@dvassallo’s tweet was spot on in summing up my indie maker journey so far

Don’t build a product. Build a portfolio of small bets. Once you adopt this perspective, it becomes a lot easier to figure out what you should be doing (and not doing).

I like the practice of small bets. Because when you’re making products, you’re always making bets on a daily basis. Do all the research you want, but you can never find be 100% sure because it’s humanly impossible to know 100% of all there is to know about making your product successful. What you thought was 100% of the problem space might just be 50% until you launch something and put it out in the wild. Unknown unknowns are sharks waiting to have you for lunch. For volatile, uncertain, chaotic and ambiguous problem spaces, small bets are the way to go. 

But when do you call a stop to small bets? After 3 products? When you hit 5? 10? Or infinity till something succeeds? Looking at my product list in Makerlog, I already have 15 products under my belt. Yet, success still eludes me. I’m still trying to make something that I can get solid monthly recurring revenue from. Even a small amount—like a few hundred a month—is good enough for me. But no such sign yet. I’m not even close. I don’t even have $1 of MRR! It’s getting deeply frustrating, and not just for bread and butter issues, but a sore point on my self-esteem and ego. Yes, I got an ego. Everyone has one, even if they don’t like to talk about it. Few problems had stumped me this long. And with COVID and all the massive disruptions to the global and local economy, now is definitely the best time to make one of these small bets happen. Any bet.  

Should I stop trying? If not now, then when? If never, then what next?

I have no answers. But these questions will guide my efforts in the coming months. Enough is enough is enough.