What Are Your Thoughts on Indie Hacking?

I came across the concept of indie hacking in the last two months of 2024, and I’ve decided to adopt this philosophy throughout 2025. Is this movement something relatively new, or has it been around for a long time? I’d love to hear from those with experience in this area.

Here’s the process I’m thinking of following:

• Identify an existing, validated product in the market.
• Scale it up and add innovative features while quickly building an MVP.
• Use a freemium model or offer a free trial to attract users.
• Gather feedback from users and improve the product continuously.
• Focus on organic marketing strategies, like building a community on social media, writing blogs or newsletters, and engaging actively on forums and platforms.

However, I currently have no budget for advertising, so I need to rely entirely on organic methods to attract users. Here are a few approaches I’m considering:

• Sharing targeted and engaging content on social media platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn to connect with the right audience.
• Actively participating in free communities and forums (e.g., Reddit, Indie Hackers) to share my project and gather feedback.
• Creating email newsletters or valuable content to build an audience over time.
• Encouraging early users to recommend the product to others through creative incentives.

Do you think these organic strategies are enough? How can I reach more people without a marketing budget? I’d really appreciate any advice from those who have been in a similar situation and succeeded.