Tim Ferriss Promised Freedom. Indie Hackers Are Selling Shovels

Fake Stripe notifications. Fake revenue dashboards. Courses teaching you how to sell courses about building SaaS products. The indie hacker movement has become a gold rush where everyone's selling shovels.

But it didn't start this way. It started in 2007 with a book about freedom and time. Tim Ferriss's "4-Hour Work Week" wasn't really about working 4 hours - it was about reclaiming your time to pursue what matters.

Somehow, we turned that into a movement obsessed with "passive income" and easy money. I co-founded Malt in 2013, a freelance marketplace that grew to 700 people across Europe. I can tell you: you don't build that working 4 hours a week. But I can also tell you where this whole thing went wrong.

The Origins: Millennials vs. The 9-to-5

Remember the 2008 financial crisis? It hit the entire world. In the US, unemployment soared. But beyond the economic crisis, it marked something bigger: the millennial generation questioning their relationship with work. The 2000s signaled a break from the myth of lifetime employment and a general rejection of the traditional 9-to-5 grind. The social contract was broken, so many people decided to go their own way.

It's in this exact context, in 2007, that Tim Ferriss released "The 4-Hour Workweek."

And the story he told resonated with a lot of people.

His idea: automate your business, make yourself unnecessary, and then go live through your "muses" - personal pursuits that truly matter to you.

For a whole generation of tech-savvy readers, this was a revelation. If you can automate your work - something totally within reach for people in software - you can escape the alienating constraints of traditional employment. You can automate your income and live somewhere with a lower cost of living.

Tim Ferriss in 2007 had just popularized digital nomadism and the concept of passive income.

In short, Tim Ferriss became a solution to all the generational frustrations of millennials and soon Gen Z too.

And since then, many others have followed. But has his legacy remained intact? Well, not exactly.

The Indie Hackers Era

In 2010, I went freelance. But I quickly realized I enjoyed building products, largely inspired by startup culture - though it was still young in France at the time.

One book inspired me above all: "Rework."

Rework was a shot fired across the traditional working world, questioning all standard work habits. It demolished presenteeism, meeting culture, and basically everything that characterized old-school corporate employment.

Following Rework, in 2013 came the second installment: "Remote," which, as the name suggests, dealt with remote work.

Our relationship with work needed to change, I was convinced of it. In this context, I first created Lateral-Thoughts, then Malt in early 2013.

But parallel to this startup movement, another more frugal movement was launching.

Also in 2013, Jennifer Dewalt set herself a challenge: build 180 websites in 180 days to learn programming. This challenge got a lot of attention and sparked a new trend, later taken up by a young Dutch guy who would attempt to create 12 startups in 12 months: Pieter Levels.

This young Dutchman, expatriated in Asia, was one of the first proto-digital nomads. The solopreneur/digital nomad movement was officially launched, represented for a long time by this famous Pieter.

And this movement would soon take on a new name, a new identity.

People creating software solo, without external funding, existed before but it was still anecdotal and scattered. Then in 2016, Courtland Allen created the Indie Hackers website and everything changed. He gave the movement a name, created a community, and above all, normalized something radical: publicly sharing your revenue, failures, and strategies.

This was the origin of what we'd call "building in public."

It wasn't new - I've been blogging since 2001 myself - but it would establish a culture of transparency...

Except that it also created a playbook for faking success.

And that's maybe where everything went off the rails.

The Shovel Sellers

Between 2013 and 2024, I was far from all this. I was building a company that would grow to 700 people and cover all of Europe. Far from the 4-hour work week.

But in 2024, I chose to change paths and return to my roots, back to my freelance beginnings and my early inspirations when I read Rework and Remote.

Except that in the meantime, the landscape had drastically changed.

The floodgates opened. First no-code, now AI. Anyone can build software. And Tim Ferriss's "passive income" concept morphed into an obsession: SaaS, the holy grail that supposedly generates revenue while you sleep. Except it doesn't work that way. But that won't stop people from selling you courses on how to build one.

To support this mirage, we see fake screenshots showing fake revenue, fake Stripe notification popups, fake dashboards - everything aligned with one of the mantras from the startup world: "Fake it until you make it."

And the worst part? Others started seeing the opportunity. The best thing isn't selling shovels - it's running the bar where everyone comes to drink in the evening. Selling alcohol to the shovel sellers.

Because now you can buy the app that lets you create fake dashboards, fake payment notifications, fake analytics panels - everything I just mentioned. Not to mention courses teaching you how to sell courses on creating SaaS products. And now there are even apps designed to prove your MRR isn't fake.

Does it sound a bit like a Ponzi scheme? Maybe.

But more importantly, beyond all that, when I say the indie hacker movement has lost its way, there's one thing I especially want to talk about.

Many have lost sight of one of the key concepts Tim Ferriss talked about.

What Everyone Missed

In 2010, as I said, I went freelance. And one of my first motivations was, let's say, somewhat financial.

Except that in my first year, I probably chased that too much. I worked way too much and yes, I had a great year financially, but I burned out. Simple as that.

Starting in 2011, I had a revelation and completely changed my approach. I set a maximum income threshold for myself.

My goal became to earn less, which would by default make me work less.

Because at that moment, I realized something: by going freelance, what I'd really gained wasn't the possibility of having more money, but the possibility of having more time.

And that's what Tim Ferriss talks about - the new wealth is time. It's time that allows you to pursue your muses.

Ferriss wanted to free himself from the constraints of salaried employment to dedicate himself to his muses. Whether it's tango, Sanda, or breakdancing for Tim Ferriss, it's hard to say he didn't work hard at those things. But in an unpaid way.

In reality, Tim Ferriss was working far more than 4 hours a week, just not in the traditional sense.

For a large majority of the current indie movement, the relationship with work has become toxic.

For every one Pieter Levels, there are hundreds of thousands of others who earn nothing and have no interest in what they're building which creates tons of soulless applications (yet another to-do app, yet another AI wrapper…).

Between the stress of results that never come and time consumed on topics that don't excite them, it's far from the dream sold by their guru.

The Point

Tim Ferriss's book wasn't so much about money as it was about the search for freedom - freedom over your time. Not to do nothing, but to work on finding meaning for yourself and for others.

And that's probably where the current movement has lost its way.

The indie hacker movement became a cargo cult. Everyone's copying the surface-level metrics (MRR! Growth! Passive income!) without understanding what made the original builders successful: they gave a shit about what they were building.

So before you let yourself be seduced by indie hacking, think carefully about the reasons driving you to do it.

If it's purely for financial reasons, the statistics aren't in your favor, and freelancing is much better suited.

But if the product you want to create is important to you, if it has meaning for you, then the game might be worth the candle.