Day 600 - Is the indie maker playbook dead? - https://golifelog.com/posts/is-the-indie-maker-playbook-dead-1661221071495
Reading Jakob Greenfeld's [blog post](https://jakobgreenfeld.com/money-ads) "Why the indie maker playbook is dead (or how I learned to spend money on ads)" got me seriously thinking if the indie methods I've been using are no longer as effective.
He talked about how indies were able to create a profitable business without running ads. To the point it became a sort of humble brag on Twitter. Most depend on a personal brand to capture attention, usually by building in public. Jakob also mentioned how the landscape had changed a lot since. You can't launch features on Product Hunt. Twitter algorithm had also had a sea change from social graph to interest-based – so only a very small percentage (less than 10%) see your tweets. The Indie Hackers community feels kind of dead, with too much marketing noise, less people building cool shit.
Is the indie maker playbook really dead?
How can we confirm?
If dead, what's next?
I love how Jakob put words to some hazy suspicions I've been nursing for some time. I've been feeling the efficacy of my indie hacking efforts undergo stagflation too. A 'dollar' of effort seems to 'buy' a lot less conversions and followers these days. Building in public feels harder if I'm only ~4000 following and I'm likely only reaching less than 400 followers. I'm getting only 1-2k impressions per tweet on average. This feels similar to what happened to Facebook. Many influencers found it hard to reach their audience after algo changes, and had to resort to ads (which of course was what the platform wants). Product Hunt seems rigged, full of fake account upvotes, and gone are the days when a solo indie can make it into the leaderboard easily. I don't find the IH forum engaging anymore as well.
Of course, this is just my one person's experience and hard to confirm if the playbook truly is dead from that. But the writing's on the wall, isn't it?
Either evolve and change the playbook, or die.
What's next then? Is it really ads as Jakob said? I've always hesitated using ads, but seems like it's worth a shot.
What else can I do?
Brainstorming a bit:
- Emails. Email newsletters had always been recommended as a hedge against deplatforming. You own your audience's emails yourself, and every email gets sent. No algo comes into between you and the email. Only issue is whether users open it, which you can influence.
- Shift efforts to new features that the platform is actively promoting. E.g. FB/IG Reels get more algo weight when just launched.
- Building in public on video? With the overall trend towards more and more video content on social media, I wonder if moving to Youtube, Tiktok and IG Reels would help...
- Platform diversification - not depending on a single distribution channel for your business. Maybe Twitter starts to fail, but if you're also on LinkedIn, Tiktok, Instagram, you're more resilient to platform shocks. I definitely need to consider diversifying my indie hacking beyond Twitter. I'm building on audience on LinkedIn as well, but that's solely for my consulting biz.
- Diverse portfolio of bets. Again, using diversity as a hedge against risk. Have more than one product. Have different types of products in different industries. Have different pricing models - subscription and one-time. Have different business models - products *and* services.
What else can we do? What would you add to this new indie hacker playbook?
He talked about how indies were able to create a profitable business without running ads. To the point it became a sort of humble brag on Twitter. Most depend on a personal brand to capture attention, usually by building in public. Jakob also mentioned how the landscape had changed a lot since. You can't launch features on Product Hunt. Twitter algorithm had also had a sea change from social graph to interest-based – so only a very small percentage (less than 10%) see your tweets. The Indie Hackers community feels kind of dead, with too much marketing noise, less people building cool shit.
Is the indie maker playbook really dead?
How can we confirm?
If dead, what's next?
I love how Jakob put words to some hazy suspicions I've been nursing for some time. I've been feeling the efficacy of my indie hacking efforts undergo stagflation too. A 'dollar' of effort seems to 'buy' a lot less conversions and followers these days. Building in public feels harder if I'm only ~4000 following and I'm likely only reaching less than 400 followers. I'm getting only 1-2k impressions per tweet on average. This feels similar to what happened to Facebook. Many influencers found it hard to reach their audience after algo changes, and had to resort to ads (which of course was what the platform wants). Product Hunt seems rigged, full of fake account upvotes, and gone are the days when a solo indie can make it into the leaderboard easily. I don't find the IH forum engaging anymore as well.
Of course, this is just my one person's experience and hard to confirm if the playbook truly is dead from that. But the writing's on the wall, isn't it?
Either evolve and change the playbook, or die.
What's next then? Is it really ads as Jakob said? I've always hesitated using ads, but seems like it's worth a shot.
What else can I do?
Brainstorming a bit:
- Emails. Email newsletters had always been recommended as a hedge against deplatforming. You own your audience's emails yourself, and every email gets sent. No algo comes into between you and the email. Only issue is whether users open it, which you can influence.
- Shift efforts to new features that the platform is actively promoting. E.g. FB/IG Reels get more algo weight when just launched.
- Building in public on video? With the overall trend towards more and more video content on social media, I wonder if moving to Youtube, Tiktok and IG Reels would help...
- Platform diversification - not depending on a single distribution channel for your business. Maybe Twitter starts to fail, but if you're also on LinkedIn, Tiktok, Instagram, you're more resilient to platform shocks. I definitely need to consider diversifying my indie hacking beyond Twitter. I'm building on audience on LinkedIn as well, but that's solely for my consulting biz.
- Diverse portfolio of bets. Again, using diversity as a hedge against risk. Have more than one product. Have different types of products in different industries. Have different pricing models - subscription and one-time. Have different business models - products *and* services.
What else can we do? What would you add to this new indie hacker playbook?