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Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#61

Post by alex_suzuki »

Alex3917 wrote: post #44
PaulWaldman wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On all of my sales calls, I tell people that I'm bootstrapped and that I'm going to charge them extra so that I can reduce the risk to their business by staying bootstrapped, and I have yet to run into anyone who doesn't seem satisfied by that pricing strategy. What does this statement mean? Are you implying to your potential customers that charging them extra translates into profits to entice you to continue the bu…

> What does this statement mean? That I'm not going to dump product on the market below cost to gain market share. Since even though doing that is obviously saves customers a little bit of money in the short term, in the long term the money raised to do that needs to be paid back ten fold, which ultimately comes out of their pockets. It's just much easier for a business to keep its interests aligned with its customer…

You must have a pretty compelling product. Mind sharing?

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#62

Post by ihaveajob »

formvoltron wrote: post #40
alcio wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 )

I guess most entrepreneurs are not dying from drugs or guns as they are simply too busy!

Unintentional injury (likely mostly car crashes?) seems to be the leading cause for all age group up to age 44. Then come suicide/homicide which only start declining in the ranks in your 40s, probably because other causes (cancer, heart conditions) start to take over.

I'm in my 40s and officially more likely to have my heart kill me, than myself.

https://wisqars.cdc.gov/fatal-leading

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#63

Post by mtmail »

Only once did we actively cancel a contract with a solo entrepreneur. It was a payment platform (on top of Stripe). We later learned (via Twitter photos) he also did a coast-to-coast camping van trip for several weeks. I think he was living in the van, too. All fine. But then during a customer complaint we couldn't get hold of him for days. Maybe in a national park without cellphone reception? It was too much of risk for us long-term.

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#64

Post by tmaly »

If it’s open source, I tend to have a little more trust with solo entrepreneurs. I can see all the details of what they are selling.

If it is not, then I look for things like reputation, reviews, testimonials. A good product alone will not always get a sale. The person has to trust you and your company.

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#65

Post by thargor90 »

I consider myself to be a solo developer/entrepreneur.

Some tips to look like a small business (which is fine for most clients) instead of solo developer: * Get incorporated * Get "advisors" or "partners" that you can list, but do not actually do any work * Get freelancers that you can list, but only hire when required * Hire 1-2 part time students and let them answer calls or and do accounting/busy work

Last but not least, just have a great product and customers will work around their due diligence processes ;-)

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#66

Post by [deleted] »

alex_suzuki wrote: post #61
Alex3917 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does this statement mean? That I'm not going to dump product on the market below cost to gain market share. Since even though doing that is obviously saves customers a little bit of money in the short term, in the long term the money raised to do that needs to be paid back ten fold, which ultimately comes out of their pockets. It's just much easier for a business to keep its interests aligned with its customer…

You must have a pretty compelling product. Mind sharing?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#67

Post by masukomi »

> Would knowing if the creator of a product is like me or fully fledged organisation affect your likelihood of using any software they create?

I use good software, that isn't written by bigots and doesn't support bigotry.

I prefer good software from solo or small indie team developers because they tend to not only respond to feedback, but actually incorporate that feedback. I prefer it even more if their income is centered around their software because then making the app awesome and listening to users is core to them having food on the table and a roof on their heads, and that benefits me, the user, a lot.

separately: your Ask HN question title is a _radically_ different question than the one in the body of your post. I trust solo developers exactly as much as i trust any other individual i don't know.

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#68

Post by horsawlarway »

codingdave wrote: post #23
Alex3917 wrote: post #13

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…

> If you are small enough that you can run on a free tier, you are too small for me to have confidence that you are sticking around.

There's a lot of truth in this. Particularly since the free tiers on most cloud providers are explicitly designed to suck you in, then raise the rates tremendously as you scale.

A business that might be fine with 100 customers on the cloud could struggle mightily to cover the costs of dealing with 1000 customers on the same stack. The linear revenue growth doesn't match up to the insane cost increase as you go from "hobby project" to "small business" in the cloud.

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#69

Post by ergonaught »

If I gave it any thought at all, it would come down more to the type of software and your apparent business model.

People making software, unless it's FOSS, that I can still use satisfactorily after you die, give up, go insane (I mean "enhance the user experience"), or get acquired by profit extractors who don't care, are in an extreme minority these days, so there's almost no reason to rely upon or trust "you" regardless. A solopreneur isn't necessarily riskier, and might even be less risky.

Re: Ask HN: Do you trust solo entrepreneurs?

#70

Post by vicek22 »

tdrgabi wrote: post #60
alcio wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 )

I'm confused, where does the 2.1% come from. It does look like 0.001795 which is 0.2% for a 30 year old in the source you linked

The number you read is for dying within the next year. The OP said within a decade.
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