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My Second Year as a Solo Developer

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Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#201

Post by balfirevic »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #198
balfirevic wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These products do not appear obviously commercializable It looks to me like some people have a well-developed intuition to distinguish between products in "seems like it would be useful to me" category vs. products that have a good chance of actually being commercialized. I certainly don't. When reading various indie hacker stories I'll be damned if I can predict with reasonable success which ideas have a good chan…

He gives the clue to finding that. Talking to lots of businesses about what they need. We don't pop out of the womb with that sense.

I know I know, I didn't mean to imply that it is some innate ability some are born with and that's the end of it (nor are most intuitions).

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#202

Post by alexellisuk »

If folks liked this story, check in with Daniel Vassallo who quit a job at Amazon on well over 500k / year salary and benefits to start out on his own as a solo, small-business founder. https://twitter.com/dvassallo

He shares lots of personal stats like his incoming & expenditure - quite inspirational and can show that circumstances and luck can also play a part.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#203

Post by willj »

Naive question by someone who’s never started a business: when bootstrapping companies while keeping your day job, how do you deal with intellectual property clauses in employment contracts, such that your employer owns the “inventions” you create in your free time, on your own equipment, unrelated to the business area you work in? I know laws vary by state, but I would find it especially disheartening if you spent years of effort and sacrificed your social life only to have your product snatched away from you once it finally became profitable or popular.

My non-lawyer reading of the internet’s opinions suggest that you need to discuss it with your company, or possibly edit your employment contract before signing, but the latter seems a bad suggestion if you’re afraid of not getting a job. I’ve also read that these kinds of clauses can even apply several months after you terminate at your day job, which suggests that you can’t even start on the product until months after you’ve left.

All of that makes me unlikely to try to build a business in tech, since I would never have the capital to take such a long break away from a company, nor to build a product for a long time before it’s profitable without having a day job to support me.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#204

Post by dhruvkar »

So awesome seeing your posts at the top of HN!

>> I've also noticed that readers are less interested in business lessons unless the story involves thousands of dollars — earning or losing large sums both seem to work.

I would love to read more about the mundane, small business lessons, because that's where I am. And I'm positive I'm not the only one.

Keep writing about the smaller day-to-day struggles, you got readers!

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#205

Post by jdance »

chowes wrote: post #153
patio11 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the problem that you can’t identify owners, that you can’t successfully get in touch with business owners, that you can’t convince them to talk to you, that you can’t get signal from those conversations, or that you are accurately getting the signal “Actually literally nothing could be better about my life.” Draw the funnel diagram, with numbers if necessary. Having talked to many devs who believe similar, I think…

Not the OP, but what I have struggled with here is the feeling of being a "solution looking for a problem". It's a step before where you're at. It's not that I can't identify owners, it's that I can't identify _problems_. I am lacking the domain experience to even have the first conversation, and it feels like paying people to ask "so tell me everything that is wrong with your business" is the wrong way to do it. I k…

What solutions would you pay for as a software engineer? What would your boss/team lead pay for? You can't really do it for someone elses domain, you need a motivated partner in that domain for that (my general experience, of course there are exceptions)

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#206

Post by pid_0 »

willj wrote: post #203

Naive question by someone who’s never started a business: when bootstrapping companies while keeping your day job, how do you deal with intellectual property clauses in employment contracts, such that your employer owns the “inventions” you create in your free time, on your own equipment, unrelated to the business area you work in? I know laws vary by state, but I would find it especially disheartening if you spent y…

>how do you deal with intellectual property clauses in employment contracts, such that your employer owns the “inventions” you create in your free time, on your own equipment, unrelated to the business area you work in?

By not signing those things, plain and simple. I have never signed an employment contract and I never will.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#207

Post by [deleted] »

eugenekolo wrote: post #158
gwbas1c wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like this guy is trying to run a lifestyle business, and his investments pay enough interest that he can coast for a long, long time. To be quite honest: He's spending all day playing . That's a position I envy quite a bit.

How many years of work do you have in the tech industry? It seems in the current market (not even assuming SF salaries), and without kids/other dependents, it's fairly easy to reach that point. Just curious, because a lot of people have this mentality that they need to work forever and ever, but it often is just a mindset. You can easily amass 500k-1M and just coast on 40k/year in expenses for a long time. If it's so…

[deleted]

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#208

Post by dhruvkar »

chowes wrote: post #153
patio11 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the problem that you can’t identify owners, that you can’t successfully get in touch with business owners, that you can’t convince them to talk to you, that you can’t get signal from those conversations, or that you are accurately getting the signal “Actually literally nothing could be better about my life.” Draw the funnel diagram, with numbers if necessary. Having talked to many devs who believe similar, I think…

Not the OP, but what I have struggled with here is the feeling of being a "solution looking for a problem". It's a step before where you're at. It's not that I can't identify owners, it's that I can't identify _problems_. I am lacking the domain experience to even have the first conversation, and it feels like paying people to ask "so tell me everything that is wrong with your business" is the wrong way to do it. I k…

I hear you.

I was in Software for a couple of years and I only saw software/IT problems. But these problems usually had a variety of solutions and only some glue was required.

Now I've been in the natural stone industry for 4 years and I can't count the number of problems to which the solution is "add more people". So much data entry and data extraction from PDFs ERP/CRM/Other software. 100s of man-hours spent on something that could be done with proper data formats and simple automation.

I personally believe that software engineers are SORELY lacking on all other industries besides software. We need more software engineers venturing out into other industries and identifying and solving problems.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#209

Post by blackearl »

lsinger wrote: post #94
patio11 wrote: post #79

Two cents offered because this post really strikes a chord with me, and I also spent some time chasing down rabbit holes early in my software business: These products do not appear obviously commercializable and multiple years invested into them without materially improving the businesses does not decrease my confidence in that snap judgment. You could probably talk to business owners with problems, launch an (approp…

> What Got Done There are several paid SaaS apps and / or Slack bots that do this. It’s a viable niche, but has gotten somewhat crowded in the past few years. Earlyish example: https://iDoneThis.com (worked there 2014/2015)

Seems like a better thing to integrate into existing apps rather than a standalone product

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#210

Post by 0xff00ffee »

patio11 wrote: post #79

Two cents offered because this post really strikes a chord with me, and I also spent some time chasing down rabbit holes early in my software business: These products do not appear obviously commercializable and multiple years invested into them without materially improving the businesses does not decrease my confidence in that snap judgment. You could probably talk to business owners with problems, launch an (approp…

He also has a nest egg from working at a big corporation and successfully playing the stock/crypto market. That helps give him time to play around like this. I don't sense any urgency.
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