Deep Dive #2 - Jen Yip

Jen Yip

What it does well

  • Not at all “sales-y”

What it does well

  • Tips are unique but generalizable

What it does well

Control the full reader experience

Every other site in existence was white with black text. Everybody was writing on Medium; it all looked the same.

So, I wanted mine to stand out. If you ever read two Indie Hackers stories, you would instantly remember that you’d been to this website before.

Courtland Allen, founder of Indie Hackers

What it does well

  • Speaks with a personal voice

What it does well

  • Mentions the HN launch

What it does well

  • Uses graphics and screenshots to explain stories
  • Uses descriptive headings to structure the article

Jen Yip

Insights from Jen

What were the goals of the post?

As with all my writing, demystification is always a top goal.

I don’t like glorification posts so I tried hard to bring to light all the little things that went wrong while also conveying that none of those things defined nor destroyed Lunch Money.

Fears about admitting mistakes?

There was a risk that people would read the article and deem me to be too amateur to make a product they would trust and use.

It ended up having the opposite effect. People appreciate honesty and vulnerability because it makes you relatable and gives the human touch, and I think that’s one of the reasons why more folks are opting for indie-developed products.

How did you keep the post engaging?

I thought about whether or not little anecdotes here and there were actually interesting.

I culled a few other mistakes from this post and re-reading those drafts, I realize the stories behind it were a bit rambly because they required more context.

Results

To this day, March 2020 is still my highest-growth month, though I have 2 events to thank for that: this HN post and a Tweet mention by a @AlexanderNL, a well-known Dutch tech influencer.

More from Jen