Indie hacking is hard af

Why is indie hacking this hard for some of us?

I did many career switches in the past 2 decades, and indie hacking definitely takes the cake when it comes to how hard it is to "make it".

In most of my other careers it took 1-2 yrs, 3 yrs max to hit my desired goal:

2003 - Media
2007 - Social welfare
2011 - Web design (self-employed)
2012 - Service design in government
2015 - Design consultancy agency
2018 - Started indie hacking
2020 - 1st SaaS and MRR
2023 - Still no ramen profitability… 😕

I’m year 5 in indie hacking and still nowhere close!

It got me thinking: WHY?

• It’s not due to not having the required skills, knowledge or training. I didn’t study media communications, but joined cable tv as my first job. I never studied any web design, but started a web design gig in 2011, and did design consultancy inside government in 2012. In all occasions I learned on the job, picked things up as I went. It was stressful at times, hard all the time, but I learn fast and usually within 1-2 years I hit my stride.

• It’s can’t be due to running a business, because I started my first business in 2011 in web design, and another in 2015 for a design agency. The only difference is both are services and more analog/in real life, while indie hacking is product-based and more abstract due to being online.

• The key difference is having to learn so much more about distribution and marketing. And learning how to code is s skill that was way harder to learn than anything I’ve tried.

• Maybe it's taking so much longer because there's just so many new and foreign skills that I've never even touched before in my past jobs. The base level of different skills needed to come together for indie hacking is a lot more than for a job (which tends to be more limited in scope).

• Season of life. I was single, younger, more energetic. Now, I have family, older, more tired, sleep-deprived. Just energy levels alone to hustle is significantly lower. Risk appetite had also changed - I can’t take irrational risks anymore because I got 4 other individuals to feed (being sole breadwinner).

• Timing. The global crisis like the pandemic didn’t help. It definitely threw a spanner in the works and added 2 years delay at least.

• Indie hacking is just very much more competitive. It's competing on global scale, unlike for jobs when it's more local/peer age groups.

• Not everyone has the intrinsic talent/skills for indie hacking. I am definitely not a born entrepreneur, coder nor marketer. Trying to learn those skills had been like pulling teeth. In contrast, I was a good, steady, obedient employee. So that’s saying something about entrepreneurial talent.

I’m not trying to make excuses here for myself.

If anything, it’s just to identify where I’m lacking, and acknowledge where I’m trying hard. At least I know that at year 5, the trajectory is in the right direction, even if slow.

Why is indie hacking this hard for some of us?

Is it really about putting in the years of work, or are we just missing something?

---