The Product Multiple: Why Indie Hackers don't Innovate Big

So I read @channingallen recent post "The Problem with Big Innovations"
...and his essay has inspired this one.

Why is big innovation a problem?

Channing writes:

Not many people can play the macro innovation game. As a rule with some exceptions, you have to be highly talented, well-resourced, motivated, and lucky to find much success.

Why? For one thing, you need access to the particular spare parts that make the next configuration possible. For another, macro innovation is a hyper-competitive and often zero-sum competition. In the sciences, for example, no one cares about the second person who makes a discovery.

Now I do like the essay...but when I started to reflect on the content of the essay and the two questions I had:

• Is the Indie Hacker space is oversaturated with micro innovations?

• Should Indie Hackers pursue macro innovations?

...I came to realize...like & agree are two different viewpoints.

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I like it because it explains the principle of innovation by illustrating fundamental changes in human society such as agriculture & electricity.

As Channing writes:

Great innovators are great, in other words, not because of their ability to create new things out of nothing, but because of their ability to synthesize the insights around them.

But I don't agree with it because it infers that macro innovations aren't to be desired or aspired...especially in comparison to micro innovations.

As Channing also writes:

Unlike macro innovation, micro innovation is a game with broad access and appeal. First, because there's no "problem of multiples" to worry about when you're just trying to solve your own problems. But also because the rewards are immediate, continuous, and personalized to your individual circumstances.

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...Now in the context of the Indie Hacker space it may seem that micro innovations are optimal...because culturally...Indie Hackers identify with making small yet significant improvements for speed & efficiency in product development.

• BUT as a Consumer Research Analyst & Community Architect
  ...I would like to argue that the culture of micro innovation is cannibalizing
  the entrepreneurial spirit.

The Product Multiple

Now Channing has explained the phenomenon of the multiple...which he credits to macro innovation as:

This spooky phenomenon where someone invents something or makes a new discovery and then, at roughly the same time, someone else invents the same thing or makes the same discovery independent of the first person...

So I would like to introduce the micro innovation version of this concept:

When someone creates a variant of a particular type, format, style, layout, feature, category and/or function of a product...within a relatively short period of time....which is a non-independent development.

• In other words...this isn't a new discovery but a newly improved development.

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Now according to Channing...macro innovation multiples are seen as an inevitable consequence like:

• Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz independently developed calculus in the 1670s
• Carl Scheele and Joseph Priestley independently discovered oxygen in the 1770s
• Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan independently invented the light bulb in the 1870s

But product multiples in micro innovation aren't a natural phenonmena...in the Indie Hacker space...it is a culturally engineered occurrence.

Take Twitter Tools for example:

• Tweet Hunter
• Hypefury
• Typefully
• Threadstart
• Black Magic
• Feed Hive
  ...the list goes on

Every few months a new Twitter tool shows up...promising a new special feature to up the Twitter game [a new tool was just announced in the growth group]

But is this because some Indie Hacker discovered that a newly developed Twitter tool was a "necessary" innovation?

No...it's because culturally almost every Indie Hacker is marketing on Twitter...so a Twitter tool is a convenient and easily sellable product.

• I saw this post a short while ago [might have been deleted]
  What marketing channels do IHers use (and why is it mainly Twitter)?

So this isn't about "innovation" as Channing describes:

Simply put: all new things come from old things. You just have to combine the >old things in the right way.

As the Roman poet Lucretius wrote in 50 BC:

And how these atoms are arranged makes all the difference —
Their position and formations, and what moves they give and take

From one another, for the selfsame atoms go to make
The heavens and the sea, the land, the rivers and the sun,

The same make crops, trees, animals — but by their combination.

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Micro Innovations [by large] have ceased to be a grand but unrecognized discovery..."A self-empowering path for everyday people" as suggested by Channing

...And has now become "a way of convenience & benefit for a select cultural group"

So while Channing mentioned that macro innovation is:

A hyper-competitive and often zero-sum competition.

I would like to argue...especially in the context of Indie Hacking...that micro innovation is cannibalistic where each newly developed product is overtly or covertly trying to "eat" the old one.

• Consume Market Attention
• Devour Customer Judgement

...And this cultivates consumer/customer behaviors which are cannibalistic as well.

• IH Post → Maker-Twitter is Getting more Useless Every Day

The more domineering & aggressive a product variant is to outperform it's counterparts...the more it develops & promotes cannibalistic behaviors within the target culture.

....But this occurrence rarely happens with macro innovations because they don't try to outperform...they attempt to TRANSFORM.

Was the iPhone trying to outperform the Blackberry?
...Of course not!

Steve Jobs wasn't interested in making the iPhone significantly better than the Blackberry he wanted it to be fundamentally different from ALL cellphones in existence!

And do you consider the invention of the iPhone a problem?
...Definitely not!

• So why is big innovation seen as a problem and not a solution?
• Why are micro innovations portrayed as non-problematic?

...When in fact a majority of macro innovations are solutions to problems caused by micro innovations!

And in the Indie Hacker culture not only are the micro innovations themselves problematic but also the processes, methods, tactics, techniques & strategies that are utilized to build, market & sell these innovations.

And why? Because of a cultural addictive-obsession to 3 major elements.

1. Accelerated Performance
2. Numerical Achievement
3. Incremental Progression

...Plus macro innovations don't typically provide the kind of adrenaline rush & dopamine release that micro innovation does...hence...it's unattractiveness to most Indie Hackers.

So to answer my own initial questions:

• Is the Indie Hacker space is oversaturated with micro innovations?

Yes...it is!

• Should Indie Hackers pursue macro innovations?

Yes...they should!

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But are Indie Hackers willing to give up the reward of immediate forms of gratification in pursuit of a much greater cause...despite little external incentivization?...No I believe this is a low probability...the cultural addictive-obsessions are too prevalent to suggest otherwise...

@channingallen interested to hear your response to the various points I raised...as I hope to continue this meaningful discourse...thanks for inspiring this piece🙌🏾