Unlearning > learning

The hardest thing being indie isn’t learning marketing/coding, but unlearning old reflexes. When I started I operated from an employee mindset, thinking the more hours I put in, the better the business. That didn’t work out well… (* cue burnout)

Hard work ≠ success

Years on I find I’m still unlearning that! Looks like it take a while to shake off those conditioned reflexes after decades.

Unlearning unhelpful narratives seems to be a rite of passage for every indie.

That got me thinking… What else did I have to unlearn along the way?

• Money is dirty
• Billionaires are scum
• Marketing is slimey and unethical
• A real business = SaaS
• Subscription revenue (MRR) is the best type of revenue.
• If the product is great, it’ll market itself and I won’t need to.
• The market is too saturated is a good excuse to not try.
• If I do these habits consistently (waking at 5am, cold showers, journaling etc) I will succeed at indie hacking.
• Info products are not “real businesses”.
• {Popular indie hacker} is successful because he/she got a huge audience. It won’t work for me.
• I need to set up a perfect second brain note-taking system, otherwise I’ll lose all my good ideas!
• What if no one cares?!

I used to think all that when it comes to indie products. I was sooo wrong. Must be this, must be that. Artificial rules about how to run a business and build a product which seems to make sense but are totally removed from reality. Ultimately, my endgame is just freedom. It shouldn’t matter how I do it, as long as it’s legal and I like the work. Money is money is money.