AI Should Never Be the Boss of Indie Devs (and Sorry IH, I’m Not Building Another “Board”)

To Reduce Friction, Not To Be "Hey, I have a cool shiny AI feature"

Today, I built two small AI features for Indie10k — but honestly, it started with frustration, not a roadmap.

Users were staring at blank forms. Setting goals felt heavy. Writing build stories felt intimidating. That “oh no, now I have to type something” moment was blocking people.

So I thought: what’s the smallest way to reduce friction, without taking away control?

👉 Let AI auto-fill goals (but never submit). 👉 Let AI auto-draft a build story page (but never publish).

Both features are just nudges. They break blank-page paralysis, but we indie devs still decide. AI whispers, we choose.

And that’s important to me. If I strip out every AI feature, TenK 6 still works. It’s a growth loop, not an AI toy.

I have that in mind all the time. Indie10k is built to help indie devs get to MRR $10k with limited time and budget. I don't intend to build YET-ANOTHER-AI-TOOL.

But here’s where I need to say sorry.

When I shipped the “auto-share” piece, I realized it might look like I’m trying to build another Build Board. I’m not.

Indie Hackers is my favorite place right now. It’s where I post my own logs. It’s where the best discussions happen.

In Indie10k, “Share 1” is simply part of the loop: List → Pick → Ship → Ask → Measure → Share. That’s why it naturally appeared as a feature. But it’s tiny. No feeds, no boards — just a single page where your own build story lives.

Indie Hackers is the public square. Indie10k is the workshop. You work step by step in the workshop, then bring the story to the square to share with everyone.

Why bother with all this?

Because the mission is clear: help indie devs reach $10k MRR faster. Anything that adds noise, I cut. Anything that saves time or lowers friction, I keep.

AI here isn’t about hype. It’s about:

a little less overhead

a little more momentum

a little more time to do the actual impactful things (shipping, selling, talking to users)

That’s why I built these nudges. And that’s why I’ll keep the core faith: indie devs make the decisions, not AI.

The Truth

So yeah, that’s the story of how I wrestled with blank forms, leaned on AI for nudges, and ended up apologizing to Indie Hackers for looking like a clone.

But the truth is simpler: IH is the town square, Indie10k is the workbench, and you, the holy indie dev, is not a slave of AI.

And all three matter.

The End

If you’re an indie dev wrestling with blank pages, endless meta-work, or just trying to keep momentum toward $10k MRR — I’d love for you to give Indie10k a spin, break it, and tell me what feels useful (or useless). Your feedback is literally how I shape this thing.

👉 Check it out here and let me know what you think.