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What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

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Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#41

Post by jwr »

proy24 wrote: post #29
todd3834 wrote: post #3

Thanks for sharing! I have spent a lot of time as a solo founder and I’ve spent time as a co-founder. I thought it might be helpful to contrast my experiences. As a solo founder I found that the highs were muted and the lows were amplified. This likely won’t be true for everyone but this was very true for me. As a solo founder I often felt like I had no idea if I was working on the right thing because there are so ma…

Solo founder is such a loaded term. Every freelancer, dropshipper, consultant is also a solo-founder. it's just not as glamorous as building a venture backed product.

No, a solo founder is someone who starts a new product business. That is very different from consulting, freelancing, etc, where you sell your time.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#42

Post by ryanwaggoner »

mamitas wrote: post #37

On the flip side (to most of the comments here) I've done 2 failed startups as a cofounder and feel that things might have gone better if I just did it solo. Both of these were with people I knew for a while and initially had good chemistry with - but it ended up going sour over ultimately product/idea differences (both over 3 year stretches). I feel I did most of the work anyway (development work in a deep tech star…

The other person might feel the same way: “in the end I did most of the work of getting actual paying customers, the other cofounder just wrote some code...next time I’ll just hire someone to do the coding”

Not saying you should do things any differently than planned next time, but we coders have an outsized view of our value sometimes. You can pretty easily hire someone to write code if you have the cash. But being able to bring in actual cash for a brand new product (especially one that doesn’t exist yet) is actually pretty rare.

I’m a coder myself, but if I could wave a magic wand and make myself an awesome sales person instead, I’m not sure what I’d do. I’d sit and contemplate that wand for a long time.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#43

Post by jwr »

idlewords wrote: post #15

After running a thing by myself for nearly ten years, I would say the most important factor is anxiety management. People experience anxiety very differently, so it's hard to give advice, but without some way of dealing with and reducing this stress it is not possible to run a solo business for a sustained period of time. Some examples of what can make you anxious working solo: * A "lumpy" income stream that is hard…

> anxiety management

This.

I am a solo founder and anxiety begins to be a major problem for me (starts to result in observable real-life issues like insomnia). I've just realized that I need to find a way to deal with it, or there could be trouble ahead.

Stress and anxiety are there even if your business is doing "well" (as in, profitable and growing). There is always more work than you can handle, you are always afraid of a bigger competitor ruining things for you, and you always worry that customers will suddenly start churning one day.

I've been looking for a group of solo-entrepreneurs to exchange experiences. This article resonated with me. It's helpful to even know that others experience the same problems.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#44

Post by ru999gol »

nyrulez wrote: post #32

This resonated well with me - thank you for the article! I jumped into the fray late last year full time and it's been the most exciting (and nerve-racking) few months of my life. As the author says, I feel like I am learning new things, growing personally (and making mistakes) at 10x the speed! (and I live in Jersey City too) I would say the hardest part for me is balancing time between building and outreach. It's a…

frontend in python?

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#46

Post by 1stcity3rdcoast »

therealwardo wrote: post #18

I've been working on a project with a couple people that I don't get a lot of value from as co-founders right now because they aren't designers or engineers. They are trying to help us define the set of requirements given their relationships in the industry, but they have not really done product work before. I keep telling myself how valuable they will be once we launch because they will bring customers. Echoed by th…

You need customers signed up and ready to pay well before you have a product ready to launch. Having a co-founder who is good at outreach, sales, and making connections is honestly more important than having a finished product, so you should give serious weight to having a non-technical co-founder. There is no company without sales!

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#47

Post by mamitas »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #42
mamitas wrote: post #37

On the flip side (to most of the comments here) I've done 2 failed startups as a cofounder and feel that things might have gone better if I just did it solo. Both of these were with people I knew for a while and initially had good chemistry with - but it ended up going sour over ultimately product/idea differences (both over 3 year stretches). I feel I did most of the work anyway (development work in a deep tech star…

The other person might feel the same way: “in the end I did most of the work of getting actual paying customers, the other cofounder just wrote some code...next time I’ll just hire someone to do the coding” Not saying you should do things any differently than planned next time, but we coders have an outsized view of our value sometimes. You can pretty easily hire someone to write code if you have the cash. But being…

Moot point - well obviously the other person would feel differently - who wouldn't?

Although that argument only works if you stereotype things completely. On one side we have a savvy outspoken salesman and on the other a shy introvert coder. And each thinks the other is completely replaceable. Kind of black/white don't you think?

Thats sort of the VC mental model i.e. the mantra that more people in the team makes it more likely that the startup has the entire skillset needed to create a successful business. On the other hand - one of the top reasons for startups failing is cofounder disputes. So difficult to say - are more founders less or more risky? :)

Most serial founders I know are actually pretty good at multiple things - experience and endless pitches will often do that to you.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#48

Post by tedmcory77 »

jwr wrote: post #43
idlewords wrote: post #15

After running a thing by myself for nearly ten years, I would say the most important factor is anxiety management. People experience anxiety very differently, so it's hard to give advice, but without some way of dealing with and reducing this stress it is not possible to run a solo business for a sustained period of time. Some examples of what can make you anxious working solo: * A "lumpy" income stream that is hard…

> anxiety management This. I am a solo founder and anxiety begins to be a major problem for me (starts to result in observable real-life issues like insomnia). I've just realized that I need to find a way to deal with it, or there could be trouble ahead. Stress and anxiety are there even if your business is doing "well" (as in, profitable and growing). There is always more work than you can handle, you are always afr…

I cannot upvote this enough. I've found that exercise helps; both from being healthier but also because I'm so tired I sleep through the night instead of waking up and being unable to get back to sleep.

While running I focus on form as a way of meditation. Eventually my mind will wander onto other topics; being unable to actually put my hands onto a keyword or whiteboard helps.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#49

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

graeme wrote: post #39
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #24

I ran my company successfully as a single founder for 5 years, till one day I was told I would become a quadriplegic & I had to close my company as there's no other executive to take care of it. I had Facebook Fb Start accelerated product with 2,50,000 customers , any company expressing interest in acquiring my product wanted me to work for them; which wasn't possible as I was recovering from surgery. Being single fo…

Good point. I think any single founder should bear this in mind. Note that depending on scale and industry, you can design around this to an extent. My company largely runs automatically. I mostly work on growing it. I have a contract programmer and support rep who handle stuff. Requires very little day to day input from me. Don't get me wrong. If I became quadrapeligic, things would gradually break. But depending on…

> of course, this bars you from some industries or business models.

Not just that, there are numerous other variables. e.g. The environment,I started my company in India when there was no definition for a startup, so my startup was no different than a Billion dollar corporation from the eyes of the government.

So, as a single founder I spent much of my initial years trying to learn all compliances & adhering to them(there are dozen new ones every month); while the product development went un-interrupted through the developers (whom I personally trained) & via automated systems.

Startups in a better environment had a competitive advantage of having to focus only on their company's growth even when being a single founder.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#50

Post by m3nu »

jwr wrote: post #43
idlewords wrote: post #15

After running a thing by myself for nearly ten years, I would say the most important factor is anxiety management. People experience anxiety very differently, so it's hard to give advice, but without some way of dealing with and reducing this stress it is not possible to run a solo business for a sustained period of time. Some examples of what can make you anxious working solo: * A "lumpy" income stream that is hard…

> anxiety management This. I am a solo founder and anxiety begins to be a major problem for me (starts to result in observable real-life issues like insomnia). I've just realized that I need to find a way to deal with it, or there could be trouble ahead. Stress and anxiety are there even if your business is doing "well" (as in, profitable and growing). There is always more work than you can handle, you are always afr…

Actually we are running a Whatsapp group for solo-entrepreneurs. We have video-calls from time to time and share milestones or problems.

I won't share the group link here, as it would probably overwhelm us. But if you do want to join, drop me a short email to group868@vlx.cc introducing your startup and I'll send you the intro document.

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