The key factor that cannot be ignored - time

In Startups, "time" is very interesting because it can be called the least respected key factor. Many people believe that since capital can directly buy time, if I invest 10 times the amount of money, I can speed up my entrepreneurial progress 10 times.

However, I think that capital cannot directly buy time in at least two aspects.

1.3.1 Ability polishing and time

First is the polishing of entrepreneurial skills.

Most people have the same problem. They are willing to spend money, and some are willing to spend time, but none of them are willing to pay attention - to be honest, they don’t know where to pay attention, regardless of whether they have enough attention.

Learning, learning and learning, studying and practicing, obviously practicing is more important. There is a very long distance between knowing and doing - the distance in time.

Learning a foreign language is a good example. I can write and tell you the pronunciation and key points of each English phoneme clearly, in detail and systematically, and I can repeat it to you... Then you can indeed say that you know it, but can you really do it? Can you do it well right away? It’s not that it’s not necessarily, but it’s definitely not possible at the beginning.

Learning without practice is useless. Practice will inevitably take up a lot of time.

And, you can only practice by yourself. When learning together, it may be more effective, but when practicing together, everyone will often be dragged down by the worst one. Moreover, everyone is different, everyone has different difficulties, everyone has different previous accumulation, and everyone practices in different ways... Therefore, in most cases, useful practice can only be personalized, and the more critical the point, the more so.

—— https://1000h.org/self-training/02-last-resort.html by Li Xiaolai

It is useless for all skills such as programming and cooking. Startups as a skill, from impossible to possible, from clumsy to skilled, from stagnant to proficient (see 1.2.4), all require inevitable time cost, and further speaking —— cost to carry out effective deliberate practice.

This is the commonality of entrepreneurial skills compared with other skills.

The characteristic of entrepreneurial skills is that Startups is a skill that combines multiple dimensions. Because we have to play multiple roles at the same time (see the 0x00 section), we have to be a CEO, a programmer, a salesperson, a product manager, etc. This was almost impossible before the intelligent era, but the revolutionary breakthrough of artificial intelligence has made us see the possibility - **With the help of artificial intelligence, the cost of self-study has been greatly reduced. **Therefore, it is no longer out of reach for a person to "quickly get started" with multiple different ability stacks.

However, this is still quite difficult. Therefore, Startups must start as early as possible, and through a long enough period of "learning, practicing, using, and making", we can finally achieve "getting started" in becoming an indie hacker.

1.3.2 Your own projects and time

If we take time as a key factor in our own projects, how should we "screen" suitable projects? In other words, what projects are worth doing?

The answer is - Do projects that last as long as possible.

This simple standard is actually strict, and we can look at its opposite.

  • Chasing hot spots

Hot spots can generate profits for a period of time, but the project is likely to die directly after it is outdated. The lifetime value of a customer is very limited.

  • One-time projects

Commonly seen in projects done by Hackathon hunters and Bounty hunters. Similarly, such projects are also difficult to generate customer lifetime value.

Therefore, it is a good entrepreneurial habit to decide to do a project that lasts as long as possible from the beginning. We can continue to ask ourselves many questions on this basis:

  • Will this project still make sense in 10 years?

  • Will I still want to continue this project in 10 years?

  • How to ensure that this project can survive for 10 years?

Now looking back, Why do we use "longevity" as a key indicator to measure our own projects?

There are two main reasons:

1/ Short-lived projects have very limited customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value refers to the profit you can make from a customer who purchases your products or services in his lifetime.

—— Business skills not taught in school · The truth of wealth by Li Xiaolai

↑User lifetime value
|-------------------------------+
|                               |
|                               |
|                               |
|                               | Number of users
+--------------------------------------- →

The final profit is the area of ​​the above matrix diagram.

A long-lived project may achieve a continuous increase in the matrix area; but the matrix area of ​​a short-lived project is very limited.

The secret hidden here is that the growth of the number of users and the lifetime value of users is not always a linear relationship. A long-lived project has the opportunity to continuously optimize its "growth curve" and thus optimize the "growth area" of the matrix.

2/ Only long-lived projects can cross the singularity of the "compound interest curve"

What is time? Time is not only a means of production. It also has another equally important definition:

Time is the only path to development.

So, just this one difference leads traders to play completely different games in the same arena. What speculators actually participate in is what I think is the worst type of finite game, called "zero-sum game": the money earned is actually the money lost by others. Investors are different. If they succeed, they earn "the result of development". What they participate in is actually an "infinite game".

—— The fundamental difference between investment and speculation · The truth of wealth by Li Xiaolai

The compound interest curve is the optimal form of the growth curve, which can be expressed in the formula:

y = a(1+x)^t

  • y: final result
  • a: initial value
  • x: growth rate
  • t: time

Expressed in a curve chart, it is:

Image

Our expectation is that under continuous optimization, key indicators can follow the compound interest curve, such as total revenue and number of users.

The confusing thing about the compound interest curve is that it is lower than linear growth for a considerable period of time.

—— Compound interest is a reasonable phenomenon · The truth of wealth

Therefore, only long-lived projects can be proven to follow the compound interest curve. **

One thing to note is that the characteristic of "longevity" is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the continuous growth of "customer lifetime value", and it is also a necessary but not sufficient condition for growth to follow the "compound interest curve". In other words, without this condition, the goal cannot be achieved, but with this condition, the goal may not be achieved.

1.3.3 Outsourcing projects and time

When becoming an indie hacker, you must be very cautious about outsourcing. Outsourcing for open source projects - you can consider it; outsourcing for closed source projects - try your best not to do it.

The reason is that when practicing independent hacking, we will hope to get rid of the business model of selling a piece of time only once and achieve a business model of selling a piece of time many times.

Therefore, it is natural to suffer from closed source outsourcing where the results are difficult to reuse.

0x02 The most important ability

💡 What is the most important?

No matter what you learn, you should ask yourself this question repeatedly, yes, keep asking:

**What is the most important concept in this field? **

The most important concept in the field of "learning" is "self-study"; the most important concept in the field of driving is "safety"; the most important concept in the subject of probability is "independence"; the most important concept in the subject of statistics is "sample validity"; the most important concept in the field of learning a foreign language is "use" ; The most important concept in the field of programming is "object"; the most important concept in the field of personal pursuit of financial freedom is "compound interest"; in the field of life, whether it is making friends or falling in love, the most important concept is "sincerity"; the most important concept in the field of work is "initiative"...

When you first enter a field, there is always a period of time when you are in a state of "confusion", which is normal; the methodology to get out of this state is to repeatedly ask yourself this question: "What is the most important concept?" - This is almost the most important learning methodology.

After finding the most important concept, you must do everything possible to build a sufficiently systematic methodology for this concept.
—— http://xiaolai.co/books/xiaolai-xuexi/b70c02a57b8e6ad4fec72947e4f4c808.html

As mentioned above, indie hacker Startups is a comprehensive skill that requires multi-dimensional abilities. Therefore, when getting started with this skill, the question of what is the most important becomes particularly important. The answer to this question determines whether we can start smoothly.

What is the most important thing in getting started with the skill of indie hacker Startups?

My answer is: metacognitive ability and meta-learning ability.

2.1 Metacognitive ability

Metacognition, that is, cognition about cognition.

This is a very important concept because it almost determines whether a person has the opportunity to grow. The so-called metacognition refers to "cognition of cognition." In other words, you can recognize your cognition, although it is a bit awkward, but it is not that difficult to understand. When you are thinking, you can realize that you are thinking, and further realize what you are thinking, and further judge whether your thinking method and thinking results are correct, and further correct your wrong thinking method or results. This is metacognitive ability.

—— http://xiaolai.co/books/3c76228cf822d6d30b14795b74b1481a/chapter2.html

In Startups, only with metacognitive ability can we realize what bugs there are in our thinking, and then optimize our "brain operating system".

From the perspective of practical experience, this is very important. Because of multi-dimensional operation, we will be in a state of insufficient "mental resources" for a long time in Startups.

In fact, in the early stage of Startups, all resources are insufficient, but mental resources are particularly special.

I divide resources into two categories:

  • Resources that can be replaced by other resources, such as labor resources, which we can buy with money.
  • Resources that cannot be replaced by other resources, the most typical one is mental resources. I can save mental resources by optimizing the way I consume my mental resources, but I cannot buy mental resources from others.

It is easier to understand with a game analogy:

  • The first resource is like a prop in the game, which can be exchanged for money or other props.
  • The second resource is like an energy bar, but there is no energy supplement in the game, and the most we can do is to optimize the way we consume energy.

Therefore, continuously optimizing our brain operating system is equivalent to optimizing the "memory resources" occupied by each program at the bottom level, so that we have more "available resources".

2.2 Meta-learning ability

If metacognitive ability is to optimize the programs that are already running in the brain, then "meta-learning ability" is aimed at the "loader" and "upgrade program" of each program.

Brain program startup steps:

    +--------------+      +-------------+      +----------------+
--->| Load program | ---> | Run program | ---> | Upgrade program |
    +--------------+      +-------------+      +----------------+
		|     Quick    |      |   Practice  |          |
    |     start    |      |   process   |          |  Iterative upgrade
    +--------------+      +-------------+          |
                                   ↑---------------+

In fact, the boundary between learning and practice in the real world is very vague. We often practice and learn at the same time, but in order to understand more clearly, it is helpful to split it into three "subroutines".

Mastering meta-learning ability, that is, learning to quickly get started with any skill in the right way, is to save the cost of getting started with any skill and increase the probability of success.

2.3 Quick start guide for meta-learning ability

In this section, we will explain the most critical points of meta-learning ability in the most concise way.

💡As mentioned above, when indie hackers are getting started with entrepreneurial skills, it is inevitable that they will not have enough mental resources, which means they will always appear "clumsy". However, it is the need for mental resources that forces indie hackers to learn the ability to manage their mental resources in a meticulous manner. This ability is reflected in the writing of tutorials, that is, indie hackers will habitually write "the simplest and fastest introductory tutorials" - because redundancy is a waste of mental energy.

2.3.1 Minimum necessary knowledge

For any skill, there are some small but necessary knowledge points. As long as you learn them, you can start using that skill. Only by using it can you "accumulate mileage", only by using it can you hone your skills, and only by using it can you change your life through practice.

To learn any skill, you must find the "minimum necessary knowledge".

—— http://xiaolai.co/books/xiaolai-xuexi/3b15b0238df8c521e4904914af7826e9.html

The first key point of the minimum necessary knowledge is to think about what is the minimum necessary knowledge of the skill you want to learn? Start practicing immediately after mastering the minimum necessary knowledge.

2.3.2 Learn to design teaching with gamification

Teaching design is the most important part of skill learning. However, in the traditional model, we are used to entrusting the most important part to others - it is no different from entrusting our lives to others.

Design your own teaching!

  • Learn how to design steps one by one to make the height of each step reasonable
  • Learn to design the reward mechanism in the process to ensure that the brain gets positive feedback
  • Learn how to "repeat correctly" to break through the threshold to "mastery" without being bored
  • Learn how to arrange the position of knowledge points so that too much "pre-knowledge" will not impact our confidence
  • Learn how to arrange learning and practice to avoid "practice too early" or "learning without practice"
  • Learn how to look at the overall situation to avoid missing "key points"
  • ......

In fact, after summarizing the above key points, it is the minimum necessary knowledge about "teaching" - that is, "gamification".

A good thinking tool is:

Does my teaching design conform to the game design rules?

  • Immediately attack the BOSS after killing a few monsters - not in line with
  • The interval between rewards is too long - not in line with
  • Only skill learning, no practical operation - not in line with
  • ...…

0x03 Sales

In the second article, we emphasized that "metacognitive ability" and "meta-learning ability" are the top priorities for indie hacker entrepreneurial skills. If our brain is an operating system, then "metacognitive ability" is equivalent to the system's built-in "supervisory program" and "upgrade program", and "meta-learning ability" is equivalent to the "loader" and "upgrade program" when we install any software.

Then, what we are going to explain next is the program that our brain should load when learning the skill of indie hacker Startups.

At this time, we have to ask ourselves the classic question again:

What is the most important?

Although we will eventually install all the programs, the order of software installation is very important, because as explained in the first article, the fundamental premise of Startups is survival. The installed software must provide enough revenue to cover the cost to meet the need of "survival", and then there will be cost to install the next software.

+------------------------------+ Get the minimum necessary knowledge
| indie hacker Startups skills | ------------ Metacognition & Meta-learning
+------------------------------+
           ↓ Time and money costs
Install the first software ---------------+
↑     Upgrade the first software          | Benefit >= Existing cost + Installation cost of 
--------←---------------------------------+  the next software
↓
Install the second software ---------------+
↑     Upgrade the second software          | Benefit >= Existing cost + Installation cost of 
...                                             the next software
↓
Quick start goal achieved, with indie hacker Startups skills system 1.0

3.1 The first software to be installed is sales

Many indie hackers with technical backgrounds, because of inertial thinking, will think that "production" is the first software to be installed, and start to develop it, which is the reason why many programmers start their own businesses repeatedly "from entry to giving up".

Sales is the first software to be installed.

3.1.1 Avoid the trap of "ineffective production"

Let's review the picture mentioned in the first article:

+-------+  +----------+  +-----------+  +--------+  +--------------------+
| Owner |  | Designer |  | Organizer |  | Seller |  | People Be Organized|
+-------+  +----------+  +-----------+  +--------+  +--------------------+
    |          |          |                  |          | 
    +----------+----------+------------------+----------+
                          |
              +---------------------+  +------------------------+
              | Effective Producers |  | Ineffective Producers |
              +---------------------+  +------------------------+
                          |             |
                          +-------------+
                                  |
                           +-----------+  +---------------+
                           | Producers |  | Non-producers |
                           +-----------+  +---------------+
                                  |          |
                                  +----------+
                                        |
                                      +-------+
                                      | Crowd |
                                      +-------+

—— The root cause of hardship in life · The truth of wealth by Li Xiaolai

The trap of starting from "designer" + "organizer", that is, "producer" is that it is easy to fall into the range of "ineffective production" because the skill of "judging whether production is effective" has not been mastered.

On the contrary, as a seller, it is much easier to select "effectively produced" products for sale.

3.1.2 Understanding "real needs" from sales

The benefits of being a salesperson 
|-------- Close enough to production
|-------- Understand the real needs
|-------- Understand the real competition
|-------- Unlimited income
|-------- No requirements for academic qualifications
|-------- No pressure of bankruptcy

The benefit of being close to the needs is that compared with people in other jobs, you have more opportunities to see more needs and have more in-depth learning opportunities for a certain need. These are all knowledge, and they may become your own means of production in the future.

—— The truth about wealth in jobs that people don't like to do by Li Xiaolai

The second benefit is that starting from sales helps us understand the "real needs", and understanding the real needs is a necessary but not sufficient condition for "effective production" - that is, effective production must be based on understanding the real needs; but understanding the real needs is only one of the many factors of "effective production".

But, in any case, understanding the real needs is a good starting point for "effective production".

3.2 What is sales?

Why do we ask this question?

Because in the general context, the sales we are talking about are sales in a narrow sense - that is, selling products to users explicitly as a main job or part-time job. If we understand it this way, we will feel that doing sales is always a matter of startup costs, and this idea will hinder us from upgrading our sales capabilities.

Let's expand the definition of sales - explicitly or implicitly selling products to users as a main job or part-time job. In this way, we will find that sales are everywhere.

  • Finding a job: Treat yourself as a product to be sold, and sell it to employers in the human resources market;

  • Sell articles: Treat articles as products to be sold, and sell them to the organizations to which they are submitted;

  • Participating in hackathons: Treat coding and presentation behaviors as products to be sold, and sell them to sponsors

  • ......

Generalized sales helps "actively and deliberately practice" sales skills.

  • Proactive

Realizing that "implicit" sales are also sales, we will be more proactive in sales practice.

  • Deliberate

Realizing that "implicit" sales are also sales, we will deliberately incorporate them into the "sales" thinking framework when performing these actions.

💡When sales is defined only in a narrow sense, "job hunting" and "sales" are two unrelated procedures. When we define sales in a broad sense, "job hunting", "participating in hackathons" and other procedures are included in the ascending order of "sales", and they can share the "underlying module" of the sales procedure.

Sales Process
+-----------------------+ +-------------+ +-----------------------------+
| Selling General Goods | | Job Hunting | | Participating in Hackathons | ...
+-----------------------+ +-------------+ +-----------------------------+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                        Bottom-Level Modules                       |
| Minimum Required Knowledge | Key Concepts | Key Information | ... |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

3.3 Quick Start Guide to Sales Ability

3.3.1 Minimum Required Knowledge

What is the minimum required knowledge for sales ability?

Pursue.

Under the pursuit mindset, the core issue of sales is -- How do we actively pursue users and close deals?

Under the pursuit mindset, the core issue of sales has changed -- How do we let users actively pursue us and close deals?

The core question leads to corresponding sub-questions:

  • How to "choose" a product that is good enough to make users "pursue" it?

💡This is another example of the result forcing action. If we just sell it without the restriction of pursuit/pursue, we don't need the product to be good enough...

  • How to achieve user "pursue" at the "emotional" level?

  • How to achieve user "pursue" at the "rational" level?

  • ......

3.3.2 Advanced

Make a good product, make the product the best, most needed, and most loved, is the most essential and powerful sales.

Becoming the expert of your own users is the most powerful sales tool. I agree with these basic methodologies from the bottom of my heart.

http://xiaolai.co/books/8327ac77840b8e66d8245eef28052099/the-founder-sells-everything.html

3.4 References

https://blog.daozhuixuetang.com/articles/career-daozhui-book.html

https://blog.daozhuixuetang.com/articles/sales-daozhui-ebook.html

https://blog.daozhuixuetang.com/articles/daozhui-love-book.html

http://d4.daozhuixuetang.com/

  • My sales concept and methodology:

http://xiaolai.co/books/xiaolai-xuexi/0206f8cfc50f13b8eb959e675b40c3ab.html

  • Sales must be done in person:

http://xiaolai.co/books/8327ac77840b8e66d8245eef28052099/the-founder-sells-everything.html

0x04 Production

4.1 Ensure the probability of effective production

In the section "Learn to design teaching", we mentioned that we should design a reasonable "positive feedback mechanism" for ourselves. When we are producing, we need to take this into consideration. Ineffective production is inevitable, and ineffective production brings inevitable "negative feedback" to players, and even discourages them from playing - think about how you would feel if you worked hard to pass a level in the game, but found an empty box!

Therefore, the first point when mentioning production is: **How ​​can we ensure the probability of effective production, so that its value is enough for us to continue? **

"Pick a small market and dominate it" - Peter Thiel

I have been thinking about the problem of matching products and user groups recently.

This is first due to Peter Thiel's enlightening teaching: the core of the Internet is monopoly rather than competition, and startups should first find a niche market and monopolize it, and then gradually expand.

Secondly, if I think of Minecraft, a game that was developed by almost one person but has tens of millions of active users and sold $2.5 billion, if I have gained anything, it should be that the developer met the needs of a group of people to play Lego on the computer. Discovering and meeting this unmet need is 10,000 times more important than making exquisite products and promoting them crazily.

—— https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/19878922

Here are two key points:

**1/ ** Persistently exercise "yourself" ability to judge effective production

We can divide all abilities into two categories: "abilities that do not need to be mastered personally" and "abilities that must be mastered personally".

The former ability is like programming and cooking. You don't necessarily need to learn programming to start a technology business, and you don't necessarily need to learn how to cook to open a restaurant. You can hire the right people with money to complete it, or directly buy the fruits of others' labor.

The latter, such as investment and sales, must be mastered by self-study, and you must spend enough time and effort on it to achieve proficiency.

The ability to "judge effective production" belongs to the latter. It and investment can both be classified under the category of "judgment and decision-making ability". Therefore, like investment, "judgment of effective production" does not have the scale effect of human resources. The judgment made by a large team is not necessarily more accurate than that of a single individual.

Thank you for this! It is the existence of this type of ability that has given indie hackers a living space.

2/ Make small products that meet "single demand"

Only meeting a single demand, this limiting condition allows us to better consider whether this demand is established.

  • Satisfy the needs of community residents for eating skewers - a single demand, we can easily verify whether this demand is established;
  • Satisfy users' needs for the metaverse - complex needs, difficult to verify whether it is established;
  • Satisfy users' needs for their own chain releases - complex needs, difficult to verify whether it is established;
  • ......

Then, follow the design that each product only meets a single demand, treat each product as a mutually isolated life form, and make the overall ecology formed by the product group clearer:

  • Each product has its own user group, and multiple user groups with different needs are not mixed together
  • Each product has its own life frequency, Let it crash
  • Each product has its community developers, and developers can be more focused
  • ......

In short, the ultimate goal of all designs is better insight into needs.

Fall in love with your users.

—— Kevin Hale

—— https://leilux.github.io/lou/startup/YC startup CS183B/lesson7/readme.html

4.2 Controlling production costs

To control production costs, the most important thing is naturally the "probability of ensuring effective production" mentioned in the previous section. Ineffective production is the abyss of cost consumption - the harder you work, the more serious the loss.

Costs can be specifically divided into "time cost", "money cost" and "mental cost". Sort by importance:

Mental cost > Time cost > Money cost

In other words, using money to replace time, using money to replace mental effort, and using time to replace mental effort are all cost-effective transactions.

I control production costs through the following factors: system design, AI, and organizational governance.

4.2.1 System design

Reasonable system design can optimize the production costs of all projects at a fundamental level, which is often overlooked by producers.

For example, as mentioned in the previous section, each single requirement corresponds to an independent product, which belongs to system design. Designing a complex Mono App will increase production costs, which is contrary to the refined operation of indie hackers.

In addition, there are some other tricks at the system design level:

  • Rationally choose programming language and technology stack

As programmers often say, programming language is not important when it comes to whether the product can be realized. However, programming language is an important and long-term factor affecting development costs. For example, if we choose Java as the development language of Web3 programs or choose Vue as the front-end development framework of Web3, we will continue to pay costs.

Therefore, indie hackers should carefully choose programming languages ​​and technology stacks. A good question is:

Will this programming language or technology stack still be valuable in 10 years? (Maybe this programming language or technology stack itself will die, but if it has long-term value, then it will at least become the predecessor of a new star).

  • Use more scaffolding

Gentlemen are not born different, but good at borrowing things.

—— Encouragement to Study · Xunzi

The second and third points actually talk about the same thing - learn to "borrow power" and save costs by borrowing power.

Using scaffolding allows developers to divert their energy from basic work and focus on core business code. In fact, when we intervene in an ecosystem, we will first check the scaffolding of this ecosystem. If there is no scaffolding, we will make one ourselves. From a long-term perspective, a continuously maintained scaffolding will reduce the cost of all related products.

💡 A big secret when starting a business is that before reaching a certain stage, UI design is not important. The value of the product depends on how much you meet the needs of users rather than whether your design is unique. Therefore, using a universal UI with scaffolding is sufficient in the early stage.

  • Cooperate with existing products

On the basis of consistency with your product logic, cooperating with existing products is a good choice. Not only does it reduce production costs, but it can also reduce sales costs by converting users of existing products.

When choosing cooperating products, the most important thing I value is whether the values ​​are consistent. If the values ​​cannot be agreed upon, temporary cooperation can be achieved at this stage, but in the long run, the two will take different "evolutionary paths".

In addition, the ability of products to cooperate with each other is also a new feature brought to the computer field by the development of Web3. In the era of Web2, the life cycle of a product depends entirely on its creator. Therefore, there is a risk of the death of the cooperative product. But in Web3, once the contract is deployed, it cannot be changed, and there is no need to worry about various accidents.

+--------+ +--------+
| dApp α | | dApp β | ...
+--------+ +--------+
+----------------------------------------------+
| Protocol based on Smart Contract - long live |
+----------------------------------------------+

4.2.2 AI

The breakthrough progress of general artificial intelligence has greatly reduced two costs: "learning cost" and "production cost". Therefore, any individual and organization should prepare their own "AI toolbox".

4.2.3 Organizational governance

Organizational governance is an effective means of controlling production costs. However, from the perspective of indie hackers and traditional organizations, organizational governance is a completely different set of ideas. This is explained in the first edition of the NonceGeekDAO white paper in 2022:

https://www.noncegeek.com/#/whitepaper

This topic will be discussed in more detail in the next article "Organization".

4.3 Towards a better target

In the first article. We mentioned that "high frequency, rigid demand, and wide audience" is an ideal entrepreneurial market, which is enough for suitable startups to grow rapidly.

But it is difficult to find such an ideal target in the initial stage of Startups. Therefore, the target we are in at the beginning always has some conditions that cannot be met, but the difference between benefits and costs allows us to survive.

It's like playing a game - everyone knows that in a strategy game, you have to occupy the best resource territory, but the birthplace is often not a choice, and you can only survive with the existing resources of the birthplace.

Fortunately, we have the ability to migrate or expand. As long as we survive and keep evolving, we can always reach a better target.

**So, we first know what the ideal target of the product is - "high frequency, rigid demand, and wide audience". Then continue to evolve, develop new products or upgrade old products, and eventually reach the ideal target, sooner or later. **

4.4 The minimum necessary knowledge about production

I think the minimum necessary knowledge about production is "insight into the user's state" (demand is the result of the state).

In an intimate relationship, if you can "insight into the other person's state" and achieve 100% in perception, then you don't even need skills in other parts - all skills are to make up for the lack of perception.

Similarly, if you can "insight into the user's state" and achieve 100% in perception, then even if the product implementation is rough, you can succeed. On the contrary, it will only be "finely crafted ineffective production", making beautiful but unused products.

0x05 Organization

5.1 Organization from the perspective of indie hackers

In the "Production" article, we mentioned: "Effort cost > Time cost > Money cost". Therefore, using money to buy time or effort is always a good deal. For indie hackers, organization is a group where members trade time with each other.

One-to-one time trading in an organization:

+----------------------+  	Resources     +---------------------+
| Organization members | -------------> 	| Organization members |
+----------------------+ 									+----------------------+
|    Need time    | <-------------        | Need money or        |
+-----------------+     			Time				|other resources       | 
| Result: Own time|												+----------------------+         
+---------------------------------+
| Add your own time								|
| Means of production → Commodity |
+----------------------------------+
											+---------> Sell time at a higher value and in a better way (for example, one time is sold multiple times)

One-to-many time trading in an organization:

+-----------------+
| Organization 		|
|   	 members	  |
+-----------------+
| Need money or   |
| other resources |
+-----------------+
Resources ↑ ↓ Time
+-----------------+    Resources   +--------------------+
| Organization 		|              	 |   Organization 		|
|	members 				| -------------> |     members			 	|
+-----------------+            	   +--------------------+
| Need  time			| <------------- | Need money or other|		                                                                  |	            	  | <--------------|    resources		    |				
+--------------------+             +--------------------+
| Add your own time  |
+---------------------------------+
| Means of production → Commodity |
+---------------------------------+
				+----> Sell the integrated time at a higher value and in a better way (higher value after integration)

5.2 indie hackers' needs for organizations

From the perspective of demand, indie hackers always need time in batches, not the complete time of all time owners. Because the traditional employment system is not compatible with the needs of indie hackers, indie hackers should naturally use the Bounty system (that is, one-time purchase) to meet their needs for time and energy.

If indie hackers form relevant communities, the Bounty system will replace the traditional employment system as the basic time trading system, which is exactly what NonceGeekDAO has been practicing.

                      match
Traditional company <-------> Employment system as the main system, Bounty system as the auxiliary system
            match
Community <-------> Bounty-based system as the main system, employment system as the auxiliary system

**The biggest advantage of the bounty-based system is that the time of the buidlers is atomized. **

Under the traditional employment system, the buidlers' time is sold in bulk, and the organization can only buy it on a monthly basis. From the perspective of the organization, the organization has purchased redundant time that it does not need; from the perspective of the buidlers, mixing "slacking time" and "effective time" and selling them together is actually wasting their own time. "Slacking time" could have been used to do more meaningful things in an open and aboveboard manner, which is a lose-lose situation.

Under the bounty system, buidlers atomize and distribute their time and the organization buys the output of atomic time. From the perspective of the buidlers, they have more atomic time to sell to more organizations in a diversified way; from the perspective of the organization, it can more flexibly combine the production results of the buidlers. For example, with the same cost of 20,000 yuan, an organization can only hire one mid-level front-end engineer under the traditional employment system; but using the Bounty system, it can issue 20 Bounties of 1,000 yuan, covering multiple aspects such as front-end, back-end, design, product and marketing.

5.3 Organizational paradigm shift under Bounty Protocol

As we explained in the "Top Priority Capabilities" section, continuing the analogy with computer systems, "the way to sell time" is equivalent to the underlying protocol of the "organizational operating system". Companies and communities use two very different underlying protocols, and on top of this underlying protocol, we build very different "organizational operating systems".

5.3.1 Gamification - The minimum necessary knowledge about organizations

We still use the concept of "minimum necessary knowledge" mentioned in the second article to think about this problem:

**If an organization based on Bounty Protocol has a minimum necessary knowledge, what is it? **

My answer is: "Gamification".

This is consistent with the "Learning to Gamify Instructional Design" in the Meta-learning Quick Start Guide in the second article, because self-study and teaching are originally part of organizational governance.

We can use the same thinking tools to ask key questions:

**Does the organizational system I designed conform to the rules of game design? **

Compared to self-study, a "single-player game", the organization is more like a "Table RPG". If you are not familiar with this form, the next best metaphor is MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). Therefore, it has greater complexity and means more diverse gameplay.

The following are some extended questions based on the key questions:

  • How to design a minimalist guide for players so that new players can start as soon as possible? (Super Mario series is a model in this regard)

  • How to design the main quest?

  • How to design a dungeon?

  • How to design a reasonable team-building mechanism so that players can smoothly team up to play dungeons?

  • How to design a minimalist guide for DM (Dungeon Master) so that a group of high-quality DMs will appear in the organization?

  • How to attract willing incentive providers?

  • How to ensure the "online number" of the game while allowing people to come and go freely?

Here are some articles related to NonceGeekDAO’s past organizational construction:

5.3.2 Permissionless

GIt and Github are developed for decades and have been proven to be effective global asynchronous collaboration systems. Developer DAOs should be built on Git. system. Therefore, permissionless should be a necessary feature of the developer DAO and the key source of its vitality. Anyone can submit an issue to any open source project, and anyone can solve the issue and submit a PR (Pull Request). The Reviewer should merge it after verifying that the submission is valid. The entire process should be decoupled from the identity of the submitter.

In fact, how to add an incentive layer to the existing Git/Github system and upgrade it to the Web3.0 version so that open source participants can get their due benefits is an important proposition that has not yet been solved, but it will be realized in the next 5-10 years.

5.3.3 Globalization

Traditional organizations are limited by geographical space, and they always employ workers in a limited geographical space. This approach has two disadvantages:

  • Regional risks: Both organizations and organizational members are affected by regional risks, including regional policy risks and regional economic risks. If we use computer terms, it is "single point failure risk".
    • Homogeneity risk: People in the same geographical space will have the same characteristics, leading to the "homogeneity risk" of the organization, limiting the possibilities of the organization. There are similar examples in computer systems: in blockchain design, we often use different programming languages ​​​​to implement nodes in order to prevent homogeneity risk.

Therefore, DAO should go a step further on the basis of "no access" and consciously increase the globalization of its participants, that is, the degree of diversity.

0x06 Continuously optimize the operating system - production factors and counter-production factors

Bayes' theorem:
$$
P(A|B) = \frac{P(B|A) \cdot P(A)}{P(B)}
$$
To describe it as simply as possible in "natural language", it is:

Bayesian reasoning is "the process of continuously using new evidence to adjust the parameters of the prediction model to improve the accuracy of the prediction".

—— https://1000h.org/self-training/10-going-back.html

—— Back to Basics · 1000 Hours

Start as quickly as possible and build an "indie hacker startup operating system". We can give it a version number v1.0.

The next thing to do is to continuously optimize the operating system and keep it upgraded while maintaining the normal operation of the 1.0 system functions.

In this process, the most basic principle is "Bayes' theorem". Through practice, we continue to optimize the key parameters of the operating system itself and its software, such as: the cost of acquiring new skills, the probability of successful sales, production quality...

What are the key parameters?

Here are my views ——

  • Key parameters of meta-learning software: the cost of acquiring new skills

  • Key parameters of meta-cognitive software: the degree of self-awareness

  • Key parameters of sales software: the probability of successful sales

  • Key parameters of production software: effective production quality (effective production probability x effective production quality)

  • Key parameters of organizational software: effective production quality (effective production probability x effective production quality)

What is the most critical parameter?

Further questioning, what is the most critical parameter of this operating system?

My answer is —— Effective production quality (effective production probability x effective production quality).

After formulating the key parameters, we can further explore "production factors" and "counter-production factors".

What are production factors? Production factors are factors that help improve key parameters.

What are counter-production factors? Counterproductive factors are factors that may cause key parameters to decline.

↓ Add the monitor ↓
Sales | Production | Organization --- Key parameters --- Productive factors and counterproductive factors
+-------------------------+
| Metacognitive ability | Meta-learning ability | --- Key parameters --- Productive factors and counterproductive factors
+-------------------------+
| indie hacker startup operating system | --- Key parameters --- Productive factors and counterproductive factors
+-------------------------+

Focusing on key indicators, production factors and counterproductive factors is equivalent to installing a monitor on our operating system, and this monitor itself is part of "metacognitive ability".

What are the key production factors?

Here are my views ——

  • Key production factors of meta-learning software
    • Effective concentration time
    • Autonomous learning ability
    • Historical success times
  • Key production factors of meta-cognitive software
    • Basic logic ability
    • Ability to apply first principles
    • Key production factors of sales software
    • Perception ability
    • Branching ability
    • Expression ability
    • Historical success times
  • Key production factors of production software
    • Demand judgment ability
    • Product realization ability
    • Historical success times
  • Key production factors of organizational software
    • Member growth curve
    • Organizational governance ability

We can see that "historical success times" is a key production factor in multiple software, which is the mystery of "Bayes' theorem". Based on success and thinking about success, we have the opportunity to continuously upgrade our operating system and software.

What is the most critical production factor?

I think the most critical production factor is "autonomous learning ability", which is the basis for obtaining and optimizing other production factors.

What is the most critical counter-production factor?

Of course, the most anti-productive factor is the misunderstanding of money or wealth itself.

—— Factors that counteract production · The truth about wealth by Li Xiaolai

0x07 Summary and follow-up

I became an indie hacker in 2019 and simultaneously established NonceGeekDAO, a developer DAO for indie hackers.

The first version of this manual was completed in September 2024. It is based on the thinking and summary of the experience of learning, practicing, using and creating the skill of "indie hacker Startups" for 5 years. Before the end of 2019, the main explorations were "metacognitive ability", "meta-learning ability" and "production ability". After the establishment of DAO in 2019, we began to gradually explore the ability of "organizational governance for indie hackers" and "sales ability".

This manual attempts to explore the first principles of "indie hacker" Startups.

💡 What is the first principle?

The first principle refers to returning to the most basic conditions of things, breaking them down into various elements for deconstruction analysis, and thus finding the best way to achieve the goal.

The result is the "indie hacker Startup Operating System" described in 0x00-0x07. On this basis, we will update it based on actual cases, that is, continue to understand and upgrade this operating system through actual cases.

These cases will clearly state how we use one or more "software" in this operating system.

+--→ Sales | Production | Organization
| +-------------------------------------+
| | Metacognitive |   Meta-learning     |
| |    ability    |      ability        |
| +-------------------------------------+      Practical case 0x01...
| |indiehacker startup operating system | => Practical case 0x02...
| +-------------------------------------+   Practical case 0x03...
| |        BIOS: First principles       |         ↑
| +-------------------------------------+         |
+----------------↑ ↑------------------------------+
Power supply Case-based system upgrade

NonceGeekDAO has more plans for the growth of indie hackers.

If you are interested in becoming an indie hacker, you can dm me on Twitter: https://x.com/0xleeduckgo.

on September 1, 2024
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