Almost every developer I know of is fascinated by building their products and bringing them to market. The idea of quickly building stuff and shipping it without worrying about every little detail is liberating, and the developers can focus on the fun stuff rather than looking for VC funding.
If you think about it, some of the biggest companies were built by hackers who created and released stuff they thought was cool.
Many people have different definitions for indie hacking, and many see it as a way to achieve a certain lifestyle, i.e. a solopreneur lifestyle. While that lifestyle is nice, I am keeping indie hacking simple. To me, indie hacking is the following:
Quickly building cool stuff in a niche as quickly and cheaply as possible to either gain a financial or some non-monetary reward such as recognition.
Whether you are a seasoned veteran or a new grad looking for positions, indie hacking can do wonders.
As a seasoned veteran, you can build more complex stuff quickly, obtain a serious advantage over your competition and gain more financial freedom outside your daily work environment. If you are a new grad, then having a list of actual products in the market will only help your career by making you stand out from other graduates. So the question arises: how do you get started with Indie hacking?
I think the answer here is simple.
Pick something you want to build and can build in a reasonable amount of time (1 day, 1 week or a month) and release it in that period. However, I highly recommend spending some time branding and marketing your product.
After your time is set, pick a tool you are familiar with, want to specialise in or one that can help you build solid stuff quickly.
Here are the criteria I used for picking my tool for the job in indie hacking:
Able to handle a wide array of projects.
Great for building UI, as it is the first thing the end user would judge your product.
Ability to handle full-stack projects if required.
Easy to deploy and manage.
For example, I am sure Wix Studio can help build great UI and generate sample content quickly using templates and AI. After that, I can integrate it with any external APIs to have a full-stack application that can be deployed quickly. Then, it could be easily deployed and even has built-in monitoring and error tracking.
So, build something cool.
I will leave you with the following inspiring quote during your journey!
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay
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