Finding good advice if you’re a builder, especially a lone, self-funded bootstrapping builder, can be difficult. There is no silver bullet and no click of the fingers solution, despite the many Twitter threads showing you how to go from zero to a million of your currency. Luck can play a huge part as well as research, grit and graft.

Every product, idea and person is different. The market you play in is as unique for you as it is your closest competitor. Engineers love challenges and it’s no surprise that the number of indie builders is in the hundreds of thousands globally at any given moment if not millions, and the quest for advice is visible in every circle I’m part of.

They say if you want to be a better writer, read lots. if you want to write better software, then read lots of code. And so, I’m coming to the conclusion rapidly, that if you want to be a good builder, mix in as many circles as your time can afford and soak up the experience of others. So many aspects to building products goes against the mental grain of engineering like product idea testing when you’ve not even so much created the Hello World version of your idea.

Part of the inspiration behind the built.fm podcast is to share an unscripted tour of a builder’s background and motivational forces that are at play. The guest’s experience shines through and if you’re looking for different views, it might be worth listening to an episode or two. After all, it’s free and you can listen whilst clearing up the dog poop from your garden.