Resources to motivate yourself to bootstrap products

One of the things that I’ve been paying attention to is the makers/bootstrappers/solo entrepreneurship movement. I’ve seen this movement taking off more last year. Although, of course, this is not a new thing, it is just something that has gotten more attention recently. This movement is about people who make products which are mainly self-funded. These products may start as a side project by founders and then lead to a profitable business.

You may see a lot of descriptions or definitions for these people who make self-funded products, such as indie makers, makers, bootstrappers, founders, entrepreneurs… These may all mean the same. What matters is that they’re building something and try to bring some value into society with their projects.

I’m very new to this environment, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, but haven’t yet given it my full attention. Nonetheless, discovering this movement was super important to me. Nowadays, we listen a lot about success stories from companies which became super profitable, that get a lot of social media attention. Discovering this movement made me look at startups in a different way. It made me believe more in myself, that I could make something on my own, without waiting for the perfect partner, or having to grow super fast, or having to get an idea to solve a big problem society faces. Looking at my own experiences, I’m able to come up with some ideas that would solve very specific issues I have, and other very few people might have. What I find valuable doesn’t have to be valuable at a massive scale. There are people out there making products that may not follow the popular convention of “Startup” that must have external investors and grow really fast, as I tend to hear. These products can bring value to a loyal and/or niche audience.

It’s important to know that one of the major factors that make people do this is to achieve financial freedom, which is totally understandable nowadays.

Maybe you’re curious about this too, but don’t know about these resources and how and where to start. Or maybe you aren’t aware of this concept’s popularity. Or maybe you just need that little push to start bringing your own project ideas to life.

Communities

I would like to highlight these two: Women Make and IndieHackers, that I’ve been following:

• Women Make — This is an amazing and positive community open for all and meant to empower and highlight women makers. You can find more information about this community on their website, Twitter and Medium publication. I already learned a lot from this community and keep learning. Whenever I go there I get more and more inspired.
• IndieHackers — This is a community for “indie hackers”, all sort of entrepreneurs who want to share their experiences and learn from others. You can receive a digest of the articles posted there through their newsletter. This acts as a forum, you may see interviews or posts from members with engagement from the community.

Here are some other interesting communities:

• MakerKitchen — This is a Slack community for Makers. They have a lot of focused channels, where you share your experiences, get support and support others on their maker journey.
• Solo Founders — This is a Telegram group dedicated to solo founders.
• Beginning Creators — This is a Telegram group dedicated to beginning founders/creators.

Blogs

These are blogs I really enjoy.

• Maker Mag, this is a recent blog made by makers for makers. I’ve been enjoying this a lot.
• WomenMake Medium publication is a place where members of Women Make community can share their stories.

It’s important to notice that on Indie Hackers you can also find a lot of interesting posts.

I really really love the “You Don’t Need to Quit Your Job to Make” blog post by Steph Smith, because it’s so insightful about how we manage our time and define our priorities in life.

This next one is another interesting post about reflections on being an indie maker by Tigran.

Books

• MAKE — Bootstrapper’s Handbook by Pieter Levels
• Make & Shine — An Indie Maker’s Guide to Personal Branding by Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Podcasts

• Startup for the rest of us — I’ve discovered this podcast very recently and I find it awesome. It’s really about two makers sharing their experiences and thoughts about the bootstrapping products and entrepreneurship.
• IndieHackers Podcast — This podcast comes from the Indie Hackers community, where you can listen to interviews from entrepreneurs and learn from their experience.
• Trouble Makers is a recent podcast from MakerMag blog about solo entrepreneurship.

Bonus Tip: If you subscribe to the newsletters from these resources, you can continue to get motivated by receiving tips and articles straight to your inbox.

Thank you for reading this post, I hope you learned something new or just got some source of motivation for you to make products you always wanted to do!

If you know more resources about this topic that can be useful to others, feel free to share them in the comments!

The image credits go to the amazing initiative www.wocintechchat.com