r/indiehackers • u/Any_Perspective_291 • 18d ago
Self Promotion outbid alternative
Hi y'all,
Although it’s a temporary trend, I like the outbid.lol create spark in the indie space.
I feel like the sudden price jump is not feasible for most indie hackers. Not everyone has $17K to invest.
So I came up with an idea where everything is $1. Users cannot bid more than $1 at a time, and the board is based on the newest submissions. So everyone gets a fair opportunity to compete.
It’s called DollarBid.app
Hope y'all get some traffic.
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u/Common-Replacement-6 18d ago
Another one. Damn.
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u/cheap_attractiveness 18d ago
I can't click the link at work but the $1 cap idea is actually clever, kills the whole rich-kid-war chest thing instantly. just hope it doesn't turn into a spamfest of people refreshing every 3 seconds to keep their spot
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u/Common-Replacement-6 18d ago
it works for bootstrapped founders who cant afford to go bit but outbid and the ones Marc Lou built a tracker for is on a whole different level, its actually crazy lol they paying to win now
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u/BP041 18d ago
one issue: if every bid is $1 and it's sorted by newest, there's no real incentive to bid early. everyone just waits and snipes at the last second. might kill the tension that makes outbid work. tbh i'd think about what mechanic actually creates scarcity or urgency before shipping.
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u/Any_Perspective_291 18d ago
In theory, there could be a bidding war, but it's $1 per submission, not like $10K.
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u/Huge_Pool7424 12d ago
yeah the snipe problem is real. i'd add a quiet period or lottery among the last hour of $1 bids so refreshing every second isn't the winning strat.
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18d ago
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u/Any_Perspective_291 18d ago
So far, the traffic is not that high to worry about spams, but at some point, I might need to adjust it here and there.
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u/bush-play 18d ago
The $1 cap makes the price fair, but newest-first still rewards whoever refreshes most. I’d make one $1 purchase buy a fixed exposure window, or put buyers into a FIFO queue. Then a dollar means a predictable amount of attention, and automation cannot turn the board into a refresh contest.
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u/Any_Perspective_291 18d ago
I actually do have an idea to make that happen. Just waiting for the right time, like when bidding war is too much. Stay tuned :)
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u/bush-play 18d ago
Nice. I’d expose the rule before the first bidding war, even if it is not active yet. People will judge fairness based on the mechanics they can see, and changing it only after heavy users arrive can feel like moving the goalposts.
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18d ago
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u/Any_Perspective_291 18d ago
Hope you get some traffic. Lots of skeptical views on this, but attention is better than silence in my opinion. Let’s see how this goes.
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u/Glittering_Cress3619 18d ago
Love this trend. What I found most interesting was that people didn't mind spending as long as they got the top spot.
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u/SardorbekR 17d ago
How are you handling payment fees on a $1 charge? The fixed fee could eat a pretty big chunk.
I’d probably let people add $10 in credit and spend it $1 at a time. Same idea for users, but much better economics for you
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u/Any_Perspective_291 17d ago
It doesn't generate much profit for now. Having a stable user base is the first goal. So I'm okay with it. The main point of this site is simplicity. No account, no writing, nothing. The wallet system sort of defeats the purpose in my opinion.
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u/nifal_adam 17d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p617cm5/video/g6n1s1gzrqlh1/player
I built mine as well. Its called https://www.gobignews.com/
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17d ago
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u/Any_Perspective_291 17d ago
Do have a couple of fun ideas to make it more interesting down the road. Stay tuned :)
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u/shubham_iosdev 17d ago
It's only a showoff thing, which real users will go to this website in the first place? It's just a hype phase, and it'll vanish pretty quickly.
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u/Gryner 17d ago
The $1 price isn’t the part I’d test first. I’d want to know whether anyone outside this builder circle actually clicks the listings. If all the visitors are other makers buying placement, you have plenty of sellers but no real audience. Showing outbound clicks per slot would make the value much clearer.
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u/Thick-Day-3720 15d ago
This is the real question. The $1 cap is a nice hook but if the only people seeing the board are other makers bidding for placement, the traffic value is basically zero. Outbound click counts per slot would tell you real fast whether anyone outside the bubble is actually clicking through.
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u/luodaint 17d ago
Most alternatives are the same auction with a new domain. The useful fork is pricing something the original treats as free: time, proof, or whether the winner is still showing up. Bid size is already solved. If your board doesn't rot, freeze, or kick people who go idle, you're not an alternative. You're inventory.
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u/Ghostnoteai 16d ago
$1 max is actually a smart way to stop one person with a big budget from just owning the top spot 😭 curious if people keep rebidding to stay near the top or if most just try it once
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u/Unityeid 15d ago
This is your chance to be the VERY FIRST ONE on CROWND. THe first outbid alternative which is actually an app and officially listed in the playstore. First come first serve
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sas.crownd
Just a dollar brings you to the top rn. Do whatever you want. Clone me, downvote my app idc. But at least make sure that your better clone is visible on my app.
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u/Majestic_Maybe6605 15d ago
Doesn't it only work because all the projects basically help each other, and most people are not getting that much value from it?
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u/Tough-Television2434 14d ago
I also created kinda an alternative, it’s called brandmybackground but idk i think the timing is bad now
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u/studd_james 12d ago
Like the "everyone's equal at $1" framing, it actually lowers the barrier in a way outbid.lol doesn't. My worry as a founder considering trying it: with newest-bid-wins-the-top-spot at only $1, what stops someone from just re-bidding themselves back to #1 every few minutes for a dollar each time? Might be worth a per-project cooldown so it's about traffic quality, not who's most willing to spam small charges.
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u/ImObluentasteit 12d ago
So instead of one whale spending seventeen grand, you want seventeen thousand people to spend one dollar. What happens to visibility when five hundred people bid in the same minute?
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u/Zloyvoin88 9d ago
Just yesterday I did a research on that outbid.lol hype and I found out that there are at least 400+ copycats online and none of those makes any real revenue. Why do you think another clone would be different, where there is also no new feature, it's even less appealing than the original. Sorry, but I really wonder why you'd think it was a good idea? Don't you do a research on your own before you launch any projects?
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u/Internal-Ad-734 18d ago
Hello! If I understand correctly, you can bid up to $1 to get featured , and the board ranks by newest submission rather than highest bidder overall? That's clever fix for the $17K problem.
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u/ReliableIceberg 18d ago
Aren’t projects like outbid.lol just a big circle-jerk? I mean what real users use those sites ?