Before Apple Shipped the iPod, It Was Just a Pain Worth Solving — A Blueprint for Indie Hackers

It Starts with an Itch You Can’t Ignore

Not with a pitch deck. Not with a co-founder. Not with some tweet that blows up and convinces you this is the idea.

It starts smaller than that. Quieter.

A pain you keep bumping into. A friction that sticks to your brain like static. A scratch you’ve tried to ignore, until ignoring it starts costing more energy than chasing it.

That’s where it really begins.

Not with clarity, but with tension. Not with a plan, but with something too frustrating to leave unsolved.

Tony Fadell calls it the stubborn itch. The reason Nest exists. The reason the iPod worked. Not because someone wanted to “innovate.” But because listening to music sucked—and nobody had bothered to fix it for regular humans.

Most people wait until they’re sure. But if you’re building for something real, that tension is the certainty. That’s the signal.

Everything else is noise.

Don’t Build for Applause

There’s no shortage of shiny apps that never get used. You’ve seen them. You’ve probably built one. I have too.

The pattern? Starting with what’s possible instead of what’s painful.

The best indie projects—the ones that stick—start with a personal splinter. Danielle Baskin didn’t make Maskalike for virality. She made it because her people needed it. Pieter Levels didn’t build NomadList to chase trends. He built it to stop guessing where to go next.

If you’re not solving a real problem—one that hurts—you’re just decorating.

Your Story Beats Your Stack

Fadell puts it bluntly: specs don’t sell. Stories do.

The iPhone didn’t win hearts because of RAM or screen size. It won because it promised a thousand songs in your pocket—freedom, simplicity, control.

Look at Kevon Cheung. He’s not pushing tools—he’s inviting people into a journey. Build in public. Connect in public. Same with Rosie Sherry—she’s not selling features, she’s creating spaces where people feel like they belong.

Specs are just scaffolding. Your story is the roof. It’s what people gather under.

Ship > Genius

Innovation isn’t a flash. It’s repetition. Corrections. Rebuilds that no one sees except your changelog.

Fadell says: if you’re not embarrassed by v1, you waited too long. And he’s right.

Execution is the only thing that compounds. Not thinking. Not planning. Not the perfect logo.

Just ask Marc Lou. Or Anne-Laure Le Cunff. They don’t wait to get it perfect. They launch, learn, adjust. In public. On purpose. Because speed isn't chaos—it's leverage.

You don’t win by guessing what people want. You win by giving them something real and then listening.

Culture Is What You Tolerate

Even if you're solo, you’ve got a culture.

Every shortcut you take sets a precedent. Every ignored bug sends a signal. You’re teaching yourself how much care your work deserves.

Fadell hired “troublemakers” at Nest—people who argued, obsessed, challenged each other. Because great teams don’t play nice. They care hard.

You might not have a team yet. But your habits are already writing your culture doc.

Treat your users like they matter. Ship like it matters. Because one day, someone else will read your code. Or use your product. Or build on top of it.

What do you want them to feel?

Feedback Isn’t a Bonus—It’s Oxygen

The longer you wait to launch, the longer you’re building in the dark.

Every rough v1 you push is a bet: that someone out there will care enough to respond. That their frustration will teach you more than any roadmap ever could.

Feedback isn’t the end of the process. It’s the heartbeat of it.

You can’t iterate on silence.

The Indie Litmus Test

When you sit down to build tomorrow, don’t ask if it’s genius. Ask if it’s real.

Is there pain behind this? Am I building for a spec sheet, or for someone’s story? Will I launch this week—or just keep polishing it into irrelevance?

Because the builders who matter aren’t the ones with the cleanest code or most polished decks.

They’re the ones who started before they felt ready. Shipped before they felt safe. And listened hard enough to make it better the next time.

So yeah, maybe it starts with a scribble. But if the itch is real—

Build.

While it still burns.