Introduce Yourself (July 2019)

Hey I'm Toby from London, UK. I mostly lurk here just soaking up the content and upvoting posts I like. Fascinated by what everyone is working on. I'm more a writer than a coder but easing my way into coding by working on an Electron app. I've been a web designer in my spare time for quite a few years.

My plan is to become a full-time author by the end of this year. I've been publishing fiction on Amazon for the last couple of years and that's starting to go pretty well. In my spare time I will be launching (next week) and promoting my first app and slowly learn more about coding. Where to even start!

I discovered Flutter last week and am keeping an eye on that as something to learn in the future.

Hey I'm Chris 👋, long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm a full stack software developer working remotely from the Toronto suburb of Whitby. I'm mostly focused on backend development these days, but spent many years as a frontend developer.

I'm currently working on a side project (backside.io) which is a Backend as a Service that provides a scalable RESTful API managed by a simple UI. Looking forward to sharing my progress and joining the conversations on IH.

Hi IH Community 👋

Nick here, currently the CPO for Groove (www.groovehq.com) - working remotely between South Africa (my motherland) and Berlin with my Wife.

I've been doing agile and product work for close on to 12 years now, mainly in high growth startups (SAAS / Ecom / Incubators / ISPs) at management/executive level.

I've also had a bunch of little startups that I like doing to play around with code and design, and a couple new ones that I'm thinking about.

Really excited to be part of the community here 🤘

Hey, Quentin there ! I work full time on collectorcarvalue.com that tracks value of classic cars in the world, for professionals and enthusiasts.
I think that the tool is ready now, considering it like the most precise in France in this area.
It's now time to find contracts and customers !
I'm on Indiehackers because I'd like to find people in my situation, because the path is not so easy. Let me know if you are french !

Hi all! My name's Brad and although this is my second post it's my first proper introduction. I'm located in Melbourne, Australia.

I've been somewhat interested in coding for nearly 20 years (I first bought a C++ book when I was about 14 but it was a touch overwhelming at the time), but it's just now that I'm finally getting to the point of, well, actually building things.

(I also spent a couple of years devouring lean startup materials and the like, but, again, never actually started to build anything.)

Late last year I began working on a small iOS app that will (hopefully!) help casual workers calculate the wage that they should expect (that is, you enter the hours you work at the end of each shift, and at the end of your pay cycle it'll tell you what you should expect to find on your payslip, essentially so that people can check that they're not being underpaid...I think I need to work on my elevator pitch!).

Unfortunately, my usual procrastination patterns then kicked in, and I let my self-doubt derail the project.

But then I was lucky enough for a former employer to pitch me on building a small "app prototype" for his company -- that company works in the violence prevention space, mostly with sporting clubs and schools, and the idea was to build something that could be used to "activate bystanders" who are witnessing dangerous or potentially violent situations at, say, a sporting match. It guides the user through the kind of language that they can use to calm situations down.

Anyway, that basically brings us to today: last week I handed the prototype over to the client, and he was thrilled with it. And, since I've been paid, I guess I can technically call myself a software developer now? I mean, that might seem a little silly given how little I've done so far, but I'm trying to use the legitimacy of having had a real project, and having finished it on a deadline, as a future motivator.

I also find that IH is a really big help; obviously the one thing that people here have in common is that they just want to Get Things Done; y'all want to turn your ideas into tangible things, but it's not as if that is a magical cure for all the kinds of doubts and worries that creep into our minds. So I should really make sure I'm checking in here more often. (I can't guarantee I'll post that often though! :)

Hey everyone, I'm Weiwei. I just started a challenge to build 12 products in 12 months. I'm have a background in design so I have a lot of coding to learn still! For most of the products I'm building it with friends so I won't be on this journey alone.

I wrote a note to share the larger thinking on [pursuing a permission-less career], if you are available to read it, I would love to hear your thoughts: http://weiweihsu.com/2019-07-12/pursuing-a-permission-less-career

My name is Joe. I am a 46-year old structural engineer with an interest in making a career change. I taught myself BASIC on a Commodore 64 when I was 14 and loved computers more than anything else but made the mistake of entering into civil engineering instead of computer science in college. To be able to create one or more web based businesses that could generate my current salary, allowing me to give up engineering, would be life-altering. I want to learn the path to that.

I've been semi-lurking for awhile. Just started meetups in Sacramento, CA for hackers/makers. I like being creative and making stuff and I'm working on various different ideas at any given moment.

My focus right now is to ship my ideas. Large chunks of time isn't abundant so I'm doing 1-day projects and maybe tinkering with them here and there after.

I really enjoyed the podcast episode with @djbaskin and seeing all her varied projects. I experiment, without expectation of making money off of the idea and just need to get it out into the world and out of my mind.

Hey, I’m Michael, I recently went full-time on pgmustard.com, with my co-founder Dave. We’re both UK based, in Guildford and Bristol.

We both went down to 4 days at our previous jobs to get the project off the ground, and went full time once we could see a path to a v1!

We launched recently and are delighted to have (a very small amount of) revenue :D

The plan is to burrow deep into our niche (Postgres performance) and hopefully not have to go back to real jobs 😅

Only discovered IH recently, love the vibe here, thanks all for being so open and so welcoming. Hope to contribute back as we learn too ☺️

Hey, I'm Amin Memon, Full Stack Developer, Marketer, Designer. Co-founder at Draftss.com
Passionate about creating products that help solve problems businesses face. Currently working on Draftss.com with @JunaidBhai, where we have productized graphic design & code. We are offering businesses a Design Team for just $89/week. We are helping businesses save a huge amount of time and money in finding & hiring a designer.

We launched our design service here on IH in April 2018 last year and come a long way ever since. We have grown to $50k ARR in the past one year.

Nash here. Discovered IndieHacker last year and mostly just read the content from other users. Love hearing other people's stories.

Just launched my startup undock.com out of beta earlier this week. It is my full-time gig. The app attempts remove the pain out of scheduling tasks and meetings with others. Ready for the ride and looking forward to learning and growing with the community.

Tyler here. Came across Indie Hackers at the recommendation of my friend @PatrickEllis. Currently working as head of marketing at a startup (bloomapi.com, YC '17) but I've always had my sights on eventually starting a company and am exploring ideas in my free time.

Skills: marketing, software development, storytelling

Some of my previous projects

• Data Analytics for Manufacturing: doodlebase.io
• Mobile video game (Smashy Brick): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smashy-brick/id1055395101
• Short film about Ted Bundy's girlfriend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AUM8KZG2c4&t=151s

Hi, I am Mahesh, based in Vancouver Canada. Been lurking for a month, am inspired daily by the drive and action on the community and the podcast.
I've been a product manager in larger tech companies for around 10 years and am seeking ways to go on my own, building new products (and companies). My calling is in healthcare-related technologies. I don't however know exactly where to start to been looking at the stories here to find inspiration and take actions.
Love the opportunity to share my voice here! :)

Hey, I'm Viktor and I'm running my own free stock photo site picjumbo.com (product in my profile). In 2013 all major stock photo sites rejected my photos, so I started my own site and published all my photos for free.

In the first two years, people downloaded more than 📸 2,500,000+ photos and did 📈 1M monthly views in only 11 months.

Right now I'm dealing with a problem to get traffic over 1,5M of monthly views. For last three years I'm still in 1M-1,5M views. ☹️

I published picjumbo on IH yesterday, so I'm excited to add all the milestones of my journey 🙌🏻

I'm Andy, a senior developer based in the midlands, UK. Currently working full time at an agency and, like so many others, trying to find the time to work on a side project that will hopefully support me.

Hi I'm Sean, I'm a founder, developer, marketer and teacher.

I am currently running a program where I teach people to build and validate their MVPs https://www.indiehackers.com/post/4f5d96b9ad and also trying to contribute to as many IH'ers and their projects as I can :)

I thought my program would only be interesting for people wanting to learn to code but interestingly I have had people with a varying range of experience reach out to me.

I look forward to posting updates on the program in the weeks to come.

hey i'm yvan. i'm 1/2 of starting aiconic.com. we're a company that works on interesting financial technology products/projects. i'm not sure it quite fits the indie hacker aesthetic but a lot of the ideas here influence my thinking. in the past i've worked on projects like simple link managers, bluetooth file sharing, and managing large scale data collection for academic research. i love reading people's stories here and seeing all the interesting businesses that the modern economic engine enables!

Hello everyone,

I'm Matt Pupa from Boston, MA. I have almost 10 years of experience in analytics at SaaS companies, and now I want to grow a sustainable SaaS business and/or a growth hacking agency. I've helped build a product from 0-500K customers for a previous company, and have worked for companies of all different sizes. I'm here for networking, collaboration, ideas, advice, and fun/intelligent conversation

Hi everyone, I'm Andrea, founder of Hostology.co which is about to go into a quick beta testing phase.

I started Hostology as a result of the success that we had with our vacation rental in Costa Rica, which to most people seemed like luck but in reality it was due to pretty thorough research. I took what I learned and packaged it into an easy to use tool that lets investors quickly analyze ROI for potential properties, will help prospective hosts determine potential revenue and pricing, and allows existing hosts to benchmark their performance and analyze their comps.

I'm excited about this next phase to come !

Hi y'all! I'm a freelance/startup chick (marketing and operations) also with a passion for product/industrial design, but more importantly, I'm a chaotic existentialist that somehow still believes in saving the world. I'm starting a blog called thegoodstartup.com, which writes about companies with a social/environmental mission, so say hi if you have something you'd like to be featured for free! 🤗

Hey guys, my name is Alex Panayi. My ultimate goal is to become a successful SaaS developer /entrepreneur, and develop multiple products and businesses that provide a solution to a problem.

Just want to say that all of you guys are extremely inspiring to me. Creating products and an online business is admirable, and I hope to join you guys one day.

Hi there, my name is Vladimir I'm originally from Colombia but live in Montreal Canada. I'm a father of two amazing girls 2.5y and 8. I'm also a front end dev working for a bike sharing company.

My side project is called splashcamps as splashcamps.com and my vision is to build a platform to help with daycare management but at the same time benefit parents with things such as easy access to the menu (ask Google to let you talk to splash camps and find out what is your child having for lunch today : -) ), or sms reminders of what is coming up tomorrow and a few other little things. All this at a price that daycare can't say 'we can't not afford it'.

I will be adding the project here this week and will start sharing my progress with you guys.

I've joined IH a few month ago and I want to say thank you all, I have always worked by my self and the feedback and support of a community can make a huge difference.

I work with Angular and node so if I can lend a hand to someone do not be shy to reach out, I believe giving back is one of the reasons I'm here.

I'm also into trail running although someone not long ago tempted me into getting into triathlons.

Hi, I'm Mason!

I've been listening to the IH podcast for about half a year, and joined indiehackers.com 2 months ago.

My girlfriend and I recently quit our jobs and moved out to Hawaii for a cheap living situation and to support my mom. I have a couple of ideas that my girlfriend and I are making slow progress towards.

I've been spending the past few days working on a 3D function visualizer that I'm hoping to turn into a blog post and throw onto Hacker News - masontraylor.com/draw

If anyone here is looking for some feedback on their startup or needs a developer, feel free to hit me up! I've got the time and am happy to contribute to the community.

Hey, I'm Goran 👋, long time lurker, just recently posted my first post and startup landing page. In the future, I will be more active as there is some news being prepared in the background. Here our first landing page so any feedback is more than welcome:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/d080a89509

or landing page:
http://zirelco.ch/gimme/index_en.html

Hey Guys! Taahir Isaacs - UX, F/E - here from South Africa 🇿🇦

Currently, I’ve just completed building an Alpha for my first side project -> TinyTrader (tinytrader.co.za) - An online marketplace for micro/home-based businesses to connect with consumers via WhatsApp.

Would love some advice around effective B2C marketing for indie products?

Hello, my name is Devan, and I am the creator and founder of an HR SaaS for small to medium businesses called HR Partner - www.hrpartner.io

I guess I have been a long time lurker in here! I was one of the first SaaS companies that Courtland reached out to for an interview when he was first setting up Indie Hackers years ago. (https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/learning-the-ropes-and-building-my-own-saas-business-7d466494ba)

But since then, I have been extremely busy building my startup, and we have been growing slowly but steadily while steadfastly staying bootstrapped so I haven't really been active on here.

Learning lots along the way, and I thought it might be time to engage more with the community here and give back with some of the things I have had to overcome during the journey.

Also - Any growing startups on here that may be looking for an HR solution, please reach out to me and let me know you are a part of IH and I can arrange for a startup 50% discount on your subscription (or a free plan if you are 10 or less employees).

Hi! I'm Kirpal, an incoming computer science student working on a not yet released Flutter app. It's designed to assist high schoolers along the whole college application process, from finding and researching schools to building a college list and submitting applications. Within the next week I'm hoping to get a closed beta out, and to start marketing it and building an email list.

I just found indie hackers hackers a few weeks ago from a product hunt podcast, and I've been lurking and getting a feel for the community.

Looking forward to contributing more as I get closer to launch and beyond!

Hi, I'm Gil, originally from Arkansas, and although I've lurked for a while, only just recently started contributing.

I am the cofounder of a small PPC+SEO agency (www.discosloth.com) with three full-time colleagues. On the side, I run a few projects and communities around the internet, some of which are profitable and others of which are very far from so!

I've been building stuff on the internet since I was a kid - I think the first website I built was in 2004. I never stopped, although I had a stint as a media guy for about six years (for nonprofits and NGOs).

I love to travel (45 countries so far) and love a good old PBR.

Hi I'm Jarred, been lurking anonymously for a while but finally decided to make it official a few weeks ago. I'm a fullstack dev and I've been remotely contracting for the past several years. Work mostly with React, React Native and Golang. Love the community and the inspiration, can't wait to get more involved.

Hey indiehackers 👋
I'm Ben and I'm a fullstack dev with design affinity. Starting a few months back I started building things on the side and just recently opened up https://narrowr.com to private beta invites 😊 – Happy about any feedback & stoked to be here!

Jason here. I'm exploring ideas now after several years in various tech companies in SF and NY in analytics, payments, and most recently as a PM at a crypto exchange. I've spent the last few months relearning web development as I intend to enroll in YC's Startup School this summer and grow into a technical role.

Latest project was building iTunes for web: http://www.orangemusic.xyz

Niek here; I've been lurking around since I started building Contexted half a year ago. Currently, I'm in the phase of being satisfied enough with the product that I think it is ready for active usage. The current challenge is getting inflow of new users. If you guys have any feedback or comments, I would be happy to hear from you.

http://contexted.io

Hey, I just joined The IH community!
I am a React Native Developer and I'm currently working remotely at least 40h/wk at my day job. I also am a father of 10 month old 👶so I really don't have any time for making my dream come true, although I am trying.
Started blogging last year, but I stopped doing it when my baby was born and didn't blog about anything since then.
I have a couple of Mobile App Ideas and I recently started working on one, but I am not sure yet if this is the path I want to follow.
I think I am at the stage where I need to figure out what exactly I would like to with my life and I came here for inspiration. Really love what you're doing as a whole community here!