Day 617 - My biggest bottleneck that I don't know - https://golifelog.com/posts/my-biggest-bottleneck-that-i-dont-know-1662677670780
A question regarding indie hacking that I've been pondering for the past few days:
> "What's my biggest bottleneck now? Am I working on it? If no, why not?"
Why past few days? Because I realised I didn't know the answer, and I've been wrecking my brain for one.
It's empty.
Perhaps this explains the real reason why I feel stuck with regards to the progress with my products. I don't even know what my biggest bottleneck is.
I asked:
- Is it product-market fit? Maybe my products just don't solve a good enough problem that enough people will want to pay for. This could be partly true. My products so far are vitamins, not painkillers. The solution could be placing more small bets.
- Is it marketing? Yes I can always do better, do more in marketing. But it doesnβt feel like itβs the biggest bottleneck, when product-market fit is dubious at best.
- Is it lack of energy/motivation? This could be true too. I've been trying so long, I'm starting to feel tired. I was burned out for the past 2-3 months, and only starting to slowly get back to work on products.
- Is it lack of time? Being a new dad I've always lacked time. But that simply brought more focus and prioritization. I wake at 5am to work on my projects. I work on weekends. And I have the same 24h as everyone as. So that doesn't feel like a bottleneck.
- Is it lack of money? To make money in products you often got to invest money. Domains, hosting, web infrastructure, all costs money. The biggest expense of them all - my quality of life, my cash runway to support me and my family. Not gonna lie...that's been a challenge lately yes. It does take away some mental bandwidth, brings stress, thinking and worrying about it. But that's not the bottleneck to my progress. It's a background noise that's always there β sometimes louder, sometimes a whisper.
So you can now see. I have ZERO clue.
Perhaps not knowing is the biggest bottleneck of them all.
And the solution is collecting and finding the data to ascertain it.
You can't fight an enemy you can't see.
> "What's my biggest bottleneck now? Am I working on it? If no, why not?"
Why past few days? Because I realised I didn't know the answer, and I've been wrecking my brain for one.
It's empty.
Perhaps this explains the real reason why I feel stuck with regards to the progress with my products. I don't even know what my biggest bottleneck is.
I asked:
- Is it product-market fit? Maybe my products just don't solve a good enough problem that enough people will want to pay for. This could be partly true. My products so far are vitamins, not painkillers. The solution could be placing more small bets.
- Is it marketing? Yes I can always do better, do more in marketing. But it doesnβt feel like itβs the biggest bottleneck, when product-market fit is dubious at best.
- Is it lack of energy/motivation? This could be true too. I've been trying so long, I'm starting to feel tired. I was burned out for the past 2-3 months, and only starting to slowly get back to work on products.
- Is it lack of time? Being a new dad I've always lacked time. But that simply brought more focus and prioritization. I wake at 5am to work on my projects. I work on weekends. And I have the same 24h as everyone as. So that doesn't feel like a bottleneck.
- Is it lack of money? To make money in products you often got to invest money. Domains, hosting, web infrastructure, all costs money. The biggest expense of them all - my quality of life, my cash runway to support me and my family. Not gonna lie...that's been a challenge lately yes. It does take away some mental bandwidth, brings stress, thinking and worrying about it. But that's not the bottleneck to my progress. It's a background noise that's always there β sometimes louder, sometimes a whisper.
So you can now see. I have ZERO clue.
Perhaps not knowing is the biggest bottleneck of them all.
And the solution is collecting and finding the data to ascertain it.
You can't fight an enemy you can't see.