Everyone here has a primary skill or a field of knowledge they're versed in. What I'm interested in is are you working on sharpening any additional skills or are you committed to working on what you're confident with. In my case, development was where I started many years ago, but currently, I'm trying to improve my writing skills!
Hey makers, Marketing manager forcing me to implement KPIs, but I don't get along with metrics and staff. At this stage we can't even have this metrics. Are there any hacks we can set up for setting and tracking KPIs for early stage startup?
I have to admit I m a tragedy when it comes to being first at trying new technology or so which means I ve fallen for more scams and shady situations than I d like to count.
(At least I can warn my friends and family before they make the same mistakes, so that's the only advantage.)
I decided to share some best practices I regret not doing sooner:
Most of the time the people we build for are abstract. Personas, segments, users.
This week I set my mom up with something my team built and she caught domething she would have missed otherwise. Small thing. But watching someone you look up to get real value from your work hits different than a dashboard.
I am possibly preparing for marketing my own tool (a Chrome extension) and collect the activities I can use for future visibility and possible purchases. Right now, I am thinking about basics:
SEO within the plugin (name, description, description in the Chrome Store + visuals)
Listings in directories
Reddit mentions
Building in public
I am aware that it is not sufficient, and there will be much more work.
Being an engineer myself, I see that many people are outputting more code than ever. Some of it being generated vs. written, the volume of code being outputted has definitely risen. There seems to be a shift from "is this something we can build?" to "should we build this and ship it?" For people who have been recruiting or looking to recruit recently, what roles are you hiring for?
Role title (I've seen a rise in PM's and Designers personally)
What exactly can they do that AI can't (yet)
Specific signal that you look for when hiring
Are you moving headcount from one type of role to another? Would be interested to hear from other growing teams!
AI coding is pretty mindblowing but sometimes it's a headache built on a mountain of bugs. Usually that comes down to issues with how you prompt. So, with that in mind, I'm starting a crowdsourcing discussion so we can all improve our prompts and in turn our apps.
Share the exact prompts that turn blank AI requests into real world code. Show us how you go from generate a REST API to a deployable service in just a few steps.
For the last six months, my co-founder and I have been building in public. We post our weekly revenue, our struggles, and our wins on X (Twitter) and LinkedIn. It s been amazing for building a community, getting feedback, and finding our first 50 customers.
But last week, I had a sales call that completely shifted my perspective.
We were pitching a mid-sized client a $99/month plan. They loved the product, the workflow was a perfect fit, and the demo went flawlessly. Then, the prospect said, "I saw your tweet last week that you re only at $300 MRR. You guys are way too small. What happens to my data if you shut down next month?"
I was speechless. The transparency that I thought was our biggest strength had just become our biggest liability. I realized that while the indie hacker community loves seeing the "0 to $10k" journey, actual businesses want to buy from companies that look stable, established, and safe. They don't want to be your beta testers; they want a guarantee that you'll be around in two years.
