DEV Community: Yoanna Juille

Game over: why we’re shutting everything down after 3 years of indie hacking.

Yoanna Juille — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 14:51:15 +0000

This is the end of Lutains. 3 years of work going up in smoke, thousands of euros lost, and a violent feeling of failure. This decision was made on Saturday, under gray skies to the sound of sirens and stun grenades right below our window. An ending worthy of the biggest Hollywood movies.

Anyway, I promise not to fall into pathos tonight, because as Naval Ravikant would say:

Don't take yourself so seriously. You're just a monkey with a plan.

A decision that’s been brewing for a while.

I’ve talked about this before, but with Aymeric, we’ve felt out of sync with the direction the web has been taking lately. (AI shares part of the blame here, and the way people use it as well, but that’s another topic.) All of this slowly translated into mental and physical exhaustion, warning signs that, as we know, need to be listened to in order to avoid a catastrophe.

This post is meant to be a post-mortem, a way to turn the page on a project started in 2023 for which we had huge expectations. So here are the mistakes we made, and that we swear not to repeat.

Too slow, the wrong target, in a country that's too expensive.

A snail’s pace. Safe to say we didn’t feel concerned by the “Ship fast, fail fast” mantra preached everywhere in indie hacking. Huge mistake! We actually wanted to build something big, something different. But the reality is you’re staring at a 15-inch screen, and the level of experience we wanted to offer was probably… unreachable. So we went through dozens of versions that we didn’t even test on the market. A rookie mistake that made us skip the most important topic of all: sales.
A target that was too tech-savvy… and stingy! (Let’s call it like it is) Sorry in advance for this headline, but there’s some truth in it, let’s be honest! The huge issue with indie hackers is that they master AI, agents, and above all, build their own tools in under 48 hours. So they simply don’t need you. At least, not our outside look on their landing page for $100, when they have Claude right at their fingertips. We knew this for months, and we failed to pivot.
France wasn’t the right country. No French-bashing today, but it’s a country with high taxes and a fairly high cost of living. At least for an indie hacker, where making over $2k MRR already puts you at the top. For the two of us, it wasn’t a viable plan from the start. Maybe we should have tried our luck in Asia for our first years, like many do. But we didn’t have the courage to do it, and the end would probably have been identical—just with savings melting away a bit slower.
Other takeaways in bulk. I don’t want to make this post too long, but here are the quick lessons we take away from our experience:
- (Above all) Don’t fall in love with your product; you lose your objectivity.
- If you build as a couple, listen deeply to each other. No work is worth straining your relationship.
- Have a stable place to live. Without income, renting is tough, and that instability becomes heavy.

Quick, some positives!

Because yes, there are some. First, the support of our peers on social media, and I loved having the opportunity to chat with so many of you. We also took the chance to travel and spend time with family with Aymeric, something we could never have done as much with a 9-to-5.

On the business side, even though we saw everything in black a few days ago, we realize we learned a ton. We know how to create an offer, write copy that converts (we did make sales, after all!), build a visual brand, develop apps with integrated AI...

In short, these 3 years weren’t a total loss, and I hope we’ll be able to turn this failure into an asset.

What’s next.

Several options are on the table: a corporate 9-to-5, a career switch, or… entrepreneurship again!

Even if the stability of a salaried job is tempting, we want to prioritize one of the last two options. We want to prove to ourselves that we can succeed in entrepreneurship, but this time, we won’t start from scratch.

Maybe acquiring a business with an existing customer base, maybe joining an incubator to help us… We don’t know yet, but one thing is certain: we are going to look for that meaning, that spark we lost over the past few months, and without which nothing is possible.

A huge thank you to the brave souls who read all the way to the end! And I wish you all the best for what lies ahead . :)

First sale in under a week after a major revamp: what we put in place.

Yoanna Juille — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:32:06 +0000

It took exactly 5 days! We doubted a lot, but we did it! Waking up on Saturday morning to an unexpected Stripe notification, I’m not going to lie to you, it isn’t unpleasant. :)

A bit of context

We’ve actually been working on Lutains for months, a landing page audit done by 2 humans (a dev and a designer) backed by Reddit data. We created it because, during our first project, we had a lot of trouble getting feedback. We trained ourselves, and we built this offer. We did several launches in the meantime, which helped us prepare better for this one.

By the numbers:

3 sales this summer (but we weren't convinced by the format)
Around 1,200 followers on X
2 of us working full-time on our product

What we put in place on social media

We picked up the pace on X. The numbers aren’t mind-blowing yet, but they’re improving, and that’s what matters most. 🙂

Overall, over the last 7 days, that is:

19 posts
514 comments
20386 impressions
119 new users on our website

The conversion rate is therefore 0.84%. That’s not too bad considering the price is still relatively high for indie hackers who are generally accustomed to subscription prices below $29, and the many curious people who went to check out our page.

On the pure marketing side

Several small things have been put in place.

We asked our beta testers for testimonials, which we added to our page. More social proof = more trust = more sales (at least, it helps).
By analyzing PostHog's data, we found that users were abandoning the signup process.

So we added (even more) social proof to show that the product is actively used and, above all, that people are happy with it.

Not the easiest decision, but we lowered the price from $149 to $99. We remembered reading an interview with Olly from Roast My Landing Page back in the day. He mentioned starting at $49 and raising his prices later.

Clearly, it was the right strategy. A few hours after publicly owning our price drop in a post, we made a sale. The price will then increase progressively.

Note

By the way, if you’re preparing for a launch or want an honest audit of your landing page before sending traffic to it, there are a few $99 spots left this week right here: https://lutains.com.

What's next

We realize we need more traffic. So Aymeric started developing a free product that will redirect to Lutains; we can't wait to see what that brings.

And maybe we’ll gather a bit of courage to finally start sending cold DMs… To be continued. 🙂

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

Four Beta Audits, a Pikachu, and Pre-Launch Doubt.

Yoanna Juille — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 17:04:23 +0000

This week was much more productive than the last. (And it feels great!) We delivered our four landing page audits, and user satisfaction is high! That said, Aymeric and I went through a phase of doubt, wondering if what we’re doing really makes sense and, above all, if it aligns with the future we want to build.

Anyway, here’s the recap!

Success for the beta versions of our new release!

We audited pages for a wide variety of projects:

An all-in-one Discord bot for community management.
A collaborative backlink network for founders.
An extension for automatically submitting products to directories.
A native Mac video editor.

(I had mentioned a meditation app, but the founder never got back to us, oh well!)

The good news is that the feedback was entirely positive! Three of the people either acted on our feedback or said they would. (The fourth only received their audit this weekend, so we’ll know more on Monday.)

So, our work didn't go to waste.

Another highlight: we set up tracking using PostHog (I used to hate marketing teams who were always asking us to add GTM everywhere, but now I get why it’s useful!). We can see users spending time on the product, which is clearly a good sign.

No more Figma, everything is integrated into our own tool!

The user experience seems to be a hit! And it’s working well for us, too.

Moving the entire roast process into our product instead of doing it in Figma is paying off! It’s faster, and it allowed us to add a custom interaction system for communicating with users. If they have questions or need help, we’re here for them, we don’t just deliver and then disappear.

No electronics today, but a Pikachu.

I have to admit, laziness got the better of me this Sunday, and I didn't have much motivation to get my gear out. So, I grabbed my sketchbook and found a tutorial for drawing an ultra-cute Pikachu. I decided to add my own little touch, I think you’ll quickly spot where it is! :D

A lesson from the philosopher André Comte-Sponville

Before every launch, we always go through the same phase. Do we have a good reason to pour so much effort into this project? And above all: does it align with what we want to do with our lives?

I fully identify with this generation that is searching for meaning. And I admit that the direction the web is taking with AI is a bit disheartening, and I feel guilty about being part of it.

On the other hand, analyzing landing pages, discovering projects by peers, and being able to help them, at our own level, really drives me.

I came across this quote from Jean-Pierre Nadir in a post inspired by a video of André Comte-Sponville:

Accept that work isn’t always a grand fireworks display, but rather a succession of small sparks that eventually light the way.

(The link of the post : https://bit.ly/4ep4dJu)

So let’s keep moving forward step by step, and stop condemning ourselves to this endless quest for “meaning”, something that (perhaps) doesn’t even exist.

With those lovely words, I wish you a wonderful Sunday.

PS : If you have a landing page and need feedback, don't hesitate to check out https://www.lutains.com. :)

The Shackleton adventure, a New Project, and Our First Push-Button

Yoanna Juille — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 15:03:56 +0000

I announced that a beta would be ready this week. Well… we’re running just a little bit behind schedule, it’s starting to feel like Groundhog Day!

The good news is that we’ve made great progress: the flows work and the emails are ready to go. All that’s left is some design polish, a solid testing phase, and a few adjustments to the landing page. We even bent our weekend “off-screen” rule because we really want this out before October 1st.

Here is what happened this week.

The Reality of a Productized Service

After struggling for months to build a product heavily reliant on AI, we ended up taking a completely different direction.

Today in Lutains, AI just handles raw data processing behind the scenes. That’s it.

The landing page review, the strategic thinking, the intuition and all the rest are 100% done by Aymeric and me. I truly believe that the successful AI SaaS products of the future will largely incorporate a “human-in-the-loop” approach.

There is just one slight complication we hadn't really anticipated. Having interactions between the user and us adds massive complexity to the workflow (more emails, more extensive front-end tracking, etc.). All of this slowed us down, but it’s nothing serious in itself!

We’re also wrapping up the week with some good news: three people already seem interested in the beta, which is incredibly motivating!

A new project, but one thing at a time

There’s a product idea that keeps coming up, and we think we’ve found the right angle. Honestly, it’ll complement Lutains perfectly. I’m really looking forward to telling you more about it! For now, I can at least introduce you to Leo, the new mascot we’ll be using for this project.

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A Modest Win for Hardware

There wasn't major progress on the electronics front: we mostly revisited the basics and added our first push-buttons to a circuit. It might not seem like much, but being able to interact with and control what’s happening physically is incredibly satisfying!

What I’m reading: Build in public, 1914 style

I’ve just finished The Consolations of the Forest (Dans les forêts de Sibérie) by Sylvain Tesson and immediately dove into Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. I’m definitely sticking with the cold weather theme, which contrasts nicely with the sunshine outside!

I’ve always had deep respect for sailors (my grandfather was one, which probably explains it).They truly possess a spirit of adventure and an incredible sense of optimism in the face of extremely difficult conditions. The book is actually based on the sailors' logs from that era, and I find there’s a strong parallel to the concept of "building in public" (the authentic kind) today.

I’m halfway through the book and can sense there won’t be a happy ending, but I’m eager to see what happens next. :)

And finally, following up on a recent tweet of mine, I’m really proud to say that this update is 100% human-made.

(Link of the tweet : https://x.com/YoannaJuille/status/2103454541156876364)

Have a great week everyone, and see you soon! :)

Via Negativa, an Arduino Kit, and Ending the Excuses

Yoanna Juille — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:41:02 +0000

This week felt like our official back-to-school moment.

Aymeric and I locked our focus 100% back onto Lutains, set real working hours, and committed to a strict schedule. And surprise, things actually get done. We’ll be ready for a closed beta-testing phase next week. That definitely calls for a small win celebration! :D

Getting Back on X

I’ll admit, I was dragging my feet.

Every single time I take a break from social media and try to jump back in, the exact same existential question hits me: Is this endless effort even worth it? Most days, I struggle to find any real meaning in it.

But without visibility, a project simply dies in a quiet corner. So you swallow your pride and stop playing the Emperor, that self-sabotaging mode where you only pick the fun, easy tasks on your to-do list while ignoring the rest.

Luckily, my comeback worked unexpectedly well: +80 followers in a few days, pushing us past the 1,100 milestone. How? I rode a ridiculous template trend:

I'm 33.

Indie hacker from France.

Looking to connect with more builders & indie hackers!

Ten seconds to write. Zero intellectual effort. And yet it outperformed posts I’ve spent two hours meticulously refining. Social algorithms are weird, but hey, we take the win.

Streamlining the Offer with Via Negativa

Our target audience hasn’t changed: we’re building for founders who want to nail their upcoming launch. But we were trying so hard to over-deliver that our packages had become bloated and confusing.

The breakthrough came from Aymeric’s reading list. He’s currently into Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, specifically the concept of Via Negativa, the principle that improvement often comes from subtraction, not addition.

So we took a hard look at our offer and asked: What can we cut?

The first casualty was our massive Reddit data report. It was packed with fascinating research, but let’s be honest: nobody has the time or energy to read that. Instead, we’re cutting the fluff and injecting just 2 or 3 critical insights directly inside our landing page roast.

High signal, zero noise, delivered exactly where it matters.

The 6:00 PM Hard Stop

Speaking of books, we’ve introduced a non-negotiable rule into our routine: every day at 6:00 PM, screens go dark, and we read.

It acts as a physical barrier between work and evening. In tech, your attention is constantly sliced into micro-doses of dopamine. Sitting down with a physical book forces your brain to drop into a lower gear. It restores deep focus, fuels our conversations over dinner, and brings back substance. Right now, it feels less like a hobby and more like mental hygiene.

An Electronic Sunday

Sundays are now strictly off-grid. Cooking, sketching, long trail walks... anything that pulls our heads out of software.

This month, we’re venturing into physical hardware. For my birthday, I got an Arduino Starter Kit. I already have a few fun ideas brewing, like building a physical metric counter hooked up to an API (more on that soon). And naturally, putting LEDs on everything, which instantly brings back memories of that glowing keychain project I had to build in middle school technology class. :)

Fair warning: it’s significantly harder than we anticipated.

And we deliberately chose to learn the old-school way: reading the paper manual, getting confused, and troubleshooting by hand. Wrestling with real-world physics without an AI safety net is frustrating, but it feels wonderfully alive.

September is about rebuilding solid habits. October will be our launchpad.

See you next week! 🌿

The message we didn't see coming, the grind and our new offer.

Yoanna Juille — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 13:16:58 +0000

I have to be honest: lately, we’ve been moving at a snail’s pace.

Aymeric and I had to take a break due to some personal issues, and getting back into the rhythm is proving to be an uphill battle. We were never the fastest builders to begin with, but right now, it feels sluggish. We need to find a way out of this fog.

The meeting we said we’d never take.

I’m not usually one to look for "signs" everywhere, but the timing was eerie. One morning, feeling particularly stuck and full of doubt, I received a LinkedIn message from a coach.

He’s not an indie hacker, but someone who has built a successful company and done very well for himself.

Usually, we are pretty closed off to coaching, it’s expensive, and we take pride in doing everything as a duo. But this time, it felt different. We’ve decided to take an introductory meeting next week. Let’s see where it leads.

The New Offer: Fixing Launches

Despite the slow pace, the vision for our new offer is finally clear. We are doubling down on helping builders nail their product launch.

We have some "objective" (ha!) great ideas for a competitor study feature, but that will take time. For now, here is the foundation of what we are shipping:

LAUNCH FOUNDATION Fix your messaging before you launch.	ALL-IN LAUNCH PARTNER Your safety net against launching to silence.
- UX & Copy Audit manually done by Yoanna & Aymeric. - Reddit Persona Blueprint (real customer pain points). - Mobile-First Scan to secure social traffic. - 48h Direct Access for follow-up questions.	- Everything in Foundation, plus: - 2nd Review once you've applied our changes. - The Launch Boost (Blog Case Study with a DR28 backlink + X Shoutout + 2 upvotes the day of your launch).

Slowing down to speed up

It wasn't a productive week in terms of output, but it was necessary for my head. I spent a lot of time outside, away from the screens. I’ll leave you with a photo of my favorite chamomile tea with a view.

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Next week might still be a bit slow, but we are planning to be back in full force by September 14th.

See you on soon ! :)

Accelerating, Killing Friction, and the "Done-for-you" Trend

Yoanna Juille — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 15:44:48 +0000

Another week down, and it’s time to speed up. We’re aiming for a major launch in mid-September with our new offer specifically designed for builders in the pre-launch phase. The offer is ready, now, it’s all about the last mile of execution. (not the easiest by the way, but probably the most important)

Killing the Canvas (Goodbye user’s friction👋)

Aymeric and I have always been fans of canvas-based interfaces. We spent a long time building Lutains around a canvas system. But it turned out that the canvas was just too unfamiliar and confusing for some of our users.

And we all know that, in product design, friction is a silent killer. If users have to learn how to use a tool before they get the result, you’ve already lost them. So, we’re removing the canvas. The visuals are ready on Figma, and we’re currently integrating a much simpler, more intuitive flow.

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To interact... or not? 🤔

I’ve always been a believer in the IKEA Effect, the idea that if a user participates in building the product, they value it more. I wanted users to choose their ideal customer and their favorite pain point within the tool.

Aymeric disagreed.

He argued it added unnecessary weight to the process and made us dependent on the user’s reaction time, which doesn't work when you promise a 72-hour turnaround.

In the meantime, I read a post about PayFit’s new strategic direction, and it proved him… right. (Ugh, hard to admit being wrong!)

They are shifting away from "do-it-yourself" software toward a more managed service. The truth is, people today want a result without the effort. Honestly, I get it. We’re going to follow that trend and remove the "DIY" steps to focus on pure delivery.

Time will tell if we made the right choice.

New Marketing Frontiers💡

Posting on social media isn't enough. Since we both admit we aren't natural salespeople, we need a better strategy. For September, we’re testing three things:

Influencer Outreach: I’ve identified 3 specific accounts to talk about Lutains. One is already on board, and I’m excited to see the impact.
Aggressive Affiliation: I was reading a newsletter by Tibo about affiliation, and I realized I haven’t pushed this hard enough. I was just waiting for people to click the link in our footer. That’s not a strategy…
Finally, we are officially gearing up for a Product Hunt launch. We’ve already picked our hunter, who was actually one of our very first testers. Germán, we’re counting on you to hit the Top 3!

The Off-Screen Moment 📖

No screenshots today, I want to wait until the integration is finished so I can show you a clear, polished overview.

Instead, I’ll leave you with my current read.

It’s a far cry from the business books I usually devour: "The Consolation of the Forest" (Dans les forêts de Sibérie) by Sylvain Tesson. It’s a beautiful reminder of the world outside the screen, which feels right given our 2-year exit plan.

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That's all for today !

Have a great week, and see you soon ! :)

Finding a home, and planning our exit from Tech.

Yoanna Juille — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 16:13:02 +0000

A lot happened last week. We found a place to live with Aymeric, we had some deep conversations about our future, and we completely redefined the vision for The Lutains.

I'll break it all down for you right below. :)

The French Renting Nightmare is over (for now)

First, the good news: we finally found a home for the next two and a half months.

We gave up our apartment 18 months ago. Since then, we’ve been traveling (especially in Italy and the Canary Islands) and spending time with our parents. In France, trying to rent an apartment without a long-term, permanent work contract is an absolute obstacle course. It’s so complicated we barely even tried to be honest.

Regaining a bit of stability is necessary for the time being, because we need to focus on our projects, that’s it.

Minor downside (anyway): the noise !!! 😡

People revving modified cars and motos all night is just soul-crushing. I don't get the appeal, it’s just loud and annoying.(yes, lack of sleep makes me a bit grumpy)

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The 2 Year Exit Plan

Lately, we’ve been asking ourselves: Do we really want to be in Tech for the long term?

The answer, surprisingly, is… no.

Maybe it’s fatigue, or maybe it’s the direction the web is taking with the AI explosion. While I don’t think AI is "bad" technology, the current vibe of the internet just doesn't resonate with us anymore. We want to move toward something more tactile, more real. Something involving craftsmanship (maybe artisanat, but it’s still unclear).

We don’t have those skills yet, so we’ve set a goal: We have 2 years to prepare for our career change.

So let's get moving!

Balancing Cash and Time

This realization finally changed our financial strategy. We used to think:

Work more, earn more. But to learn a new craft, you need time.

Our new goal is a compromise between money and freedom.

We are aiming for €5,000/month in revenue for the two of us by the end of the year. To achieve this, we’ve decided to work on client projects from Monday to Thursday.

Friday to Sunday will be for everything else: walking, training, experimenting, and thinking about our next move.

It’s a major change, because we had been working every day for quite some time, with varying degrees of efficiency.

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Slight shift in positioning for the Lutains.

We’ve just decided to double down on the Product Launch phase.

When we look at our data and the people contacting us, they are almost always in the pre-launch phase. It’s the most critical moment for any project. So we’ve restructured our offer to focus largely, on helping builders nail their launch. (and provide our assistance to help them gain more visibility.)

The core of what we do isn't changing drastically, but the onboarding and the strategy will be quite different.

Here’s a preview of what we have in mind :

We’re really looking forward to getting our first client, I’m sure we can bring something valuable to the table.

Next week will be less about reflecting and more about executing.

Have a good week everyone ! :)