A case against "hacking"
I spent most of my 20s positioning myself as a hacker. In fact, in my first tech role, I was a "Growth Hacker."
Hacking is the pursuit of making the biggest possible impact quickly, with the least amount of effort. I see it as a close relative of hustling. After five years in tech, I profusely despise them both.
Let me explain.
In the past 2 to 3 years, I have noticed two trends:
The frequency with which fads rise, crash and ultimately recede has increased exponentially.
Things (art, software, cars, etc.) have been grossly compartmentalized and standardized. Here's a standard business plan for a D2C startup. Here's the most common CSS framework to launch websites quickly. Here's a hack to write blockbuster superhero movies.
It's as if everyone is on a quest to get rich quickly by launching cheap, bland ripoffs of everything else. Of course, I expect that mindset from big corporations but seeing it seep into the solo-founder ecosystem breaks my heart.
The situation is different in the non-digital world. You see massive corporations launching soulless consumer goods that all look the same. However, artisans aka offline indiehackers, have a genuine passion for their craft. They strive to build durable products that stand out. That's why handmade things are sold at a premium - customers are willing to pay more for them because they look and feel different.
As we start spending more and more of our time in the digital world, we need software that brings us joy. You can't hack design. You can't hack a flawless user experience. You need to have a profound respect for your craft. You need to genuinely care about your customers. If you don't, you're poisoning the ecosystem and making your users' lives miserable.
Almost 18 years ago, I visited a distant relative in Islamabad, Pakistan. The person's husband had retired from a white-collar job. Post-retirement, he spent all his time building custom furniture from sheesham wood. Unfortunately, my memory doesn't allow me to visualize the furniture anymore. What I know for sure is that it was so different from everything else, so beautiful, that it moved my 12-year old self. And that's what I aspire to do, not as a hacker but as an artisan.
I hear where you're coming from, Sarim: I too love building beautiful, polished products.
I don't think "hacking" is in opposition to that, though, especially in the context of Indie Hacking.
A large part of the point of building minimal products as quickly as possible is to test whether anyone wants those products.
If no one does, then you haven't wasted much time.
If some do, then you can put in the time and effort to hone a beautiful, polished product.
It's fine to spend years of your life building beautiful, polished products that no one wants, if you don't need to make money and don't want to make an impact.
If you do, hacking first and polishing later is a pretty good strategy!
Interested to hear what you think!
Hi Mark, thanks for commenting. I think I understand your point of view. It seems like you're saying hacking = testing. It's not like people are in a perpetual state of working half-heartedly on projects - they do it until they know for sure that users want their product, and then they go all in.
I think that tactic worked flawlessly until a few years ago. Now, the sheer saturation of apps means that version 0 of your product would probably go unnoticed.
I think it's tough to succeed without convincing yourself that what you're working on is worth the initial rejection, is worth iterating on. You can't reach exit velocity with a short-term view; you need to be willing to invest in what you're building for an extended period before it bears any fruit.
But, of course, there're no rules for success.
Yes, I know what you mean, there are some truly polished v0s out there!
And I agree, there are no rules. My inclination is always to put out a beautiful product, so I have to force myself not to spend too much time before testing it. Other people may have more of a tendency towards ugly hackery, so need to hear your advice!
I think you're on to something. Feel free to send me a PM if you want to talk about this a little more!
I understand why you now despise hacking, however, the one thing that we all must admit is that hacking is convenient. I'm sure that all the governments in the world have a team of elite hackers to do their dirty works anyway. But hacking doesn't always have to be so bad. https://nobeliumhackers.com I mean, last year I lost my Facebook account and I hired a hacker at https://nobeliumhackers.com and asked them to get my account back. The whole process was crystal clear, there was nothing shady whatsoever.