shihong wu

Building Products Alone: My Story as an Indie Developer

Recently, I gave a talk about indie development. It was not only a technical presentation, but also a personal reflection on what it feels like to build products alone.

Indie development sounds exciting from the outside. You can choose your own ideas, move quickly, avoid long meetings, and build something without waiting for permission. If you have an idea in the morning, you can start coding it in the afternoon.

But once you actually start, you realize that freedom also means responsibility.

There is no separate product team, design team, marketing team, or support team. You have to think about the idea, write the code, design the interface, publish the site, fix bugs, improve SEO, listen to users, and keep the product alive.

That was one of the main points of my talk: indie development is not only about writing code. It is about learning how to turn small problems into useful products.

Starting From a Small Problem

Many indie products do not begin with a huge vision. They often start with a simple, repeated problem.

For example, many people need to add text to images. They may want to create social media graphics, blog covers, thumbnails, quote images, posters, product visuals, or quick image annotations.

This sounds like a small task, but the workflow can become heavy if every simple edit requires a complex design platform. Sometimes users do not need a full design suite. They just need a fast online tool that helps them finish one job clearly.

That is the kind of thinking that led me to build PicText: https://imagetexteditor.net/

The Power of Narrow Focus

In my talk, I also shared a lesson that took me time to understand: indie developers should learn how to make the problem smaller.

It is tempting to build a big platform with many features. But when you work alone, too many features can slow you down. A focused product is easier to build, easier to explain, and easier for users to understand.

PicText follows this idea. It is not trying to replace every design tool. It focuses on one clear use case: helping users add text to images online.

With PicText, users can quickly create captions, labels, quote images, thumbnails, simple posters, and promotional visuals directly in the browser.

Indie Development Is a Training Ground

Building alone trains your judgment.

You need to decide which feature matters, which idea should wait, what users actually need, and how simple the first version should be. There is no perfect answer. You learn by shipping, observing, improving, and shipping again.

That process can be uncomfortable, but it is also the best part of indie development. Every product teaches you something. Every small launch makes your next decision sharper.

Why PicText Exists

PicText came from a practical need: make image text editing simpler.

Many people just want to upload an image, add text, adjust the result, and use it. They do not want to install software or learn a complicated editor.

That is why PicText is designed as a simple online image text editor for everyday creators, marketers, students, bloggers, and small businesses.

It can be useful for adding titles to images, creating social media visuals, making quote graphics, designing simple posters, adding labels or annotations, creating thumbnails and blog images, and preparing quick promotional graphics.

Conclusion

My indie development talk was really about one idea: small tools can still solve real problems.

You do not always need to build something huge. Sometimes the better path is to find a specific problem, solve it well, and keep improving it over time.

That is what I am trying to do with PicText, a focused online image text editor for quickly adding text to pictures.

If you need a simple way to add text to images, you can try PicText - Online Image Text Editor: https://imagetexteditor.net/