Holy heck this is hard

Chris McCormick writes that most of the projects posted to Indie Hackers don’t make much money.

Jon Yongfook tweeted in response:

I took an unscientific look at the products at the top and most have been around for *years*. I’ve said this before, but I think the biggest advantage you can have as a bootstrapped founder is the willingness to grind it out for a year plus before you start seeing returns.

Recent numbers released by Gumroad suggest similar: out of 18,454 people who tried selling a product on that platform, less than 1% earned more than $10k in July.

This is why I generally recommend that people get started working online via freelancing or a remote job. Those options aren’t sexy, but they’re far more reliable paths to earning a living online within weeks/months instead of years.

Get “job replacement income” flowing with freelancing or a remote job, then build something more scalable on the side. That way, you’re not under pressure to make it profitable ASAP.