starting my cooking journey today (i mean indie hacking), finally!
i had a lot of ideas building up in my backlog
now gotta do it all under $25/m though (PKR 7,000), somehow i'll manage it, will take full advantage of the hobby plans
thanks @marclou and @jackfriks for motive✌️
i went from not knowing how to code, to making my first mobile app in less than 1 year, and getting it to
- 100,000 downloads
- $50,000 in revenue
here's my *super secret hack* for making insane progress quickly:
Where do I start…
For a big part of my life, I didn’t fit in.
At school, I’d argue with teachers because I didn’t like what I was learning.
At university, I got bad grades and drank way too much to build a personality.
At my short 9–5 job, I kept wondering what I was doing there.
I joined Twitter in November 2021.
When I discovered the indie hacking community, I felt a sense of belonging for the first time in my life.
It’s hard to describe, but I loved the idea of working on your own thing and sharing everything publicly. It felt like freedom.
So I started building startups.
1 in 2021.
10 in 2022.
It took almost a year to reach 1,000 followers.
I never planned to build an audience. I thought that if I kept building things, some people might discover my work.
In my wildest dreams, maybe 10,000 followers?
So I kept building.
10 more startups in 2023.
As I shipped many small bets, some started to take off. They paid my rent. More people followed.
Then ShipFast launched in August 2023. It reached $50k/month, and my audience started growing faster.
In June 2024, my account passed 100k followers. It felt unreal.
A few days ago, I saw my profile picture in the 𝕏 App Store screenshot.
Today, my account crossed 300k.
Now, some people recognize me in the street.
None of this was planned. None of it was expected.
I’m beyond grateful.
Thank you for being here. You gave meaning to this whole journey. ❤️
Today my boss asked me if we're "ready for AI this year".
I said absolutely. I told him we've been running "machine learning models" on our data infrastructure for the past 18 months and we're seeing "significant optimization gains."
He asked for specifics. I said, "Our email filtering system uses neural networks to detect phishing attempts with 97% accuracy."
He looked impressed.
Here's the truth: that's just the default spam filter in Office 365. Microsoft built it. We didn't do anything.
But I rebranded it as "AI-powered threat detection" in a slide deck last year, and now everyone thinks we're innovators.
My boss wants to announce our "AI initiatives" in the next shareholder meeting. I told him I'd prepare a presentation.
I'm going to take every automated process we already have—backup scripts, user provisioning, patch management—and add the words "AI-enhanced" in front of them.
Innovation isn't about building new things.
It's about renaming old things with better buzzwords.
I used to have a dream that I’ll retire at 45, and I’ll be spending my time in my house on a beach, drinking cocktails and swimming.
It took me 30 years to notice that reach time I have a vacation, I’m absolutely bored by rest after a week.
My brain craves side projects, reading papers, doing open-source, writing articles, streaming, making tutorial videos, and learning.
The ultimate goal is not have enough to do nothing.
It’s having enough to do actually something you always wanted.
Side note: I find all of the speculation around our tech stack choices incredibly weird and cringe.
I’m sharing this information because I wish it existed when I made these decisions. There’s nobody else I know of that ships at this scale and shares all their decision making processes as they do it.
I’m far from the only person trying out all of this stuff. We’re not the only team evaluating every option and migrating our tech.
We’re the only ones who share it publicly.
“hurr Theo can’t help but adopt the shiny new thing” - this is a statement that comes from a lack of experience. Makes sense, most of Reddit is unemployed.
The difference between me and other tech leads is not tech choices, it’s levels of visibility and transparency.
If I was less confident in our technical ability, the constant harassment would 100% keep me from sharing this stuff. That’s why nobody else does it.
I’m thankful to all the people who reach out to tell me how helpful these deep dives are. Y’all are the reason I still talk about it 🙏
just so we're clear:
Antigravity is a Windsurf wrapper
Windsurf is a VSCode wrapper
VSCode is an Electron wrapper
Electron is a Chromium wrapper
Chromium is a C++ wrapper
C++ is a C wrapper
C is an Assembly wrapper
Assembly is a Machine Code wrapper
Machine Code is a Binary wrapper
Binary is a Physics wrapper
Physics is a Math wrapper
Math is a Logic wrapper
Logic is a Philosophy wrapper
Philosophy is a Humans wrapper
Humans are a Carbon wrapper
Carbon is a Star-forged-matter wrapper
Stars are a Gravity wrapper
Gravity is… definitely not an Antigravity wrapper
I went through the exact same thing last October.
I grew up with no money. Everything was survival. People looked down on me for not having the nice house or nice cars.
So I thought:
If I make money, I'll finally be respected. I'll finally be enough.
I created the whole vision board high-rise apartment, designer clothes, supercars, business, expensive airlines.
Then I reached it.
And I felt… nothing.
I forced myself into years of pressure and pain for a finish line that wasn’t even mine.
And the people I wanted to prove wrong? They still don’t care in fact they people hat you more when you succeed.
So I went to therapy.
My therapist asked: “What are your values?”
All I could say was: “Money. Freedom.”
He said:
“Humans aren’t wired to chase money. They’re wired to serve. That’s where fulfillment comes from.”
And:
“If you run your own race, you can never lose.”
That broke me.
I realized I was running a race built by society, not by me. I was an NPC in my own life.
So I rewired everything.
Wrote down my top 10 values... defined them my way.
Unlearned everything society taught me about worth because your value isn’t money, status, fame. It’s kindness. Wisdom. Courage. Virtue. How you treat people who can’t give you anything.
I paused the business. Took the revenue hit. Healed my inner child. Because losing yourself while making millions is the worst kind of failure.
If you’re in this chapter: pause.
Stop running a race that isn’t yours.
Fulfillment will never come from money, metrics, optics, or status.
Those are byproducts of becoming a better human of serving, healing and having faith.
That’s where real peace is.
Should I turn https://t.co/lo8UoR1imT into a community project so no more fake MRR? 🤔
- Anyone can verify startups with Stripe for free
- Ask @IndiePageApp bot “is it real MRR”
- Make it profitable with sponsors (instead of a one time payment curently)
You can enroll in my animation course for the next 10 days!
It's the perfect way to learn the theory behind great animations, but also how to build them in code.
We'll cover all of these components and more, source code included.