Indie Dev Monthly M08: 3000-Word Project Launch Share

M08: First Indie Development Share

Project Introduction

Let me officially introduce my new project for the first time: www.selofy.com

The #1 community-driven toolkit for e-commerce SMBs & solopreneurs.

Dedicated to providing comprehensive support for global DTC independent store small and medium sellers and related practitioners:

• Brand references
• Plugin/theme recommendations
• Service partner recommendations
• Tutorial sharing

In simple terms: helping users find competitors, plugins, services, and tutorials—the four major challenges that independent store players face throughout their lifecycle, especially during the early stages.

---

Project Background

Around the end of 2024, I started thinking about developing some application tool-type "projects"—web applications, Coze workflows, Shopify apps, etc. I tried each one briefly, and undoubtedly, every attempt ended in failure.

Personally, I actually have many paths to choose from, such as continuing to dive deeper into knowledge monetization and communities, self-media, service providers, cross-border e-commerce, etc. But after various attempts and vacillations, I ultimately chose to unlock a new skill tree.

Three Reasons for Choosing the New Skill Tree

1. Personal Personality Factors

I'm the typical type who gets bored quickly. Once I figure something out, my interest drops to freezing point within a few months. When people say "the best way to start a business is to keep copying," I simply can't do it. So while maintaining some basic income, I really enjoy challenging myself with new things.

2. External Opportunity Judgment

Without saying much, I simply want to ride the AI wave. For individuals, there are many ways to ride the AI wave, and I want to choose to go as deep into the center of the wave as possible. So I must deeply practice AI technology and tools. On the other hand, without AI, it would be almost impossible for one person to develop a project of this scale.

3. Business Model Prospects

If everything goes well, it fits my ideal of creating passive income and long-tail value. With continuous comprehensive operation and iteration, the project can generate revenue through affiliate, advertisement, membership, and other methods. Of course, the premise is that everything goes smoothly and I can endure the setbacks and沉淀投入.

In summary, this project marks the starting point of unlocking multiple new skill trees:

• "Half-baked Independent Developer"
• "Full English Self-media Operation"

But I will still focus on the independent store cross-border e-commerce industry. Future self-media tutorial content, community operations, etc., will all have a more sustainable growth base.

---

Tech Stack Details

Core Philosophy

99% no-code development throughout the entire process. Since many features haven't been iterated yet, here's what's currently being used:

Technical Architecture

Investment Costs

Time Cost: Time is the biggest cost. As a no-code novice, almost every small step got stuck for a long time. The entire learning and practice process took at least 4 months.

Money Cost: Mainly SaaS, servers, Flowbase, and large model API token fees—relatively small.

---

Development Process Sharing

Overall, I learned while practicing, without any systematic 0-1 learning process.

Phase 1: Frontend Development (First 2 Months)

Core Work: Webflow learning and practice period

Although Webflow is already an excellent no-code website building platform, it was particularly difficult for someone with no frontend knowledge.

Main Process:

1. Searched the entire web for Webflow templates and related JS that met my needs (functions like filter and chart required separate solutions)
2. Used Flowbase paid template subscription
3. Claude helped me generate demos
4. In the early stages when I was completely chaotic, I paid a freelancer to design in Figma, then I copied it to Webflow
5. As I self-studied and time passed, I almost completely rebuilt everything later

Phase 2: Backend Data Content

After the frontend was almost done, I confidently thought that with AI's help, the content layer should be easy.

Not so.

Challenges:

• Huge data fields, with over 80 fields per brand alone
• Involved many dimensions of capabilities: server knowledge, basic coding languages, etc.
• Constantly tried various solutions, from Feishu multidimensional tables, Supabase, etc., before finally settling on the current system

Core Work: Researching crawlers, N8N, NocoDB tables, etc.

Phase 3: Operations and Traffic

Just set up overseas social media. In the future, I may mainly drive traffic through SEO, self-media, and other forms of deep operation.

Phase 4: Future Planning

There are still many website features and content that haven't been done:

• CRM membership system, social media content automation, some features packaged into applications, etc.
• More valuable content fields for users (but processing will be more troublesome)

---

Some Insights

1. AI and Productivity

If everyone agrees that "practice is the best teacher," then AI is now your all-around booster for practice. You don't need to worry at all about "Stop talking, I don't know anything, how can I practice?"

What does "know" mean? Systematically finish a book? Complete a set of tutorials from some knowledge blogger, and then you know? You know nothing.

AI is fundamentally changing human lifestyles. Currently, there is no "learning" stage—just start doing directly. While doing, click wherever you don't know. No more systematic 0-1 learning while forgetting, or learning once and failing when you start. Just start doing directly, learn what you do, learn faster this way, and have continuous positive feedback.

2. AI and Knowledge Monetization

This way, knowledge monetization will gradually become a stupid business. Of course, as everyone knows, higher-level knowledge monetization doesn't actually sell knowledge information gaps, but emotions, resources, and circles.

90% of knowledge information gaps can be solved by AI. The new Shopify version can directly generate a section you want in the theme template with AI. This was a huge capability gap six months ago—you'd need plugins and coding to achieve it.

Knowledge monetization: either sell that 10% information gap, or do well in emotions/resources/circles.

3. AI and Ordinary People

I'm not an AI blogger, and I have my own real business. Just these two points make my sharing value surpass 1000% of those AI bloggers out there.

AI bloggers talk about this magic tool and that awesome thing, saying this disrupts and that disrupts—really, credibility is only 1%. In the end, they're just selling you AI courses and generic wrapper AIs. They always talk about the same scenarios: intelligent customer service, intelligent sales, intelligent material production, blah blah blah.

What AI basic capabilities do ordinary people need to master?

First, ordinary people should first delete AI from their minds. Don't be driven by AI to follow those AI money-making bloggers trying this and that. Instead, first think about what your real, sustainable business scenarios are, and what your real business needs are.

Otherwise? Today this AI blogger says digital human self-media is great, tomorrow says XHS viral reposting is great, the day after tomorrow says AI novel writing is great—you follow along like a headless fly eating shit, and it's paid shit eating.

Previously, when you wanted to try side business entrepreneurship, you'd find excuses like "I don't know how." Now there's no excuse. You can know everything, but the premise is that you need to know what you actually want to "know." That is, What is more important than how.

Second, when you have real business scenarios and needs, no matter what it is—cross-border individual seller, individual application developer, freelancer in your professional field, individual self-media creator—whatever. I think a very important systematic capability is AI automation.

Previously, this was called RPA, which required specialists to customize development for specific clients, making it unsuitable for ordinary people. Now it's different. AI + automation tools can completely allow individuals to develop applicable solutions.

---

FAQ

---

Summary

This indie development journey has deeply impressed upon me the possibilities for individual developers in the AI era. Through no-code tools + AI assistance, one person can indeed develop web applications with a certain level of complexity.

The most important thing is to have real business scenarios and clear needs, then learn while doing, growing continuously in practice. Don't be afraid of failure, and don't pursue perfection—just build it first, then iterate and optimize slowly.

If you also have ideas about indie development, I hope my sharing can give you some inspiration. Remember: there's no excuse of "I don't know how" anymore—AI makes everything possible.