A fortuitous decade as an indie software developer | Hacker News Reader

A fortuitous decade as an indie software developer

lapcatsoftware.com

166 pointsfrizlab40 comments

As someone who has made a living as an Indie developer for 20 years (creating Windows and Mac apps) I feel it is getting harder:

https://successfulsoftware.net/2025/12/22/is-the-golden-age-...

You focused largely on the promotional aspect, though I think the product competition angle is more interesting.

The other day I saw someone famous(ish) announce a new desktop application, to meaningful reception.

Thirty minutes later I had the same application, in every meaningful way. Built, working, ready for distribution.

It was just a test and I’m not about to sell it, but I can’t see how this doesn’t come down hard on indie developers.

This example produced reasonably done swift using appropriate system libs… so while “slop” will be a thing people might ignore for now, I think the bar has to go way, way up for real developers.

I don't see how you could verify "same application in every meaningful way" inside of 30 minutes. Even if the other fellow just vibed it up like you did, him caring about the product and doing thoughtful QA and actually using the application and making little tweaks and staking his reputation on it and committing to its ongoing maintenance is what matters. You may even have an identical application at the end of the day but I'll pay $20 for one that I'm better able to trust.

> I don't see how you could verify "same application in every meaningful way" inside of 30 minutes.

That was not difficult. Though obviously I wouldn’t declare it so and actually ship it to paying people in 30 minutes.

As for the rest of your point, that’s certainly going to be a fair assessment, much of the time, for now.

But that wasn’t really the point. We’re already pretty close to being there on “just tell the machine what you want” for huge swaths of non-critical software. And I don’t think pressure from that is going to let up.

>You focused largely on the promotional aspect, though I think the product competition angle is more interesting.

They are linked. LLMs mean reduced barriers and more competition, which makes promotion harder.

As someone who took years investing in a system to easily spin up indie projects before vibe coding was coined. It’s been crushing to have built quality projects that are now swallowed up by a tidal wave of AI slop.

It may or may not be a great time to be a popular indie dev, but for the less known folks - it’s a lottery

"surfing is not a sport, it's a way of life"

Agreed friend

Also, "it takes five years to become an overnight success" is a fantastic line.

Great read

"It takes five years to become an overnight success" I heard a variation of this from a VC who invested in my startup in the 8Os. I had to use it on him when we went back to the well a few times for more funding.

why did you put a captial o instead of a 0 for the 80s?

the software engineering profession seems to be one of the few professions that doesn't reward 20+ year professionals. with doctors, lawyers etc - your value goes up past 40.

but in software engineering with ageism - your value "goes down". when it should be the reverse if you're an IC.

so yeah going your own way as quick as possible - is not insurance for your sanity but income too.

is it easy no, but worth it.

Thanks for the frankly sharing of the journey, being in the same boat, after two years of not-worth-to-mention revenue from appstore, it seems start to get on track a bit now

I think I am not the lucky one to get overnight success and like in the post get the lucky time on iOS 15 release

Being writing a long article to record my indie app developper journey, Hope I can read in calm of it one decade later

As an indie software maker, I agree. I've been thinking about this a lot too. I'm going to start by polishing my indieweb site first. A site needs to look decent to be trustworthy.

In 2026 a site should not look made by Claude to feel trustworthy, IMHO

I feel the same. I've always had this feeling about sites, but the recent year or so has really defined it for me: Sites that have the polished, glowing, glossy aesthetic are way less trustworthy to me than simple indieweb sites with some basic CSS. It's the same principle people have noted about seeing typos in text making it more human-like. Of course, Claude can make sites that have an indieweb vibe, but it takes deliberate prompting, while the default is the fancy 2020 SaaS startup aesthetic, which I see everywhere now. It's almost an inversion of felt effort.

Does it look like Claude made it? It was actually made from a template I used 5 years ago. The world never stops surprising me.

It doesn’t, no, I reacted to your comment, not your website :)

Ah, I see. These days, there's a trend of calling everything AI slop, so I agree with you. That's why I've been hesitant to use Bootstrap templates lately. even though they used to be considered pretty reliable

If you’re fortunate to have the chance, do it and don’t look back.

I had the fortune and grit to build and release something on my own. It took years and a lot of pain. Then came the pain of supporting it in production. I generally regret putting myself through this and I do look back. I do think it is worth trying something, but you need to be careful what exactly you are building. Too many times I got lost in details or spent way too much time on things that were not worth it. Also, giving up sooner when you see it doesn't work can be a good thing.

+1 I did a few android apps in the goldrush years and building the app was the easy part, and this was before Claude code.

The hard part was the customer and technical support. Huge time and energy sink fielding those requests - some totally lucid and well written, some incomprehensible, some just kinda sketchy obviously looking to manipulate/exploit/whatever you, some from people using phones and software versions you've never heard of, some from people using a totally different app than yours, some who think you are Google/apple/Microsoft and please reset their password to hunter2 etc etc etc. Then you have the endless API churn and mandates from the app stores etc about what you can and can't do, what SDK needs updating for whatever, new requirements, new deprecations etc etc etc.

It was maybe 10% coding and building something, with the other 90% just dealing with "customer service" bullshit that gained you basically nothing (and certainly not making you any revenue).

I made some small time hobby money, but obviously I pulled all the apps eventually and never looked back really. I would not recommend doing this to anyone if you have a stable job that pays reasonably well already. Keep the day job, it's less hassle.

We need more of these stories. A week or two ago game engines came up where I see so many wanna-be indie devs effectively throw away their chance at shipping before running out of money by spending time making an engine instead of getting to the game by using an existing one. The comments were generally "so what if they had fun". My reply should have been "it would be nicer to have shipped and kept the fun going longer than not ship because of wasted time and therefore have to give up the dream"

what if the fun for them is the game engine? because game devs are customers too, it's technical product dev.

their stated goal is to become a self-sustaining indie game dev. They fail because instead of shipping a game they spent time making an engine and then running out of funds an having to get job not making their own stuff.

If their stated goal was to make a game engine then sure. That wasn't their stated goal.

i see. thanks for the context.

If you have the balls to create and release something, you’re a legend. Don’t be a corporate NPC trying to look like the smartest person in the meeting and optimizing some stupid KPI for your next promotion packet. Life’s far too short. Save me the cliche rebuttals too, I’ve already heard them.

Yeah, but for most people, the paycheck from being a 'corporate NPC' is a profound and unbeatable argument.

Rent is due every month and stores don't accept personal IOUs....

Aren’t you all paid really well in the US? (I assume you’re in the US, given the general audience of this website)

I would be really surprised if the majority of HN audience didn’t have decent savings, unless SF is really as expensive as people say online?

Whatever savings you have, you still need to contend with the reality that the US has no real social safety net and it's expensive, esp since the last few years. You are always potentially one doctors visit away from bankruptcy without insurance, and the social safety programs like Medicare and social security only kick in after 65.

The truth is, an overwhelming majority of people in the US live a very precarious life financially speaking. No doubt the US as a whole is a very rich country, but to paraphrase William Gibson, the money is there, just not evenly distributed.

How is this the most upvoted comment? I get great joy out of being a great engineer at work. I LOVE solving hard problems and helping people. People at work using my tools or reading my documents brings me joy.

You can do this and release things! Do both!

Because ultimately a lot of corpo tech is ads bullshit or not nearly far enough from it.

Or it's healthcare bs. And not the cool kind where you help people (tremendous respect for doctors and nurses). The bs kind where you make it slightly more efficient to bill them into bankruptcy.

Or it's generic SaaS which is more or less the most you can hope to get to work on. (It's where I am).

Then there's reams of poorly paid positions where you software mill excel-adjacent LOB apps.

I agree with the sentiment of parent comment. Corporate programming sucks. If you have the opportunity to not be alienated from the product of your labor, do it.

> Corporate NPC

That's a really good description, I should update my linkedin profile :)

You do realize that there is a large spectrum of occupations between a self-employed software developer, and a "corporate NPC", don't you? And, do you really reject all counterarguments outright, like you heard all of them already and there is nothing new you can learn, nor any place of individual circumstances in life?

>NPC

>mog

Touch grass

But the corporations are where all the money is, and the system murders you if you don't have money.

It doesn't reward you if you don't produce anything that someone is willing to pay you for. Who has been murdered for not having money?

Literally every person who died of exposure while homeless.

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