Consulting vs indie hacking

Almost infinite runway vs slower progress – which would you choose?

Most days I’m grateful for my consulting work. I work with government agencies and non-profits to help them innovate their services/programmes, using human-centered design approaches. It’s meaningful, does social good, and pays the bills.

But on other days, I feel held back by it.

I was inspired to make an animated chart gif generator and been trying to start it for some weeks now, but with ongoing consulting projects, it’s hard to even sit down to get started.

I’m still grateful for the ability it gives me to feed my family. But sometimes can’t help but feel like my progress could be so much faster if I could focus.

With consulting and freelancing, your runway is theoretically infinite, it reduces the stress of survival, but it takes time away from your indie products. It’s hardest when inspiration clashes with commitment.

With just indie hacking, I get so much freedom for my health, time, and creative autonomy. But it can’t feed my family yet. It would be so stressful to depend on it.

Pros and cons, hard trade-offs I guess.

Only just yesterday I managed to close one project with the client. There’s still one onoing, and another one coming up in Q3. So there’s a bit of breathing room now.

Relieved, yet excited to finally get started on yet another new product!

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