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Maker community

Right now I'm an expat in Bali, Indonesia, in a small area called Canggu. This village/district of Bali is very famous for the nomad community - creative people who live here for the long term. You can find here all kinds of people. They are programmers/designers/bloggers/writers/coaches and other modern professionals.

But also here a lot of entrepreneurs. Most of them are starting small businesses (1-3 persons) and trying to become successful. Recently I started curios about this more so I decided to create a post.

For the last decade, our approach to work is changed. Everybody is talking about how remote work conquers the world. But how we do business is changing as well. If you have coding/designing skill it's becoming even easier. A big chunk of the products I've seen here is web/mobile services because they are faster to bootstrap and the potential audience is enormous.

To start your own project these are only requirements you have: idea, time, hosting/server costs, online marketing costs. That's it. Compared to offline businesses it sounds like a dream doesn't it? There is even a term for it - Indie making. You are completely independent of any of the big business ties. And it gives you flexibility and enjoyment.

Here in Bali, people have a very different starting point. Someone saved the money beforehand and move in cheap South-Eastern Asia, someone is still working part-time (like me) and trying to work it out in free time.

A lot of these new wave startups also trying to spread the word about very important ideas: sustainability, open startup movement, data privacy, transparency. Which is amazing.

Since this "making" thing is becoming more popular there are a lot of great communities to help you on the way to achieve your goals.

If you want to give it a shot here are a couple of links:

  • https://www.indiehackers.com - one of the most popular communities. You can find amazing people to communicate with and any help you need. In addition, they have a great feature to add your products and share the milestones with others.
  • https://getmakerlog.com - a very cool community with the main idea of public making. You have public to-do's with streaks which helps to maintain your stability of making. I discovered it recently and love the idea! And they have a very supportive telegram chat.
  • https://wip.chat/ - similar to the previous one but with the subscription.
  • https://www.producthunt.com/ - one of the most popular websites about new products on the market. And not necessarily the indie ones.
  • https://womenmake.com/ - community for women makers. As I heard it's very supportive and you can find fellow entrepreneurs to share your goals with.

And for sure Twitter. Many great and creative people to follow there. Some of them did a good job of promoting the whole movement:

And many many more!

Recently I also started working on a very small project which I use to learn and make mistakes. I don't have plans to earn money on it. After finishing it I have another idea which I want to implement to create a monetized product.

If you're into coding/design and you like to create new stuff or maybe you always wanted to try I would like to encourage you to start today.

For picking up the idea you can think about the problems you faced recently. And then try to solve it. The best client you can have at the beginning is yourself.

If you want to chat with me about nomading, making, coding and any other stuff feel free to reach me on twitter.

Let's make! 🎉