Maxim B

- building and breaking stuff
- on sabbatical, launching 3 mobile apps (1/3)
- believing GenUI is the future

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

Created list of tools(skills, mcp, app) that help to build beautiful UI/UX with AI

My top pick:
- impeccable skill by @pbakaus
- taste skill by @LexnLin
- @variantui
- @21st_dev

Full list: https://t.co/YSA9VRpJBb

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@levelsio 1. video from people with strong social brand
2. Forums/Reddit but to check negative posts. Because people like to complain when something doesn't work.

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@james406 very german

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@frederickjames I am very surprised every time how apple can build anything but not web. Everything from their home page to apple connect is always slow and lagging

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@jackfriks Exactly, especially now when chatgpt app is so good

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@dhh The folds were ahead of its time, the agents and remote session make it perfect form factor now

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@levelsio But all of that doesn't mean they can't become successful and multiply their family wealth

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@mitsuhiko And it only took all time temperature record to release this

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@levelsio The same when I need to do a simple change and forget to lower the reasoning. It will overengineer everything

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

We used to give AI as much context as possible to get accurate results.

Now I lack understanding what my agents are doing, and I need to ask them for context to make the right decisions.

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@_lhermann Unfortunately it works in another way around too. After 10 days heat it was always 28 in my appartment when outside it was 24. it took another week to cool down the walls

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

I heard about them even before they opened. Initially, it was a startup focused on remote workers and long-term stay, with plans to develop a franchise, but that didn't work out. After that, I think investors took over controland started promoting it as a location for corporate retreats.

I even tried promoting it as a location for next offsite in company where I work, but it was always cheaper and easier to just go to Barcelona/Vienna

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

Check the app in glaze store
https://t.co/rRJlYBwdLJ

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

Took part in @glazeapp hackathon and built a small reallife body tracking game (Bubble Break).

At first I thought Glaze was just another vibecoding tool for native macos apps. Once I tried it, I realized it actually solves not just the building part, but the other big one: distribution.

You can get your app live in front of users with literally one click. There are already 500+ apps in the internal store, and a lot of really cool, unique ones like "Elsewhere" from @yannglt (i use it daily now instead of my own vibecoded one)

So I can only recommend checking out Glaze. I think you can still grab some free credits.

(making this AI-sloppy video took 2x longer than building the app itself)

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

Shipping more has never been the issue. Even before AI, you could always just hire more people and ship more. But do your users actually want more? Do they really want to explore ten new features you added to the app last week? Probably not. All they want is to solve their problem with the least amount of effort. To do this, you have to deeply understand their problem, even better than they do to come up with a great solution.

I think the best example happened in the car industry, where car manufacturers with a lot of resources started throwing a lot of new features into new cars: endless customizations and options, which sound good for marketing and sales. But most people either tried them in the first couple of days and never used them again, or, even worse, hated many of these things.

[@levelsio @levelsio]

This is so accurate, another great post

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@awesome_fingers @g_br_l Just go and talk with this user

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

That's a good explanation for why there aren't many indie hackers in the US. There are so many opportunities in the local market that building apps and compete with people from entire world doesn't make sense.

[James Camp 🛠,🛠 @JamesonCamp]

The greatest country the world has ever known

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

If money was all that mattered, there would be no room for startups at all. Companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon have nearly unlimited funding, resources, and data.

[@levelsio @levelsio]

I think good chance he's right

Economically this makes sense

Barrier to entry for most bootstrapped indie businesses has been wiped out, anyone non-technical can build the same now for a $9/mo subscription, only thing they have remaining is distribution if they have an audience or distribution if they have specific skills to get users free or cheaply (like being rly good at posting on TikTok for ex)

VC funded companies have the benefit of capital, they raise $50M and can now buy ads to get millions of users (paid distribution) and tokens to develop lots of products/features/etc (outshipping indies) and ofc hiring engineers still

Both pay the BigAI companies for tokens to ship, who in turn win by making money on tokens (that is until open Chinese models blow them out of the water, in that case whoever hosts the models wins)

So yes I think he's right

Time to fly to SF raise money, my indies???

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

@PaulSolt Yeah, same here. The weird thing is that, Raycast search is actually based on the Spotlight index(unless something has changed). So, while the apps are indexed correctly, the way Spotlight searches for them is very buggy

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

Interesting article from dealroom. It turns out that if you have heavy regulations around firing employees, you end up with fewer people who want to, and succeed at, building startups.

I think this affects not only firing, but also hiring. If you want to hire someone and they have a 3-to-6-month notice period, your startup might already be dead by the time they are ready to start

[Maxim B @o1maxim]

I don't know why I'm only discovering this only now, but YouTube Music is great for focus time. It still has all the DJ mixes, playlists, and focus music that I used to listen to on regular YouTube, but without all the other distracting content.