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My Second Year as a Solo Developer

mtlynch.io

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Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#241

Post by yibg »

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…

I wonder if this is a good or bad position to be in to start a life style business.

I’m fortunate enough to be in this situation, where if I go somewhere cheap and keep my expenses down I can sustain myself financially for a long time, maybe indefinitely. And I’ve though about leaving my salaried job to do my own thing many times. I do worry though that the lack of financial pressure will just leave me lazy and “playing around” instead of focusing on building a financially viable business.

Anyone else have experience with this?

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#242

Post by dhruvkar »

mtlynch wrote: post #148
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…

Thanks for reading, Patrick! I'm a big fan of your work, and your Indie Hackers interview was one of the big motivators that sent me down the solo developer path. > You could probably talk to business owners with problems, launch an (appropriately priced; hundreds to thousands of dollars per year) product against those problems, build contingent on getting 10 commits to buy, and be at +/- $100k in 12 to 18 months. Ma…

>>stone quarries

I deal with stone factories/quarries everyday (but mostly in Brazil and India)!

Let me know if you're still interested in this space.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#243

Post by henryfjordan »

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…

Your intuition is correct, you really should try to make sure your employer is aware of your intent to work on your own IP and you have some written document acknowledging that fact. Many companies have a form you fill out on your first day listing such projects. You owe your employer a duty of loyalty and so your projects cannot compete with them, and it helps to have them review the scope of the project and sign off on that fact. If you don't get this agreement from your employer, you might still technically be fine to work on your own business but you risk a court battle about it.

> 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.

These would be non-compete clauses, illegal in California but legal in many other states. Your employer doesn't own any IP you create once they stop paying you, but if you are bound by a non-compete you'll need to be more careful.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#245

Post by milesvp »

Reedx wrote: post #213
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…

> reflect for a moment on how much time is spent on standups at a company with 20 or 200 engineers, what one hour of their time is worth > Your minimum commitment should be north of $1,000 per month; practically nobody can integrate with your API for cheaper than a thousand dollars of engineering time, right. That's my thinking as well, but haven't had much luck getting companies to accept this kind of pricing. Even…

To be fair, anything more than ~$250/mo probably requires some kind budget approval which will quickly scare away many underlings, and means now you're in the realm of enterprise sales. Now you should probably be charging closer to $10k/mo just to deal with that headache. It's another reason why having 3 tiered pricing can really help, with a 4th tier being "contact us for enterprise solutions". It can allow you to sneak past some of these organizational hurdles, by allowing people to select the price that will cause them the least headache. Joel Spolsky talks about this a lot, how there are holes in the market for pricing due to these frictions.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#246

Post by henryfjordan »

epicgiga wrote: post #195
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is far wiser to copycat. Aim for a massive crowded market (e.g. weight loss), because your chance of missing is hundreds of times lower. And hence ... the fuckery of the modern economy. "Too many hands in too many pockets / Not enough hands on hearts." - The Housemartins (80s)

Nope, once you have revenue you can maneuver into fresh territory. One step at a time.

Or just be a strong competitor in an obviously valuable space. Nothing wrong with that.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#247

Post by heipei »

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…

Thanks for the Youtube link to that talk, over the past year I've read so many interviews, blog-posts and watched talks about bootstrapping businesses, but this was the most concise, honest and no-nonsense summary I've seen yet. Now I'd be interested in finding someone talk at length about selling to Enterprise customers as a bootstrapped one-man show, Jason Cohen touches on it briefly in the Q&A.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#248

Post by mtlynch »

hinkley wrote: post #177
mtlynch wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for reading and for testing out Zestful! > For example the string "3/4 cup risotto rice, Arborio or Carnaroli" > It identifies the unit and quantity fair enough, and it's right when it says "Risotto rice" is the product. But then it says "Arborio or Carnaroli" is a preparation method. I can totally see WHY it says that. But I'm not sure that's correct. Yeah, I'm constantly improving the model, but there will a…

Arborio is a kind, just like Granny Smith, bing, or Key. I wonder if it'd be easier just to have a dictionary of kinds of ingredient and anything else is a preparation.

It's the kind of thing that seems like it's solvable with rules, but once you get into the weeds, there are too many rules and exceptions and exceptions to those exceptions.

In addition to prep notes, there's also text that most clients consider garbage. For example, "2 cups sugar, I use Sweetums brand!" the brand preference is garbage.

And then there are tokens like "pound" that could mean different things in different contexts (e.g., "1 pound flour", "1 chicken breast - pound till flattened", "2 cups pound cake mixture").

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#249

Post by dhruvkar »

mtlynch wrote: post #219
aosaigh wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a friendly passing comment, but I'm not sure you have the correct take-aways from speaking with business owners. With the quarry example, you couldn't get them on the phone. How about conferences, meetups, trade shows etc? Furthermore you probably need to search for companies that might _want_ to speak to you: younger owners, companies with less to lose etc. In the sheet metal example, it sounds like you had alr…

Thanks for the suggestions! I think that's sound advice. The strategy I had in mind was courting industries that were physically close to me. I wasn't just calling the businesses, I was showing up at their offices to ask for meetings. My hypothesis was that there are probably plenty of profitable businesses nearby that are disconnected from the tech world, so other software companies aren't approaching them. To clari…

>> wasn't just calling the businesses, I was showing up at their offices to ask for meetings.

That's tough stuff. I've done the same, and while it feels good when you're able to talk in detail with a business owner, I didn't come away with actionable things usually. There just isn't a good substitute to being embedded in an industry.

Michael, work part-time in a warehouse (as manual labor) handling stone for 3-6 months. Guaranteed you'll come away with more problems than you can solve.

Re: My Second Year as a Solo Developer

#250

Post by mtlynch »

komali2 wrote: post #217
mtlynch wrote: post #2

Author here. Happy to answer any questions or hear any feedback about this post. Discussion from my first annual update last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19054150

How's a burger with a bun keto friendly lol. There's a big picture of a bunned burger and no mention of "by the way this specifically refers to just the patty itself."

The article addresses how to handle buns, but that part of the article isn't in the screenshot:

>Most people eat Beyond Burgers with ketchup and a bun, but those are hard to fit into a keto diet, so you might have to get creative. Consider crumbling your Beyond Burger over a salad with fresh tomatoes and a keto-friendly salad dressing. Or try out one of these delicious keto burger recipes.

https://isitketo.org/beyond-burger

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