My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired • Hacker News Board

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#71

Post by charliepark » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

glangdale wrote: post #14

woutr_be wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest part about building a SaaS product for me isn't the technical challenges (although there are some too), it's mostly anxiety. The thing that scares me the most is launching and receiving negative feedback, the thought alone is enough for me to stop working on it.

Don't internalize the feedback. There will always be haters and bashers (we had people trolling the newspaper article comment section when we got bought by Intel). The point is that if you provide a valuable service to someone you'll get meaningful feedback from them (maybe not all good!) and you can learn from that. Don't pay attention to people who are just recreationally crapping on you and you'll be fine. If you…

"You win or you learn" is such a good framework — especially if you take time to process after each game / release / quarter / whatever. I heard an Ultimate coach say that once, and it totally changed my perspective on what we were doing out there.

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#72

Post by chrift » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

loriverkutya wrote: post #51

j45 wrote: post #24

Congrats to you, this is more than most have accomplished.

nope, it's not

I certainly have never sold a product I developed. Have you?

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#73

Post by chrift » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

This is really interesting, well done! Seems like you're getting a lot of cynical people on here, you might be interested in posting this story on indiehackers.com

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#74

Post by malshe » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

nif2ee wrote: post #59

naveen_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what do you mean?!

I mean, unlike theoretically preached by old billionaires and millionaires trying to trick the public and rewrite their own history, making money is usually at odds with creating real value. It's usually about marketing, PR and gaming the system.

I am well aware that on HN marketing is looked down upon but marketing is about creating and delivering value to customers. If someone is doing that better than others and getting paid a lot for that, there is nothing wrong with it.

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#75

Post by spottybanana » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

nif2ee wrote: post #55

It's heartbreaking to see people who scrape websites and make 60k in a weekend project while opensource maintainers for projects used by thousands of companies are begging for 10 dollars a month

Creating value and capturing value are different things. If you start doing open source, you shouldn't except money. If you want money, you should do something that people usually pay for.

It is common knowledge that open source can be very difficult to monetize. If you are smart enough to program good software you should be able to understand also that. Also if you can program good quality open source software, it shouldn't be difficult to switch to the "evil capitalistic" side and code some software with an actual business model.

It is best to work on open source at the point where you have enough savings so you don't need the money. Creating open source with the exception of monetization is just stupid - sometimes it happens but usually not, and that should be excepted.

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#76

Post by ben509 » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

malshe wrote: post #74

nif2ee wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, unlike theoretically preached by old billionaires and millionaires trying to trick the public and rewrite their own history, making money is usually at odds with creating real value. It's usually about marketing, PR and gaming the system.

I am well aware that on HN marketing is looked down upon but marketing is about creating and delivering value to customers. If someone is doing that better than others and getting paid a lot for that, there is nothing wrong with it.

Part of it is a big chunk of the HN crowd hasn't been in business, and part of it is that marketing is an ethical mess.

And HN is engineer heavy, so we see how a product comes from raw materials and is built into a thing you can use, and see how those roles are adding value. It's easy to understand that a cut diamond is worth more than a raw diamond.

But a product also has more value if it's on a shelf in a store than sitting in a warehouse, thus a person driving a delivery truck is adding value.

And the mutual gain from the transaction is realized when questions are answered and the transaction is settled, so the cashier is adding value.

Bringing it back to marketing, the transaction can't even begin until the customers are aware of the product and understand that it meets a need they have, so the marketer is adding value by enabling that to happen.

But I've got no proof beyond the observation that people get paid to do these things, and it could be that some or all of these jobs really are redundant. Anyone can settle the debate empirically by starting a business that doesn't rely on them, though.

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#77

Post by buckminster » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

ben509 wrote: post #76

malshe wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am well aware that on HN marketing is looked down upon but marketing is about creating and delivering value to customers. If someone is doing that better than others and getting paid a lot for that, there is nothing wrong with it.

Part of it is a big chunk of the HN crowd hasn't been in business, and part of it is that marketing is an ethical mess. And HN is engineer heavy, so we see how a product comes from raw materials and is built into a thing you can use, and see how those roles are adding value. It's easy to understand that a cut diamond is worth more than a raw diamond. But a product also has more value if it's on a shelf in a store tha…

> Anyone can settle the debate empirically by starting a business that doesn't rely on them, though

Advertising might be a zero-sum game. Or even net negative. Yet a business without it will likely fail if other businesses use it. In other words, if advertising adds value like Mafia protection adds value then the empirical test proves nothing.

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#78

Post by antsar » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

jacurtis wrote: post #34

steve1977 wrote: post #31

I'm not sure if the first offer was really for the startup or rather just for the domain.

$22k is a hell of a lot to pay for a hyphenated .xyz domain. I doubt they bought it for the domain.

A domain with traffic though.

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#79

Post by sillycube » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

It's not easy to find product market fit. If there are so much traffic and customers, I will probably try to scale the project instead of selling it.

Who knows if the next project will take off again? As a bootstrap developer, if you cannot nail marketing, you will just have the same problem in the next project

Re: My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired

#80

Post by bagacrap » Thu, Dec 12, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #66

n_ary wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually more absurdity is possible in EU. I frequently notice, out of college PM(grad scheme), 1yoe Senior Engineer/Team Lead, out of college R&D Engineer(with BSc only), 2yoe CTO etc.. These are mostly in UK though but still counts.

Why is a new grad R&D Engineer strange? that's certainly most of the people recruited at the first place I worked (UK) started as. OK they wont be at the same level as the Boss (the President of the Mechanical engineers at the time) What sort of people do you thein NASA JPL etc. recruit from university in the main.

Presumably those with graduate degrees.