職涯、英語，讀： Indie Hackers

www.indiehackers.com 是由 Courtland Allen 建立的網站，專門收錄、分享各式與「成功建立正向收益(profitable)商業模式的 indie hacker 或團隊」的訪談。

美式英語，用字淺顯，對獨立創業家心路歷程、經驗談有興趣的人，可以試試。

戰術案例、透明度(transparency)

與 CS183B ，史丹佛大學開的課程如何「新創」(How to Start a Startup) 相比， CS183B 是從宏觀角度教導創業精神與戰略，而 INDIE HACKERS 則是分享最前線的戰況，也就是各種戰術的實際應用案例與實驗結果。

如 INDIE HACKERS 的自述，它們的目標是注重透明的(transparent) 實戰經驗分享，讓後人可以從這些案例中學習，並且交換意見回饋，互相打氣幫助。

在透明度方面， INDIE HACKERS 自己也不落人後，在其 blog 上，它們記載了主要里程碑、每月營收，也談它們自己的心路歷程（例如，在其 2016-11 的當月回顧中， Courtland 就談到了他自己因「未達預定目標」感到筋疲力盡(burnout) 以及後續想法），同時，它們也詳細列出當月損益、各項收入支出；十分值得參考。

對 INDIE HACKERS 的訪談

Eliot Peper 於 2016-11-23 發表了他對 INDIE HACKERS 的訪談。在此摘要如下：

INDIE HACKERS 的起源

Courtland 指出，是為了解決他自己的需要；他之前也是花很多時間去爬 Hacker News 上的文章來找尋創業靈感，最後發現許多人也有一樣的需要，就靈機一動，以此創業。

與一般科技媒體網站相異之處

Courtland 指出，是訪談報道的語調； INDIE HACKERS 整理出來的訪談給讀者一種「我也作得到」的感覺。訪談主角多是如你我的「一般普通人」，沒有金主，沒有高學歷，沒有上百員工；訪談報導注重透明度（損益、商業模式、成敗經驗），是故更能激勵人心，「有為者亦若是」。

透明度

如上段所述， INDIE HACKERS 自己在透明度上不落人後，可參考它們的 blog 。

學到了最重要的三件事

Courtland 指出，產品(product)、成長(growth)、時間(time)。

產品(product)

I used to believe that, when starting an online business, your idea didn’t matter much as long as you executed on it well. Today it’s clear to me that the idea and the execution are both important. If you don’t build something that people love and are willing to pay for, no amount of execution is going to save you. From what I’ve seen, the most successful products often (i) go after boring/straightforward problems, (ii) target businesses instead of consumers, and (iii) solve a problem that the founder herself is intimately familiar with.

大意：

想法與執行，兩者都很重要。
最成功的產品通常是：
- 解決平淡無奇(boring/straightforward)的問題(problem)
- 針對商業客戶（而非消費者）
- 解決創辦者本人關心、熟悉的問題

成長(growth)

So so so many people build something cool but have no clue how to get the word out about it. For developers, focusing on marketing can seem boring compared to writing code, especially when it doesn’t pay off immediately, and so we tend to delay it. Instead, it’s better to thinking about marketing from the get-go, and ideally build it into your product.

大意：

工程師背景的人多半會覺得營銷(marketing) 很無聊，但最好還是從一開始就想想該如何營銷；最理想的，就是將內建營銷成為你產品的一部分。

時間(time)

The last problem, time, is a real killer. Most businesses are dead before they start, because their would-be founders just never found the time to work on them. It’s hard to juggle a full-time job, family life, and other responsibilities with starting a business. What people tend to do that works well is save up the money to take time off, or they work part-time or contracting jobs that give them extra time on the side. Barring either of those options, I think you just need to put in the hours. Lots of the founders I interviewed were working nights and weekends on their passion projects.

大意：「沒時間」是最大的難題，沒有魔法般的神奇解決方案。

一般人對「創業」最大的錯誤認知

Besides all the challenges I mentioned above, I think a misconception that lots of people have is that success will happen overnight. They don’t mentally prepare for the long haul, and when things don’t take off immediately, they get dejected and quit.

But most of the best businesses on Indie Hackers and elsewhere took years and years to grow! If you accept that fact up front, then you can approach your business as something that you can tweak and improve, little by little, month after month, until you’ve built it into something great.

大意：

很多人以為可以一夜致富而成功，一旦無法獲得立即的成果就會灰心放棄。 INDIE HACKERS 上記載的成功案例，多是一點一滴多年經營的結果。

結論

如之前在如何「新創」(How to Start a Startup) 所述，既使不創業，閱讀這類心路歷程、經驗談仍對個人成長有幫助； INDIE HACKERS 與 CS183B 一樣，不是速成成功學，而是用血、淚、汗換來的教訓與經驗。