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Ryan Hendrickson

What's actually slowing you down when you build?

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Hey all!

Quick question for founders and indie hackers: what's slowing you down when you're actually building something new?

I'm specifically interested in the building; the getting-users conversation is for another day! Specifically, I'm curious whether the scaffolding that has to exist before your core product does ever feels like a tax: auth, billing, permissions, user management, that kind of thing.

A few things I'd love to know:

  • Are you starting from a boilerplate or template (ShipFast, SaaS Pegasus, etc.), rolling your own, or reaching for standalone tools like Clerk or Stripe?

  • If you use a template, does it actually solve the problem, or do you find yourself fighting it as requirements evolve? Same question for standalone tools: does Clerk or Stripe get you where you need to go, or do you find yourself working around them?

  • How much of your early building time would you say goes to "the thing" vs. everything around it?

Curious to hear from all kinds of builders, AI-assisted or not; though especially those who are hands-on with their codebase day-to-day.

I'm doing customer discovery in this space; genuine curiosity, not a pitch. If you want to go deeper, I'd love a 30-minute chat! Book a slot that works for your schedule here

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Bengeekly

We build using Laravel and we are happy that it already have all this in a box.
Even from the early days I loved that Laravel doesn't give you a lot of choice and has ready integrations.
I believe all this is done in a day. But we don't go deep in Roles and User management, but we have the right architecture built in for the future.

I m happy to answer more specific questions if needed.

Ryan Hendrickson

@bengeekly I'm curious if there was ever a point in time where the way that Laravel had you doing things was more of a hindrance than a help?

Alex Rotar
The scaffolding tax is brutal. I used to roll my own auth and billing, but it’s just not worth the mental overhead anymore. Reaching for standalone tools like Clerk or Stripe early on saves weeks of headaches, even if you have to work around them occasionally. We spent way too much time on boilerplate in the past. Today, we're actually launching ChangePoints on PH, and using off-the-shelf scaffolding was the only reason we shipped it this fast!
Ryan Hendrickson

@arotar Looks like you ended up settling on Gumroad for ChangePoints; what was the decision to go with that, and how has it been working for you?

Ashraf Mahmoud
I started building 6 yeaes ago because I wanted to learn to program for Android. After my 1st ?app?, I had an idea that I actually wanted to use. It took me maybe 6 months of learn and trial/error before I had something I could use. I had to work in building between life and my job. Once I got it working, I was happy with what I had and stepped away from building. About 3 years ago, I started thinking and tinkering with my code to expand on it. I thought maybe people would buy and use it. It took more trial/error and more life interruptions. But, I finally have a working app that I use almost every time I get on my phone. So, to answer your question, life slowed me down the most. 🤣
Ryan Hendrickson

@amm8 Ha, life can really get in the way sometimes. Awesome that you've been able to pick up the skills to do it yourself and build something you are proud of.

Ashraf Mahmoud
@ryan_hendrickson I'm working on my launch when I have time. Maybe you'll see it in a few weeks.
Vijay Amin

Compliance scaffolding honestly. We build in healthcare so before we even touch the actual product we're dealing with HIPAA controls, audit logging, access permissions, all of it has to exist before a single real feature gets built.

Templates don't solve it because none of them are built with compliance as a constraint. We ended up building our own foundation and that's actually what became VertiComply. The "tax" you're describing is real and in regulated industries it's more like 60% of early build time easy.

Ryan Hendrickson

@verticomply Having built in the education space in the past, FERPA is something that came to mind for me. It really can become a headache quickly making sure you have all of the correct pieces in place. What is your ultimate vision for VertiComply?

Nika

I would say that in different stages of my life, there was still something new that held me back from building:

  • fear of what others may think

  • fear that I will not handle bureaucracy and administrative work

  • fear that the product is not good enough (perfectionism)

  • lack of knowledge, etc.

So yeah, my barriers were more mental than material one :D

Ryan Hendrickson

@busmark_w_nika Mental barriers are very real, and something I struggle with myself often. I'm curious if you found tools or structures that help you overcome these mental blocks?

Astro Tran

For me the biggest thing is decision fatigue around scope. Every day there are 10 reasonable directions to take the product and most of them would probably be fine, but picking the wrong one early costs weeks. I've started just shipping the smallest version of each thing to get real signal faster instead of trying to think my way to the right answer.

Also context switching. I build Murror solo and switching between product thinking, design, and code in the same day is genuinely hard. I try to keep whole days for one mode now.

Ryan Hendrickson

@astrovinh You're very right, and you talking about context switching puts into words something that I feel myself. Are you full time working on Murror, or is this in addition to a full/part-time commitment?