Build in public. Startup 1. Week 2. First Feedback!
Preamble
Currently doing the 12 startups (projects) in twelve months challenge & posting bulleted weekly progress here for an extra layer of accountability. Project one is a tool to help web-based indie hackers go carbon neutral by measuring their website’s impact and giving actionable steps to get to net-zero.
Goals for last week
1. Get feedback for the impact report.
Done (persistence paid off)! Great to get some insights into what does and doesn’t work. Updated report based on feedback.
2. Improve assumptions testing workflow
Testing assumptions is a crucial part of the idea validation process. But I find it tricky to keep track of the different assumptions at the core of my idea, which means I lose focus on what I should be looking to validate.
I created an assumptions data frame and testing workflow in Notion. Notion is really helpful in adding a workflow (and general structure) to my projects.
Honestly, it’s a big time investment in the short term, as I divert time away from working on core parts of the projects. Still, I’m seeing big improvements in productivity and impact once the initial investment is made
3. Work on the project for ten hours
Still didn’t hit. I only worked on the project for 7.5 hours despite getting up at 05.30 & cutting out Netflix. That said, hours worked is going in the right direction (5.5 hours last week). Baby steps.
🔥 Roast My Landing Page
I like the eco-angle to your product but as @acjacobson said, you'll need to do a great job of defining "a websites impact" to be able to suggest how the IHer can offset it. Basically, people need to realize trust your formula here to be able to take your suggestion to heart about what they can do about it. I don't doubt your product's potential success, but I think transparency here is important as far as how you make you recommendations.
Thanks for the thoughts, @th3marine. 100% agree that transparency is critical. I’ve added a complete methods section to break down how we calculated the various parts of the company’s carbon report.
Also, thanks, that intersection between indie hacking and sustainability excites me the most.
How do you measure a website's impact?
Thank you for commenting, @acjacobson
Full credit to Website Carbon, we use their API to calculate a site’s emissions. They have an excellent tool to check any website’s emissions. You can find out more in their blog here. I’ve condensed down the process quickly, just below.
You can get a measure of a site’s emissions with four things.
1. How much data your site transfers over the wire.
The amount of energy used when a website is loaded is roughly proportional to the amount of data transferred, i.e. the page size. So by measuring the amount of data transmitted over the wire, you can have a proxy for the amount of energy used to view your website.
2. The energy intensity of web data
In other words, many kilowatt-hours are used per unit of data transferred. Honestly, the energy intensity varies according to a host of things, e.g., the specifics of the data centre the viewing device. But we use average figures from the scientific literature to balance these variations.
3. The energy type used by your web host.
Are they green or not green?
4. The carbon intensity of electricity.
In other words, how many grams of carbon are produced per kilowatt-hours.
Multiplying these pieces together can give you a measure of how much carbon the site emits per page view.
It’s not a perfect estimate (for example, there’s a lot of variation that comes into the system when it comes to energy intensity). Still, it’s a valuable metric to reflect on your website’s emissions so that you can take steps to reduce them.