What kinds of posts would you like to see more of on Indie Hackers?
I'd like there to be a bigger variety of posts on IH.
If there are types of posts you'd like to see, vote in the poll, and/or make a suggestion in the comments.
I'd also appreciate your thoughts on how we can incentivize the creation of the types of posts you want to see most.
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If we could also have categories & learnings on different stages of the journey - it would be great. For example:
I'd like to build something like this. I've been thinking of something with a Netflix-style interface, but with posts (instead of videos) grouped into categories, similar to the categories you've listed here, but many more. It could be a useful resource to browse if you're looking to learn, and the empty slots in most categories could motivate people to write educational posts to appear there.
Still noodling on this, nothing final yet.
The biggest problem that I have with these how-to guides is that you never know who wrote it. When Y combinator pushes out that content, I believe it (the people presenting that are also very hands-on experienced). But a guide written by some random person on the internet, not so much.
That's why I voted on "personal experiences", because there you can get what happened in the real world, and get some context. Even if it's from a failed project.
For example things that might work in a B2B setting might not work in a B2C etc.
+1! I think it would be cool to have groups or sections where most of the posts were relevant to where I was at. Maybe you could make a poll asking where IHers are in their journey? That'd be pretty interesting to see.
I learn something new everyday from IH :)
Hi Courtland! I have been binge-listening to your IndieHacker podcasts lately. There are so many great nuggets of IndieHacker insight within each of those episodes. I wonder if there is a way to bubble that information up to to the IH community posts? Keep up the great interviews!!
yeah, i run once a week with a new episode since end of 2019 i think. great content, so much insights
Tough to pick just one. But overall, for me, the key value I get from IH is:
I'd love to have a healthy mix of all of these!
Thanks for the post @csallen.
Something I really liked was the milestones. I loved seeing what folks were building and how they were progressing. It was really inspiring to see people's progress in features and revenue and it was also helpful in coming up with business ideas or learning about how businesses can run (sometimes with very practical learnings). I don't think I'd be on this site if it wasn't for the milestones (specifically seeing people actually making money and growing their businesses). It also felt like it helped me get to know people better ("oh, this is the songbox guy!").
One thing I noticed in another forum (r/malefashionadvice) that feels good is that when you're reading threads it's clear that people knew and were fond/supportive of each other.
Whereas here on IH I see a lot of people selling their own products in comments and I don't get the feeling that I know anyone or that anyone else knows anyone outside of their interaction in a comment thread. Posts often feel a bit transactional. Maybe that's the nature of business-focused forums, but I hope not.
So I guess in this post I'm leaning toward "better community feel". But I also think practical resources are great, especially if they speak to where I'm at in the indie hacking journey.
Could we do multiple choice in this poll?
Agreed! Being able to do multiple choices poll would be a nice feature to add to the site.
I'd like to post more in several of these categories: my personal stories; my product milestones; how-to-guides.
However, sometimes I find it hard to justify the time, because I suspect not many people see my posts.
The problem is that a few posts get upvoted, then shown to more people, then upvoted more; and most posts don't get seen at all.
Not a complaint! 1. I clearly need to write more appealing posts with more appealing titles! 2. I've heard you talk before, Courtland, about the benefits of a few exploding posts creating a feeling of things happening on the site.
Just trying to surface what might be an adverse dynamic here. IHers who repeatedly get no response to their posts are unlikely to keep on posting.
It's not going to stop me either way, because I love everything you're doing at IH, but maybe tweak the algorithm so that more posts get seen, not just the few that get initial traction?
I suspect that many people just delete & re-post a few times until it gets traction. Like on HN.
But yeah about Indie Hackers I most distinctly remember spending hours on posts that 1-2 people clicked on. That's a case of bad presentation and happens everywhere, but the feeling I most closely associate with posting here.
Before joining up to IH I read nearly every interview but seems they have dried up over the last year.
Same here, big fan of the interviews on this site. I believe IH has moved away from them to focus more on the forum and newsletter. Do you read/interact with both? They often have interviews/AMAs in them, but your right the interview tab on the site has been stagnant (which seems deliberate).
To be honest I wasn't even aware that some of the newsletters had mini interviews in them. Just looked at the one from 2 days ago and the Curious Bunch part looked like another reference to forum post like the top two. Maybe a "Mini-Interview" prefix would make it stand out from the rest slightly as I tend to only spend a few seconds looking at the top.
We'll bring back interviews sooner or later, but you're correct that we've moved away from them in the meantime.
Overall, stories of all kinds are most helpful to me. The reason, it stops and gets me thinking. I think about the situation, and how I can apply it to whatever I'm doing whether it's my current business or something else I'm trying to do. Sometimes it just sparks something and gets me through a block or gets me thinking about things in a different way. This is so valuable.
What I find least valuable, is self promotion and blog posts. I love seeing peoples progress but promotional posts just have little value to me in this community. I can go to twitter to look for articles to read.
Lastly, I also like trying to add value and interacting with the community. Discussions are a big part of community so I wouldn't want to see these go away either. It's a hard balance, but I do think there's a ton of value. It doesn't have to be "business" all the time, but at the same time I do like trying to let others know my experiences so I can try and be helpful.
I'd like to ask why? What do you think will happen when there is a bigger variety of posts. Maybe the opposite is better? Two years ago I knew at least 10 people with their projects and which stage they are in. Now everyone seems like a total stranger.
According to a myth people get inspired by MRR charts, while others make themselves accountable being in a group of people working through their goals.
I fail to understand the vision for indiehackers so the next part can be irrelevant.
A separation in between blogs and discussions may help. IH feels like a forum on a blogging interface. I suggest to make it distinctive or avoid forum like discussions all together. We can come here read the latest posts/news and go home.
Those who wants to write lengthy and broadcast could go with the blogging path (similar to newsletters) and others who needs an opinion on their latest feature or landing page can go other way. This way those valuable lengthy posts wouldn't get lost and authors wouldn't get discouraged for not being noticed or rely on whoever online to pick up the post. Those who are here to exchange opinions would know where to go without dealing with "valuable" fluff or shameless plugs.
Finally, this questionnaire brought me a few questions;
[¹] https://www.indiehackers.com/post/what-would-you-prefer-to-see-on-the-right-milestones-or-news-block-19abfd9bd1
A higher variety of posts is helpful to make IH relevant to more visitors. Ideally there are 3-4 posts/day on the homepage that appeal to pretty much anyone in the IHer space. It's okay if the rest aren't relevant. Those posts appeal to other people. With a higher variety, more people from different backgrounds can converge on the same space and share ideas between each other.
That said, I don't expect to get there immediately. I'd like to focus on one or two post types at a time, and really get them going, before expanding to other types.
Sometimes opinions come from a vocal minority, sometimes they don't. It's not always the same. Depends on the issue. And sometimes what the vocal minority wants aligns with what I think is best for the site, and sometimes it doesn't. So it's always worth asking, reading, and learning. But I'm never going to blindly implement what the majority wants without reconciling it with my own thoughts and goals.
Hey Courtland, I appreciate you responding to criticism like this, sometimes. Understandably you may not focus on this audience, but it really does make a difference to feel heard.
The one type of post I would like to see more of on Indie Hackers are meta-topics like this poll.
Do you mind elaborating calling my criticism not respond-able? I'm genuinely curious about what's wrong with it.
Sorry, I didn't mean to criticize your comment -- just thank Courtland for responding at all. I believe there are more than enough happy users for him to focus on.
I actually resonate with a lot of what you said.
No worries, I'm happy to have indiehackers too. Just bringing my own thoughts without filtering much.
I see, my expectations doesn't align with your vision.
I think 3-4 posts/day in indiehacking space is everywhere. Possible to find it on medium, newsletters, founder's/product's blogs, twitter threads even on video format over youtube. Unfortunately when they shared in here they tend to be repurposed/duplicated. (we know people already asking for that meta tag for seo purposes). So I'm not convinced that they'll bring much value.
I'd rather like to see indiehackers.com working on features to strengthen the community aspect.
Just checked the weekly top 5 posts for the month, at least one or two of them every week is "drop your link, share your product". That might be the reason for people to come here (in the forum section, excluding podcasts and interviews or else).
There has to be a better way to execute it.
There is still monthly "Follow for follow" post. There should be a better way. A way to change minds that having followers here has the same benefits if not more as having followers on twitter. Otherwise it's a reason for consideration where to spend more time.
It's the same old topic but even after a year people still asking for milestones. I'm not saying milestones were great but removing it polluted the news feed. We still have milestones, only change is they don't have their own space. Plus having 4 other collapsible components on the homepage without milestones telling another story.
Additionally even it wasn't valuable for the visitors, it offered a great value for who started yesterday. I'd like to think it was a way of indiehackers.com giving something back to the community. Which made the community appreciated a lot. Of course it's abused by big guns. But if you think if I started yesterday my product wouldn't get a single click for days. And "getting featured" on IH homepage can bring 30 visits. It's more than 30x bump. That most of indiehackers already forgot how it would feel. How it would change everything for the product.
Well, it's not for me, it feels like favoring new visitors over "power users" who'd want spend more time here. But anyways good luck with the new changes. It'll probably work in indiehackers' favor since whatever you do already works. 👍
We plan to improve all these types of posts eventually. To me, the "drop your link" or "follow me on Twitter" posts are mildly valuable, but super repetitive and have lots of room for creative improvement.
Milestones are a big challenge. Talking to users, I hear as much passionate love for them as I do passionate hate. I'll bring them back in some form or fashion, but I need to do so carefully and intelligently to remove many of their pitfalls. That's a big challenge, so not the highest priority at the moment. Want to take care of some quicker wins first.
Is this a joke, or are some people genuinely inspired by seeing other people's MRR? I'm seriously curious, since I see those posts (without exception) as lightly disguised, socially acceptable bragging. Which I guess some people like competing over.
The solution: Write your blog post first, then adjust the content for posting on different sites (or in the reverse order).
People claim they have, that's why I said myth.
Your solution to make IH better is to use other sites?
To make it clear, I don't write blog posts, I'm here to discuss stuff. Be in the comment section. I suggested that blog posts should have their own section so they have a better chance to be seen by visitors. They wouldn't disappear in the news feed within an hour with all those landing page feedback requests and twitter links etc.
Yes.
Lots of indie hackers are doing it on their own, therefore hearing from others how they are struggling/solving their problems/succeeding that are in similar situations is a big motivational factor.
I would like to see interviews with successful founders, news of current trends, interesting investments, new technological projects, techniques to attract a greater flow of users to become customers, more surveys and questions for users to participate in order to share knowledge and expand the range of possibilities and business.
I'm not at all surprised by the survey results! I think many of us come here primarily to read the stories and learn from the experiences of other inspiring IHers :)
I think that for each different stage of our business different things will be more appreciated, hopefully, what is interesting for me today will not be the most relevant in a few months from now
great contributions in comments. Did any action take place after receiving this contribution? e.g. Summary of feedback in a graph element?
For personal stories/ success stories (how I made...) can there be a template so that there is enough context to extrapolate success factors from one context to another?
Right now I'm skipping posts with the title "how I made..." because I'm not clear what I get out of them. Maybe I just read too many that didn't provide any insights from me.
What about "Choose your Adventure" style of categories/learnings at different stages of the journey? There's increasingly more and more successful IH with very different types of businesses, so this could be useful to categorize them.
What kinds of categories would you be interested in? Just business types?
Many aspiring IH are developers, so something we're lacking is the marketing/sales knowledge.
it's fun to see what the others are using to get their system up and running.
I would like to add something different.
It's impossible to filter content by Groups. I have to go to the footer to find it.
If my discussion didn't get traction, that's it. It's dead. No-one will click the Groups feature to read by category.
@csallen have you considered audio or video as post formats? With audio you could even have a live discussion(s) tab in the group pages, but just generally it would be interesting to see some different content formats rather than just categories/topics :)
Always wondered why interviews stopped.
My biggest takeaway from IH over the past year or so has been the spirit of freedom that all the members have. The passion to go Indie even when most people in the community are good enough to get big money working for big companies.
I think that spirit comes out best in the stories and experiences of the founders. That's the USP.
Though I still want to see other types of posts.
Cheers!
All of the above.
I would love to see different surveys every month (weekly might be too much) and maybe asking new members the same questions. That way can see what is changing with IH community.
I want more Marketing related content. Building and audience and distribution seems to be more important than building the product so I would like to see how to approach it and get initial paid customers.
@csallen the #1 thing I have learned from participating on IH is marketing....
and I think that's a good thing.
I have posted stuff that I thought would be helpful and gotten next to zero views and I have posted click bait garbage that has blown up.
I think this is true with all publications BUT the #1 driver of a successful IH post is the title.
I don't know if there is anything you can do to fight this, but it might be worth looking into.
Cheers brother,
Love IH! Keep it up!
Same learning here, but I don't love the effect it has on posts. I stopped coming to IH because of this, and it's made me much happier.
Funny memes for me
Hi Courtland, Many in our audience is technically based folks. This product needs more Sales and Marketing content (audiences, ect). As we all should admit, a SaaS is 60% sales and marketing, and 45% technical. To attract this balanced audience it must attract theses folks. And this is something you should address.
Great initiative but don't allow to see the results before voting or this may create biased answers.
I can't vote yet, but I came to IH to find resources and tools for my IH-ing.
I've stuck around because of all the posts and articles about people's real experiences.
Basically, I want to stand on the things others have already learned, things I can't reliably find with a Google search.
I think it is hard to say what the community "needs more of", since the content than any one of us IndieHackers is looking for can vary so much. Usually based on the stage in their own journey. Whether it's just getting started, already having a few customers, trying to scale up fast, or whatever.
Personally, I am a fan of see what others are doing for process, and their tech stack.
But I have also gotten so much value from the "share your product in the comments". These posts do help get a decent amount of traffic to my projects.
Something I would like to see in that regard would a "top products of the day" (and/or week) section of the site. Either on the home page, like the "meetups" or "remote jobs" section. These could be a great way for people building or sharing their products to get some extra visibility. Which is always nice. I can see some would argue "that's what sites like product hunt are for", but those types of sites can feel very bloated and often require a very mature product to make any measurable amount of a splash.
Having this sort of feature/section on the IHs could also encourage more early stage founders/creators to share their product and get feedback faster, while not needed to be at the needed mature stage to have their 1 product hunt launch be successful.
To be honest, I don't really have a preference for a specific type of post, however, there are two things that I appreciate.
First is the quality of the posts - no matter the type.
Second, variety is in this case a good thing, I think. It does get tiring to see only 1 type of post day after the day on the home page.
" Personal stories and experiences from IHers" does seem to have a lot of votes.
As Indie Hackers, we realize the journey is quite long & hard.
Getting to know other's experiences helps build great relationships while also incorporating them into our own business.
I find really useful discussions on current trends, news, and events but I really like experiences from other IHers and founders too. Educational and how-to guides are helpful.
This comment was deleted 5 months ago.