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p/wipA community of makers shipping together
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Marc Köhlbrugge

Work in Progress - A community of makers shipping together 🚧

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Work in Progress is a community of makers. We help each other stay accountable and focussed on building, shipping, and growing our products.

We publicly share our todos, celebrate our successes, discuss our failures, track our goals, and provide each other with actionable feedback.

Don't ship by yourself, ship together!

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Marc Köhlbrugge
Maker
👋 Hi PH! I'm so excited to finally share WIP with all of you! A few months ago I started a simple Telegram group for a couple of makers to share what they were working on and keep each other accountable to ship daily. Today this group has grown into a vibrant community of makers working in public, sharing their progress, and motivating each other to keep shipping. Here's how WIP works: 💬 Group chat Most of WIP happens in our Telegram group chat. Here's where we discuss what we're working on, ask for help, and share the occasional meme. We have a chatbot that lets you track your todos, and when you've completed them. This way everybody gets to see what the rest is working on which is very inspiring. 🤖 Chat bot We have a bot called @wipbot that lets you easily perform tasks in the chat. For example you can type "/done launched on Product Hunt" to create a completed todo, or "/ask What are best practices to launch on Product Hunt?" to post a question to the group. 🔥 Shipping Streaks If you complete at least one todo each day you will earn a streak. Kinda like how you can earn a streak on Product Hunt for upvoting, but with WIP it's all about shipping your own products. There's a public leaderboard of who has been shipping the most consistently. Currently dominated by Product Hunt Maker of The Year @levelsio with 162 consecutive shipping days. (This guy ships!) 👩‍💻 Maker Profiles Each maker has their own maker profile. It shows the world which todos you recently completed and which are still pending. It also shows your shipping stats so you can get a better sense of when you are most productive. Here's mine: https://wip.chat/@marckohlbrugge 🤔 Q&A Got a question for other makers? Looking for feedback? You can ask in the chat, but it might disappear after a while. That's why we've got slash commands like /ask that cross-post your question to the group. Recent questions: https://wip.chat/questions 💰 Paid membership WIP is a bootstrapped product so to support further development all memberships are paid. This also makes sure the community doesn't grow too big too fast. There are monthly and yearly subscriptions available. ---- For more info see https://wip.chat/about and https://wip.chat/open for all our public numbers. I'd be happy to answer any questions!
Marc Köhlbrugge
Maker
Major shout out to all WIP members for helping build the platform. Without you and your feedback WIP would just be me talking to myself. I can't possibly @mention everyone here (well actually I could with a simple database query, but I don't think PH will appreciate me @mentioning dozens of people), but you know who you are. Thank you so much for your support!
Emily Hodgins
@marckohlbrugge hi Marc, looks like a great community. Congrats on the launch and for building a place like this for Makers! 💯 Quick observation from your homepage. I see 40+ guys (+1 cat & 1 dog). I don't see any women. This may sound small but it makes the community seem much less welcoming (to me personally). If you have women in your community, be great to highlight on your homepage to feel more inclusive. If you don't, do you have plans do diversify your community?
Mo
@marckohlbrugge @ems_hodge That actually seems like a really good point in my opinion as well, I don't think there are more than a dozen women in WIP, @marckohlbrugge maybe you can share some stats?
Jonathan
@marckohlbrugge @ems_hodge Hi Emily, there're definitely women on WIP. What you see on the homepage sidebar is a leaderboard of the individuals with the longest streaks. In the middle is a stream of the most recent ships by the members of the group. Anyone can get on the homepage based on their level of engagement with the community.
Emily Hodgins
@marckohlbrugge @jonathan_trev hey Jonathan! That's good to hear. I was mainly referring to the two header images on the homepage and about us page. They were the first 2 things I saw when checking out the community.
Ryan Hoover
Great work, @marckohlbrugge. I love how you "MVP'd" WIP as a Telegram group. 👏🏼 Most people wouldn't charge from day 1, but in doing so (I think) you create accountability among participants. Will you offer a free membership to WIP someday?
Marc Köhlbrugge
Maker
@rrhoover Thanks Ryan! Membership was actually free of charge for the first few members as there wasn't much to charge for yet. It later became paid (for new members) to slow down growth. Too many new people coming in would disrupt the community we built. Right now there are no plans for a free tier. I'd rather focus all my efforts on making WIP the best platform it can be for makers that commit to WIP by paying the membership fee. I do realise there are makers around the world that truly cannot afford it. I'd like to find a way to help them at some point too, but I don't think a free-for-all membership would be the answer.
Ryan Hoover
@marckohlbrugge that's one way to curb user growth! At Product Hunt, we had a similar challenge in the early days. We didn't have the systems or internal support to manage a large community in the beginning so we introduced an invite system to slowly expand the community.
Benjo Libor
@marckohlbrugge The Dutch Connection (You & Pieter) definitely aims for the Guinness World Record of "most websites built in a lifetime". The anti-thesis for everybody who believes you should focus on one thing rather than many. The idea of WIP is great! Sometimes I just rest and think: It's crazy to see what impact PH had on a whole community. But isn't the cool part about the 'maker community' that people support each other for free. Free tools to build stuff, free advice from highly skilled experts, reach via popularity/votes instead of marketing spends. Not sure if a paywall supports this ideology. Imagine submitting to PH would have a price, what would the community be like today? Not saying you don't deserve rewards for your hard work, just that a paywall is a very conservative way of receiving those. There's so many more options. Introducing a paywall to slow down user growth!? You're a real boss 😂
Marc Köhlbrugge
Maker
@bnjmnlbr While I wholeheartedly agree with the concept of paying it forward, I don't believe that means every maker-oriented product or service should be free of charge. It might be okay for a one-off tool, but for anything more serious it's not sustainable. Every day new maker tools come and go. The ones that stay tend to be the ones that figured out a revenue model. Now there are different ways to raise the required capital to build a platform like WIP, but I personally believe simply charging customers is the model where everyone's incentives are best aligned. It has been working really well so far. We might open up some parts in the future of course, but I don't want to run before I can walk. One step at a time :)
Antonio Viggiano
The idea seems nice, but I find the pricing quite expensive. It seems that the whole idea could be replaced by a slack channel with some integrations and everyone would save $20/month. I get it that you are really paying to be a part of the community, not for the chat product itself, but anyway...
Marc Köhlbrugge
Maker
@aviggiano Hi Antônio. I get where you're coming from, but the pricing is based on value rather than costs. If you join WIP you'll notice that the most successful makers price their products this way. It leads to a sustainable business and ultimately happy customers. Have a look through some of the customer reviews above and you'll see what I mean.
Antonio Viggiano
@marckohlbrugge No doubt, I've seen other makers' reviews before this PH promotion, and indeed everyone seems pretty happy with the product. Nevertheless, I am generally reluctant to buy a product without trying it first, even after reading tons of reviews. That's why I was surprised to see a popup asking for my credit card when I tried to create an account, without any kind of free trial access whatsoever. Anyway, maybe I am missing the point and this is how the WIP community build things, but I am just giving my feedback as a potential client, not as a fellow maker.
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen
@aviggiano - The price is expensive. But, is it worth it? I was trying WIP, and the price seemed expensive. But something happened when I posted a very draft concept - In half an hour I got advice on CSS changes, someone picked up a typo, my copy was improved, and I got some SEO advice. So after that, I just paid, because the value was just immense.
Antonio Viggiano
@ebrahimkhalil Well I should perhaps rewrite my comment, since I mixed two subjects in a single post. My issue with the pricing is ONE that I find it expensive (although I never tried it, so I can't really say if it's worth paying) and TWO that I cannot try it without paying $20. The first issue is totally questionable, I agree with you, and it seems that 100% of the users would say that it's worth paying. The second issue is what I find the most weird and non-standard, the fact that this product does not let me try it before I buy it. Everything on the internet will let you try at least something for free (5 articles per month on newspapers, limited storage on file storage services, not real-time data on analytics websites, you name it), but not WIP. Anyway it's just my opinion, and I am well aware that everyone else here does not agree with it.
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen
@aviggiano - you entitled to your opinion and I respect it. I however think offering a free tier is great for bigger companies, but not a good strategy for Indie Makers.
levelsio
WIP has kept me accountable for the last 150+ days: https://wip.chat/@levelsio I've shipped more than ever: 773 tasks in 162 days. WIP's chat on Telegram has been very solid to get quick feedback on new ideas I have, and help newbie and advanced shippers with issues they have, that we might have had in the past. Think "which payment processor to use" to "should I use Discourse for forum software or build my own?". I'm a solo maker, and at times that can also be lonely and being in a chat with ~1,000 people chatting about shipping and making friends has helped me a lot there. I know @producthunt is building something similar, and for good reason. Mixing community + accountability is a great idea and I think WIP validates it. I wonder what more products we'll see pop up. There's now so many indie makers, and WIP shows you can make products that help them ship.
Marc Köhlbrugge
Maker
Looks like there are a few other WIP members on the Product Hunt frontpage today. Make sure to check them out as well to get a better idea of what type of products our community is building. https://www.producthunt.com/post... https://www.producthunt.com/post... https://www.producthunt.com/post... https://www.producthunt.com/post...
Angie
I am learning how to code so this community would be a great way to ship my first app :)
Jonathan

The first thing on my mind when I wake up is what I'm going to ship today. I've gotten some big rocks done tasks that ordinarily would've taken me a month or 2-3 weeks to do I've gotten done in a day because I'm held accountable.

Pros:

I've gotten more done in the last 9 days than I have in the last 2 months.

Cons:

None.

Javi
I have no programming skills, but, could I use your platform to hold me accountable of getting design work done while collecting feedback? @marckohlbrugge
Ken Wallace
Hi @ios_javi I'm a member, and folks post their designs for feedback all the time, day and night. So, the answer is Yes!
Marc Köhlbrugge
Maker
@ios_javi Hi Javi, like @boaticus mentioned (thanks Ken!) you don't need to be a developer to get value from WIP. We have a lot of designers in the community as well.
Swizec
WIP is the best. I am in a couple masterminds and this group beats them all hands down. The amount of knowledge, ideas, and inspiration shared every day is amazing. 👌 Seeing everyone ship has made me want to build more products. 7/7 would WIP again.
Stephen Johnson
Day 1 WIP member checking in! So awesome to have a community of motivated helpful and all around awesome people to learn from and ship with! Let me know if I can answer any questions 👋 https://wip.chat/@stephenfjohnson
Marc-Antoine
Awesome community and tool, i've never been able to use todos, with WIP its now part of my daily habits. Really nice to share todos and task done with other WIP since it always triggers useful discussion and feedback. Also the corgi in the chat is the best <3
Marc-Antoine
omg i forgot, i wanted to write a comment mostly because i'm trying to keep a collection of all products launch by WIP Member here: https://www.producthunt.com/@mar...
Aidan Wolf

I've been a paying member for 3 months now and I have no doubt I'll be a lifetime member. Seeing makers ship just about everyday, combined with the social task list and streak counter were critical to me finishing my first ARKit app, Word Vomit 3D, in a short two months.

I will also never forget my first interaction with the community: I was instantly greeted by a crowd of friendly people including Marc, who all seemed genuinely curious to know what I was working on. I shared a few screens, got great feedback, and even got a full tutorial on how to get set up my project on wip.chat. Then we all talked about chocolate milk

My only critique as of now is that the community feels much more geared towards software-for-startups, nomad, web, and subscription type companies, and could benefit from some product diversity.

If you're an XR startup, sign up for wip.chat and join me at @wipreality

Pros:

Great community of makers, makes me more productive, gives me a real sense of progress

Cons:

Lack of industry/product diversity

Leo Baecker
Joining WIP has been a turning point to me. I before spent a whole year working on side projects and had no one to share my progress, to ask technical questions, talk about pricing and even strategy. I was going to the wrong direction. Since then, I've been shipping every single day for the last 3 months: https://wip.chat/@lbckr alongside with a 9-5 job, which led me to launch my project and reach $100+ MRR within a month. All credit goes to WIP and its people 🙌
Andrey Azimov
Finally congrats on the launch! WIP is one of most viral product that seen that was building in my eyes. I'm using it to building my products on regular basis: https://wip.chat/@AndreyAzimov Can you please share plans for near future? P.S. Thanks for adding me on GIF :)
Marc Köhlbrugge
Maker
@andreyazimov Hey Andrey, thanks so much for your support! I will develop WIP based on the community's feedback and requests. One of the most popular requests is the ability to keep track of milestones (e.g. getting 100 customers) and setting goals/deadlines (e.g. turning break-even). At the same time I will continue to evolve the current functionality and user experience.
Alex Marshall

I've been a paying member for about a month so far and my work and side project productivity has increased significantly. Being encouraged to ship something, no matter how big, every day keeps you moving forward and keeps motivation up 📈

Pros:

Huge community of people who can help/advise/support you with just about anything.

Cons:

Can some times feel intimidating to post something whilst there's a conversation going - but that's just a big community issue 🤷‍♂️

Pat Walls
WIP is hands down the best thing that's happened to me in terms of being a maker. I've completed 219 todos in the last 2 months. I'm constantly inspired by all the people in there, and have met some friends in there too!
Avi

I have been a WIP member for ~35 days now. Before that, I was struggling with making stuff and had almost stopped doing development. But after joining WIP, I got inspired to build again and everything has been great since then. The community inspires you to do stuff, and everybody is super helpful. It's a fun group to be a part of. Well worth the admission fees.

Pros:

Excellent group that keeps you willing to ship/do stuff, Helpful people

Cons:

Shipping can get too addictive 😆

Sven van der Zee
Great community! Thanks Marc, I also just launched my product I've been building public on wip.chat what a coincidence! https://www.producthunt.com/post...
Sam Cambridge
The WIP community has given me a huuuuuge boost in productivity. It's a diverse, humble set of humans who are all willing to help out and share their opinions to push each other on and launch products. 10/10 would WIP again
Nicolas
Congrats on the launch Marc! 👏 I've been hanging out on wip.chat every-single-day, for the past 5 months and I'm still excited to jump in the conversation every morning ☕️ Being around makers, each at different stages and working on different type of products helped me learn A LOT. Needless to say, creating and completing tasks in public helped focus of getting stuff done and stop obsessing over details. Weather you're still looking for ideas or cruising at $50K /month (s/o @levelsio), wip.chat has something to offer. Join us!