Customer discovery, product validation, and building in public from a DevOps engineer turned indie hacker. Real insights from 8 years managing production systems applied to bootstrapped SaaS development.https://meysam.io/https://meysam.io/blog/whats-with-the-purist-anti-ai-hate/https://meysam.io/blog/whats-with-the-purist-anti-ai-hate/Why I use AI for coding and marketing in 2025, and why anti-AI purists need to chill. Speed matters for indie hackers building side projects.Mon, 22 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/my-2025-in-retrospect/https://meysam.io/blog/my-2025-in-retrospect/I made $0 from SaaS in 2025. Here's what I learned about distribution, shipping fast, building in public, and why I'm not quitting.Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/first-producthunt-launch-flopped/https://meysam.io/blog/first-producthunt-launch-flopped/I launched Awesome Directories on ProductHunt with zero community presence. 11 upvotes, 800 visitors, and brutal lessons for indie hackers launching cold.Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/ai-assisted-coding-killed-programming-joy/https://meysam.io/blog/ai-assisted-coding-killed-programming-joy/AI coding assistants feel like video game cheat codes—exciting at first, then soul-crushing. A raw reflection on losing the joy of programming in 2025 and why I keep going back to my piano.Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/cold-outreach-customer-discovery-zero-conversions/https://meysam.io/blog/cold-outreach-customer-discovery-zero-conversions/Raw and unfiltered account of sending hundreds of LinkedIn cold outreach messages with zero conversions. Learn from my customer discovery struggles, the importance of validating before building, and why I'm not giving up despite the brutal response rates.Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/awesome-directories-open-source/https://meysam.io/blog/awesome-directories-open-source/Spent 15 hours clicking through outdated listicles and $127 PDFs. Got frustrated. Built awesome-directories.com in 10 hours and made it free forever.Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/hn-viral-flagged-submission/https://meysam.io/blog/hn-viral-flagged-submission/AI wrote my blog post and Hacker News flagged it for lacking voice — an unapologetic, analytics-driven account and a plan to test AI vs authentic writing.Fri, 14 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/no-competition-red-flag-solopreneur-validated-market/https://meysam.io/blog/no-competition-red-flag-solopreneur-validated-market/I spent 2 months building FindForce with zero customers. Here's why 'no competition' killed my startup and what solopreneurs should do instead—validated markets, customer discovery, and building in public.Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/own-your-newsletter-with-listmonk/https://meysam.io/blog/own-your-newsletter-with-listmonk/After Medium hid my subscriber count, I moved to self-hosted newsletters. Here's how to set up Listmonk on a €12/month server—no vendor lock-in, full control of your audience.Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/medium-hid-subscribers-own-your-audience/https://meysam.io/blog/medium-hid-subscribers-own-your-audience/Medium locked away subscriber emails in April 2025. Here's what I learned about platform risk and why every creator needs their own email list.Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://meysam.io/blog/what-i-learned-turning-31/https://meysam.io/blog/what-i-learned-turning-31/Reflections on fatherhood, failure, and finding meaning in unexpected places.Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT