This is rather personal but it's been on my mind for a while and I'd like to be as transparent as I can. There's not going to be many other makers who would speak of such things while they're still trying to carve out their first indie hacking success. But putting this out here for perpetuity might somehow help aspiring makers who are struggling with something similar.
Totally agree. One morning I woke up to a @mkobach tweet and was in shock for what it did.
— Amanda Goetz (@AmandaMGoetz) April 20, 2020
Still so thankful for that!
As an indie hacker, there are are few things that would be helpful on twitter:
having an audience – it reduces the cost of testing idea feasibility vs paying for $100s in ads after weeks of product development.
getting recognized – helps you to get access to potentially life-changing mentors. people with more followers tend to pay attention to people who already have a certain number of followers (i don't think anyone would care for a random stranger with no success to his name and only 50 followers right?)
I've tried to polish my twitter profile with a cover image that matches my avatar. They also match with my bio which indicates whatever i'm doing and i think it's interesting enough. I also pinned a tweet that's relevant to what i've written in my bio, all while keeping it interesting and attention-catching.
I've also tried to comment often on people's tweets, mostly trying to think of how I could “value-add” them. Occasionally, I've seen people typing funny things if the tweet is fresh (within a few minutes) and they sometimes work. I've tried that too.
From all these, I've grown from around 150+ followers to 450 followers.
But that 450 figure is nowhere close to 1000s or 10,000s.
I'm stuck right now but having observed many other makers who now have thousands to tens of thousands of followers, they achieved that by being consistent over a longer duration of time. They've also been continuously chipping away at creating successful products incrementally – if they fail one, they blog about it and others find their stories meaningful enough to follow. and the next time they achieve success, they gain more followers.
That's exactly what I'm trying to do. There's probably no easier way to do it without losing substance.
I'm not going to be someone who chases followers purely for the metric. I'm here to craft my life story and to inspire others in the process. The growth in my follower count should follow my personal growth's progress. I'm sure it'll work out as long as i keep hacking away at my products and be open to sharing everything I've learnt and what it means to go on this maker journey.
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