Chasing feedback loops

When I’m making money elsewhere, I feel less motivated to use Twitter.

Anyone felt that way too?

Why is that? 🤔

I noticed this pattern every year. Each time I get into consulting season, when I get to the feast part of the feast and famine cycles, the interest to tweet and be online fades.

And it’s not got to do with being busy and not having as much time to mess around on Twitter. Because that doesn’t explain the lack of interest.

I think ultimately, it’s just easier to know where to focus and be interested when it’s 100% clear that an activity is revenue-generating. With consulting and training workshops, I’m paid for my time, I know it’s moving the needle.

The feedback loop—and dopamine hit—is immediate and direct.

But with most activities in entrepreneurship, I never know. Especially marketing. The lag time for the effects to show up makes it hard to observe cause and effect easily. Even the same activity which was revenue-generating in the past might not move the needle currently! That’s how confusing it can be.

With my Twitter usage, it’s even harder to pinpoint if my building in public helps in any way with the growth of my products. I know a few of my customers for Lists Kit come from my audience. Carrd plugin customers, sometimes – most of the time they come from outside of my Twitter audience, from Carrd communities instead. Lifelog, probably none.

But yet during non-consulting seasons I get drawn to Twitter again.

Why?

My guess? Because of the immediate and direct feedback loops again. The dopamine hits from impressions and likes are exactly the feedback loops I crave. It’s probably the only marketing activity with that immediate and directly observable effects. It’s easy to get stay interested when the feedback loop is tight. It’s like candy. Nice in small doses, but makes you sick and unhealthy in large amounts.

I think this about sums up the constant challenge an indie hacker solopreneur has to face:

How do you stay focused on doing the hard work on tasks where the feedback loop isn’t immediate?

How do you not be distracted by activities with tight dopamine loops which actually don’t move the needle as much?

If you got answers, I wanna know too.