51–60 of 164 posts
But no, I wouldn’t as a person who hypothetically made buying decisions. It’s the “IBM problem” that non dominant companies face. “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”.
For your typical solo founder in their 30s, their odds of dying at any point over the next 10 years is something like 0.2%. And short of them dying, their business isn't going anywhere because keeping a SaaS startup online doesn't cost anything -- if you have the skills to do it yourself. Whereas the odds of a venture backed startup shutting down at any point over the next ten years is something like 30%. So from a r…
If it is working for you, that is great, but... Death is not the only reason people quit working on a project. They could get a better offer, their family situation could change, they could get sick or injured, or they could simply get sick of it, just to name a few. Also, keeping a SaaS online does cost money. And those costs increase as you scale. If you are small enough that you can run on a free tier, you are too…
For your typical solo founder in their 30s, their odds of dying at any point over the next 10 years is something like 0.2%. And short of them dying, their business isn't going anywhere because keeping a SaaS startup online doesn't cost anything -- if you have the skills to do it yourself. Whereas the odds of a venture backed startup shutting down at any point over the next ten years is something like 30%. So from a r…
> For your typical solo founder in their 30s, their odds of dying at any point over the next 10 years is something like 0.2% The real figure is more 2.1% (source: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html )
For your typical solo founder in their 30s, their odds of dying at any point over the next 10 years is something like 0.2%. And short of them dying, their business isn't going anywhere because keeping a SaaS startup online doesn't cost anything -- if you have the skills to do it yourself. Whereas the odds of a venture backed startup shutting down at any point over the next ten years is something like 30%. So from a r…
If it is working for you, that is great, but... Death is not the only reason people quit working on a project. They could get a better offer, their family situation could change, they could get sick or injured, or they could simply get sick of it, just to name a few. Also, keeping a SaaS online does cost money. And those costs increase as you scale. If you are small enough that you can run on a free tier, you are too…
Regarding it costing money, yes, of course. But costs increases as users increase. If you're giving away your product for free, that's an issue. If you're charging, then I don't see the problem.
I’m in a similar boat with two email-based SaaS products. People often ask, “what if?”. I’ve considered writing up a worst case scenario plan or migration document to help with initial concerns that these apps will just go away. Are there any funds out there that offer their name as a form of backing to give customers increased confidence? I think a big name would help, not just the money itself. Thoughts?
Google's long list of killed projects is a good example, but any large (especially publicly traded company) may kill a service if they decide the economics don't look good.
You see this particularly when a large company grows by acquiring smaller companies, resulting in a stock price boost; but then a few quarters later there's a need to offset greater business failures by cutting costs, so some divisions or projects get axed.
I would probably trust in this order:
1. small focused profitable company
2. large private profitable company
3. solo operator
4. large publicly traded company
"It depends", there's both optics and trust. A single person is always a liability due to the "hit-by-a-bus" factor. The optics solution: Don't look like a single person, hide behind an LLC (in some countries you can look up the financials though so having money in it from consulting,etc is prob a good idea so it doesn't look vulnerable) A trust solution: You could mitigate it by having an open-sourcing pledge and/or…
For your typical solo founder in their 30s, their odds of dying at any point over the next 10 years is something like 0.2%. And short of them dying, their business isn't going anywhere because keeping a SaaS startup online doesn't cost anything -- if you have the skills to do it yourself. Whereas the odds of a venture backed startup shutting down at any point over the next ten years is something like 30%. So from a r…
Citation needed. I worked in startups my entire life. I thought it was closer to 90+%.
Maybe you can use this as part of your pitch, "you already trust lots of solo devs for your software needs".
For your typical solo founder in their 30s, their odds of dying at any point over the next 10 years is something like 0.2%. And short of them dying, their business isn't going anywhere because keeping a SaaS startup online doesn't cost anything -- if you have the skills to do it yourself. Whereas the odds of a venture backed startup shutting down at any point over the next ten years is something like 30%. So from a r…
> For your typical solo founder in their 30s, their odds of dying at any point over the next 10 years is something like 0.2% The real figure is more 2.1% (source: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html )