Fork the rules

I’ve been unknowingly stressing myself to launch fast with Lists Kit.

But why?

Just because it’s what good indie hackers do?
Because we need to validate the idea/business first?
Because we’re wasting time building if there’s no paying user?

But I realised this time, the situation is different, and therefore, calls for the rules to be broken:

❌ Rule #1: Famous so-and-so indie hacker launched over a weekend

Just because the best indie hackers I know launch fast doesn’t mean they do that for every product. More importantly, it doesn’t mean I have to, every single time. Blindly following what others do is foolish at best, dangerous at worst. I can recall a few times in my short indie hacking career when I did that, to poor results.

❌ Rule #2: Validate the idea first before building

It makes sense to validate the idea/business first if your goal is purely to make profit from it. But that’s not my original intention. I started Lists Kit because I myself needed it. I need it to replace my other info directory sites, like Keto List Singapore. I want something to launch fast with, for any info directory idea I have. In a way, the use case is already validated. For me. I need it already anyway. And I need it built to completion in order to migrate my sites. No scrappy MVPs here. The idea for building a boilerplate is more to “sell my sawdust”.

❌ Rule #3: Build with users, get feedback

I am my own user first, so I build it to my own specs. Scratching my own itch first. Maybe someone else similar to me will also benefit from the product, I don’t know yet. But first I got to be the first beneficiary to know it even works, before I get others in for beta.

❌ Rule #4: Use scaffolding to ship fast

Use scaffolding like frameworks, libraries, boilerplates, nocode to ship fast. But using a SaaS boilerplate might end up slowing me down because it uses other libraries and tools within the boilerplate that I’m not familiar with. Using a framework/library is making an opinionated choice for Lists Kit, which I didn’t want because I want it to be universal too, and not break after a few years.

Underneath all these rules also begs the question:

Why tf do we need to launch fast to begin with?

What’s with the hurry?

It’s not any lesser to build calmly and with joy, at a pace that works for them, their lifestyle and situation, their skills, and the bandwidth available to them.

So, fork the rules.

I can follow some where it’s useful, discard where it isn’t, or fork them, tweak them to suit me.

I’m doing this my way.