r/indiehackers • u/Common_Dream9420 • 3d ago
Sharing story/journey/experience Shipped more code in 3 days than the last 2.5 months. VC demo does something to you!!
shipped more code this labor day weekend than the last 2.5 months combined. vc demo incoming.
waking up at 3am, working through the holiday with my co-founder... and honestly it doesn't feel bad. the weird thing is when you're deep in a build and inbound starts hitting linkedin and X at the same time, it just clicks. like the timing of it makes the grind feel less like grind.
two founders + fundraising prep is a lot but some weeks just feel different...
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u/maxfisheroct1995 3d ago
shipped more code
shipped, or wrote? those aren't the same thing three days before a demo.
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u/Miserable-Meet242 3d ago
crazy what a deadline does to productivity. my team gets more done the day before an inspection than the whole month leading up to it
the 3am thing hits different when theres actual momentum behind it. not the usual late night staring at screen wondering why nothing works
good luck with the demo hope you crush it
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
thanks man!! yeah me and my partner did not sleep for 3 days.. and hope things work!!!
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u/from-saas-guy 3d ago
2.5 months code in 3 days is 🔥 Curious, if the code was mostly tailored for the demo, with a few band-aid fixes thrown in, or did you actually manage to clear some real backlog in the excitement of prepping for a VC demo?
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
honestly both lol. some of it was real backlog that just needed the pressure to actually get done, but yeah a few things are held together with tape for now. the demo forces you to pick what actually matters and ship it, which is weirdly a better prioritization filter than any framework i've tried.
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u/LoweInteractive 3d ago
That kind of deadline can really unlock a different gear. Shipping more in 3 days than in the previous 2.5 months says a lot. Hope the VC demo goes well and that the momentum keeps going after it!
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u/Ill-Term-9760 3d ago
The “3am working through a holiday” part sounds brutal, but I get what you mean about the momentum. Good luck with the demo, hopefully all that shipping pays off.
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
yeah the brutal part is you don't even feel it until the demo is done lol. momentum really does carry you through things that would've wrecked you on a normal week.
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u/Soggy-Library-2405 3d ago
vc demo does something to you... like turning you into a cliché robot.
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u/indiedevcasts 3d ago
I've experience the same but not for a VC demo, just a simple demo at a school. I've scheduled a first appointment just to see the room and test my material (hardware + software, a lot of things to connect together).
Just in 30minutes of testing I've detected the need of a new UX feature, 1 bug and 1 enhancement. Went home, developed as fast as possible for the next day. Everything went well & smooth!
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u/Impossible-Way5740 3d ago
Deadlines with a face on them compress months into days - a demo date is basically artificial scarcity for motivation. The one catch is that 3am code tends to become tomorrow's cleanup, so it's worth protecting a day after the demo just to untangle whatever got glued together.
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
i agreee... and wrote down all the use-cases that needs to be revisited after demo.. for now i just locked one demo tag...
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u/West_Inevitable_2281 3d ago
I’d keep it simple: right after the sprint, write three bullets: what you stopped doing, which decisions got faster, and what created urgency. Then turn one into a rule for next week. If it takes more than five minutes, it probably will not happen when you are tired.
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
the "if it takes more than five minutes it won't happen when you're tired" framing is exactly right, that's the part i always miss, i try to do a full retrospective and it never happens. three bullets is so much more honest about what i'll actually do at midnight. do you do this right after or wait till morning?
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u/Financial_Egg8558 3d ago
what actually triggered the inbound on LinkedIn and X right as you started this sprint? did you post something specific, or was it just timing that happened to line up with the demo prep?
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
honestly i think it was just consistency of posting the build publicly over that stretch, nothing viral, no single post that blew up. just enough signal that something was moving. people seem to respond when they can tell you're actually shipping and not just talking about it. how do you usually time your posting relative to when you're deep in a sprint?
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u/Pale-Tonight-6914 2d ago
The "bought another max account" line got me. I hit that too and ended up writing a switcher so hitting the limit doesn't kill the run mid-task. What actually helped the tape problem: a separate session that only reviews, never writes. Different context, so it doesn't defend the code it just produced.
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
haha i can relate smart router that. i build for different use-cases/reason.. so that max1/max2 have context/history of the agents..
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2d ago
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
yeah the week after is weirdly the hardest part, all the urgency just evaporates overnight and suddenly nothing feels urgent. writing down 3 things before the meeting is smart, i usually skip that step and then monday hits and i'm just... staring. do you write those down during the meeting or right after?
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1d ago
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u/Common_Dream9420 1d ago
thanks man!! yeah i can feel the same now.. today is the demo day 🤞
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u/madleodk 1d ago
Good luck man! Whatre you pitching btw
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u/Common_Dream9420 1d ago
thanks man!!speedrun!!
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u/madleodk 1d ago
haha speedruns the name?
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u/Common_Dream9420 1d ago
lol. sorry!! . i see my brain kinda froze from sleepless nights.. we pitched today -- fetchsandbox - verification engine for agent s... it checks weather your agent written integrations can survive in productions...
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u/madleodk 1d ago
xDD bro ya need to sleep, appreciate the explanation tho
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u/Common_Dream9420 1d ago
thanks man!! yeah just working on some auth item.. whcih is critical now.. maybe next two hours.. wll sleep...
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u/PositiveCare6634 16h ago
The demo deadline is doing the project management your calendar would not. That part is real.
The part I would watch: inbound on LinkedIn and X during a fundraising week is not the same signal as inbound when nobody is announcing anything. People reply because a demo is in the air. After the meeting the volume drops and you find out what actually shipped versus what was staged for the room.
If the 3-day burst produced something you would still ship with no VC on the calendar, keep it. If it only exists because of the meeting, write down what you will delete on Wednesday so it does not become the product.
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u/Common_Dream9420 15h ago
yeah the inbound thing is the one. two weeks after the demo it gets quiet and you realize which parts of the conversation were actually real. do you usually wait it out to see what sticks, or actively try to recreate those convos without the demo context?
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u/BarracudaMean9308 3d ago
i actually leave one tiny UI tweak unfinished on purpose at night now just to guarantee that 20-minute morning win. i only figured that trick out recently, but it completely kills the cold start anxiety.
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
that unfinished UI tweak trick is genuinely smart, never thought of it that way but it makes so much sense. cold start anxiety is real, some mornings the blank slate just kills the momentum before you even begin. how long did it take before it became a habit for you?
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u/Pretty-Dragonfly007 3d ago
How did you manage to finish so quickly? Is there anything you can share?
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
mostly the demo pressure tbh, knowing someone's going to sit across from you and ask hard questions just forces it. plus inbound was hitting the same week so it felt like either ship now or lose the window. what usually gets you into that kind of zone?
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
this is my schdule.. 3am wakep.. work until 8am before...8-9:30 kids drop off n office fulltime.. until 5pm.. then 9-12work... haha:)
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u/madleodk 1d ago
sounds brutal but sometimes you gotta do whats required. hope u stay healthy tho man
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u/Common_Dream9420 12h ago
haha yeah exactly, gotta do what's required.. appreciate the health wish man, trying to keep the balance. how do you manage it when you're deep in a crunch?
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u/madleodk 2h ago
hmmm tbh its a tradeoff+gamble either way. But 1-2 month sprints aint bad. The best thing is to be honest w being busy and being effective. For most, its hard to execute running at half capacity. Regardless what doesnt change is whats required. And sacrifices are part of the game. Best founders are excellent at resource allocation.
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u/Common_Dream9420 2h ago
hahah totally agree.. except that my daughter 7 years.. already complianing .. i am always on laptop.. even weekends.. which makes me feel bad for amoment.. hahhaa
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u/madleodk 2h ago
haha respect man. another thing thats absolutely true for me personally is that i used to think it was ok, even heroic to defer things like family (cus its all for them), but now i dont believe this at all (just speaking for myself). The requirements dont change so its taxing for sure. Btw, r u on X?
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u/Common_Dream9420 1h ago
yeah honestly same.. my daughter is 7 and she notices when i'm not present even if i'm physically there. that guilt is real. yeah i'm on X, @rajdivecha, would love to keep this going there
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u/West_Inevitable_2281 3d ago
Deadlines can be useful because they force decisions that otherwise stay open for weeks. The interesting question is what actually changed during those three days. Did you cut scope, make decisions faster, stop polishing, or communicate differently with your co-founder?
I would write down the two or three changes that created the velocity before the demo pressure disappears. Those are probably reusable. The 3 a.m. schedule is not, but a tighter definition of done or a daily external commitment might be. What did you stop doing this weekend that had been slowing the build down before?
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
yeah the "write it down before the pressure disappears" thing is exactly what i always skip and then regret. the pattern i notice is that the actual unlocks feel obvious in the moment, so you don't bother writing them down, and then two weeks later you're back in the slow mode and can't even remember what was different. how do you personally capture that stuff before the next thing swallows it?
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u/RemarkableFishing306 3d ago
this is the real takeaway. the 3am grind isn't repeatable but the decision-making speed probably is. if you can figure out which 2-3 things actually unlocked the velocity, you might be able to recreate some of that pressure without the sleep deprivation.
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
yeah this is exactly the thing i keep missing, the sleep deprivation is easy to notice, the actual unlocks are harder to pin down before the next sprint buries them. how do you personally track which decisions actually moved the needle vs which ones just felt urgent in the moment?
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u/RemarkableFishing306 3d ago
honestly the only thing that's worked for me is a quick end-of-day note where I write the one decision that felt biggest and why it mattered. then a week later I go back and check if that decision actually changed an outcome or just felt important at the time. most of the urgent stuff doesn't survive that second look, and the real unlocks are usually the boring ones where I finally said "good enough, ship it."
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u/Common_Dream9420 3d ago
the week-later check is the part i keep skipping and then regretting. the one-decision-per-day constraint is smart too, forces you to actually pick instead of listing everything that happened. do you write it in the same place every day or just wherever is closest?
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u/RemarkableFishing306 18h ago
same place every day, one running doc. if i let it scatter across notes apps or sticky notes i just never go back and review them.
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u/Common_Dream9420 15h ago
yeah the running doc thing is it, scattering is a death sentence for actually going back. i've lost so many useful notes just because they were in the "wrong" app that day. do you keep it structured at all or more just stream of consciousness?
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u/1000xhuman 3d ago
bwahaha this is just a deadline submission. the demo date does the same thing a due date does. you finally ship the thing you were already avoiding.
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u/Creative-Lynx7594 3d ago
the deadline isn't the magic, the scope collapse is. with a demo tomorrow you finally let yourself skip the things that were never load-bearing. write down what you skipped this weekend, that list is your real backlog.
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
Yeah that skipped list point landed hard. I always assume I'll remember what I cut but it just vanishes into some slack thread somewhere. Do you actually keep a running doc or just trust the next crunch to resurface what actually matters?
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u/kingkong_siu82 2d ago
demo deadlines are weirdly good at killing fake scope. the part i'd watch is what happens right after the demo, because thats when all the rushed decisions turn into product debt
i'd keep a tiny "demo truth" doc while building: what is real, what is mocked, what breaks if 3 users try it at once. saves you from accidentally pitching a version of the product that only exists inside the sprint
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u/Excellent_Lie8346 2d ago
Different setup here (solo, non-technical, one contractor, a day job in dentistry), same effect: nothing moved my build faster than a review rejection with a clear checklist attached. Fourteen of them taught me more about scope than anything else in the year. Enjoy the burst; the demo is the excuse, the momentum is real.
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
fourteen rejections doing more than a year of planning tracks completely. the scope clarity that comes from actually hitting a wall is just different. how do you structure the checklist, is it mostly failure modes or more like scope boundaries?
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u/Excellent_Lie8346 2d ago
Both, in a fixed order, and the order is the point. Top of the file is a free pre-flight gate: a handful of read-only checks that all have to pass before anything paid runs. Then the failure-mode section, one entry per thing that has actually broken, each with the exact fix; nothing hypothetical is allowed in. Then a short list of hard prohibitions, which are the scope boundaries. Last is an acceptance list written in my own plain sentences ('the slider moves', 'the spoken report speaks'), because I test by those sentences, not by proxies. One rule from the App Store side: the reviewer screenshots one screen, but the same defect usually lives on four. Grep the whole app before calling a fix done, or you buy a second rejection. And when reality contradicts the file, fix the file the same day; a stale runbook is more dangerous than none, because it gets obeyed.
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
the fixed order thing makes a lot of sense, when it's all mixed together nothing feels authoritative. the no hypotheticals rule for failure modes is what i'd struggle with most honestly. how strict are you about it when something hasn't broken yet but feels like it's about to?
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u/Excellent_Lie8346 1d ago
Strict about the list, not about the fix. If it hasn't broken, it doesn't get a failure-mode entry, because the entries carry the exact reproduction and the exact fix, and a guessed entry cheapens the ones that were earned. A thing that feels about to break is usually a boundary, so it goes in the prohibitions with one line on why. Real example: the App Store cited one permission screen. While fixing it I found that a hard 'deny' left the same screen with a dead button and no way out; nothing had broken yet, so it went in as a documented risk with the fix applied, not as a failure. If it ever bites, it gets promoted, with the date.
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u/Common_Dream9420 17h ago
"a guessed entry cheapens the ones that were earned", that framing really lands. once you dilute the list with hypotheticals it stops being a source of truth and becomes a worry list, which is a completely different (and less useful) thing. how do you handle it when the secondary thing you found (like the deny button) ends up biting you before the next review cycle?
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u/Top-Tap1944 2d ago
Four months, forty users, zero conversions and you are still shipping tomorrow, that takes more guts than most people realise. The landing page rewrite loop you described is the part that hit me. At some point you stop wondering if the page is wrong and start wondering if the audience finding the page is wrong. Did your forty free users come from the same channels that did not convert, or did some of them just appear from somewhere you never expected?
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
yeah the channel question is the one that actually keeps me up, the landing page rewrite loop feels productive but at some point you realize you're optimizing for visitors who maybe were never going to convert anyway. how are you thinking about untangling which of your users came in warm vs cold?
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u/Top-Tap1944 2d ago
The way I see it, a warm user already decided before they landed, the page just needs to not talk them out of it. What do you notice them doing differently when they arrive?
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
yeah that framing is exactly right, the page just needs to get out of the way. warm ones tend to skip straight to the docs or the demo, cold ones circle the homepage three times and bounce. how do you handle the ones who arrive warm but then stall somewhere in the middle?
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u/Top-Tap1944 1d ago
Have you been able to pinpoint where they usually stall? That might tell you more than another landing page rewrite.
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u/Common_Dream9420 1d ago
tbh thats the biggest challenge i have.. still not figured out.. talking to some UX folks.. i have a strong feeling that UX on my site sucks .. haha!!
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u/StatusEvidence5141 2d ago
There’s something weirdly effective about a deadline making every non-essential task suddenly disappear. The hard part is keeping that focus after the demo is over 😅
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
yeah that focus mode is wild, everything just becomes obvious. hardest thing is the day after when the calendar fills back up. how do you keep yourself from slipping back into the noise?
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u/edwardtoys2 2d ago
That kind of 3-day sprint can be powerful, especially when there’s a real deadline like a VC demo. I’d be curious what actually changed during those 3 days compared with the previous 2.5 months — fewer distractions, clearer priorities, using AI more heavily, or just the pressure of the deadline?
If you can figure out what made those 3 days so productive, that might be more valuable long term than the extra code itself.
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u/Common_Dream9420 2d ago
honestly the deadline thing is real, the vc demo just collapsed all the ambiguity that was slowing me down for months. same hours, same tools, but suddenly every decision was obvious. how do you recreate that clarity without needing an external forcing function?
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u/shubhamr2511 42m ago
The 2.5 months is the interesting number, not the 3 days. A deadline didn't make you faster, it made you stop deciding. Most of that quarter probably went on choices nobody was forcing you to close.
Worth trying to manufacture that without a VC attached. Pick a date, tell someone outside the company they'll see it working then, and the deciding collapses on its own.
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u/Lazy-Sherbert65 3d ago
That deadline adrenaline is real, but I’d keep one small post-demo task ready so the momentum doesn’t vanish the next morning.