What Would Google Do? And What Should You Build?
Indie hackers don’t need Google’s scale, just its mindset: give users control, build platforms not products, stay open, and ship ugly but fast. The lesson? Trust your users to stretch your work. Build small, unfinished, and real—then let the community turn it into something bigger.
It starts with a question that slices through the noise: What would Google do?
Not to worship the behemoth. But to reverse-engineer its mindset. That’s the real play behind Jeff Jarvis’s book. The rules are out there — not carved in granite, but written in browser tabs, APIs, and millions of tiny user choices. And if you're building in public, solo or with a tiny team, these rules aren't just interesting — they're survival.
Give Up Control, or Lose It Anyway
The first principle lands hard: Give people control and they’ll use it. Don’t, and they’ll leave. Google never needed to shout. It just worked — search, then Gmail, then Docs — clean, generous, fast. You used it, loved it, told your friends. They made the thing and got out of the way.
Indie tools today follow the same blueprint. Figma didn’t grow from marketing; it grew because designers loved it and started teaching others. Notion became the canvas for a thousand workflows because users made templates before the company did. That’s the move: build something useful, then let users stretch it, bend it, remix it.
Platforms, Not Products
Google doesn’t just make things — it builds foundations. You search, it links out. You use Gmail, it plugs into a hundred workflows. It doesn’t hoard traffic; it spreads it. The strategy? Don’t own the experience — empower others to create their own.
Stripe nailed this. Their docs were better than their homepage. The API wasn’t just functional — it was legible, even beautiful. What they sold wasn’t payments. It was possibility.
So, next time you’re building, ask: is this a closed tool, or is it a platform? Can others build on it, with it, through it?
Default to Open
Transparency isn’t a virtue signal. It’s leverage. Google shows you what it indexes. It tells you how ads work. It doesn’t always get it right — but when it does, it's because they assume you’ll look under the hood.
When Buffer got hacked, Joel didn’t call PR. He blogged about it in real time. That’s trust. That’s how you make users stay even when things go wrong.
Ship in public. Share what didn’t work. Default to honest, not polished. That’s how you earn fans who stay long after the novelty fades.
Small Is the New Big
Google wins on scale, yes. But the magic is in the micro. A single search — obscure, weird, niche — becomes signal when a thousand others search the same. That’s the trick: power the long tail.
It’s why Substack works. Why Gumroad thrives. They’re not chasing mass markets — they’re giving tools to misfits, artists, people with 129 true fans who pay, share, and show up. Empower the edge cases, and you’ll build a system that doesn’t break under scale — it grows stronger with it.
Life Is Beta
Google doesn’t ship perfect. It ships early. Half-finished. Ugly, sometimes. But real.
That’s the permission indie hackers needed. The landing page is your v0. The tweet is the prototype. You build, you show, you learn. If it flops, kill it fast. If it sticks, keep going.
Superhuman didn’t launch big. They launched to 1 user at a time, learned, adjusted, repeated. Because if you’re waiting to be “ready,” you’re already late.
Let the Users Build It
Google didn’t make Stack Overflow, or Reddit, or Wikipedia. But it sent people there. It connected users to users — and stepped back. That’s the model.
As a builder, your job isn’t to control every pixel. It’s to light the first spark, then watch what happens. Plugins. Docs. API wrappers. Community templates. Let users invent the best parts of your product. Then thank them for it.
The Indie Litmus Test
Before you hit publish on the next thing, ask:
Are you handing your users the keys, or just a manual?
Is your product a tool — or a foundation?
Are you building alone — or letting your users build with you?
When things go wrong, do you hide — or do you open the curtain?
Google’s not perfect. But the principles still hold. Trust your users. Build small, open, unfinished. Invite others in. Let them stretch the idea.
So next time you’re stuck, wondering what move to make next, ask the question that cuts through the noise:
What would Google do?
Then do your version of that — with indie speed and your own fingerprints all over it.