My Indie Mindset (3/9): Experiment and explore

Not everything you try will work. But if you don’t try, you won’t know.

Hey, it’s Sergi again.

Welcome to the third post in this short series based on my video about the mindset that’s helped me as an indie maker. If you missed the intro or the previous parts, here they are:

My Indie Mindset series (9 parts):

1. Know your strengths and stop fighting them

2. If you do stuff, stuff happens

3. Experiment and explore

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5. -

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9. -

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Let’s go with the next one:

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3. Experiment and explore

The last post was about doing.
This one’s about exploring.

I don’t just mean launching new projects, but also trying different ways of working, learning new skills, and getting outside your comfort zone.

Here are some of the things I’ve tried:

• Dropshipping (not the shady AliExpress reselling kind, but still…)

• YouTube Shorts (trying to make the content decent at least)

• Youtube Faceless channels (€80/mo right now, trying to grow that)

• Rank and Rent websites (never managed to sell them to real businesses, but I’m gonna give that business model a second chance very soon)

• Building a tiny web development agency (hired someone, quickly realized managing people is not for me)

• Niche websites with AdSense (my main source of income nowadays)

• Amazon Affiliates (never worked for me, explained why in post 1/9 of this series)

• Booking Affiliates (been around €500/mo for 2–3 years, someday I’ll explain this project)

• Others Affiliates programs

• E-commerce (some worked, like Mapness, others didn’t, like Wear 21-15-9 despite being the very best CrossFit brand in history)

• SaaS (just getting started, launched Ranktracking.co a few months ago, currently with 0 users, but I’ve got plans to launch more)

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In most of those cases, the conclusion was the same: “This is not for me.”

But I never saw it as wasted time.
Because if you don’t try it, you’ll never really know.
And if you don’t try, you risk getting stuck in your own little bubble, mastering a very narrow field, while missing out on adjacent skills that could broaden your perspective and open up new paths.

All these small experiments helped me in one way or another:
New ideas. New skills. New insights.
They also helped me refine where to focus my energy next.

I don’t regret any of them. Even the ones that flopped hard.

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Like the previous ideas, I covered this one in my latest YouTube video (in Spanish, but you can enable subtitles).
30 minutes of pure mental dump on the mindset that’s helped me build a sustainable solo business:

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Thanks for reading.
Sergi Ruiz, from The Indie Path

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