@levelsio

📸 $89K/m
🎮 $44K/m
🏡 $27K/m
👙 @X $17K/m
🌍 $16K/m
💾

[@levelsio @levelsio]

I'm seeing a trend here of declining revenue and traffic with indiehackers

On my own projects too

Maybe big VC products too but I wouldn't know cause they don't share revenue

To me it seems clear BigAI is cannibalizing everything that used to be apps

Not bad btw, just times are changing and we have to adapt

[Jon Yongfook @yongfook]

Gotta talk about the good and the bad right? I noticed our signups / conversions are pretty weak this month.

TLDR everything is downstream of us getting less traffic to the site. Our google referrals have basically halved this year (chart below).

Makes sense, since even anecdotally, I find myself using google less and less.

What's the answer? No short term fix. Need to explore other channels: youtube, newsletter, creators etc.

Current strategy of "just write content" seems to be on the way out in terms of efficacy.

[DHH @dhh]

Europe should double down on comparative advantage: German cars, Spanish tapas, Polish borders.

[@levelsio @levelsio]

I probablu wouldn't visit if I was him simply because he's doing US defense tech so that wouldn't be smart

I think probably nothing would happen on his trip but they'd definitely spy on him a lot

As would any Chinese supplier of Chinese defense tech visiting America btw

They're military rivals

For most people you can visit fine and it's okay, China's political strategy is showing how well the country functions and how modern it is which is why they opened up the visas recently, and I think it's working

[@levelsio @levelsio]

That's why I say to every single person I meet

You have to book a flight to China now, please visit some of its cities, and NOT Hong Kong or even Shenzhen

No visit ACTUAL China, go to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Beijing, Xi'an

Ask Chinese people on here before you visit if you can visit their offices, they'll take you out for dinner and show their immense hospitality

You and the other 1.6 billion people of the West all have a blind spot and have to understand this country to go forward in the 21st century and the only way to do so is to actually go there and walk around there

Be brave and change your flight for Tokyo to a flight to Shanghai!

Japan is sick of you tourists anyway, while in China you'll be the only tourist in a 100km2 radius!

[@levelsio @levelsio]

The West's biggest blindspot is repeatedly underestimating China's speed and capabilities

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@publicappscom Ja chef!

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@NickADobos @fireship_dev @mattshumer_ Yes trying anything, mostly tweeting

ChatGPT in 2022 told me to go hard on building a big audience cause it was the one thing AI couldn't replace so I did

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@NickADobos @fireship_dev @mattshumer_ Yes I agree with this

Parallel with musicians making 90% of their money with songs before internet

Now they make 90% with shows

[@levelsio @levelsio]

Today @fireship_dev covered this:

- Indie hackers may be the first type of developer to go extinct

- The classic indie hacking playbook (last decade): learn to code → find a niche → ship a micro-SaaS → build in public → post MRR screenshots after failures → repeat until it works

- Coding used to be hard and expensive, so execution mattered far more than ideas

- That equation has flipped: execution now costs ~$20/month, so anyone can build personal software instead of paying for SaaS

- Example: Why pay $29/month for a product when Claude Code can recreate a better version in 20 minutes?

- Building in public on X makes it easy for others to steal your idea/roadmap

- AI raises the ceiling (indie hackers become far more productive) but also lowers the floor (the space is now crowded with normies who can vibe-code their own tools)

- This trend will accelerate as AI gets cheaper and smarter

- Silver lining: the disruption can "fertilize the soil" for those who master distribution, branding, or proprietary data

https://t.co/vyUwc0bsgu

[@levelsio @levelsio]

I'm seeing a trend here of declining revenue and traffic with indiehackers

On my own projects too

Maybe big VC products too but I wouldn't know cause they don't share revenue

To me it seems clear BigAI is cannibalizing everything that used to be apps

Not bad btw, just times are changing and we have to adapt

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@martbln_dev @AnthropicAI He showed it's not bs so I take back it might be bs because it's not bs

[@levelsio @levelsio]

I'm seeing lots of people "one shot" games again with the new Opus 5 model by @AnthropicAI

So I wanted to try it again too

This is New Amsterdam in 1660 (current day New York City) based on real historical maps, it mostly one-shotted it doing its own research

Not perfect at all yet, and lots of issues to fix:
- weird stuff in the canal
- some house edges are open
- windmill doesn't look very Dutch

But nice!

[@levelsio @levelsio]

🇳🇱🗽 This is @BytedanceTalk's Seedance 2.0 with my New Amsterdam (current day New York City) Simulator prompt

Unlike previous models like Seedance 1.5 (which would add windmills that didn't look Dutch), it really accurately portrays the city as it was in 1670

It's very impressive and because it takes reference image/video/audio, you can put yourself in it like I did here

Only thing bad I see is some distortion in is some of the text which other video models seem to do better now, but yes it's very impressive

This is purposely made to look a bit like a game, so it can do more photorealism than this actually

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@martbln_dev @AnthropicAI The gap is that maybe his thing is bs

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@aporia9n 100%

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@ImNotAV1rus Nice!!! Salt and pepper?

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@sergeynazarovx @fireship_dev Yes and niches that tie into IRL businesses

Not just only online

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@ThyLordMatthew @Xiaolu10W52018 He's from Sichuan, so that means try the hotpot!!!

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@GouldTimes @alex__karavaev Yes it's a bit funky, so you press a color first to enable the brush and then you brush the area and it saves it!

[@levelsio @levelsio]

Absolutely not safe at all

But you should go

Just go with a local Brazilian so you know how to stay safe!

Risk is based on time exposure, the longer you stay the more risk, don't stay too long

[David Ch @chhddavid]

calling all builders and nomads:

is it safe going to Rio / Sao Paolo? 🇧🇷

(cc @robj3d3 @levelsio and others)

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@PioIglEst If we take music as a metaphor

Before Napster, musicians made money selling songs (albums)

After Napster and then Spotify, they had to pivot towards live shows and merch sales

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@NiPeIO @fireship_dev Most indie hackers I know charge recurring

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@nikuscs @vonderleyen Exactly, I tried to get an EU GPU and never got it

The only guy I know who got it got it by being friends of a friend

It's all nepotism and burning tax paper money for self enrichment

Utterly without shame too

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@damienslash 😂😭

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@kevinxu @GrahamStephan @jackselby27 @TheICHpodcast Noo man you did great, it's scary for everyone going on podcasts so it's normal man!!!!

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@thisiswenzel Awesome!!!

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@jogicodes @Xmorosini @fireship_dev Because before it took 5 weeks/months to make something you can now make in 5 minutes

Bigger projects isn't necessarily better right? It's unclear what is better though for me, it's a bit of an odd transitionary time

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@kevinxu @GrahamStephan @jackselby27 @TheICHpodcast No idea if you do but you should do more podcasts or video etc, you're a great speaker!!!

[@levelsio @levelsio]

@ThyLordMatthew Sichuan food is the best and Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan