Back in 2017, I was eager to get my first real project out into the world and I was working HARD to prepare and launch Starter Story on Product Hunt.

I was also uncreative, and a noob, and I copied the layout nearly pixel for pixel of the site that inspired Starter Story (Indie Hackers).

I posted in WIP (maker community) the night before for feedback. Pieter Levels (my idol at the time) was in the chat and he SHIT ALL OVER MY WEBSITE. “This looks like Indie Hackers clone”. I explained it was the 'e-commerce indie hackers' and he says: “Well you should have called it 'Ecommerce Story'”.

I sat there in disbelief: "Fuck, Pieter Levels, of all people, has just shit on and all over my product. I thought people were just going to critique my CSS..."

But he was right.

I then spent the next 8 hours redesigning the entire site to be original. I stayed up til 4AM that night, drinking coffee and coding furiously until I got it done.

That late-night redesign is actually still what's on the site today! I still launched on PH next day.