#98 Indie Hacker lessons, black videos on music, tech and festivals and heroes from the culture
I attended a meetup from the Indie Hackers community on Tuesday and got to hear the struggles of bootstrapping. One key thing to think about is privilege. A lot of these man (and women) had worked in successful startups that they knew could walk into if shit hit the fan. You may/may not have that.
Give yourself some runway and have 1 year worth of expenses if you can.
I ran out of motivation but I was disciplined to working hard and pleasing each customer so I grinded out the growth
Key learnings:
You’ll have many ideas, but the ones that will give you conviction are when you build something you want personally
In early stages you convert more selling 1:1 than wasting time on marketing. Also you get the direct feedback to improve your product and its better psychologically
Failed PR attempts aka this big launch are terrible for motivation
They also spoke about the loneliness of being a founder and how you should leverage the benefits of working flexibly and have a safe group to share when things are going well/not so well.
One guy also shared his experience of investors coming to him or competitors trying to sledge you so you “are soft” before they try and acquire you at more favourable terms - don’t have it lol.
Lastly, another guy shared that he focussed on smaller clients because he didn’t want any customer to feel like his boss, which can happen when you have Enterprise clients. Trust me I know, I see this at work allll the time
Want to see who would headline if you connected your Spotify to an app?
Came across the coolest app last week.
Someone built an app that integrates with your Spotify and tells you what your festival would look like.
Prototyping
Home | PreVue
A Prototyping developer tool built with Vue on Electron
Insights
OneTech – Changing The Face Of Startups
OneTech Talent seeks to support underrepresented 18 - 24 year olds from across London as they start their own tech businesses or look for paid internships at tech startups
The internships are for between 12 - 16 weeks and can start from June 2019
5 Lies You've Been Told About "Following Your Passion" | Outside Online
Why you shouldn’t quit your job to start a business
The Ultimate Job Board List for Digital Nomads +140 Job Boards/Groups
Someone (or probably team) with a lot of time on their hands crowd-sourced job board lists for Digital Nomads.
Enjoy
Makers
Audiobot
Convert your articles into audio today
Build a Dynamic App Using JavaScript, HTML and CSS – pearlmcphee – Medium
Black female techie using hair references to chop up HTML/CSS and Javascript
Culture Chat
Vector90 - CoWorking space, Collaboration Hub and Incubator
Nipsey Hussle invested in Vector 90, a co-working space in Los Angeles, where young people can take classes in STEM and he described the centre as a “bridge between Silicon Valley and the inner city.”
Nipsey Hussle invested in LA's "WeWork" model
A group of friends from New York City who quit everything to start the largest music and tech festival that the city has ever seen.
Payroll | Official Trailer
Great developers are raised, not hired – The Principal Developer by Eduards Sizovs
Ex CTO, sharing why the best developers are raised and not hired.
I strongly believe we need to buy our own stock (aka believe in ourselves). We need to “manage up” and choose to work for companies with great management - this is higher level thinking.
Don’t get put off by companies with complicated hiring processes. Build up your track record and be self confident and if you do get in the door or are close to HR help them to understand these problems.
Public APIs: A Collective Index of Public APIs for Software Development
A collection of public API’s for software development
Tech Unmasked with Accenture
BlackYoungProfessionals (BYP) have teamed up with Accenture to put on an event next month with 15 Accenture recruiters for people who want to get into digital product roles
Jumia is not African startup. It is a company duly incorporated in Germany by 2 French founders who are Co-CEOs. A non-exhaustive reference to its Germanness can be found here in their Form F-1 filings with the SEC. https://t.co/bpTnp0k0o9 A ka thread for those who don't read:
Jumia’s CEO Sacha Poignonnec says says Africa doesn’t have enough developers that’s why they don’t hire them locally. 🤔 https://t.co/D2wU76lawt
The Essence - (Short Film)
Troy Carter Launches Q&A, New Music and Tech Company – Variety
Troy Carter, formerly Spotify’s head of creator services and Lady Gaga’s manager, has launched a new music and tech company called Q&A.
It’s a services company which seeks to:
empower the next generation of artists through technology, tools and services. They aim to build an integrated solution for artists via distribution, management, label services, and data analytics with a highly collaborative artist-driven approach
During his time at Spotify he kicked off several artist development programmes and spotted the gap between music, business and tech Modern artists are more entrepreneurial than ever
Good to see fellow #Techie, Buki getting some love from Google Developers. A 90 second video on a quick tech tip
#HowICode Creating Aliases
The Defiant Ones: Lessons for Makers and Investors
Not new, but still revelvant
Unissu
PropTech influencer and friend of mine shares his recent experience in Nigeria, good and bad.
Gatepass are looking at solving the challenges around tenant experience
PropertyPro a real estate portal with over $1m in funding behind them
Nigeria is young but having said that they have nearly as many PropTech firms as countries like Belgium and Norway and more than the likes of Italy and Ireland
Innovations in Nigeria are developing far faster than any legislation and they are not letting this stop them
Beyoncé Reportedly Walked Out Of A Meeting With Reebok Because Their Diversity Wasn't In Formation
I’m seeing more and more underrepresented communities taking a stand for what they believe in. We see this in sports, tech and music.
The tide is turning