Indie Hackers Share Live MVP Builds on X
A thread started on March 2nd by Clim Stefan is gaining traction as indie hackers and founders drop one-sentence descriptions of their current MVPs. The thread has become a real-time discovery hub for finding peers, potential collaborators, and early users within the build-in-public community.
Y Combinator Managing Director Michael Seibel advises against elaborate launch schemes for your first users. Instead, find your first 10 customers through non-scalable, manual effort, starting with people you know who actually have the problem you're solving. The goal is to find a small group who loves your product, not a large group who is indifferent. To find users outside your personal network, focus on niche online communities where your target audience already discusses their problems. Subreddits, Discord servers, and industry-specific Slack groups are goldmines for founders who listen before they talk. The key is to become a helpful member of the community first, not just a promoter. When engaging in communities like Indie Hackers or Reddit, frame your posts around asking for specific feedback rather than just promoting your product. Share your "build in public" journey and lessons learned to attract an audience that is genuinely interested in new products and providing constructive input. For direct outreach, keep cold emails short, personalized, and focused on the prospect's problem—specifically how it impacts their Time, Image, or Money. Your subject line should be clean and feel like it's part of an existing conversation. The only goal of the first email is to get a discovery call booked. During user conversations, your job is to listen for problems, not to pitch your solution. Never ask users for features; instead, ask about their past experiences and workflows to identify their highest-order problems. This approach, often called "The Mom Test," helps you gather unbiased insights. YC Partner Ankit Gupta suggests charging early adopters real money. This isn't primarily for revenue, but as a filter to identify users with a burning need. Paying customers provide sharper, more honest feedback than those using a free product. Building a pipeline for these conversations requires consistency. Product discovery coach Teresa Torres advocates for continuous weekly interviews to create a compounding effect of insights. Automating recruitment with tools like Calendly can help maintain this rhythm.
