Solo Founder? I demand you scuttle the acquisition and stop violating pg's pet theories. congrats!!! http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
pg's theories are consistent with some solo founders succeeding.
Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
No blog but if you have specific questions feel free to ask here or contact me. http://www.fleaflicker.com/contact.do
Great, thanks. Hope you don't mind, but the questions are "gushing" out right now. Your story is very compelling to me (and probably quite a few others, too): 1. Did you have personal savings before you got started? 2. In that 3.5 years, how much time did you spend on other jobs? Employee or contractor? 3. Which month (of the 42) did you see your first revenue? 4. Did you do all of the hacking, hosting, and marketing…
3.1. Which month (if any) did you first see enough revenue that this was paying for your living expenses?
Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
No blog but if you have specific questions feel free to ask here or contact me. http://www.fleaflicker.com/contact.do
Great, thanks. Hope you don't mind, but the questions are "gushing" out right now. Your story is very compelling to me (and probably quite a few others, too): 1. Did you have personal savings before you got started? 2. In that 3.5 years, how much time did you spend on other jobs? Employee or contractor? 3. Which month (of the 42) did you see your first revenue? 4. Did you do all of the hacking, hosting, and marketing…
Did you apply or consider applying to YC? If not, why?
Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#24Solo Founder? I demand you scuttle the acquisition and stop violating pg's pet theories. congrats!!! http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
pg's theories are consistent with some solo founders succeeding.
You should check out my startup, www.stoprespondingseriouslytojokes.com
Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#25Congrats man! Good to see someone in the space cashing out.
Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#26Many congrats! You are an inspiration to all of us! So, who is your favorite NFL team? :)
Duh...he's from Jersey. He has to be a Giants fan
Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#27Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#28Congratulations. You're an inspiration to all of us. If you dont mind me asking, did you take on investment money or was the decision to sell solely yours?
Zero outside investment. Zero other employees (I've been doing this full-time for ~3.5 years). I hired an artist for the illustrations. And used a lot of open source projects.
Congrats. That is so awsome! I love hearing about someone "making it."
I think I remember a post you made on Reddit about not having a co-founder. If I recall you wanted one. Guess it turned out anyway.
I have a deadbeat co-founder. :-( Going solo would be better.
Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
No blog but if you have specific questions feel free to ask here or contact me. http://www.fleaflicker.com/contact.do
Great, thanks. Hope you don't mind, but the questions are "gushing" out right now. Your story is very compelling to me (and probably quite a few others, too): 1. Did you have personal savings before you got started? 2. In that 3.5 years, how much time did you spend on other jobs? Employee or contractor? 3. Which month (of the 42) did you see your first revenue? 4. Did you do all of the hacking, hosting, and marketing…
1. Yes but not much. I lived at home at first. Telling people I lived with my parents so I could develop a "fantasy game" elicited some fantastic reactions.
2. I tried to work part-time the first year. It's a bad idea. You can't do two things at once.
3. It's difficult to measure this because the site is seasonal. The first year was OK but I had to wait 8 months to see the improvement. I started making a non-negligible amount of money the second season, August 2006.
4. Yes to all 3. Obviously the most important thing is to start developing. My only focus this whole time was to make the best product. The ad money will come later. (This isn't true for all startups. Fantasy football players comprise an unusually lucrative advertising demographic.)
5. It's tough. I was pretty much on my own. I read this somewhere: "In a startup, nothing happens unless you make it happen."
6. I'm pretty stable but you can definitely go insane working alone all day every day. I don't have any advice on how to cope with this. No startup is easy.
7. I have unwavering confidence in what I am doing. I received very positive feedback almost from the first day. The site was profitable so I could have kept going indefinitely. Also, this is definitely a dream job. Fantasy applications are interesting from a comp sci perspective.
8. I was approached by AOL (and others).
As for YC, I applied and was accepted right when the AOL negotiations took off. So I decided I couldn't do YC at that moment.
Re: Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zero outside investment. Zero other employees (I've been doing this full-time for ~3.5 years). I hired an artist for the illustrations. And used a lot of open source projects.
Congrats. That is so awsome! I love hearing about someone "making it." I think I remember a post you made on Reddit about not having a co-founder. If I recall you wanted one. Guess it turned out anyway. I have a deadbeat co-founder. :-( Going solo would be better.
That's true. Nobody took me up on it. I got one applicant and it went nowhere.