[HN Gopher] My product is my garden
___________________________________________________________________
My product is my garden
Author : square_usual
Score : 666 points
Date : 2021-02-03 10:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (herman.bearblog.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (herman.bearblog.dev)
| raunometsa wrote:
| I'm too feeling like this more and more. I get an email every
| time a new user signes up and I will manually check how they are
| doing on my site.
|
| If I see they may need my help, I email them (people really love
| this kind of proactive help).
| eecks wrote:
| I love this analogy. I had a conversation with someone (a non-
| tech person) recently.
|
| Them: What are you doing?
|
| Me: Making a website
|
| Them: Why?
|
| Me: Just am.
| pmlnr wrote:
| There has been a growing movement around the thought that one's
| website is their digital garden, for example:
| https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/02/17/building-digital-garden/
| transitivebs wrote:
| Beautifully written && definitely hits home.
|
| Putter on, my friend.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was argumentative, asked
| the old man what the name of the strangled Mufti was. 'I don't
| know,' answered the worthy man, 'and I have never known the name
| of any Mufti, nor of any Vizier. I have no idea what you're
| talking about; my general view is that people who meddle with
| politics usually meet a miserable end, and indeed they deserve
| to. I never bother with what is going on in Constantinople; I
| only worry about sending the fruits of the garden which I
| cultivate off to be sold there.' Having said these words, he
| invited the strangers into his house; his two sons and two
| daughters presented them with several sorts of sherbet, which
| they had made themselves, with kaimak enriched with the candied-
| peel of citrons, with oranges, lemons, pine-apples, pistachio-
| nuts, and Mocha coffee... - after which the two daughters of the
| honest Muslim perfumed the strangers' beards. 'You must have a
| vast and magnificent estate,' said Candide to the turk. 'I have
| only twenty acres,' replied the old man; 'I and my children
| cultivate them; and our labour preserves us from three great
| evils: weariness, vice, and want.' Candide, on his way home,
| reflected deeply on what the old man had said. 'This honest
| Turk,' he said to Pangloss and Martin, 'seems to be in a far
| better place than kings.... I also know," said Candide, "that we
| must cultivate our garden.'
|
| -- Voltaire, Candide
| telesilla wrote:
| The families I know who live best are permaculturalists.
| Visiting them for dinner is always a treat. It's hard work
| though, and like others they have supplemental income. I
| imagine this old man knows well the trick: an independent life
| is impossible unless you have enough healthy young people
| around to do the labour.
| silexia wrote:
| I agree it's hard work. Every project seems like it will take
| an hour at the outset, but ends up taking eight hours due to
| a wide variety of unexpected real world complications.
|
| I traded in a beautiful city home for 106 acres at the
| beginning of the pandemic and am still glad I did. People
| have a fantasy picture of the tradeoff though... In reality,
| in rural places you have less social interaction and the
| people are of a lower caliber than urban areas. You can't
| make money farming unless you do it at massive scale, so I
| still work just as much online as before. Only now my free
| time goes into farming instead of golf or restaurants.
| noxplode wrote:
| Supposedly, small market garden farms can be quite
| profitable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbHwAfHQA9M
| jimbokun wrote:
| "an independent life is impossible unless you have enough
| healthy young people around to do the labour."
|
| Or about $1 million stashed in index funds, give or take
| based on cost of living in your location.
| raintrees wrote:
| Or around $600K in down payments in cash flowing rental
| properties in the US...
|
| My wife and I spent around $75K to get approximately $1K a
| month in cash flow (5 doors, $200 each)...
| vageli wrote:
| $75k for five doors? Might I ask whereabouts? That seems
| ridiculously cheap per unit.
| wahern wrote:
| Not impossible in impoverished areas. A rural trailer
| park, some section 8 housing in a bad part of town, or
| maybe they scooped up some single-family units at the
| bottom of the housing market crash.
| ngngngng wrote:
| I believe they're saying the down payment was $75k
| Rumudiez wrote:
| I think the topic is independence, not being a parasite
| on others who are less well off than you.
| 1MoreThing wrote:
| It is kind of hilarious how often rent-seeking behavior
| is called out as evil when it comes to software
| companies, but actual rent-seeking with real estate is
| seen as virtuous investment.
| [deleted]
| singlow wrote:
| I was reminded of Being There by Jerzy Kosinski:
|
| > In a garden, things grow... but first, they must wither;
| trees have to lose their leaves in order to put forth new
| leaves, and to grow thicker and stronger and taller. Some trees
| die, but fresh saplings replace them. Gardens need a lot of
| care. But if you love your garden, you don't mind working in
| it, and waiting. Then in the proper season you will surely see
| it flourish.
|
| > A gardener! Isn't that the perfect description of what a real
| businessman is?
| hoytech wrote:
| And also check out the concept of the Epicurean garden, which
| is what Voltaire is referring to:
|
| https://www.18thcenturycommon.org/cultivating-philosophy-in-...
| slothtrop wrote:
| Love the quote and book, but only half-way agree with the
| sentiment, unless you stretch the analogy of what the garden
| is. Simple living/work won't in itself quench or stave off
| desire and passions. If that were true farmers would be a
| happier demographic. Desire never really disappears, it's at
| best channeled through engagement / flow, which dovetails with
| the fact that man's work is also the strongest predictor of his
| happiness. I imagine, but don't know, that those who want for
| nothing are not complacent, and those who are complacent can
| never consume enough.
| tmountain wrote:
| Commenting, so I can revisit this later. Great excerpt!
| sethjgore wrote:
| likewise!
| jerkstate wrote:
| You should just read Candide, it's fun and hilarious, and a
| true cultural touchstone.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Yes, fairly short as well. One of my favorites.
| alpha_squared wrote:
| You can favorite comments if you click on their timestamp.
| spockz wrote:
| Dang: why is the favourite button hidden like this?
| tmountain wrote:
| Wow, 11 years on this site, and I'm just learning this...
| Thanks!
| ljsocal wrote:
| love the gardening analogy. Interesting thing I learned from
| gardening is how plants can frequently benefit from neglect. This
| also applies to non-plant initiatives.
| raunometsa wrote:
| Interesting! Like, leave your plants alone and let them live?
| (while still occasionally watering them?)
| mmacedo_en wrote:
| For twenty years I tried to build products and sell them to
| others, to no avail. "Marketing is the problem" - I always told
| myself about my failures.
|
| I still have one product up from those days. FileSculptor is a
| file converter used by non developers to automate CSV to XLSX
| conversion. What was the last time I used it myself? Excluding
| testing before new releases or support issues, never.
|
| I decided that my next product should be something I really care
| about. Something that scratches my on itch and that I would use
| on a daily basis. I should be the first one to find bugs on my
| product, not my users.
|
| I always kept track of my expenses, but was less so with my
| budget. I used a spreadsheet and would update if once or twice a
| month. So I decided to create an app with the budget and expense
| tracking I wanted. I always had lots of ideas of how it should
| work, how it would forecast transactions automatically from a
| detailed budget and how it would deal with credit card purchases,
| hitting the budget on the month they'd appear of the credit card
| statement. It would support credit card purchases with
| installments, something always missing in the apps I tried.
|
| I created Pleke to be the personal finance app I always wanted,
| and use it on a daily basis. For the last six months its been the
| only source of truth about my finances. At my day job I work on a
| product used by others. I'm grateful and want it to work well
| because it pays my bills. But with my app, its quite a different
| relationship. I'm always proud when I input data in it and it
| works as designed. When something breaks, I want to fix it ASAP.
| I have a text file with planned features for version 2, version
| 3, 4 and 5.
|
| Pleke is the app I want to work on for the next ten years, even
| if others do not value it as much as I do. "Marketing is the
| problem" - I will tell myself, to their loss.
|
| Be the first user of your product! A person who takes good care
| of their garden will work on it and admire it on a daily basis.
| So should we with our products.
| aogaili wrote:
| https://medium.com/@cmaitchison/are-you-a-software-gardener-...
| Naac wrote:
| I finally have words to describe the kind of programming I like
| to do in my spare time!
|
| Thank you for linking to that article.
| baxtr wrote:
| A very appealing concept. I hope people doing this succeed in
| generating sufficient income to make a living.
|
| PS: I also like the gardener analogy. It is used elsewhere, too,
| e.g. the "Gardener-Leader" concept of the US Army.
|
| https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Ar...
| shoo wrote:
| thank you for sharing the link, very interesting to see a
| similar idea discussed within another community.
| sanmak wrote:
| Firstly, Very well written and articulated. i wish to have people
| like these around me while I'm WFH.
|
| bearblog.dev is great, minimalistic, bang on with usages.
|
| Just signed up. Will be using it for sure and will definitely
| have some contributions as well. Few ideas to chip in.
|
| Kudos great work.
| elliotec wrote:
| I love this and I aspire to eventually, if I come out of the
| grinder with any ambition, drive, or passion left, do something
| similar.
|
| I abhor big corpratism, and love the way software can be
| independent and disconnected from it, if not usually in practice.
|
| I deeply admire Basecamp's style of "you don't need VC money,
| keep it small, keep building something useful that gets you
| paid." I want that someday but someday is not this day.
|
| I'm not much of an idea guy. I can build stuff. I can get really
| passionate about how things "should be" and implement process and
| infrastructure to get there. But whatever "it" is, just hasn't
| come to me yet.
|
| I long to be an indiehacker but for all the supposedly wrong
| reasons.
|
| I want to putter but don't know where to get the right seeds to
| be puttering for.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| > I deeply admire Basecamp's style of "you don't need VC money,
| keep it small, keep building something useful that gets you
| paid.
|
| Honestly, DHH looks to me and comes across to me as extremely
| burnt out to an unhealthy point. I wouldn't want to aspire what
| he has become. He doesn't strike me as someone like the author
| of Bear Blog who just enjoys puttering along. He comes across
| as someone who constantly stresses himself to become BIG
| without VC money so he can prove someone that you can achieve
| VC level success without VC money. As a result he seems to be
| constantly arguing and lecturing people on social media to a
| point where it feels difficult to watch. Also Hey feels like a
| real flop to me, an attempt to fix something that really nobody
| wanted to be fixed. It's like creating yet another social media
| app when people are already sickened by the sheer amount of
| apps which demand their constant attention.
|
| I admire what bear blog stands for and to me that is far away
| from Basecamp, otherwise I agree with your points :)
| jimbokun wrote:
| > As a result he seems to be constantly arguing and lecturing
| people on social media to a point where it feels difficult to
| watch.
|
| I think that's just his personality, regardless of his
| perceived success or lack thereof.
| styrmis wrote:
| DHH certainly doesn't putter (by the common definition), but
| as someone who has followed his output here and there over
| the course of ~15 years I disagree that he is burnt out or
| that he is out to impress.
|
| Over the years his approach has in my opinion been an example
| of how to be practical, think for yourself, be productive and
| not burn out. His form of puttering looks to be blocking out
| time to program in Ruby and extracting patterns from Basecamp
| (and now Hey) to release as open source. This looks like a
| form of cultivation/gardening to me.
|
| I think most people, myself included, would burn out if they
| attempted to emulate him--he has clearly found a way to
| remain balanced, in his own way.
|
| For the rest of us I think Bear Blog is a good example to
| follow if you can make a living doing so. If you want to see
| the parallels between this and Basecamp then you would need
| to wind the clock way back to the early days of that
| product/company. That said, winding the clock forward on Bear
| Blog will likely not get you something that looks like
| Basecamp today.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I have too many ideas. Every problem or small improvement is a
| potential business opportunity or startup idea and I see them
| everywhere. My experience as a software consultant likely
| contributes to this. It's my job to go talk to customers,
| understand their problem and propose a solution.
|
| If you want to just build stuff for yourself, go work for a
| software consulting firm for a while. It should be a smaller
| one that's interested in tackling smaller jobs. This way,
| you'll interact with more potential customers. You'll learn a
| ton about their businesses, because after all; they hired your
| company to solve their problems. Save as much money as you can.
|
| When you have enough money saved up, you can afford to quit
| your job and focus on something you that interests you because
| it's fun or an amazing opportunity. I've done this a couple of
| times so far. Right now I am splitting my time between a
| startup and a part time job.
|
| I am really glad I have the part time job. Not so much for the
| money, but for the socialization aspects.
| npsimons wrote:
| I second all of this, and this line from the fine article
| resonated deeply:
|
| > That's what I want from my products. I want to putter about,
| feel connected to the process, and have fun doing so.
|
| I too have the same "writer's block" issue for ideas. I've got
| some, but I dunno, it just seems so hopeless to gamble and go
| that route.
|
| For now, I've managed to scrimp and invest enough from the day
| job, I may just quit and putter on projects until I hit on
| something. If I don't make enough to cover costs, I can try
| freelancing/consulting. Worst case, I can go back to the
| corporate grind.
|
| > I'm not much of an idea guy. I can build stuff. I can get
| really passionate about how things "should be" and implement
| process and infrastructure to get there. But whatever "it" is,
| just hasn't come to me yet.
|
| Me too, friend. Me too.
| qwantim1 wrote:
| Is Basecamp really the example to aspire to? Being the
| developer of Rails and ActiveRecord and fostering and milking
| that would be the software equivalent of Peter Frampton, and I
| mean that in the most positive way.
|
| I think we know that we're not all going platinum. This article
| was about just "working on the song(s)" for the enjoyment of
| it, whatever that may involve, or that's the way I took it.
| playpause wrote:
| > the software equivalent of Peter Frampton
|
| Can you clarify this? Just curious. Heard of him, but no idea
| what you mean.
| x4j91 wrote:
| I think the sentiment is that Basecamp is no Led Zeppelin.
| In that they perhaps haven't achieved the record breaking,
| Unicorn level growth that many startups strive for. But
| perhaps that's OK for them?
|
| They've got some great tunes, a loyal following, and can
| still put on a fantastic show. They're superstars by any
| definition.
|
| Peter Frampton had a standout, influential "live" album and
| an innovative style of playing that will forever be
| remembered.
|
| Led Zeppelin had a series of standout albums and hit songs
| spanning close to a decade, spawning Unicorn level sales,
| crowds and generational fandom that held influence on rock
| and roll for 40+ years.
|
| But the band members of Zeppelin eventually succumbed to
| the excesses of their success. They split up after some
| really dark days. The scope and size of their success
| wasn't long term manageable on a personal level. But their
| legacy remains.
|
| Whereas Frampton is still playing small live venues
| today!!!!
|
| He's still rocking out.
| square_usual wrote:
| I think BaseCamp is the _best_ you can hope for with this
| mindset, so in an "aim high" kind of way, it's a good ideal.
| ivanhoe wrote:
| > Being the developer of Rails and ActiveRecord and fostering
| and milking that
|
| It's not entirely fair thing to say as DHH's rise to fame was
| really on both fronts in parallel, actually I remember that
| one of the selling points for ruby/RoR thing early on was
| that "the basecamp was built on it". Most of people (me
| included) never even heard of Ruby before they've made it
| popular, and they could do that partially thanks to having an
| already very popular product built on it and big following of
| fans to their approach to business and software. It was
| before "the lean" ideas got popular, so it was all very new
| and revolutionary.
| FearNotDaniel wrote:
| Now I _really_ know I 'm getting old, when I've gone past
| nostalgia for the 1980s 8-bit era and even Web 2.0 feels
| like a distant, but warm and fuzzy memory...
| afry1 wrote:
| I feel this for sure. I was in the "grinder" for a while, and
| this year I'm making my move into becoming an indie hacker
| myself.
|
| If you're looking for a little inspiration, here are a couple
| links:
|
| - Pieter Levels' announcement post on 12 startups in 12 months:
| https://levels.io/12-startups-12-months/
|
| - My own blog, where I'm documenting my own journey in building
| a startup in a month: https://startupinamonth.net/
|
| I hope you break out soon!
| friseurtermin wrote:
| I feel the same way. Even if you have a lot of ideas, as I'm
| sure everyone has, how would you decide on the "right" one to
| pour all your energy into?
| luka-birsa wrote:
| What if the idea doesn't really matter? You need to start the
| journey and be ready to adapt along the way. I've been at it
| for 12 years now as a cofounder and you'll need to change
| your product every couple of years. Remember - even Microsoft
| is shipping Linux these days.
| kuu wrote:
| If you're trying to sell and earn money, you don't need an
| idea, you need customers. From customers to idea is much
| easier than from idea to customers.
|
| I'm not saying that getting/finding customers is easy
| neither...
| olau wrote:
| That's the minimum viable product thing - you need to figure
| out what's actually helpful to people.
|
| For instance, I hope some day someone takes up the mantle and
| goes out making a decent free identity system. I think most
| of the North European countries have one of those, and they
| are all proprietary and suck with no interoperability. If
| think there's government or even EU money to be had for
| something that works.
|
| So basically, every citizen needs a way of authenticating,
| e.g. to submit tax information, log in to banks etc.
| konschubert wrote:
| If you want government money in the EU for IT stuff you
| have to be huge, boring and inefficient ...
| vangelis wrote:
| We can do better than Shibboleth.
| erwinh wrote:
| Really feeling this, got so much work done last year by just
| continuously smoothing out all kinds of small little details in
| my parametric design software tools. Which individually are all
| quite insignificant but now it really starts to feel like an
| ecosystem (garden!) of functions, classes & objects working
| together in concert for beautiful effects.
| erwinh wrote:
| Literally used it to make digital grass as well:
|
| https://twitter.com/hoogerwoord/status/1348394004413620224?s...
| k__ wrote:
| Sounds good to me.
|
| I always wanted to do my own product, but I had the impression
| all startup communities sucked in some kind of way.
|
| I want to go slow and if I didn't get an MVP out of the door in
| the first few months, I don't care. I have a flexible job as a
| freelancer on the side and can wait.
|
| Still, it's hard to find a likeminded community...
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| i think of it like a shop too. you just kind of fuck around
| making your tools better, goofing off, accumulating knowledge and
| stuff... and slowly become useful
| FriedrichN wrote:
| I like the idea of being a custodian of the things I do and have
| done, which sort of align with the idea in the article. Of course
| I don't always have the opportunity to do so with clients pushing
| for new features and so on. But when I can, I do.
|
| It makes the things I make just a little better every time by
| adding small new features or making small improvements on
| existing ones. No one asked for them, but they are nonetheless
| thankful that I did them.
|
| I don't think I could work in an environment that would not let
| me do those things, there's very little that makes me more
| unhappy than producing garbage work and 'shutting up'.
| mwidell wrote:
| This resonates with me. I get the same experience from my youtube
| channel - making a modest but sufficient income to make a living,
| talking directly to my "users" every day - hearing their
| appreciation and the stories on how my videos directly changed
| their life. So enjoyable.
| nexthash wrote:
| This post almost reads like a manifesto of the digital gardening
| movement that was showcased on HN a few months back [1], with
| some indiehackers sprinkled in. Just a small space of your own on
| the Internet to cultivate your thoughts/projects, outside the
| gigantic walls and rigidity of Big Tech platforms. There's even a
| subreddit [2] for them!
|
| I like to think of software projects as belonging in three
| categories - massive high growth products (big tech), more niche
| low growth products, and side-projects. Digital gardens and small
| software projects with a band of loyal users seem to go between
| side-project and niche product. They are a welcome escape from
| the noise of big platforms, so I hope this developer/Internet
| trend catches on across the web.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24996780
|
| [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalGardens/
| twelvechairs wrote:
| I wish this kind of concept was aspired to by more political
| parties and countries for their citizens. It seems something that
| lives only in a small world of the internet for those who achieve
| it.
| brightball wrote:
| Great perspective IMO.
| fukmbas wrote:
| Anyone else tired of the word 'product'?
| m12k wrote:
| I struggle with balancing the urge to putter like the author puts
| it, with doing "expansionistic" things like marketing or building
| features that are valuable to new customers rather than existing
| ones. The "correct" business analysis will say the business gets
| much more out of new acquisition channels than micro-optimizing
| the product further, that I shouldn't fall into the "build it and
| they will come" mentality. But my first instinct will always be
| to want to just create the best possible product for my existing
| customers - it's what brings me joy, and it's really hard for me
| to designate any suboptimal state of the product as "good enough
| for now" and focus on acquisition instead. For now I try to
| balance it by alternating doing one or the other in each sprint -
| that way I never neglect puttering completely, but I also force
| myself not to do it exclusively like I'd probably do if I just
| based the decision on personal motivation.
| kevsim wrote:
| I'd say if you have existing customers, you're already past
| most companies with a "built it and they will come" mentality.
| Most of those fail to ever acquire real users.
| plumsempy wrote:
| I agree with you and I will add my own tint to it: I do this to
| push myself to grow and move forward and then lie back and do
| what's comfortable and familiar. Rinse and repeat.
| ghoomketu wrote:
| I am on the same page with you. But I've also decided to focus
| all my strength on one thing for the next 5 years just improving
| it and making it the best product for my customers.
|
| Right now it's so easy to make apps with amazing frameworks like
| Vue and Laravel that anybody can create something in a week or
| sometimes even a day[1]. We indiehackers are never short of ideas
| and shiny objects. I too was part of that movement and I created
| many projects, one or two even won out Product hunt proudct of
| the day and started making money too. Alas the fame and fortune
| was short lived because I was just too distracted and never
| focused on building one thing.
|
| I never took the step that is much more important than launching
| the product. It's the boring day-in and day-out sales and
| marketing part. The content writing and the lead generation part.
| The SEO part. The thing that acutally brings in the revenue part.
|
| So anytime I have an amazing idea for my next project. I just
| quietly put in my Google docs and get back to my main focus. I
| think this is the only thing which will finally help me succeed.
|
| [1] https://24hrstartup.com/
| tangjurine wrote:
| What is your main project?
| ghoomketu wrote:
| It's a tool to create videos using just text, called Buzzvid.
| You can play with the demo here (1).
|
| I'm still working on the homepage, tutorials, etc. It's still
| a month until launch. Don't want to hijack this thread but if
| you have any feedback, please send it to the email in my HN
| profile.
|
| (1) https://buzzvid.com/members.html
| abraae wrote:
| As long as you select the right product to focus on, that
| sounds an excellent plan.
| jmathai wrote:
| I think OP's point is that you have to focus this way to get
| to the point of knowing if a product is the right one to
| focus on.
|
| Not focusing this way only guarantees that you'll move on
| before even finding out.
| afarrell wrote:
| This is one thing that has made the transition to a larger
| company so hard for me. In smaller team, you can spend a bit of
| time cleaning up the codebase or tooling and know that investment
| will compound via increased velocity.
|
| When you share a codebase with 200 others, trying to get anything
| tidy and readable is such a yak-shaving exercise, you feel like
| the main character from
| https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/
|
| This is the actual emotional reason why I am now such a big fan
| of microservices (or rather, moderately-sized services): I want
| my own garden to tend alongside a moderately-sized team.
| jakeadler wrote:
| This was really awesome! I think that many people are so focused
| on success we don't take the time to enjoy our garden! The best
| part of building is the being so hands on, especially when it
| comes to talking with consumers and hearing about problems, or
| even building out the product and putting your special touch on
| it. I will make sure to enjoy my garden this week, and observe
| how I help it grow to ensure what I'm doing is truly sustainable!
| ehnto wrote:
| This article resonated with me quite a bit. I very much dislike
| the fast, throwaway software culture of much software
| development. A revolving door of technology, platforms and
| methodology. The first few years you're excited by the pace of
| learning, and that prospect of new projects is really alluring as
| it's a new and exciting problem to solve.
|
| Eventually you realise everything you pour your heart into only
| matters for a year or two before it's inevitably thrown away,
| replaced by the new kids on the block.
|
| I can see why VC land can support the irrational churn of
| technology, and that's fine, hell even entire companies are
| ephemeral in the startup universe. I think it doesn't make sense
| for any other kind of project. We shouldn't need to rewrite
| something every year or two, it should have been built to be a
| stable platform with boring, fundamental technology from which
| you can grow the product over years to come.
| foxhop wrote:
| Hey I'm also into permaculture and treating my products like
| gardens.
|
| I see you are running blogbear I wonder if we could partner
| somehow.
|
| I'm the founder and creator of Remarkbox a hosted comment service
| for static sites.
|
| I just made Remarkbox free: https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-
| is-now-pay-what-you-can....
|
| All are welcome to use the service!
| yonisto wrote:
| Hits home! One of these days I'll join you and have my own
| garden.
| equality_1138 wrote:
| Love the garden analogy in software, especially when faced with
| complex systems that can't easily be managed by rigid IT project
| management styles.
|
| Was reminded of another short piece going way back to 2007:
| https://signalvnoise.com/posts/591-brainstorm-the-software-g...
| LeonB wrote:
| You did well to retrieve that one from the memory banks!
| Must've left an impression.
|
| I _think_ I read it too.
| huzaif wrote:
| I too "cultivate my own garden".
|
| Like the "Turk" in Vaoltaire's Candide, working on my product
| (garden) insulates me from the wants and worries projected by
| todays internet.
|
| Here is my garden: https://www.gorelo.io/
| square_usual wrote:
| Disclaimer: I posted this link, but I am not the author of the
| blog.
| jwr wrote:
| This is how I approach my SaaS business. Long-term
| sustainability, enjoyable development using technologies I like,
| dealing with smart and nice customers. Caring for the app.
| raunometsa wrote:
| Beautiful analogy, Herman!
| alixanderwang wrote:
| I quit my job at Google a little over a year ago to work full
| time on my product. I still don't make near half the salary, but
| that connection to my users using a product I built is something
| that, prior to this last year, I didn't know I'd be so attached
| to.
|
| Users message me to appreciate some small look & feel
| improvements, they leave feedback and I fix things for them, I
| get excited about a new feature and it brings value to their
| work. I let them vote on the more experimental ideas.
|
| I get happily excited for each new subscription, and it all feels
| earned, a stark contrast to how I felt about my biweekly
| paychecks at corporate life.
|
| The product [0] launched on HN a year ago, and I've worked on it
| almost every day since then, and after having reached some
| threshold of MRR, I've since felt that I can keep working on it
| forever.
|
| Tonight, I'm up late releasing another feature [1]. The
| motivation to do so feels effortless, as, it's my garden.
|
| [0] https://terrastruct.com
|
| [1] Sync diagrams with a github repo, ~hacking the README as a
| presentation tool (https://github.com/terrastruct-bot/Demo)
| huzaif wrote:
| Wow! This product is making my day. Great job.
|
| I am still hacking around on it. I would like to sign-up as a
| team, though I only have need for 3 seats.
| alixanderwang wrote:
| Thanks! If you send me an email (in my profile), happy to
| make that work for you
| koeng wrote:
| terrastruct looks really awesome! Been looking for something
| like that for a while, I think I'll test it out. The landing
| page is very well put together.
| thejosh wrote:
| Wow. This looks extremely slick, and the landing page is
| awesome. Going to give it a whirl.
| playpause wrote:
| > Users message me to appreciate some small look & feel
| improvements, they leave feedback and I fix things for them, I
| get excited about a new feature and it brings value to their
| work.
|
| This is great. But if you thrive on this kind of positive
| feedback, I'm curious to know, if you ever get the occasional
| bit of angry/negative feedback (e.g. from a user who is really
| pissed off about a feature change that broke their unique
| workflow), does it demotivate you? If not, how do you avoid it
| getting you down? Or is it just so rare that it's not a
| problem?
| alixanderwang wrote:
| I do get churn, and have users unhappy about things, but it's
| just as valuable feedback, if not more, than the positive
| ones.
|
| The only demotivating thing would be silence. In the Show HN
| post, quite a number of people said it wasn't what they were
| looking for or it was lacking xyz. But that's a whole lot
| better than languishing in 3 upvotes and no comments at all.
| abinaya_rl wrote:
| Love this analogy. I feel like it's intended to me. I've been
| part of this Indiehacker movement since last 2 years building
| Remote Leaf[1]. Sometimes I worry too much when I get 2 churns in
| a day and happy next day when I get 1 new customer. I hate these
| process.
|
| Instead of trying to be like growth at all costs, I need to
| follow your strategy. Just help people. Just improve the product.
| Just do the gardening.
|
| [1] - https://remoteleaf.com
| digaozao wrote:
| It made me remember of this game, simcompanies. From what I
| understood, it is made by a single developer and some help. It
| has this feeling of community among the players and him included
| that is really cool. And no pushing hard to buy things.
|
| https://www.simcompanies.com/
| m-i-l wrote:
| This was a good read. I've read about personal websites being
| digital gardens, and describe my own as "more of a functional
| vegetable patch than an ornamental floral garden". However, I've
| not seen bootstrapped side-projects compared to gardens, and like
| the analogy between gardening and farming, where gardening is
| more fun and less scalable than farming (but that being a good
| thing in this context). I wonder if a smallholding might be a
| more appropriate analogy for side-projects though, given gardens
| and personal websites are usually for personal use while
| smallholdings and side-projects are more likely to have a small
| commercial element.
| segmondy wrote:
| Some of my products are experiments. Just experiments, I want to
| check if some thing is possible.
|
| Some of my products are challenges. I don't know how to do it,
| and just wish to know if I can figure it out.
|
| Some are personal needs. I need something, I can't find a
| solution that meets my need, I solve it.
|
| Some are art and therapeutic like gardening. Working on them
| gives me joy and relaxes me.
|
| Some are business. The intent is to make money.
|
| I'm sure folks can find many ways to think about their products,
| at the end of the day, it's all in your head.
| dmje wrote:
| Lovely post, and a great idea. I personally very much like the
| idea of not scaling - and in fact have done this for 10 years
| with our (still tiny) digital agency. We could have chosen to
| take on staff many times but instead opt for a lifestyle business
| where I can hang out and look at the sea and be with my wife and
| kids.
|
| In building products, my biggest issue to date feels like it is
| that I rarely bring anything to fruition - but actually this
| article helped me with that. It really highlighted how it's ok to
| incrementally push things along, get to a couple of launches just
| for your own satisfaction, and maybe make a little bit of cash -
| but you don't have to have any aspiration to "make it big".
| Thanks for posting :-)
| m_st wrote:
| Working at an ISV developing, providing and supporting software
| for a specific industry. This is how I work. I love the product,
| the customer contact and immediate feedback and like that I can
| put most of my ambitions into it.
|
| Happy gardening!
| iechoz6H wrote:
| Does he mean `potter`?
| malobre wrote:
| "Putter" is an alternative spelling.
| erwincoumans wrote:
| Potter is for the majority, putter for the happy few :)
| erikstarck wrote:
| This is a beautiful analogy.
|
| One of my favourite quotes is from Jane McGonical: "we are as
| human beings designed to do hard, meaningful work". If you enjoy
| gardening, it doesn't feel like work. You do it because it's...
| meaningful.
|
| Ikigai is that perfect spot in which the work you enjoy doing
| also creates value from someone else. You are in the zone, doing
| what you love.
|
| This concept, together with the one about optimising your area of
| luck that was posted a few days ago, are all you really need to
| craft a successful - and joyful - career.
| yesenadam wrote:
| > This is my garden, and I intend to putter.
|
| I was about about to correct that use of "putter" as a typo, but
| it seems it's a USAism. Never seen that before. I'd always
| thought machines/engines putter, gardeners potter. I put it to
| the super-accurate Purported Google Results Test:
|
| putter in my garden - 7 million
|
| potter in my garden - 142 million
|
| putter around - 9 million
|
| potter around - 363 million
|
| putter about - 49 million
|
| potter about - 581 million
|
| Although when I put on a USA accent, there's not very much
| difference between my "potter" and "putter", maybe that's
| something to do with "putter" apparently being the US spelling.
| joshuahughes wrote:
| Before today, I'd only ever heard 'putter' used to refer to the
| golf club you use for 'putting'...
| OJFord wrote:
| Ha, glad I'm not the only one, I went directly to Wiktionary
| after finishing the article, which doesn't mark it 'chiefly US'
| or anything, and gives RP IPA.
|
| Which contains another surprise, for me anyway - it's not
| pronounced like the golf club, but starting like 'put' (that
| over there) or 'foot'.
| meatmanek wrote:
| Apple's Dictionary.app, which for me pulls from the New
| Oxford American Dictionary, does mention that potter is the
| British version:
|
| > put*ter3 | 'p@d@r | (British potter) > verb [no object]
| North American > occupy oneself in a desultory but pleasant
| manner, doing a number of small tasks or not concentrating on
| anything particular: early morning is the best time of the
| day to putter around in the garden. > * [with adverbial of
| direction] move or go in a casual, unhurried way: the duck
| putters on the surface of the pond.
|
| and defines potter as:
|
| > verb British > another term for putter3.
|
| (It also has all 3 definitions of putter - golf, engine,
| gardening - pronounced the same way: 'p@d@r)
| yesenadam wrote:
| Thanks. Hehe that's amusingly parochial. ("Whole World
| except USA" they like to call "British", and 'potter' is
| merely 'another term for putter'. Everything is inside-
| out.)
| emddudley wrote:
| I'm from the U.S. and the phrases "potter around" and "potter
| in the garden" are new to me. I have always used "putter".
|
| My pronunciation of putter is "puh-ter" (same sound as under)
| and potter is "pah-ter" (same sound as father).
| moosebear847 wrote:
| This is me for a sec every time I see UK collective plural
| nouns, for example, 'Apple have 10k employees'. Actually now
| that I think about it, people from Britain must feel like
| something's off even MORE often from this difference than
| americans, seeing as lots of content online is US english.
| elliotec wrote:
| The writer is from South Africa, as mentioned in the post.
| "Putter about" is definitely not a USAism, it's an English
| expression used throughout the anglophone world that can be
| spelled "putter" or "potter," meaning the same thing. I've only
| heard it pronounced "putter" personally. The stats are
| interesting!
| yesenadam wrote:
| Yeah you're right. "Puttering about", with that sense of a
| machine chugging along, seems a different thing to pottering.
| Pottering in a garden seems more like patiently tinkering
| with something than continually moving from place to place.
| dagw wrote:
| _" putter" or "potter," meaning the same thing._
|
| I don't think they mean the same in British English. My
| motorboat "putters about the lake" while I "potter about in
| my garden". But I could be wrong.
| jfk13 wrote:
| I would have assumed "putter" (in this sense) is
| onomatopoeic, from the sound of a small engine running
| slowly.
|
| "Potter", OTOH, comes from a word for poking or prodding at
| the ground (hence appropriate for gardening).
|
| (I suppose with the right kind of ride-on mower, it's
| possible to "putter about the garden" with appropriate
| sound effects!)
|
| Checking OED citations, though, it seems the "putter" form
| (as a variant of "potter", distinct from the sound of an
| engine "puttering") does have a similar history (both go
| back to the 1820s).
|
| Still, I'd agree that "potter about the garden" is by far
| the more common usage.
| benjaminjosephw wrote:
| Where are there online communities for people into this kind of
| tech sub-culture? Most Indie Hacker type communities seem to
| eventually attract a critical mass of "Hustle Boys" and most
| startup communities tend to be dismissive of anything that
| doesn't have hyper-growth potential. It makes sense that a large
| number of tech entrepreneurs live between these two extremes.
| Where do they hang out?
| cosmojg wrote:
| Mastodon and Pleroma are home to many communities filled with
| people like this! One of my favorite instances, Merveilles[1],
| is probably among the highest quality in terms of the people
| themselves and the projects they work on, but there are dozens
| of others with similar energy. Make an account somewhere[2][3]
| and see for yourself!
|
| Oh, and if you're willing to leave the Web, there's also
| Gemini[4]. Here are some proxied links to aggregators,
| CAPCOM[5] and Spacewalk[6], where you can find all sorts of
| people writing about their intimate personal projects,
| technological and otherwise (although mostly technological).
|
| [1]https://merveilles.town/public
|
| [2]https://joinmastodon.org/
|
| [3]https://pleroma.social/
|
| [4]https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
|
| [5]https://proxy.vulpes.one/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/cap
| ...
|
| [6]https://proxy.vulpes.one/gemini/rawtext.club:1965/~sloum/spa
| ...
| erwinh wrote:
| I think you can find it in the crossover towards more
| artistic/design/science focussed communities. Generative art,
| data visualisation etc. Of course there are hustlers there as
| well but to me it does feel to be more about the creativity,
| techniques, ideas.
| new_here wrote:
| There are various communities around the web that all have
| their own personalities. HN, /r/programming and Twitter are the
| biggest and most active but also most cynical. Lobste.rs
| (https://lobste.rs/) is almost purely tech focussed. Dev.to is
| very (overly?) friendly but it's hard to find substance among
| the noise. Indie Hackers which you've alluded to, does what it
| says on the tin but also attracts those hustler types.
|
| The great thing about the internet is that if you think it's
| missing something, you can build it! I've been working on my
| own tech community called Able (https://able.bio) in my spare
| time for about 3 years now. I'd like it to be an intersection
| of software, hardware and business but with less cynicism and
| self-hype of other places. Just a place to appreciate the
| merits of human ingenuity. You're welcome to come hang out
| there if you like.
|
| But yeah, if anyone knows of any other communities I'd also be
| interested to check them out. I feel like a bit of variety
| would be nice at the moment.
| ehnto wrote:
| I decided to start a Discord for it, it's been on my mind for a
| while. I'm not interested in the VC moonshot culture, and
| frankly am not in the location for it anyway. I also don't care
| for SEO marketing ploys and hustle bullshit.
|
| The community values I would want in a community like that are:
|
| * A focus on building products that meet real world problems
|
| * Pragmatism, stability and longevity in your products
|
| * Discussions about bootstrapping with real customers
|
| * Investment can be useful but it shouldn't be a stand in for a
| real business model
|
| * Realistically these are businesses, money is a real factor,
| but no get rich quick schemes, we're just trying to get
| sensibly rich slowly
|
| * No narcissistic hustle bullshit, no marketing ploys
| 9dev wrote:
| Count me in! I'd very much be interested in joining such a
| community.
| ehnto wrote:
| I popped a link in my profile. It would be good if it were
| a nice smallish community so I am trying not to spam it
| around.
| klausbreyer wrote:
| Where can I join this? :)
|
| This goes into the direction of something I heard of in the
| past as "slow business". I started a (now rather small) list,
| together with the lost manifesto:
| https://v01.io/2021/01/13/slow-business-list/
| ehnto wrote:
| Slow business is a great term for it, that is the
| antithesis for grow-fast or burn out trying style
| companies. I love seeing businesses that grew naturally out
| of a grass roots need, tied directly to real world industry
| or community needs.
|
| Check the link in my profile!
| scotttrinh wrote:
| Discord invite seems to be invalid now?
| ehnto wrote:
| Got a new one in there, you can try again now.
| k__ wrote:
| Sounds awesome!
|
| how do I join?
| ehnto wrote:
| Popped a link in my profile!
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Can you invite me to the Discord?
| ehnto wrote:
| Popped a link in my profile, trying not to be spammy!
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| It says "link invalid"?
| ehnto wrote:
| Oops, try the new one, sorry!
| m_st wrote:
| Sounds great, where can we join?
| [deleted]
| ehnto wrote:
| I popped a link in my profile :)
| cmacnasty wrote:
| Looks like the link has expired. Do you have a new one?
| ehnto wrote:
| Yep, try the new one! Thought I would limit the first
| invite but it's already expired.
| inferense wrote:
| This strongly resonates with the idea of a pure authentic self-
| expression. In part, bigger companies and the system in general
| take this away, because of their underlying incentives - "scale
| quick and break things" instead of just "have fun building
| something valuable". I think this is what every side project /
| idea should be about in long term because that's how it starts
| anyway, it's just transformed into this artificial process full
| of vanity metrics later on.
| simplecto wrote:
| What a nice sentiment, and one I am completely on board with.
| I've likened my "digital puttering" to my father whiling away the
| hours in the garage during my childhood. Some hammering, some
| grinding, and my mother occasionally taking out a cup of tea.
|
| And to build on that there was a cool video recently about a
| forensic pathologist in Houston who makes kitchen knives. He's
| not scaling, but it seems that it is a hobby that he loves.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VPSlfz65h8
| regulation_d wrote:
| Love the length of this post. more interesting than what could be
| said in a tweet, but didn't belabor his best points. Excellent
| piece.
| justusthane wrote:
| This is a little off-topic, but related: I've done hobbyist
| webdev for a long time, but only HTML/CSS/JS/PHP. I have an idea
| for a web app I'd like to build--would you folks recommend Rails
| or Django, and why?
|
| I have very little background with either Ruby or Python, so the
| language choice itself isn't a deciding factor for me (although I
| have slightly more interest in Python).
| raunometsa wrote:
| You're been working with PHP, why do you want to switch to
| Rails or Django?
| justusthane wrote:
| Because it's been a very long since I've even done anything
| with PHP, and I'd like to play with one of the frameworks.
| I'm much more interested in learning Python or Ruby than I am
| in learning PHP.
| raunometsa wrote:
| Oh, cool - I understand! My first thought was that if
| you're already familiar with a language like PHP why not
| use that to build a webapp.
| randito wrote:
| I'm a fan of Maggie Appleton's Digital Garden idea:
| https://maggieappleton.com/garden
|
| It's a "ideas as a garden" metaphor, not necessarily a "product
| as a garden" metaphor, but the sentiment is the same.
| chrischapman wrote:
| For gardening buffs (just in case you were wondering) the
| granadilla vine is also known as the passion fruit. Which was
| kind of appropriate for building something you're passionate
| about.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_ligularis
| villasv wrote:
| Maracuja is its name in Brazil and coincidentally, is said to
| have "calming" properties. We have a saying here that passion
| fruit juice will make you relax - or sleep if you're already
| relaxed.
|
| Not sure if there's scientific basis for this or just an
| ancient meme.
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