
“Indie” doesn't mean “bootstrapped” anymore - ojosilva
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/indie-doesn-t-mean-bootstrapped-anymore-a88300c012
======
DizzyDoo
I've been a full-time 'indie' computer game developer for about five years now
and in the gamedev space 'indie' hasn't really meant any one thing for most of
the last decade. I'm a solo guy who does art & animation, programming,
writing, marketing, and so on (I have an accountant and I contracts a friend
who helps with the music), working on original IP, with no outside inventment,
self-publishing - which is about as 'indie' as it gets, I suppose. However,
'indie' is often applied to teams of 20+ people, sometimes either with outside
investment, or who work with publishing companies. Lots of publishers are
'indie publishers' too, operations are built to work with smaller teams and
budgets.

And I'm totally fine with all of that! Proclaiming that "I'm indier than thou"
might get you some (utterly meaningless) clout with... well, I don't know who.
The main thing is I find encouraging is there's a number of proven ways to run
a sustainable software business. And that's nice to know, because if at some
point I need to or want to change how I'm doing things, it isn't a one-size-
fits-all scenario.

~~~
Trasmatta
How is your game coming along? I've always wanted to make a game (like
probably 50% of developers). It's just so much work I can never manage to
commit to it long enough to make something.

~~~
DizzyDoo
It's coming along fine, thanks for asking! (For reference, it's here:
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/654960/The_Eldritch_Zooke...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/654960/The_Eldritch_Zookeeper/))

I've been working on this one for multiple years now, commitment and the art
of Finishing Things is perhaps more important than any individual skill-set
like programming. Obviously individual skill-sets are important, but you could
be the greatest at everything and it's not worth very much if you're _also_
very good at giving up.. In my experience, the first 10% of working on a game
is great fun because you're trying different things out, experimenting! And
then you have to finish the thing - and getting a decent product to market is
a hard slog whether it is a video game or not.

Simple advice to anyone interested in making games - make something small and
simple in a single weekend, a snake clone or something, and then go from
there.

~~~
chrisweekly
Not OP, but thanks! Willing to share any dets of your setup / stack?

~~~
DizzyDoo
Sure! The 'minimum requirements' on the Steam store page is basically my
Windows computer, and the Macbook I have ;) For previous games I used to
support Ubuntu Linux too, but the cost of supporting such a limited player
base didn't work out for me, sorry Linux people, maybe again one day!

I use Unity (currently 2019.3, probably moving to 2020 soon, for the new v2 of
the Hybrid Renderer package) and C#. Photoshop for painting with an Wacom
Intuos 5 tablet (Adobe Script for slicing and exporting), Spine for animating
(highly recommended! Check out esotericsoftware.com), Modo for all my 3D
needs. Git for version control, Gitlab for hosting, and lots of Python and
Django for the web service parts of my current game, as well as my website.
Lots of Google Sheets for marketing and accounting.

And, of course, paper and pens to doodle and make notes and keep track of
where everything is at and what I'm working on next.

~~~
AlchemistCamp
Are you on YouTube or Twitch? This sounds a lot like what I dreamed of when
first really learning to program through making (very simple) flash games.

~~~
DizzyDoo
Haha, Flash Games were where I got my start doing games commercially, back in
2009! You could license them to different arcade websites and publishers, it
was pretty good money for a student.

And yes, I'm on YouTube over here:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVCz-_8VfkVwgB1WzCcuq4w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVCz-_8VfkVwgB1WzCcuq4w)

------
hermitcrab
Being independent isn't a binary yes/no thing. But people who built their
business from their own savings are a lot more independent than people who
took investment, whatever the source.

------
juped
If you have minority shareholders, you're not really independent. If you debt
finance, you're still independent, IMO.

------
GoatOfAplomb
When I depended on poker for my income, I always thought one should work up to
the next higher-stake game by building a bankroll at one's current level.
People who moved up in betting limits via someone else's money rarely survived
there (the level of play tends to increase with higher stakes).

I see a fair amount of discussion about the "what is indie" angle here, but I
most appreciated this article for pointing out various funding options that do
not carry hyper-growth expectations. I suppose taking any money at all
violates the rules of my previous paragraph, but it still seems closer in
spirit than traditional VC. I don't know that I'll ever attempt to start a
business again, but if I did, I would certainly look more into those options.

------
kumarm
Indie Hackers has been a great resource for a long time and filled a need.
Hope in search for growth, IH doesn't lose its soul.

------
jv22222
> Jason Fried of Basecamp ... who'd somehow found a way to make millions of
> dollars building SaaS apps without raising any funding.

It's a common misconception to think that Basecamp never took any investment
but in fact they did from Jeff Bezos.

[https://signalvnoise.com/archives2/bezos_expeditions_invests...](https://signalvnoise.com/archives2/bezos_expeditions_invests_in_37signals.php)

That said, it helps prove the OP point that's it's possible to raise funds and
remain independent.

~~~
soneca
It also at the same time is one less successful example of someone finding a
way to make millions of dollars without raising any funding.

Every time I see someone using Basecamp as inspiration for bootstrappers I
perceive it as very dishonest.

That said, I think it is a very good thing that there are more options for
funding high growth tech startups that do not require a _”go unicorn or go
bust”_ mindset of the VCs.

It certainly a great innovation (even if it’s not exactly a new idea) in the
startup ecosystem

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
> Every time I see someone using Basecamp as inspiration for bootstrappers I
> perceive it as very dishonest

How far are you willing to take this?

What if he had borrowed money from his grandma? What if they couldn't afford
servers AND rent so they stayed with his parents? Or they couldn't get a lease
on their own, so a friend co-signed?

The reality is that we all accept some form of help with our businesses at one
point or another that takes some of our stress away. You'd be searching long
and hard to find people who became successful with no form of investment at
all. And even if you did, what would that prove?

~~~
soneca
It proves nothing to you, I draw the lines of my perceptions to my own
benefit.

I believe every bootstrapper has some kind of self-funding. So whenever I see
a story of a successful bootstrapper, I assume self-funding, and I don't
consider it dishonest in my perception of the story. If the bootstrapper
happens to be a millionaire already, and the "self-funding" is in the order of
hundreds of thousands of dollars, I don't consider the inspiration applicable
to my own case, but I would probably not call it "dishonest".

All of your small-money examples look to me as in this category as both honest
and applicable to my case.

One of the lines that I draw is that calling "bootstrapper" a company that
received, let's say $100,000, from a billionaire in order to help with growth
is dishonest in my perception.

From the tone of your comment, you seem to have the impression that I am a
purist of some sort about the technical definition of "bootstrapper" and that
I am policing how other people use it as some sort of crusade. You are wrong.
I was sharing the filter that I use when interpreting this kind of story. I
create these filters because I am a wanna-be founder myself, and I have
decisions to make, decisions that are influenced by what I read about what
happened to other people. I have to establish a gross probability of success
with each decision. Deciding to pursue funding is one of those decisions. So
when I read about bootstrappers I try to filter as honest or dishonest (also
along other dimensions, as applicability).

So this search of mine of what I consider honest or not would prove nothing to
you or to anyone. I don't care. It is not the reason I do it.

~~~
skinnymuch
Basecamp would be close enough to where it is now with or without Bezos’
stake. Assuming they aren’t lying. The most it did was let them get a bit more
aggressive on growth vs profit since they had less skin in the game and the PR
received from the funding. Which would’ve been big but not that big of a deal
back in 06.

Is Atlassian not bootstrapped to you either? Or 1Password? They both took
money super late into their game or for taking money off the table. i can see
saying Atlassian or GitHub aren’t bootstrapped, but things are different these
days. In prior years they may have just IPOed.

------
Ididntdothis
"Indie" has been marketed into meaninglessness like "Agile", "Hacker" or
"Mindfulness". These terms usually lose their meaning once they go mainstream
and become cool.

------
buboard
It's like music

