Live data from Hacker News

Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

indiehackers.com

41–49 of 49 posts

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#41
post #26

Wow, a coffee company is now a tech company. I didn't bother with the rest of the list.

well the 9 to 5 you work in js probably selling some non tech products as well, yet it may be called a tech company.

A tech company’s product is tech. A plumber that accepts payments using square isn’t a tech company.

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#42
post #22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frustrating how?

Revenue is close to useless if you’re selling dollars for quarters. Hard to gauge the efficacy of businesses without the full picture.

I can’t think of another single metric that tells you more about the size of a saas company than MRR.

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#43
post #32

I’m running into these challenges right now. After my last job, I’m finally trying to turn a 10yr+ project into a product. I’m currently serving a bit over 2 million requests per day for the free service I’ve run for years. Now that I’m focusing on turning it into something more I’m realizing how slow it is to build a product by yourself. For example, I’ve been working on transitioning to a much more scalable k8s arc…

I would encourage you to try to find a low-cost developer in the developing world (perhaps via Fiverr) who could serve a QA function for you. It might take you 4 or 5 tries, but you might be able to find someone very low cost who would be able to work with you on QA and debugging.

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#44
post #32

I’m running into these challenges right now. After my last job, I’m finally trying to turn a 10yr+ project into a product. I’m currently serving a bit over 2 million requests per day for the free service I’ve run for years. Now that I’m focusing on turning it into something more I’m realizing how slow it is to build a product by yourself. For example, I’ve been working on transitioning to a much more scalable k8s arc…

Check your email deliverability that your emails aren’t going to spam.

Also is it worth trying higher touch engagements? Book a demo type thing where you ask for a phone number and get to speak to some of these people that are signing up.

Lastly, are you sure the signups legitimate signups and not spam bots?

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#45

enjoy how there's perspective given from the responders with their current MRR as well. as a founder of a bootstrapped tech-enabled service startup with $135k+ MRR is cash flow. Accounts Receivable is a PITA and it still hasn't been solved (even with the likes of bill.com, harvest, stripe, paypal, qbo, etc...) - i'd almost pay for a company to outsource our AR to completely to represent us on initial AR, 30-90 day AR…

These manual back office tasks is exactly why I hired an office manager.

She chases down invoices and handles back payments for all of our clients.

The mental overhead of handling these things was significantly hampering my technical work, and the moment she took over, a huge weight lifted off my back.

Part of the aggravation is that you can't automate chasing down invoices, yet. As a person who likes to automate all the things, this would just not do. So I sourced it out.

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#46

enjoy how there's perspective given from the responders with their current MRR as well. as a founder of a bootstrapped tech-enabled service startup with $135k+ MRR is cash flow. Accounts Receivable is a PITA and it still hasn't been solved (even with the likes of bill.com, harvest, stripe, paypal, qbo, etc...) - i'd almost pay for a company to outsource our AR to completely to represent us on initial AR, 30-90 day AR…

When I worked at Xero, AR automation was by far the most common partner / integration to approach us.

There are thousands of solutions in this space, focused on every niche imaginable, with a huge range of products.

Everything from simply reminders, to outsourcing, to discounting / incentives, to debt collection.

I’d be very surprised if you can’t find a suite of tools that automate / optimise the portions of your AR process that you’re having difficulties with.

https://apps.xero.com/au/function/bills-expenses (Most of these are multi-platform, or completely independent applications, they do not require using Xero)

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well google is an ad company, what’s your point

Read my response to wordball. Google differentiates itself with its tech. Note what I said about Amazon: it didn’t look to me like a tech company when it started, but actually it was (for its time). And since then has continued to aggressively differentiate itself through investment in tech development.

yeah but its selling ads, not tech. tech is the facilitator but google mainly monetised ads. sure from a worker’s perspective it sells tech, but it doesn’t.

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well the 9 to 5 you work in js probably selling some non tech products as well, yet it may be called a tech company.

A tech company’s product is tech. A plumber that accepts payments using square isn’t a tech company.

so your company sells apis, software frameworks or hardware? or does it leverage these to sells some other non tech product?

Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tech company’s product is tech. A plumber that accepts payments using square isn’t a tech company.

so your company sells apis, software frameworks or hardware? or does it leverage these to sells some other non tech product?

Yes, the company I work for in particular sells software that runs on hardware for datacenter traffic management.
Post reply on HN