I’ve been indie for about four years now. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else, but it does come with its own kind of hell. The lack of security and the fear that everything could disappear overnight is always there. Some days feel euphoric, and some days everything feels dark.

At one point I even built a live sales dashboard[1] to keep my dopamine in check, but a year later I realized it was a mistake. It started shaping my motivation instead of supporting it.

I guess the main lesson is that the ups and downs are normal, and you get better at riding them over the years.

[1]: https://x.com/kushsolitary/status/1777306909344715158

I had some success with side projects a while back, but I haven’t been able to spend much time on them lately. The anxiety is still there, especially with the current layoffs and the state of the economy. My plan is to go indie again once I reach lean FIRE, so money isn’t something I have to worry about and I can focus on building things I enjoy.

Monetization is always the tricky part, since most of the ideas I’m drawn to aren’t things a large audience would pay for. But working on projects I’m personally interested in is what keeps me motivated long enough to actually finish them. It’s easier now too, because AI lets me go from an idea to something usable in just a few hours.

I agree on all but launching an app with a side job is less hard than the author expects: not having whatever you are working on to be a successful money maker does add lots of benefits. These include: not having to sell out (adding cheap ads is included in my opinion) just to make some money, take on projects you seriously believe should exist in the world and not because they are lucrative.

God bless you all, lone swordsmen, and best of luck!

I've been on that path since 2019. It's super challenging but so rewarding. Building your own universe, working your own way with total freedom and constraints.

I'm proud of all I've built and shared so far. But I still can't leave my day job. So at this point it's still 40/60.

At work, management asked if I'm willing to come back full-time and take over the team's leadership. No way. It's a costly game to play (huge opportunity cost), but the freedom is so valuable.

The peaks are glorious, the troughs are horrible.

I’m here doing it too. It has been 2 years, I can’t believe it. I am thankful for the immense amount of learning I never would’ve done working in a more secure gig (in my market anyway.)

10 years here. Savings, sponsorships, funding, limited sales. Many many struggles. Not to mention COVID, kids, etc. Attempted to get jobs in the process, didn't work out. It's a hard route to take. A lot of flexibility but very lonely and isolating. You have to be the right kind of person and have more in your life than just your work. The motivation also has to be more than just money, otherwise you might as well quit and do something else. I would love to be happy in a job. Or even moderately accept the tradeoffs but those things also have to have the right setup e.g I don't think fully remote is good for anyone's mental health. Some levels of isolation are good for thinking and productivity, but when there's is idleness, when you have to rely on yourself to fill the time, eventually the hobbies and the time filling habits die off. Nothing replaces human connection. And on one level family and friends are good for that. But on another level working towards something with people. That really gives us a lot of meaning in our lives.

Good luck to all those still trying.

As someone on a similar journey, I've found doing open source work on fundamental projects really helps with the feeling of being alone.

This feels familiar.. I've been on the solo indie track ever since 2020 when society decided to turn hostile. Now 5 years later I'm definitely in some deep uncharted territory. The loneliness was very bothersome, but over time it becomes quite liberating, like a hermit it frees you to discover the deeper things in life.

The work can be insane and makes you question why anyone would be mad enough to forgo the easy path for this. The freedom is just way too good though. Often I'm not exactly sure what weekday it is. When I want to go on a vacation I usually decide that 1-3 days ahead and just go somewhere. Silksong was great too. There's absolutely nothing better. Thinking about a 9-5 office job now fills me with pure dread, I think it would break my soul.

Good luck, you should try to scale up the business and get 2-3 regular contractors (artists, designers, marketing folks) so you have somewhat of a team going. It helps when you have people on a project to throw the ball back and forth a bit.

Just regret waiting until I was 35 to attempt it and now I'm already going on 40. Wasted good years on easy mode.

edit:

But this part is wild to me: "I use AI for some things. It helped me fix a few bugs a couple of times"

I can't imagine being solo indie and not leaning hard into Codex, CC, or Composer at this point. To use it only sometimes for the rare bug or copy editing sounds tragic. It's been an incredible boon for me at least - extending, refactoring, prototyping etc. within a complex codebase I wrote myself and in new ones that I guide it on.

> It’s especially bad with new APIs.

It's great if you give it the context

Sounds about right for someone who is building on their own.