ROUNDTABLES ★ 4 upvotes 2017

Ask HN: My side project is killing me, any suggestions?

The Founder's Submission

Direct narrative and submission text authored by @Mattasher on Hacker News:

I'm about 5 months of part-time work in to development of a massively multiplayer online game (growhive.io, think Risk meets slither.io). Growth was great for the first 3.5 months. Stalled for month while we made, and then reversed out of, a major back-end change (more about that in a moment). It's now back up again and growing at a great pace.

My main metric, total time spent playing, went from 20 minutes per day in the first weeks, to 1.5 days/day before the big change, and is now up to 3.5 days of play per real-time day. My second metric (H-index on users actions) is also way up.

So great, right?

It would be, except the back-end change I aborted would have swapped in Postgres for Firebase, which at the time was costing $400/month and is now on pace to blow well past $1000 this month. Meanwhile, keeping up with with the website, without even adding new features, is taking a couple hours per day. I have an assistant to help with user emails and some social media promotion, but no one to help on the business or planning side. I'd like to bring in people to help with that, but adding tasks I struggle with (networking and outreach) on top an already full plate of front end dev and back end containment is daunting at best.

I feel stuck in terms of my next move. Try again to transition to Postgres to save cash? Gamble my limited energies on trying to find a co-founder? Ignore the rising costs and grind through my (long) list of bug fixes and features? Sacrifice a lamb in the name of Chris Sacca?

Retrospective Overview & Key Insights

Distilled analysis of the business dynamics, operational challenges, and strategic takeaways:

An open Ask HN community consultation from 2017 where @Mattasher convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.

Core Principles for Independent Builders:
1
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
2
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
3
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:

Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.

Founder's Discussion Replies (@Mattasher)

Direct clarifications and follow-up comments shared by the author during the live discussion:

OP @Mattasher Original Author
2017

Quick update: I found a way to cut firebase usage back down to $400/mo even with the higher traffic.

Community Discussions & Critical Reviews

High-signal perspectives, counter-arguments, and peer founder insights debated on Hacker News (7 total discussions):

KR @kristianp Peer Contributor

"3.5 days of play per real time day"

Can you explain what that is in daily active users?

Interesting game, but there's no help or FAQ. How do you get more nectar? Is it per battle won? What is a black chip?

HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 4 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 7 comments
TOPICS & TECH STACK: