From Consumption to Creation: My Indie Product Journey

From Consumption to Creation: My Indie Product Journey

I spent the first 30+ years of my life consuming what others built. Websites, apps, platforms, tools—I was a user, not a maker.

Then frustration became the catalyst.

The WordPress Problem

As a PhD historian turned web builder, I needed simple tools to launch projects. WordPress was the obvious choice. It was also bloated, plugin-dependent, and unnecessarily complex.

Want a contact form? Install a plugin. Need custom post types? Another plugin. Security? SEO? Performance? More plugins.

The framework designed to make web building easy had become a dependency hell.

So I built Genes—a lightweight PHP framework that stripped away the nonsense. For five years, I used it quietly in production. Eventually, I converted it into an AI-ready open-source codebase.

WordPress deserved a worthy opponent. I failed to dethrone it, but the framework lives on.

The YouTube Problem

As a parent, I wanted my kids to watch specific YouTube creators I trusted—not whatever the algorithm decided to serve next.

YouTube Kids wasn't the solution. It still exposed children to algorithmic suggestions, questionable content, and the endless dopamine loop of autoplay.

So I built Playtoob—a YouTube companion that lets you choose creators and content. No algorithms, no suggestions, just the videos you approve.

Over 300 users now. Parents at my kid's school use it. It solved a real problem for real people.

The Pattern Emerges

Every product I've built started the same way: I had a problem. Existing solutions were inadequate. I built something better.

• On Tap — lightweight web tools that do one thing well, no login required
• Malt FM — reimagining radio for the streaming age (14 years in the making)
• PDMerch — public domain book covers on quality merchandise
• ListPickers — curated product recommendations without algorithmic noise
• Expo.Live — community-first social platform organized by Circles, not feeds
• FeedAlgo — AI-generated content prompts to feed the algorithm without burning out

None of these are unicorn startups. None raised venture capital. Most make modest revenue or none at all.

But they exist. And existence is the first filter most ideas never pass.

What I Learned

Build for yourself first. If you solve your own problem, there's a good chance others have the same problem. Start there.

Shipping beats perfection. Half the products I built started as rough prototypes. They improved through use, not planning.

Distribution is harder than building. Making the product is the easy part. Getting people to know it exists is the struggle.

Not everything needs to scale. Some products serve 100 people well. That's enough.

Ownership matters more than proximity. Working hard for someone else's company will never beat owning something small that's yours.

Why I Keep Building

Because consumption is passive. Creation is active.

Every product is an experiment. Every launch is a lesson. Every user is proof that something I made solved a real problem.

I'm not trying to get acquired or reach 10 million users. I'm trying to build useful things that exist in the world.

That's the journey. From frustrated user to reluctant builder to persistent maker.

The shift from consumption to creation changes everything.