The Indie Hacker Manifesto
What is an indie hacker?
The definition provided by Courtland Allen, the founder of Indie Hackers, is:
You’re an indie hacker if you’ve set out to make money independently.
This definition is deliberately broad. In essence, indie hackers work for themselves (sometimes solo, other times with partners) not for a company. They do not have investors or a board of directors to answer to. They are free to work on whatever they want, whenever they want.
The Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto is a set of value and principles for building great software. Note, there’s no reference to SCRUM, or Masters in the agile manifesto. It’s a simple list of values that all co-signers agreed to. Scrum was invented later as a way to live the values.
Crafting my own version
I wanted something similar to the agile manifesto for Indie Hackers. Other attempts are very prescriptive. Telling you how to win, not what to value. I wanted a set of values that define indie hacking, not specific frameworks or methodologies. Here’s what I came up with…
The Indie Hacker Manifesto
We are building profitable digital products without outside funding beyond our own savings. In doing so we have come to value:
- Revenue over hypergrowth.
- Speed over perfection.
- Action over planning.
- Personal freedom over global impact.
- Community over greed.