Indie dev on making money: you need ROI stories, not the best product
jonathan_wilke · x · 2026-09-12
Indie developer wbetiago vented that grinding to add $100 MRR feels sick when a single tweet from Marc nets $100K. Jonathan Wilke, who has been on both sides, responds: you don't need the best product, you need value people will pay for — even something silly like a ranking board that puts brands in front of a million viewers. The core is convincing customers your product returns more than it costs (ROI), ideally as recurring payments.
More from Venture
- Coinbase Data Shows Perplexity Leads Agentic Trading Volume at 26.8% — AravSrinivas · 2026-09-12
- Open-source models account for just ~3.2% of global AI training spend, analysis finds — 0xBekket · 2026-09-12
- Boring Company's Steve Davis: tunnels at $3-5M per mile make epic projects possible — elonmusk · 2026-09-12
- Nscale adds former OpenAI exec Fidji Simo to board ahead of potential IPO — TechCrunch AI · 2026-09-12
- CPO Doesn't Kill Optics, It Moves the Rent: Optical Coupling Is the Real Throughput Bottleneck — demian_ai · 2026-09-12
- Who Actually Pays Together, Fireworks and DeepInfra? A Reddit Debate — Azamat_Kuzdibay · 2026-09-12