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Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#61

Post by NicoJuicy »

senior_james wrote: post #4

I'm a developer and have helped bootstrap a couple of SaaS. The problem is that in most partnerships like this, the other person can usually only offer ideas or something very minimal with regards to the success of the business. I usually end up just doing everything myself. Unless you offer something besides just the idea (money, contacts, industry experience). The partnership will not work. I've had to quit a few s…

This.

Also, non-programmers don't understand how much work goes into building applications.

Never go into sea with someone that doesn't has any experience and just an idea. You will hate it and waste a lot of time.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#62

Post by TallGuyShort »

joe563323 wrote: post #46
bigiain wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar experience here. If the other person in the proposed partnership cannot demonstrate equivalent-value skills and equivalent previous success in critical-to-the-business areas where I'm weak (or uninterested) like sales, marketing, biz-dev, enterprise sales, acquiring VC - then my answer is almost certainly going to be "Sure, $8k/month is my usual rate - discounts of 20% for 3 month or longer block bookings. Wh…

> If the other person refers to themselves as "An ideas guy!", my rates double, and require 50% up front. This is logical from a developer standpoint, but has it ever worked. Has any one ever paid 50% upfront.

Not in my case, but if you just say no, they think you don't have faith in their amazing idea. If they refuse to put their money where their mouth is, they realize they don't faith in their amazing idea.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#63

Post by macNchz »

kaspm wrote: post #32
bananaboy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah in a startup or small business I think every founder needs to do work. You can't have people who only essentially generate work for others. There are so many things that need doing when you're small that aren't directly related to development but still need to be done: applying for grants, tax concessions, marketing, building communities, competitive analysis, market research, payroll, accounting.

But this is the fundamental point of the article. It's very difficult to do marketing, communities, competitive analysis market research payroll and accounting when you have no money and no product. So what can non-technical co-founder bring to bootstrapping a SaaS platform with just ideas? May not be possible.

That period of time where a MVP is in development is prime time for a nontechnical partner to be out there talking to potential customers, putting together marketing materials, building an email list. Even without a working product you'll learn a lot and be able to hit the ground running later on.

Waiting until the product is 'ready' to get the wheels turning on sales and marketing can lose you valuable early insights and make it take longer to see if your product fits the market.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#64

Post by senior_james »

bigiain wrote: post #25
senior_james wrote: post #4

I'm a developer and have helped bootstrap a couple of SaaS. The problem is that in most partnerships like this, the other person can usually only offer ideas or something very minimal with regards to the success of the business. I usually end up just doing everything myself. Unless you offer something besides just the idea (money, contacts, industry experience). The partnership will not work. I've had to quit a few s…

Similar experience here. If the other person in the proposed partnership cannot demonstrate equivalent-value skills and equivalent previous success in critical-to-the-business areas where I'm weak (or uninterested) like sales, marketing, biz-dev, enterprise sales, acquiring VC - then my answer is almost certainly going to be "Sure, $8k/month is my usual rate - discounts of 20% for 3 month or longer block bookings. Wh…

I've been interested in running my own business since I was 20 (I'm 37 now). When I was in my early 20s, I was the developer in a partnership. My partner was the 'ideas' guy and was going to finance anything we needed to launch the site. I figured because my friend and business partner was already running his own company, it would make for a better co-founder.

I worked on our idea for 3 months and finished it. At the end of the 3 months, he told me that he needed to concentrate on things that made him money and he just wasn't interested in pursuing any new ideas. Since I was poor and still living with my parents, I wasn't able to do anything with my code except use it on interviews when looking for a new job. Another company came out with almost the same idea a few years later and made millions.

The main problem was that he had no skin in the game. I had poured my life into our idea and thought about it every day. He put nothing/very little into it and was easily able to move onto something new because he wasn't losing anything. Everyone needs to take the same amount of risk in a business partnership. This is usually either time or money.

A few years later he continued on with his door-to-door computer repair company and wanted to hire me for $10/hour as a technician. At that point, I was making a salary and had a great position as a junior software developer and pretty much laughed in his face.

Our personal relationship never really recovered. We were good friends before this and at this point, and I haven't talked to him for 10+ years.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#65

Post by alextheparrot »

rublev wrote: post #34
kaspm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is the fundamental point of the article. It's very difficult to do marketing, communities, competitive analysis market research payroll and accounting when you have no money and no product. So what can non-technical co-founder bring to bootstrapping a SaaS platform with just ideas? May not be possible.

>But this is the fundamental point of the article. It's very difficult to do marketing, communities, competitive analysis market research payroll and accounting when you have no money and no product. So what can non-technical co-founder bring to bootstrapping a SaaS platform with just ideas? May not be possible. You hustle? You sit there and think what is the literal next step, then you try that thing, reevaluate, an…

For some reason the image of a mouse in a cage running on a wheel with a person shouting at it popped into my head here; it reads like the transcript of YouTube motivational videos that on the surface has substance, but are actually hollow.

Doing something is a strict superset of doing something valuable, the key is to bring value, which the quoted comment was addressing.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#66

Post by traviswingo »

bananaboy wrote: post #14
senior_james wrote: post #4

I'm a developer and have helped bootstrap a couple of SaaS. The problem is that in most partnerships like this, the other person can usually only offer ideas or something very minimal with regards to the success of the business. I usually end up just doing everything myself. Unless you offer something besides just the idea (money, contacts, industry experience). The partnership will not work. I've had to quit a few s…

Yeah in a startup or small business I think every founder needs to do work. You can't have people who only essentially generate work for others. There are so many things that need doing when you're small that aren't directly related to development but still need to be done: applying for grants, tax concessions, marketing, building communities, competitive analysis, market research, payroll, accounting.

> You can't have people who only essentially generate work for others.

This 100% true and an almost unavoidable occurrence when non-technical and technical individuals attempt to start something together. I'd say it's extremely important that if a non-technical individual is coming to a technical one to build literally everything they dream up, said non-technical individual absolutely must be doing an equivalent amount of work in other areas of the company. Sending emails and taking calls/meetings only gets you so far and will eventually be perceived as "0-net" tasks by the technical individual if they don't result in anything.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#67

Post by JamesBarney »

I always tell non-tech people that if you have an idea, and expect a developer to code it for equity, you NEED to bring purchase orders to the table first.

[0] Obviously there are exceptions for instance if you have deep industry experience and contacts(with buying authority) but these people usually also have the money to pay a developer to implement their idea.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#68

Post by swalsh »

vinceguidry wrote: post #58
swalsh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I meant Value. He's an expert in the industry, he has connections to potential customers, he presumably has their trust. That's crazy valuable. That takes years to develop, and there's no "hack" to get around it. I encourage you to try and build those intangible pieces yourself. You'll quickly find it's not trivial in any way.

Sure, value for himself. Value as a business input to a currently non-existent SaaS app? Way less clear.

This is my last remark here, because this chain is getting a bit long. But I'll try my best to clarify myself. Because I really want this to help you in the future, or anyone who might read this. Because I used to have similar opinions as you, and it hurt my progress.

When you're done building the minimum viable product. You're not done, his value is not used up. You've done only a fraction of the work involved with building a company. The real hard work now begins. I've done this a few times, so i'm talking from experience here. Build it, and they will come... is a fallacy.

You'll need him to get in the door. Yeah, getting in the door of customers is hard, even if you have a product they want/need. You'll need him to help you gain their trust (you're not selling steak knives here, you're selling enterprise software!). High value sales means building a relationship, understanding the process of having clear goals with each engagement, demonstrating the value, integrating feedback, etc. You need an expert who understands sales, and the industry. If he's a consultant, presumably he has this.

You MIGHT be able to do this yourself, but even if you eventually succeed you're probably going to fail a lot before you get it. If he already has the skill set, and he already has the network, and he already has the relationships. He's bringing A LOT to the table. This isn't you working for him, this isn't you working for fee. This is adding his complementary skill set to your own, and building a company.

The one last thing I think every engineer who wants to break out and do their own thing should know. You can outsource product development (not saying you should, just saying you can) but you CAN NOT outsource sales. There are consultants who will help you, there are distributors, but none of that can completely replace having your own dedicated sales/marketing staff. They're augmentations. Building a company is not just having a product, it's having a market, it's knowing the market, and it's having a strategy to penetrate the market. The product is just a part of the company.

I recently quit my job to bootstrap a SaaS. I spend 60 hours working on it a week, and 55 of those hours i'm doing something that isn't coding. I REALLY want to just write some code, but that's not the most important part... not right now at least.

My advice is don't underestimate the value an industry expert who knows sales can bring to the table, and try to be realistic about what your skill set is.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#69

Post by amorphid »

swalsh wrote: post #24
amorphid wrote: post #20

I (developer) chatted with a water quality consultant during a plane flight. Consultant mentioned the CRM for his niche business sucked. He asked if I'd be interested in building a CRM for no money upfront, instead making money later (a percentage of his business I could sell, a license fee, profit sharing, whatever). I realized in that moment once the app was built, I wouldn't need him at all, and that I could sell…

Why do you assume that water quality consultants would buy a software product from you alone? Selling is hard, and a big part of it is knowing your customer, and gaining their trust. This guy would have a much better chance at accomplishing that. He had a lot of value, you just failed to see it. He made the right choice by finding someone else.

The point I was trying to make is that making an MVP water consulting CRM for a single customer isn't very equitable for me. The amount of money I'd earn for the time invested feels like it'd be less than what I'd likely earn as a consultant for anyone paying an hourly rate.

If I decided to build a CRM for the water consultant market, he brings little to the table for me. What I mean I can find a water consultant that isn't him. If I approached him, pitching on the idea for a CRM that would cost 50% less and be 2x more efficient, he'd likely be open to the idea of at least discussing it. If he said no, I'd simply find a different water consultant to talk to. He if said he'd talk, but only if he got to own after I built it, I'd turn him down.

For him to be a viable non-technical cofounder, he'd need to stop being a water consultant, and start being a cofounder. Those are two separate jobs. He didn't​ want to discuss that. He could bring value, maybe. But he wanted to own the majority of something he couldn't buy or build himself, and he wasn't willing to become a founder. I wasn't interested in doing business like that.

I was once tried being the non-technical cofounder. In the end I decided it was easier to learn how to code, and that path was super hard.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

#70

Post by antisthenes »

ilaksh wrote: post #45
bikamonki wrote: post #27

It depends entirely on the SAAS. A non-programmer friend of mine paid peanuts to an off-shore programmer to build an über simple slack-clone with Firebase + Angular + Phonegap. He has two paying customers so far. Will this scale? Probably not but if he reaches 20 customers he'll have the money for the rockstars. This friend is a sales ninja, the tech is not an obstacle for him.

First of all, a Slack clone with Firebase/Angular/Phonegap is not simple in terms of the engineering effort. If he found someone to implement a working system like that for peanuts, then he did not bootstap his startup alone, he did it by taking advantage of the other guy, and the fact that he does not acknowledge the other guy did 90% percent of it and describes it as a 'solo' effort just means that he is an asshole…

Are you willing to pay for my education to become a software engineer, so I can code my own products?

If not, then you're the asshole.

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