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Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

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Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#91

Post by treis »

beberlei wrote: post #82
dboreham wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent may be saying that 100k is a reasonable per-clueful-person cost pretty much anywhere. I'm in the middle of the USA and I wouldn't expect to hire a competent engineer for less than $100k.

Anywhere in the us maybe, nowhere else in the world except maybe switzerland. The blog post specifically mentions being remote and not all in the US

Yeah, I'm sure it's cheaper in other areas. It's mostly just an observation. I wonder what sort of profitability companies like this have and how it would compare to someone's salary that manages a department of ~20.

Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#92

Post by zenlikethat »

graystevens wrote: post #61
mikeokner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In terms of infrastructure, this meant using Ansible for quickly deploying new servers where needed and adding them to the right load balancer. Currently all I need to do is spin up a new instance with the right tag & run the relevant Ansible script To me, this still sounds awfully manual. You still need to always have an eye on load/health and proactively provision instances or risk not having the necessary capaci…

Valid point, and something I considered initially. However we've a security startup – the likelihood hood of us getting a huge wave of visitors, the hug of death, is highly unlikely. Our landing page is static & anything remotely intensive requires an account. We are more likely to be hit by a DDoS, which I would hate to consume by upscaling servers and burning any potential profits we have. Additionally, I have mult…

I think you’re fine, personally — a workload has to have very well defined characteristics to be automatically scalable. Just paying when health checks fail and figuring out how to fix it when there’s a problem is a much better strategy than implementing “scaling automation” that might go awry.

Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#93

Post by zenlikethat »

ransom1538 wrote: post #60
mikeokner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In terms of infrastructure, this meant using Ansible for quickly deploying new servers where needed and adding them to the right load balancer. Currently all I need to do is spin up a new instance with the right tag & run the relevant Ansible script To me, this still sounds awfully manual. You still need to always have an eye on load/health and proactively provision instances or risk not having the necessary capaci…

Or, just not use servers. Aws lambda, etc - and never care ever.

Until you run out of your starter account limits. AWS magic still needs to be monitored and alerted on.

Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#94

Post by mikeokner »

andrewstuart wrote: post #83
mikeokner wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Contabulo is Coming Soon > We’re currently working hard on getting Contabulo ready and hope to launch a beta in the very near future. That's probably killing you. My advice would be to get rid of that immediately. It sounds like in general you need to reprioritize and refocus. You use the words "SaaS product," "project," "creative outlet," and "this thing" to describe your efforts thus far. "Things" don't make mone…

>> Stop worrying about architecture or feature development or closed betas and focus 100% on attracting and retaining high-quality customers. Hang on... don't you need a product that people want to use and pay for? You can't just magic that up out of nothing. There's a necessary amount of development required isn't there to get something built that people are willing to shell out for.

Yes, but this individual already has a functioning product or is very close. Too many engineers think "I'm going to put out the most perfect product with all the features I want" when what they need is to put out a usable basic product, start making money, and iterate on new features based on what their customer wants.

Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#95

Post by ttul »

There is no boot strapping. You’re always either leveraging capital, or people. And by “people” I mean yourself too as the founder. And by “capital” I mean the rich parents who provided a cushion for you when times were tight personally.

Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#96

Post by dilyevsky »

> Wait to receive 50, 100 or even more applications. Make sure you have a big pool of candidates because that’s how you’ll find your next dream employee.

> After that, we start narrowing down the list to the top 5 or 10 candidates. We have multiple rounds of job interviews, usually 2 or 3. Thanks to this we are able to narrow down our list to the top 3 candidates and make the final decision. Yes, this process takes time, usually weeks. If you’re not in a hurry you should follow this slow method, trust me, it’s worth the time.

Perfect strategy to only have people who are desperate/lazy enough to have nothing else lined up during that time! Not sure about "best" though but they sure as hell will be cheap.

Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#98

Post by LrnByTeach »

mikeokner wrote: post #40

The #1 best piece of advice in the article is: > The best way to get things done is to simply sit down and start working on them. So many people worry so much about failure that they don't even bother to start. You can't possibly plan for every roadblock and eventuality. The only thing you can control is your execution, and there are no short cuts. Hard work won't guarantee success, but lack of it will guarantee fail…

Wow !!! This is the Best Startup advice one can receive .

> So many people worry so much about failure that they don't even bother to start

>You can't possibly plan for every roadblock and eventuality.

> The only thing you can control is your execution, and there are no short cuts.

> Hard work won't guarantee success, but lack of it will guarantee failure.

Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#99

Post by confiscate »

mlevental wrote: post #29
shafyy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to give advice without knowing more details, but this sounds like there is really no need for what you're offering. How did you come up with the idea? How do you know it's something people want in the first place? To me, this sounds more like a fundamental product problem as opposed to a sales/marketing problem. Try talking to (potential) users and find out what version of the general idea you want to build…

> It's hard to give advice without knowing more details, but this sounds like there is really no need for what you're offering. this has occurred to me of course but i just don't think it's true. without giving too much away it's a simple app that makes distribution of content at tradeshows much easier, personalized, and trackable (lead gen/capture for the content producer). if that's not a thing that tradeshows dear…

I had the same experience (an expert of an industry had an idea about a industry problem that "desperately needed to be solved", so I got excited and then built a solution).

After the solution is built, the expert decided she's "too busy" to return emails.

It happens all the time. Experts have ideas because their 9-5 job requires them to have ideas. They have to push hard for ideas so they will be taken seriously at meetings at work. That's why they are "experts". It's natural for an expert to "push" for her own ideas--otherwise she can't get buy-in from the rest of the organization for their ideas/initiatives and won't thrive.

The quality of the idea is not ass important as the act of pushing for it. Because if an idea does not get support, it's useless, regardless of if it was good or bad.

The moment you ask them to be use your product, they cease to be an "expert" and is now a "user", or even a "paid customer". Suddenly, they don't find the problem so "major" anymore. So you have to really qualify them before diving into the problem. Really make sure they are committed as a user before you start building anything.

Re: Lessons we learned while bootstrapping

#100

Post by mooreds »

raleigh_user wrote: post #53
danielaction wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any good online sales classes?

I wouldnt necessarily call it a class but John barrows is pretty good. He can be found on YouTube. Taught me a bunch watching over the course of a few days.

This playlist seems pretty good so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_y2WkZ2JEQ&list=PLNFgwC3AOW...

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