Fun is no longer fun
jasonleow • 13 Jan 2025 •
Fun had always been a huge thing for my indie hacking. If a product isn’t fun to build, then why do it?
You got to enjoy the process as much as you want the goal, right? The journey not just the destination. The means not just the ends. My thinking was… through fun, I get to profitability.
Now it feels kinda cringe to say all that out loud. To me at least.
It’s important yes. Necessary, even. Great for motivation and sustaining the journey, yes.
But not sufficient.
And definitely not as important a factor as I make it out to be.
Maybe I might not have fun initially, but once people start using it, it can start to get more fun. It might not be an interesting product at the onset, but once it gets profitable I’m likely to start getting more interested in it. The more engagement the more fun it gets.
Fun’s not the arbiter of what makes a successful product. And product-market fit doesn’t care if you’re having fun or not. The market, your customers, don’t care. They just want a thing that helps them do a job. That’s it.
When you optimize for fun and nothing succeeds, what’s the fun in that?! Fun is no longer fun.
So fk fun.
I’m optimizing for success and profitability first. When that happens, that would be the real fun.
Comments
@therealbrandonwilson Yes I always thought that way. No fun = not sustainable. Don’t just do it for the money, it’s soulless. But I’m trying to challenge that now. It’s a bit like the “follow your passion” narrative. Cal Newport talks about how sometimes we don’t start with passion but it comes to you, from hard work and developing skills. I think if people use my product, there’s lots of engagement, positive reviews, revenue keeps growing, I could come around to that and start to feel passionate. I’ve experienced it in my existing products.
Maybe the fun you can cultivate comes with the curiosity of trying to figure out how to achieve PMF. The more we can enjoy and appreciate what makes for a successful business, the more experiments we’d be willing to make. I once designed websites for a guy who was in 101 completely different businesses. He didn’t really care about the specifics of each business. What he cared about is identifying a need, coordinating with suppliers, and making the solution possible to end users. Business was his passion, not the type of business he’d build.
@jasonleow I understand your perspective. That still feels like it is a reliance on external validation rather than internal resolve. And I have a mental block when I see PMF because all I can process is PEMF. 😂
@therealbrandonwilson I have no lack of internal resolve, so not too worried about that. Truth is, if your business has no external validation like money, growth etc, you better not do it haha
@haideralmosawi Yes true. We can always reframe what we find fun. For me, I’m going to go for having fun generating profit haha
I actually take the opposite view (and not because I’m contrarian). If it’s not fun/enjoyable/exciting (pick your adjective), it won’t be sustainable. Even if you end up making a lot of money, it won’t be fulfilling. Think of the people who seemingly have all the trappings of success and are miserable. I’m looking for a magical place of enjoyable pursuits that benefit others and lead to financial rewards.