I'm Alyssa X, a serial maker. I've built and shipped 10+ products. AMA.

@joshdance I've been programming since I was 7, I started with Visual Basic, Bash, Action Script, basically creating all sorts of simple programs and games mainly. It wasn't until I was ~15 that I decided to get into web development, I didn't follow any courses whatsoever but rather I learnt by building. For example, one of the first projects I built to better understand how to code was a collaborative task manager, with teams, collections, repeating tasks, a Gantt chart, and a lot of different challenging features I had to figure out how to implement. I basically just was constantly looking things up (StackOverflow helped a lot :P) or watching all sorts of Youtube videos. I ended up winning a prize for that project, which might have encouraged me to keep building new stuff :)

@joshdance I answered this here pretty thoroughly :) https://www.producthunt.com/disc...

@syswarren Appreciate it! Coming up with ideas is hard, I don't think there's one definitive way to go about it. I personally do it in a variety of ways, some examples: - Think of something that I would use or make my life easier if it existed. That's how I came up with Jumpskip for example, since I absolutely hate jumpscares, and I wanted to find a way to not get scared all the time 👻 - Combine two ideas together, either two products or different concepts. For example, with Mapus I had the idea to combine a tool like Google Maps with the concept of real-time collaboration. I think I use this method a lot, it's pretty useful. - Just look for an existing product, and think how you can make it better. I did this with Screenity, seeing tools like Loom or Screencastify which had users complaining about limits on the free plan, so I built a better free screen recorder, plus with other features such as annotation or push to talk. - Complete randomness. Sometimes I don't know how I come up with ideas, they just come to me I guess. Like a while back I had the idea to build some sort of tool to be able to create platforming games in Figma, designing levels, enemies, etc. Super weird thing. As per actually executing, well, I think I just have a good work ethic and I commit myself to finish everything I start :) I don't want to let people down.

@msurguy Phil asked the same question, here's my answer :) https://www.producthunt.com/disc...

@msurguy Hmm I haven't come up with any idea I wouldn't be able to pull off. I suppose there's projects that are more ambitious than others, and would require a longer time to build, but so far it's all been possible :P Regarding collaborators, I wish I knew. I've only worked on a project together with someone else in the past, Carden with @anne_laure_le_cunff who is a friend of mine. I'd definitely love to do more collaborations, I think it helps build better products since you have more eyes on the product, and you have different perspectives. Hard to say what's the product I'm most proud of... I suppose talking about success specifically I'm most proud of Screenity, which has over 70K users, and has been translated in a lot of different languages. I've heard of teachers using it in schools, who personally thanked me for making it 100% free and open source, as they couldn't afford other paid alternatives. In terms of technical ability, it might be Sonuum, which is a real-time collaborative audio editor. Quite a challenging product to build, but definitely rewarding.

@alyssaxuu thank you, I appreciate the response

@panphora Hey David, appreciate it :) There's a lot of struggles when it comes to making products as an indie maker for sure. I think the main one is simply having enough time and resources to pursue it, it definitely holds a lot of people back from becoming an indie maker, and it's certainly made it difficult for me. Having to find the time on weekends and around my full-time job has been tricky, and it's meant having less time to do other things, but I personally think it's worth it. And in terms of resources, I've obviously been limited in what I could make and I've had to be careful, I've avoided building products that could lead to very high expenses (e.g. for servers), or products that would require a lot of maintenance, since I don't have other people that could handle support or marketing or other duties. I think I've managed to work around it and adapt, but I do wonder the kinds of projects I could build if I had the same resources as companies do, and the time to pursue it (without having to rely on a full-time job for income). I've been able to build 3-4 products per year, so who knows, maybe 10, or maybe fewer but way more ambitious. That would be cool :)

@mikestaub You'd be surprised, I don't really have a list. I usually only have one idea in my head at a time, when I launch a product right away I start brainstorming for the next one, so I don't really have it planned beforehand. Maybe rather than specific ideas I have concepts or areas I'd like to explore, such as augmented reality, building native Mac apps, iOS apps, etc. As per how I decide what to focus on, it comes down to a few things. How fast I think I could build it, is it niche or more broad (I personally prefer broader products as they can more easily appeal to my audience), could I effectively make a ~10 second GIF of the product that someone could watch and understand what it does (important for Twitter :P), is there any specific challenge or concept I would learn while building the product, would it help me get more opportunities if it was in my portfolio, etc.

@ejsnowdon Thank you so much Emily! Honestly it's pretty hard, I think the only way I've been able to manage it is by making sure my products are mostly one-offs, and that I only have to deal with user feedback and questions. There's some that need more maintenance, such as Flowy and Screenity, where there's a lot of users who have questions about the product, or they want to make improvements to it. Unfortunately I can only take care of it every so on, usually a few times a month. As per your other question, I answered it pretty in depth over here :) https://www.producthunt.com/disc...

@jai_verdancy I tend to have the same issue, honestly. I like to have a good plan beforehand, I make a Notion doc with a bunch of tasks for an MVP, and try my best not to add more tasks during the development of the product. Oftentimes I go through all the tasks during the development and I remove those that I feel aren't going to make a difference, sometimes I get obsessed over adding a small detail that most users aren't even going to notice. It's just a matter of finding a balance :)

@alyssaxuu Could you elaborate a little bit on what your thought process is for approaching the discovery process versus leap of faith balance in releasing your MVP? This is something our team is currently struggling with.

@eriks_k I think it's hard to say, for me it also helps showing my product to users and hearing their thoughts, I can easily see whether they get the product, if they have issues using it, if they find it lacking, if it's something they would use... It also comes down to whether there's time constraints. I've had several products that were taking longer than expected, and I ended up deciding to cut down on features. You can always add them later on anyway. Ultimately if you show it to users and they think it's fine, the lack of certain features / polish is unlikely to make or break the product. The most important part is to acquire those users, focus on marketing the product, and keep working on it and improving it post launch. I've had far too many products where I spent weeks on certain features that 99% of users didn't even notice or care about, they would have used the product regardless. Focus on marketable features, the acquisition part.

@alyssaxuu do you also update the products for security fixes or new feature?

@sushant_borse Honestly, I try not to, most of my products are one-off. But Screenity and Flowy specifically I do consistently maintain, releasing fixes and new updates from time to time. I just prefer to focus on shipping new products :P

@svenn_petter_maehle Depends on the objective really. I personally did it through trial and error as my goal was to be able to build my own products, maybe in a bit of a scrappy way, whatever means necessary. If the goal is to land a job, or to be very knowledgeable in coding, a course would definitely be the way to go, although it would take longer to actually be able to build products. Since I'm an indie hacker, I tend to choose the fastest implementation when developing products, when there's multiple ways to go about it :P Although for some projects (especially those which I plan on scaling and which aren't just a one-off thing) I try to future-proof them by writing clean and efficient code.

@usama_khalid Well, the way I manage them is by making sure they're low maintenance, and trying to focus on building mostly one-off type of products, that I don't have to scale or keep growing. A day in my life differs depending if it's on the weekend or on a weekday :) During weekdays I've got my full-time job, I try to wake up early to get some work done on my projects, try to maximize the time by making simple meals and staying focused with music, and then after that I just do my job (which is later since I work remotely from the UK for a US company, so the timezones are different and I have to adapt :P). After my job I tend to just relax by watching a movie or some series, and then I go to bed. During weekends I basically just work 24/7 on my projects, taking short breaks from time to time to clear my mind, or to unleash my creativity as it can be easy to get blocked. I tend to stay up late which is probably not great 😅 Regarding burnout honestly it's hard, especially since I work all the time, and when I launch a project I already start working on the next one. I think it's mostly a matter of being constantly motivated, I do get a rush whenever I ship a product, wondering what will happen, what will people think, how many users will I get... So while developing projects I tend to keep that in mind a lot, it helps me keep going :) I also know when I have to stop, while I can work for a long time I notice there's times where my mind is blank and nothing is working, so I do something else for a while, take a shower, etc. and come back to it later.

@colinkiama That's a good question. I think I've always wanted to be an inventor, and building products has basically satisfied that urge for me :) It's also a way I can make an impact, solving all sorts of problems, I find it to be very rewarding. Making products has also helped me build up my portfolio and improved my skills in development and design, it's definitely opened a lot of doors.

@scheuercharles Thank you so much! :) For Sonuum I first started with some prototypes for the 3D animation, then in Figma I designed what would go in each section. I then exported each image separately that I'd want to animate, and using jQuery I added breakpoints at different scroll positions to trigger different animations (e.g. scroll down a bit, do a CSS transform, then another one and show the next section, and so on).

@5harath Hey Sharath :) It's hard to say, especially since one of the reasons I build products is specifically to come across challenges and learn new skills. I think the most challenging one is an unreleased one (WIP), a web-based motion graphics editor similar to After Effects. I had to figure out a million different things, such as keyframing for all sorts of properties, how to animate the canvas, how to group and nest animations, masking objects, and probably the hardest one of all, how to render effectively, without it taking ages or being super expensive (especially considering I am boostrapped, so I don't have a bunch of cash from investors :P). There's solutions such as the AWS Elastic Transcoder, but it costs roughly $0.015 per minute of video, which might get expensive with lots of users & long videos. I ended up figuring it out, with a lot of different hacks to render as fast as possible, and ending up with a total render cost of ~$0.0022/minute of video, which I'm pretty happy with.

@kidhack1 @alyssaxuu of course not. Wrong question. The right question: Which exquisite Parisian art gallery do you belong too?

@kidhack1 Ha, I'm not currently on the market :P

@huseyin_gayiran Interesting question. I think it's hard to say, there is a big push right now for web3, with decentralized apps, so I think we're going that direction. Maybe the browser will become a much more collaborative space, something like Figma in real-time, websites might be more connected instead of being completely independent, etc. Lots of cool things could happen :)

@alyssaxuu nice:) I see you made 5 good projects on PH, got any tips? We just launched our Carpio 2.0 today and wouldn't mind getting some tips what we can still improve:) https://www.producthunt.com/post...

@primoz_erjavec Haha, I build them all myself :P

@alyssaxuu thanks:) well it doesn't just look great, you should try it;)

@xtabbas Well, I don't really approach them at all I would say xP I don't do sales as I don't really charge for any of my products, although I plan on starting to so I can manage to work on my projects full-time instead of relying on a job. Marketing for me is just launching on Product Hunt, HackerNews, and tweeting it out, I don't really market post launch. I don't have a co-founder, I do everything solo :P Although in the future I'd love to collaborate with someone who could handle more the marketing / sales part, to build better products.

@jacquelinclem Haha nice one :P I personally wouldn't know since I don't have any pets, I spend too much time working anyway so I wouldn't be able to take care or spend time with them. Either would probably be a great companion while developing though :) 🐈 🐕

@alyssaxuu tried my best to be pertinent. 🥸 What a sad story anyway 😱 A cat is a great mate for developing!

@toshvelaga Honestly, nope, I haven't read the docs lol. I just looked specific things up for what I needed to do, for converting to GIF and MP4 specifically. Although honestly I still don't have it fully figured out, I realized the javascript version of FFMPEG does not support the OPUS audio format so it is unable to convert WEBM videos created client-side into MP4. Annoying stuff. Ended up having to do it in Node in AWS Lambda and it was a lot other headaches, tricky stuff. So yeah I can't really share any specific resources, I mostly just kept browsing all over the place and trying things out xP