Are you a developer? Have you ever used your skills to make a SaaS or an App, hoping to become rich with it, or at least to make a nice passive income? Have you spent so much time in programming despite your "normal" work, that you feel like, I am that close to making it, I just need this or that feature for my SaaS / App.
Have you ever wondered, why nobody uses your SaaS / App, after all this hard work (looking out the window, not understanding the world)? You read so many articles about other people on indie hackers making XXXX money in MRR. Why can’t you make it either?
Well Hello then, this was me.
I failed two times, with two different SaaS, and here is what I learned.
-
Don't make something just for the money, choose a project where you can identify yourself. If you are interested in what do you do, you will be good at it.
-
Don't spend all your spare time on building your side project. If you have passion for it and you want to make it, that's great no doubt, but please, don't forget to live. Spent also time with people you love, that empower you and use this energy for your side hustle.
-
You coded your side hustle, and figured out something that is really cool? Share your knowledge with the community without expectations and you will be surprised what people will give you in return.
-
You have a cool idea and your validation process is to ask your mom and maybe some friends. Do all say that your idea is soo good? You are so excited and started programming, exactly knowing what to do next. STOP. Just because it solves a problem for you, it doesn't mean it is suitable for other people too. Go out and speak with real people and verify if you are going in the right direction. I can really recommend these two books, The Embedded Entrepreneur by Arvid Kahl and the MOM Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. Do yourself a favor and spend the same amount of time for idea validation as implementation, also after launching.
-
You can't do everything on your own, really. You cant maintain a SaaS and also do a good SEO, that's impossible. Go and get you some freelancers that are not that expensive, maybe on Fiverr. Focus on that what you like doing :)
-
Treat yourself well. You are not a machine, you will not be more productive if you work 12 hours a day. Sleep is very important for your productivity, so use it and sleep well and enough! One problem that haunts me to this day is, that my thoughts are always on the side hustle. I found out that meditation helps very well for me, so I set up a reminder every 2 hours to train my mindfulness and tell myself, that problems can wait till tomorrow :)
-
You have time. Don't chase one side project after another.
Failures are important, so fail often and fail early. I hope you can get something out of my failures.
Thank you for reading
First Published here