Kaustubh and Prashant sat down with Eric Turner, founder of Japan Dev, and VCList.jp, to talk about his transition to an IndieHacker role, common business mistakes made by engineers, getting customers feedback, sharing progress, and more.
Working Full-Time on Side business with Eric Turner
- Embracing the fear of the unknown
- Don't only do the tasks that are easy for you. Do the things that benefit your customers
- Important to strike a balance between writing code and sales and marketing
State of Job Market in Japan with Eric Turner
- Great market for people within Japan to change jobs right now
- Companies are embracing remote work to attract talent
- Costly mistake: prioritizing only talent acquisition and ignoring retention
Eric Turner on Building Features Customers Love
- Use your product from the perspective of your users
- Simpler things are often more impactful
- Have a utilitarian view of coding
- New shiny tech stuff are rarely the main levers of the business
How JapanDev Started and Early Mistakes from Eric Turner
- Don't directly jump to the building phase of your idea. Validate first.
- Easiest marketing hack for developers: Build In Public. It's the most authentic way to connect with your customers
Eric on Managing Side Business Along with a Full-Time Job
- Working on a side business and a full-time job is not sustainable in the long term
- Automate and delegate more tasks from the beginning
- Outsourcing does bring more managerial overhead though
Eric on What a Lifestyle Business Looks Like
- Running JapanDev as a lifestyle business
- North star metric: Freedom to do what I want and being able to live on my terms
Why Eric is Doubling Down on Web2
- Getting over shiny object syndrome
- Great potential in building basic business-focussed companies
- Many industries still not harvesting the power of the internet
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