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Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

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Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

#91

Post by mooreds »

ramon156 wrote: post #90
mooreds wrote: post #86

> Anyone got something helpful to share in that regard? If you can afford it, go work in a non-software domain for a while (maybe a year or two). You'll see all kinds of problems wherever you are, and you'll learn about the domain and other solutions. Make a note of the ones connected to revenue. Leave and go start your own thing, selling it back to wherever you worked (first customer problem solved). Of course, it's…

I'm in this step. I joined a company in March and I just hate it. I do not see myself doing this for two years (they're behind on a lot of technology, and we have government customers that just do whatever. Its slow and boring. Some say its amazing, but you're losing your precious time sitting behind a screen.) I'm genuinely thinking of taking up a skill, and then applying it to a new job. The pay is going to suck, t…

Have you learned anything that could help you build a solo business? (Other than motivation because you hate the current position, of course?)

Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

#92

Post by jonnygoodwin »

0xmattf wrote: post #74
Gooblebrai wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the biggest downer was when I built the coolest SaaS for martial arts academies. I thought it was guaranteed success, as I am involved in these communities, know a ton of owners. I reached out to all of them. Offered a free setup/trial. None of them cared, or even attempted to use it. Did you speak with them about the idea before building the platform?

Some of them, yes. It seemed like they'd use it. I don't know. Maybe bad execution, or something. Although, maybe I should try again. Perhaps they were busy. I also didn't market beyond reaching out to people (which involved the people I know + cold email outreach).

It’s hard for these companies to switch once they’ve picked a platform. Just an idea, but I’ve seen people have success by looking up new business registrations. Get all new martial arts gyms daily, and try reaching out to them.

Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

#93

Post by goncharovart »

It's possible, but "solo" is a lie told to keep you motivated.

Shipped a B2B vertical platform in 12 months alone (paying customers now). What actually made it possible was: three prior jobs where I learned the boring parts (auth, payments, ops, CI), domain expertise I happened to have from family (HVAC engineering, which is what the product vertical turned out to be), plus forums and OSS libraries that are effectively hundreds of past engineer-years I'm standing on.

So "alone" is really "me full-time + 20 years of accumulated industry + 10 years of accumulated open source". The actual solo part is attention allocation across features vs. bugs vs. support vs. sales. That part, yes, is brutal.

What's actually impossible for one person: doing sales at the same time as shipping. You alternate. When I'm coding I'm leaving money on the table. When I'm selling my codebase accrues bugs. That's the real solo trap.

Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

#94

Post by kreativemanish »

I have spent couple of decades in an IT industry, few years of which I tried to setup LLC as a solo entrepreneur. Few things I learned - great product (in this case my expertise) is required, but it is only part of the whole game. You also require strong sales and marketing skills so people are even aware that the product exists. You also would want strong (or at least good) negotiating skills, if for nothing else than to negotiate product pricing / fees. In addition, be ready to spend time in back office work such as accounting, chasing payments, etc. If the business grows you can hire people to do that, but initially you will be the only one. If you are driven by only the cerebral aspect of the product, other required activities may not feel exciting enough It requires specific type of personality. I realized after few years that my personality was not aligned ... so i closed my LLC. Hope this helps.

Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

#98

Post by hadifrt20 »

maxaw wrote: post #34

It is “simple” Find out what people want Make it Sell it to them Unfortunately, engineer brain loves to skip step 1 Ive recently become friends with a younger person who makes a lot of money off vibe coded mini saas. He is fanatical about step 1. If he can’t find n people begging him to make it he will go validate the next idea. He’s ruthless with this aspect and will drop an idea instantly if people dont care. It re…

This is exactly the trap. I keep catching myself spending weeks on the tech stack and architecture before I've talked to a single person.. the building feels productive and quite comfortable, it's like a quick reward to us for having an idea without needing to battle test in the field

Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

#99

Post by Chyzwar »

At lot of advice for solo founders is from people with survivalship bias, vocal sales biz dev and people that had right connections. I think tech solo founder path is different and in today market is very difficult. I can give advice on things that I did wrong so far. Avoid direct stripe integration and complex subscriptions models this would be time sink, use merchant of record and as simple as possible subscription model. Ignore everything non essential for product like usage charts, account management etc. Get decent designer but limit his scope to product features say NO to design system and custom components, use off the shelf UI toolkit with minimal customisation. If you want to raise wait for more traction and avoid startup conferences, better to go for your industry conference instead.

Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

#100

Post by davidamoroso »

Not impossible, but the asymmetry is brutal. You can ship anything in weeks, and nobody will find it. The thing nobody tells you up front: "build it and they will come" was true in 2005 and hasn't been true since 2015. Distribution is the whole game. Every product idea should be evaluated partly on "can I distribute this without buying ads," because most solo devs can't sustain paid acquisition and paid acquisition with a weak funnel just burns cash anyway.
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