Path to Indie-Hacker - Part 1.0, Chase the Sunrise
Tags: career
Published: 2021-09-01 08:39:07

## Introduction

Welcome to Part 1.0 of my Path to Indie-Hacker series, where I explain my process of becoming an Indie-Hacker in *full-transparency*. 

If you read my last post, you'll already know a bit about me and why I'm here. In this post you'll discover what I'm doing to achieve the goal of ✨financial freedom✨ and waking up to a new challenge each day - and how **you can use that same process**. This initial post explores the social-media aspect of being an Indie-Hacker! 

## Chase the Sunrise

My surname - Woodward - comes from an old profession of *warding woods*. My ancestors took care of large swathes of forest and ensured the livelihood of animals living within them were the best they could be.. for rich nobles to hunt. 🐇

A *bit* morbid but I like to think the caring and adoration of those forests has been intimately written into my DNA since Great-Great Papa or Mama Woodward set foot in those mist-filled, serene stretches of woodland. 🌳

Now every morning, I time my walk to the train-station down to the last few seconds. It's 10 minutes if I'm cool enough to speed-walk, 12 minutes if I'm not. I don't want to be too sweaty! 🏃🏻‍♂️

My walk takes me through a particular park where the sun *just* glimpses over the houses around and glows the leaves in a beautiful orange light. I adore it, so much. 🧡

## Why?

I can't always spend the time I want basking in the morning sun on that walk and that truly hurts some days. I use that morning light instead to [wake up properly](https://hubermanlab.com/master-your-sleep-and-be-more-alert-when-awake/) and it feels wasteful to be doing it *for someone else*. **I want to be able to tread softly at my own pace through those trees, in my own time**. 🌤

Further to that, a major personality trait I have is the functional viewing, interpetation and expression of ..things that aren't usually functional or real! My [aphantasia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia) is a massive reason for that so I tend to imagine and explain things with graphs, numbers or patterns. My psychologist loves it. 😂

> 'How are you feeling this morning?'
>
> Great, but maybe only three blips over last time. It's trending upwards though. \*vague hand motions\*.

That trait inspires a lot of desire for facts, figures and charts though! I *love* looking at progress through numbers and recognising patterns of success (or failure!). I genuinely get excited by opportunities to spreadsheet *something*, anything! I want to **have a dashboard of my success - from users to income, projects and stability** that I can fawn over every morning. 📊

Finally, I want to be **soley responsible for my income and livelihood**. Some enjoy the monotonous day-to-day, but I don't. I respect those that enjoy their easier lifestyle, but it's not for me. I want to be in control of my income (within reason!) and have my progress be self-inspired, challenging and fruits of my own effort. 💪🏻

### Aims

I've purposely left my aims and goals off this post as it's already planned to be fairly long. That'll be in Part 1.5 though!

## How?

**This** is the part you came for! Let's explore my process broadly:

- Maintain and harness social-media platforms to attract new users, provide insight to my services and allow for a more intimate relationship with users,
- Create and foster a community of friendly and interesting users who enjoy my services/products and provide them with personal content,
- Regularly release MVP products to the community for input and determine the market's reaction, 
- Promote special content outside of the services/products for mega-fans and important users.

### Social Media

The most important aspect of my users is *communication*. They are the life-force of my businesses and drive progress and opportunities. Without them, I'd be nothing! 🗣

It's *so* important to have a social-media presence that is personable and interactive, especially in the early-days. Welcome new users, raise up users that have been inspiring and highlight super-users and mega-fans to convert others. 🥇

I'm selecting a group of social-media platforms that complement each other and my skills, but aren't all the same *type*. You want to be able to serve different kinds of content to different platforms to ensure you're getting a well-rounded view. Create a system where *even failing progresses you* by being openly transparent. ♻

I chose [**Twitter**](https://twitter.com/weekendghost), [**Instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/weekend_ghost), [**Twitch**](https://www.twitch.tv/weekend_ghost) and [**Dev.to**](https://dev.to/weekend_ghost/), as well as my own [**personal website**](https://www.weekendghost.com/). 

I've also created a schedule of when and how to post to those services - something that will save me hours of effort when productivity spikes. ⌚

- Twitter,
  - Post more personal content relating to myself, the services/products that I've built and reply often to users.
  - Post technical content and links to my own blogs with a deeper explanation available,
  - Post often - a number of times a week.
- Instagram,
  - Post more personal content relating to myself, the services/products that I've built,
  - Post behind-the-scenes content and sales, competitions and less interactive material,
  - Post less often - once a week or so, but be detailed and refined with the content.
- Twitch,
  - Stream to an interactive audience and built a community of viewers that are interested in the services/products coming. 
  - Use that opportunity to show behind-the-scenes building and views of the services/products,
  - Stream a number of times a week on a schedule, in a defined format.
- Dev.to, 
  - Post technical write-ups, useful guides and transparent progress reports of the services/products,
  - Harness commenters to be beta testers, drive traffic and explore future ideas,
  - Post infrequently with purpose, where content has been vetted, drafted and improved upon before release.

My personal website is something a little nebulous and experimental. I want that service to provide an open-heart-surgery look into my business, where users can see live-views of customer interaction (with respect to privacy, of course), the health of the business(es) I run and how each aspect of me, my business(es) and my income is managing across a set timeline. 🔪

There also has to be a little sunburst or confetti when I reach my target MRR! 🎉

### MVP and Promotion

Failing often is spouted as the Indie-Hacker, Entrepeneur way, with good reason. Most products and services .. fail. Some fail hard. Some get sticky for a little bit but ultimately end up dead.

So fail often, and fail fast. I won't create the application to 100%, instead I'll get it out there in front of eyes as fast as I can. 👀

This is easier said than done as a newbie with no following, but that can also be a super-power. Your failures will largely go unseen by the general public so you've got nothing to lose! Fail often, hard, but keep notes of the little successes. 📑 

As my community increases, I want to start incorporating *beta testers* and the potential for users to become *first-acccess* users through services like Patreon and similar. I can then get a better market overview, utilise the power of the community for testing and reward users who help progress the product or service with lifetime discounts or acknowledgements. 🥰

## Witness the Sunrise

So that's it! That's how I'll be promoting myself and building a community of users to inspire my progress. 

Part 1.5 will be out soon, with an introduction to my aims and goals to determine the progress of my journey. 

How did you start your Indie-Hacker journey? What inspire{d/s} you? Are you following a similar pattern? 

-----

You can find Weekend_Ghost all across the web! 
- [Website](https://www.weekendghost.com) 💬
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/weekendghost) ⚡
- [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/weekend_ghost/) ⛰
- [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/weekend_ghost) 🎙
- [Dev.to](https://dev.to/weekend_ghost/) 🖊