As an indie software developer myself, I think that the most difficult part of the business is not writing the software but rather finding potential customers. That's why I have few worries about LLM slop. "If you build it, they will come" is a fantasy. Marketing will make or break you.
In my case, there are a couple of cliches that are actually true: it's a marathon, not a sprint, and it took me 5 years to become an "overnight success". Thus, the ability to code faster with AI is totally irrelevant to me. That's not going to help. There are a number of comments here claiming that LLMs are going to usher in a golden age of indie software, but I think that's just delusional. These people don't appear to know what it takes to establish an indie business.
I can't speak about the effectiveness of Google Adwords, like the article author did, because I rarely purchase paid advertising and rely mostly on word-of-mouth. That's worked out fairly well for me, but obviously that's not going to work for everyone.
I disagree with the author about one thing: "Mobile-based software is expected to be free or, at best, very cheap. So requires huge scale to make any decent return." I think App Store developers have to resist the race to the bottom. We can't make it up in volume like the BigCos. The biggest mistake of new indie devs—and I made this mistake myself years ago—is to price your apps too low. You need sustainable prices, and just ignore the people who complain that your price is too high. If they're complaining, that means they're interested! You might be able to pick up those customers eventually on Black Friday.
My personal "golden age" was 2024, my highest income ever. 2025 was decent but a down year, back down to around 2021 levels. I'm not quite sure why, perhaps the economy? But who knows.
In my case, there are a couple of cliches that are actually true: it's a marathon, not a sprint, and it took me 5 years to become an "overnight success". Thus, the ability to code faster with AI is totally irrelevant to me. That's not going to help. There are a number of comments here claiming that LLMs are going to usher in a golden age of indie software, but I think that's just delusional. These people don't appear to know what it takes to establish an indie business.
I can't speak about the effectiveness of Google Adwords, like the article author did, because I rarely purchase paid advertising and rely mostly on word-of-mouth. That's worked out fairly well for me, but obviously that's not going to work for everyone.
I disagree with the author about one thing: "Mobile-based software is expected to be free or, at best, very cheap. So requires huge scale to make any decent return." I think App Store developers have to resist the race to the bottom. We can't make it up in volume like the BigCos. The biggest mistake of new indie devs—and I made this mistake myself years ago—is to price your apps too low. You need sustainable prices, and just ignore the people who complain that your price is too high. If they're complaining, that means they're interested! You might be able to pick up those customers eventually on Black Friday.
My personal "golden age" was 2024, my highest income ever. 2025 was decent but a down year, back down to around 2021 levels. I'm not quite sure why, perhaps the economy? But who knows.