The point you make about the 2.4 hours of unpaid care work is the exact conversation we need to be having. The 'indie hacker' myth has always relied on the hidden assumption of infinite free evenings and zero caregiving responsibilities.
When people talk about AI lowering the barrier to entry, they usually just mean the technical barrier. But for women managing real exhaustion, AI is actually lowering the cognitive load barrier. It allows us to execute an idea without requiring us to become heavily caffeinated robots working at 2:00 am just to compete.
Getting someone to fund it? That's the next barrier.
Exactly. The 'indie hacker' or 'ambitious entrepreneur' has been living in their parents' garage, or has an office at home, when he does not need to care for anything else than his project. That’s clearly a privilege we never read about in their success stories.
Also we usually don't have the same expectations for a man vs a woman at the same age. Around 30-something, it's expected for a man to be successful and launch a business, while for a woman there's more pressure to start a family.
Hard agree. And it shows up not only in the entrepreneur space, it also shows up in landing a regular job in tech. Often, those application forms contain spaces to share your "passion projects". Well, I'm a mom, and although I genuinely like my job, I want to and do develop my skills on the job, since I have many other interests and responsibilities outside of it. I don't have a Github with relevant passion projects. That does not make me a less invested employee, it makes me a human being.
Abso-blooming-lutely. I've been through a similiar version of this. When I was working as a TV scriptwriter, 99% of the writers with children had a partner at home as the main carer. I was juggling both and expected to be available 24/7 for rewrites etc. It's eventually why I left.
Thank you for writing this piece Julie, and love your sharing around your own app development!
I have spent the past years in the app industry leading global app ecosystem partnerships at Google and prior to that in Google Cloud. It’s very true that developers are very male dominated professions and as a female that is non-technical, sometimes I found myself feeling uneasy in technical conversations.
As you mentioned app development involved multiple steps from ideation & fuding to development, distribution, ASO, marketing and creative to measurement; I do see different genders specialising across different stages based on their strengths and expertise. However what’s exciting is how AI is enabling solopreneurship which complements the gender gap on specific tasks.
I’ve been mentoring students which are already distributing multiple apps and it’s been very exciting!
Thanks! Really appreciate your comment. Yes i felt this so many times… and yet, most of the time it was enough to continue the conversation, even if uncomfortable, I understood enough. Lovely to connect, really happy to meet women in the space ☺️
The point you make about the 2.4 hours of unpaid care work is the exact conversation we need to be having. The 'indie hacker' myth has always relied on the hidden assumption of infinite free evenings and zero caregiving responsibilities.
When people talk about AI lowering the barrier to entry, they usually just mean the technical barrier. But for women managing real exhaustion, AI is actually lowering the cognitive load barrier. It allows us to execute an idea without requiring us to become heavily caffeinated robots working at 2:00 am just to compete.
Getting someone to fund it? That's the next barrier.
Exactly. The 'indie hacker' or 'ambitious entrepreneur' has been living in their parents' garage, or has an office at home, when he does not need to care for anything else than his project. That’s clearly a privilege we never read about in their success stories.
Also we usually don't have the same expectations for a man vs a woman at the same age. Around 30-something, it's expected for a man to be successful and launch a business, while for a woman there's more pressure to start a family.
Hard agree. And it shows up not only in the entrepreneur space, it also shows up in landing a regular job in tech. Often, those application forms contain spaces to share your "passion projects". Well, I'm a mom, and although I genuinely like my job, I want to and do develop my skills on the job, since I have many other interests and responsibilities outside of it. I don't have a Github with relevant passion projects. That does not make me a less invested employee, it makes me a human being.
Abso-blooming-lutely. I've been through a similiar version of this. When I was working as a TV scriptwriter, 99% of the writers with children had a partner at home as the main carer. I was juggling both and expected to be available 24/7 for rewrites etc. It's eventually why I left.
That is so hard! I am so grateful my husband took on so much responsibility while I was a VP of engineering. My parents helped too.
Thank you for writing this piece Julie, and love your sharing around your own app development!
I have spent the past years in the app industry leading global app ecosystem partnerships at Google and prior to that in Google Cloud. It’s very true that developers are very male dominated professions and as a female that is non-technical, sometimes I found myself feeling uneasy in technical conversations.
As you mentioned app development involved multiple steps from ideation & fuding to development, distribution, ASO, marketing and creative to measurement; I do see different genders specialising across different stages based on their strengths and expertise. However what’s exciting is how AI is enabling solopreneurship which complements the gender gap on specific tasks.
I’ve been mentoring students which are already distributing multiple apps and it’s been very exciting!
Thanks! Really appreciate your comment. Yes i felt this so many times… and yet, most of the time it was enough to continue the conversation, even if uncomfortable, I understood enough. Lovely to connect, really happy to meet women in the space ☺️