RichardStories & Journey
Unfiltered personal stories, lessons learned, and battle-tested reflections from leaving the corporate grind to bootstrapping independent software products.
Whatever path you choose, nothing happens overnight. Quantity must accumulate before quality emerges. Here is why enduring the slow reps, surviving early failures, and embracing the journey is the only real formula for indie hackers.
AI is the greatest force multiplier indie hackers have ever had, but building for hype is a fast track to burnout. Here is why solving timeless, boring pain points, while staying in the arena until prepared luck finds you, is the only playbook that lasts.
Don't chase imaginary markets. Start from what you genuinely love, validate real search traffic, and mine competitor complaints for gold. Here is my exact blueprint.
If your product isn't generating stable revenue yet, don't quit your job. Build on the side, protect your runway, validate your MVP, and make the leap with confidence.
The biggest danger for an indie maker isn't failure: it's building a business that succeeds, only to realize you hate running it every single day. Here are the questions to ask first.
I watched directories burn months in plugins and never collect a listing fee. Row.so is the simple feature: type a niche, go live, charge. Keep 100%.
Feedback in DMs, a roadmap in a doc, a changelog nobody wrote, docs in another tab, chat somewhere else. Upwip is the simple feature: one loop from voice to ship.
Mondays meant CSV exports and scripts that broke on Friday. Sheetfetch is the simple feature: connect any source to Google Sheets and let it stay true.
I was tired of wrapping a spreadsheet in a CMS. Sheetany is the simple feature: Google Sheets becomes the website, so agencies stop rebuilding what they already have.
Bookmarks rot. Essays disappear behind redesigns and dead domains. Ebookany is the simple feature: turn the web you care about into a library you actually keep.