Ask HN: Advice
I’m deeply interested in startups or, as it's often called these days, indie hacking. I enjoy programming and creating something of my own, and I’d love to fully dive into this if it could bring me more income than my current job.
I’ve tried launching a few projects of my own. My first attempt was a complete failure, probably due to a lack of resources and project management skills. It was a social network for gamers, where people were supposed to share posts and interact. But when I faced reality, I realized that growing a project in that niche was extremely challenging and required substantial investments. I spoke with owners of similar projects and learned that running such a platform demands constant content updates, which means hiring people—and paying them. My illusions were shattered.
My salary wasn’t enough to sustain the project, let alone expand it. I held on for a while, hoping someone would notice me, but the miracle never happened. That’s when I made my first tough decision: to shut everything down. It was heartbreaking, and I felt both depressed and empty afterward. But I quickly bounced back—or, as they say these days, I felt the “entrepreneurial itch.”
My second project was more successful compared to the first one, though I wouldn’t call it a major success. It was essentially a parser for finding and downloading books—but on steroids. That’s when I got my first users. However, I know this type of project isn’t exactly legal. Initially, I created it for personal use, but I decided to share it, and some people liked it and stuck around. That’s how I gained my audience.
Still, I realize this project has no sustainable future for two reasons:
It’s in a legal gray area at best. The project could be shut down or deleted at any time. I genuinely enjoy working on it and helping people, but I know it’s not the kind of project that will help me achieve my dream of living solely off my own ventures.
My third project was born out of necessity—both for myself and my friends. We needed a VPN because so many essential resources are blocked these days. Plus, the growing lack of internet freedom is frustrating. However, I completely missed the market with this one. The competition is fierce, and the project being useful only to me and my friends doesn’t align with my dream of building something bigger.
And now, I’m at a crossroads, unsure of what to do next. I look at the current market and the kind of projects other startups are launching, and it feels surreal. Everyone seems to be selling APIs for OpenAI with custom prompts. I can’t bring myself to care about such ideas because they lack depth or long-term value (at least from my perspective).
Maybe I’m fooling myself, and I’m not really an entrepreneur. But deep down, I still have hope. Hope for my own project. Hope for a future where I have my own team—a team I can call my team. The problem is, I don’t know how to get there.