I started working on Indiebackers once I realized that a lot of people (including myself) do all the heavy lifting, such as
- A brand and logotype - Buy a domain - Make a landing page - Deploy a website - Coding if necessary
All that jazz all to validate an idea?
Existing platforms today focus primarily on launching. Indiebackers focus on the shaping of the idea until it's a MVP and ready to launch.
Why would anyone want to become a early bird or adopter? What do indiehackers get from early birds and what do they get in return?
By incentivize, by rewarding early adopters with benefits and perks for their help, both parties gain in their partnership.
The process is easy:
Submit your ideas to the community See what sticks - Get upvoted, or maybe it just was a silly idea? If you're lucky you might just get people signing up for your idea! If you're lucky, people sign up, then it's time to start working towards an MVP. Launch and reward your early adopters for their input during the development phase!
Things to know! What is Indiebackers not? Crowdsourcing platform. Crowdsourcing are for projects that are dependent on monetary forms. The idea behind Indiebackers is that monetary forms are great but not the essential part for in the beginning of a indie products journey.
Find out more! https://indiebackers.dev/faqs
ProductHunt Launch! https://www.producthunt.com/posts/indiebackers
Why would I as a developer post my ideas so openly on your page, just inviting competitors to copy me, before making an MVP? Sounds very high risk/mid reward to me.
Does anyone outside of the Silicon Valley echo chamber believe this? You aren't indie hacking anything without a good idea. It's the literal foundation. Execution is also important, and hard.
Can someone point me to all of these terrible-idea-awesome-execution businesses?
This is more similar to me saying, I am I going to create a TikTok video where I do this cool dance and me ACTUALLY creating the TikTok video where I do a cool dance and it gets a million views. The first doesn't invite copycats so much while the second one does because the idea has been eternally validated and, in both the TikTok and software case, it looks easy to replicate.
If you're worried about sharing your idea, you probably still didn't understand what makes a business successful.
VC-backed startups tend to have ideas with a higher level of "originality", I think.
But that's my personal perspective...
This is laughable, and straight from the VC/Big Tech Co playbook. You know, the kind of places who can more easily spend huge money executing on someone else's good idea.
Of course execution is important. I'd even accept more important than an idea. But ideas are not "near zero value". There's nothing to execute on without them, and unlike "executing", there's no system to repeat it.
* Stripe - Paypal but better and dev-focused
* AirBNB - Couchsurfing.com but better and we charge for it
* DoorDash - Seamless and GrubHub but better
Those ideas, on the surface, are all garbage. Yet they had by-far the best outcomes for YC. Why? Execution. That's why YC invests in so many poor ideas -- they're investing in people are likely to be able to execute, not the ideas themselves.
"Hey I saw you on Indie Hackers building X. I am building in public, too.
I just finished a site that helps small projects raise funds and get feedback. Think producthunt for indie hackers. It's free to sign up and I am going to do a big marketing push in the next few weeks. Would love to have your project on there!"
I don't think Indie Backers can replace this process.
Some feedback:
- Personally I think The GIF's on https://indiebackers.dev/learn make it look unprofessional. There's other ways to add some excitement to that page without just posting several generic meme's.
- Your only project has typo on sub-heading "Pitch innovative ideas >togehter< with sweet deals in turn for collaboration."
Please take this as a very "soft criticism" because this might be just some peculiarity of my perception.
I am not a native English speaker, so please take the following with a grain of salt - IMO the copy might need improvement.
When selling something, you want to build a mental slide on which the prospect slides effortlessly toward a clear image of your offer. Your text felt more like a rocky hillside - I had to concentrate and it was slow.
Let me give you an example:
In the realm of Indiebackers: MVP takes on a new meaning – it stands for Most Valuable Person, representing the early adopters who play a pivotal role in the development of products within our community. Indiebackers was conceived with the understanding that a significant number of startups face challenges because they overlook the importance of developing for and with the community. We believe in the idea that a full-scale launch shouldn't be a prerequisite for validating an innovative concept.
In essence, Indiebackers is a collaborative platform meticulously crafted for users to share and explore groundbreaking ideas within the community. Users seize the opportunity to present a deal in exchange for support until the development of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Our platform is dedicated to facilitating the seamless exchange of ideas, nurturing community engagement, and providing unwavering support for the development of viable and impactful concepts.
I think this text has an unusually high cognitive load. I had to read it a few times to get what you mean: Dear startups, here is the deal. Tell us about your ideas, and we tell you what we think of them before you spend a bunch of money implementing them. Sounds good? Reward us with some perks. - Did I even get it right?
BTW, there's a funny scene in a Czech film most HN users wouldn't know - a dude translates a factual report into marketing speak by adding a lot of adjectives. Your copy reminds me of that scene - it's not just "support", but "unwavering support", not just "crafted" but "meticulously crafted" etc. - it sounds too 'marketingy'.
Just my $0.02
Good luck!
I haven't written that text, I was too lazy. I most things on FAQ page but asked ChatGPT to write the learn page and minor parts on FAQ. I am going to ask it to write a simpler text because I am not native English speaker either and I totally agree with you on these points. It's quite stupid text hahaha
(Totally a reasonable thing to use it for, in my opinion!)
http://localhost:5173/auth/callback/github?error=access_deni...
Only thing I regret is that I didn't reach out to a bunch of people so indiebackers would have some browsable content before launching. Ah well, you live and learn!
I agree, I think this puzzle piece have been missing in the indiehacker community. Sure, it's great with Indiehackers, Betalist and Producthunt, but what about second breakf.. I mean when you only have an idea and need input and validation? Everyone don't feel like spending time thinking about a fancy domain name and then designing a landing page and then it's in the dumpster a week later.
Also, solo-indiehacker projects don't go to crowdfunding platforms because (personally speaking) they are bootstrapped and that's the way it should be.
EDIT2: Indeed, seems to be a bug. I was able to create a new one and it worked fine, but now it also seems there's no delete button to remove the original one I made.
I would be convinced by something more specific: a roadmap with milestones, a clear mapping between the amount of help and received benefits, etc.
Nevertheless, I like the idea, good luck!
