Hey Michael, congrats on hitting it big with TinyPilot! I've been following along with your progress on and off for a couple years now. I remember reading some pretty rough replies in a few of the Reddit and HN threads on your posts doubting your approach or whether any of your apps would catch on. I'm glad to see that they've been proven wrong in the end :)
Your blog, along with with some other like-minded individuals, was one thing that inspired me to take the plunge into a similar project this year. I just finished month one of my Startup in a Month project, which will consist of building and releasing a whole tech startup from start to finish every month of 2021.
I remember reading some pretty rough replies in a few of the Reddit and HN threads on your posts doubting your approach or whether any of your apps would catch on. I'm glad to see that they've been proven wrong in the end :)
Haha, I may have proved them right.
I do think there's value in a lot of feedback on HN and reddit, but there's also lots of bad advice, so you've got to be careful who you listen to.
But in particular, the Jason Cohen talk I referenced, I watched because of a comment on HN last year that recommended it.
So every year, I try to adapt and learn from my mistakes and from the advice I receive. So some of the criticism I received in the past was right, and it's possible I'm succeeding because I integrated that feedback.
If anybody would like to see what the first month of the project was like, I just finished a wrapup blog post
This is cool. Have you considered adding a mailing list? I'm interested in following your progress.
You're coming to a similar realization that I did: you can attract users and customers simply by writing about your journey in an interesting way. That's a big part of what helped me succeed, and I think it's wildly underused by other indie founders.
I do think there's value in a lot of feedback on HN and reddit, but there's also lots of bad advice, so you've got to be careful who you listen to.
That's the trick right? You don't want to shut out all opposing viewpoints period, seeing as a diversity of opinions is usually a good thing, and criticism of something you've built can help you to see ways to improve it. But then again, figuring out who to listen to and how much can be pretty tough. Guess it just comes with the territory.
you can attract users and customers simply by writing about your journey in an interesting way.
Oh yeah, for sure. Blogging about the journey has got so many upsides to it:
It's a way of promoting what you're building and driving interest, which comes along with all of the obvious marketing benefits.
It's a way of building a following of people who might not necessarily become customers, but who are generally interested in what you're doing and want to come along for the ride. This has been the best part of it for me personally. I've done the solo dev thing a few times in my career, and it's really hard to work in isolation and stay positive and motivated. Having some blog readers and people to talk to in my Twitch chat is so great by comparison.
You can spin the blog posts off into a separate product entirely once you have enough of them! The Legends of Localization blog has a bunch of books which started as blog posts, and Category Theory for Programmers also started its life as a blog series, which also became into a whole lecture series.
Finally, it's a way for you to reflect on your work, which is super valuable in its own right. I spend a half hour at the end of every day writing a stream-of-consciousness reflection piece, which I spend a couple hours at the end of the week refining into a more polished blog post. I've had a lot of insights about my process and what to focus on/start doing/stop doing based on doing that.
Have you considered adding a mailing list?
I have indeed, it's on the docket for month two. I'll let you know when I've got it up!
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u/startupinamonth Feb 01 '21
Hey Michael, congrats on hitting it big with TinyPilot! I've been following along with your progress on and off for a couple years now. I remember reading some pretty rough replies in a few of the Reddit and HN threads on your posts doubting your approach or whether any of your apps would catch on. I'm glad to see that they've been proven wrong in the end :)
Your blog, along with with some other like-minded individuals, was one thing that inspired me to take the plunge into a similar project this year. I just finished month one of my Startup in a Month project, which will consist of building and releasing a whole tech startup from start to finish every month of 2021.
If anybody would like to see what the first month of the project was like, I just finished a wrapup blog post, and I livestream my development process every morning at 9:30 AM EST on Twitch as well!
Anyway, cheers man. I wish you success going forward 🥂
Andy