How to deal with Indie Hackers

TL;DR; Be nice.

1. Communication and Feedback

I'm starting this list with communication because this one really bothers me. Just because you spent $9.99 on an app/piece of software, it doesn't justify your offensive language and/or behavior when your lofty expectations are not met.

Don't like something? Communicate properly. The frustrated human handling your support, marketing, sales, and development needs, doesn't need to have to handle your bad attitude as well.

2. Support

When an IndieHacker publicly asks for support, it does not mean they want your money. No need to hide your wallet. DM them with words of encouragement, 'like', retweet, share, or leave a generic comment like "All the best" under their posts. That should leave a smile on their face, and save you a few bucks for your morning coffee.

3. Competition

Competition is always welcome, we've all built a spin-off of someone's idea in the past (either knowingly or otherwise).

While almost every IH knows that everything is a remix and 100% original ideas do not exist, save yourself the embarrassment and steer clear of ripping off an IH's entire product. You're not fooling anyone with a little change of color and a swanky new logo. What in effect you're doing is losing tonnes of respect from the community as well future collaboration opportunities. Nobody is flattered by that kind of imitation.

3. Refunds

Unless the product/service was an actual scam or completely falsely advertised, please don't request refunds. We get it, it isn't close to your dinosaur tool built by 50 devs over 2 years, but still, cut your losses. Inform them that you will not be using their product anymore and move on. Keep that snarky 1-star review that you know you'll never update to yourself as well.

On the flip side, I can't count the number of times someone sent me a respectful email and I actually resolved their misgivings about the product in a couple of hours. IHs are generally not like huge companies with layers of red tape and processes, they can move quickly (if they have to). Remember #1 Communicate.

4. Fraud

Nobody buys the "my brother accidentally bought your app" story. It's almost 2023, if you're going to steal, at least be a bit creative. This is one of the many reasons I lost interest in developing apps for teenagers.

The actual refund $ amount doesn't hurt, it is the amount of time you have to spend filtering through pointless emails, handling false reviews (review bullying), and processing fraudulent refunds. Respect an IH's time, it's pretty limited with all the hats they are already wearing.

5. Discounts

Discounts are like compliments, if they are not offered willingly, please do not request them.

In conclusion

A lot of these "rules" can be broken, in fact, a lot of them can be broken with no repercussions whatsoever.

I have a lot more to add to this list, so if you want a Part II to this (or maybe, I could flip the script and write a word of caution to IndieHackers themselves), please leave a polite comment below.

I'm not selling anything with this post because I couldn't find a way to sneak in a link to my product, it's not quite relevant to this post. So till next time.