Friction is your moat
The Cult of “Seamless”
Every product book I’ve ever read screams the same thing: Remove Friction.
“Make it one click.” “Don’t make me think.” “Seamless experience.”
This is fantastic advice if you are Amazon. It is terrible advice if you are a scrappy indie hacker looking for a market.
If a market is frictionless, guess what? Everyone is already there. It’s a crowded party. The VC-backed giants have already laid down the red carpet. You cannot compete on “easy” when your competitor has a 100-person UX team.
You need to look for the “hard.”
The Korean Fortress
Let’s talk about the Korean internet.
To an outsider, it is a nightmare. To sign up for a simple website, you might need a “Personal Customs Code.” To pay for a $5 item, you might need to install an .exe file (yes, in 2026) or verify your identity via a phone carrier text message. The websites are cluttered, flashing, and dense.
It is a fortress of friction.
Most global companies look at this and say, “Forget it. Too hard.” Most indie hackers look at this and say, “I can’t even read the language.”
They leave.
The Protected Pool
When I built Korea Deals, I didn’t do anything revolutionary. I didn’t invent e-commerce.
I just looked at that fortress and decided to climb the wall.
Because the friction was so high, there was a massive, protected pool of customers inside—foreign residents in Korea—who were being completely ignored. They were desperate. They had money. But they couldn’t get past the .exe files and the Hangul captchas.
The friction that scared away my competitors was exactly what protected my business.
I acted as the adapter. I dealt with the messiness so my users didn’t have to. I absorbed the complexity.
Suffering as a Service
There is a business model in simply being willing to suffer more than the other guy.
Find a process that makes people want to throw their laptop out the window.
- Is it tax compliance for digital nomads?
- Is it navigating government visa websites?
- Is it integrating with a terrible archaic banking API?
That pain is your signal.
If you can wrap that pain in a nice API or a clean UI, you win. You aren’t just selling a product; you are selling relief.
Don’t look for the smooth road. Look for the potholes. That’s where the money is hiding.