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Persisting as a solo founder

vishnu.tech

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Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#81

Post by jameslk »

wolco wrote: post #61
jahbrewski wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the sentiment of #1, I would argue that sales are more important than marketing at this stage. You can spin your wheels “learning SEO” and “creating content” with very little tangible results. In the beginning, sales + product are just about all that matter.

Sales without marketing isn't the best strategy, it literally turns you into a one man[selling machine where everything is based on your time. Marketing develops channels of customers.

This really depends on the stage your company is at. If you haven't found product-market fit, you need to spend a majority of your time in sales mode talking to potential customers/users so you can figure out who your ideal market is and what your market wants. If you try to start marketing without finding product-market fit, you may end up wasting a lot of time and money without knowing whether anyone even wants your product.

It also depends on who you're selling to as well. Consumer/SMB customers may require less sales efforts than enterprise customers. You will always want to start with talking to users regardless, which is sales.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#82

Post by goatherders »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #37
ilamont wrote: post #22

Solo founder here. Make a product that people want and are willing to pay for. The product may be in what appears to be a crowded field. Identify niche opportunities or cases where an established leader is doing a poor job. It's fine to do some consulting on the side to pay the bills. Of course it will take time away from the product you are building; just be able to recognize when it's too much and scale back consul…

> Make a product that people want and are willing to pay for. Great point. The long-term survival of a business distills down to being able to bring in more money than it costs you to produce a product. It's such a simple concept, but it's easy to forget when you're swept up in the excitement of coding and engineering an idea you're excited about. Ironically, it's the most ambitious engineers who tend to make the mis…

--Ironically, it's the most ambitious engineers who tend to make the mistake of doing too much engineering work before trying to validate the product--

? Not trying to be argumentative but that doesn't seem ironic to me at all. I would expect the most ambitious engineers to think that simply building the thing would be enough.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#83

Post by nscalf »

ilamont wrote: post #22

Solo founder here. Make a product that people want and are willing to pay for. The product may be in what appears to be a crowded field. Identify niche opportunities or cases where an established leader is doing a poor job. It's fine to do some consulting on the side to pay the bills. Of course it will take time away from the product you are building; just be able to recognize when it's too much and scale back consul…

The toughest part of this is finding a product that people are willing to pay for. The sunk cost fallacy kicks in, and everyone doubles down on pushing the product and iterating until they finally have no choice but to admit failure. I think YC does a great job of getting people to ask what is the absolute least amount of work I can do to validate an idea. Can you send texts instead of build an app? Can you do it all manually for the first 5 customers? Be quick to throw away things that aren't working, you don't have the bandwidth as a solo founder to make a perfect product, you NEED to see market acceptance to make it worth your time.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#84

Post by gramakri »

lukevp wrote: post #80
gramakri wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nextcloud is really not a photo management solution though. The e2e support is nextcloud is really not production quality. Do you use either of these for your setup because I am happy to change my mind. I use emby these days for managing photos and auto uploads.

You can use nextcloud as the cloud backup and turn off backups within google photos, and then you have a photo manager with encrypted (and self hosted) backups. I have not used nextcloud myself. I use Apple products and pay for icloud. I use Emby as well for media management. What I was getting at is that I don’t want to switch my photo manager and photo workflow when all that the value here is is the fact that the p…

Ah, I misunderstood what you were saying. So, what you are suggesting is a privacy focused backup option for the existing cloud services. That is indeed an excellent idea. Before I went totally selfhosted, I had a tough time getting my pictures out of Flickr and Picasa web (now both dead!)

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#85

Post by aswanson »

ilamont wrote: post #22

Solo founder here. Make a product that people want and are willing to pay for. The product may be in what appears to be a crowded field. Identify niche opportunities or cases where an established leader is doing a poor job. It's fine to do some consulting on the side to pay the bills. Of course it will take time away from the product you are building; just be able to recognize when it's too much and scale back consul…

Excellent advice.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#86

Post by idlewords »

A lot of this stuff is about feelings of loneliness, inadequacy, or alienation. I think it's harmful to think of this as part of being a "founder". It's hard out there right now.

Having contact with customers who pay you for something they find worthwhile, rather than just pitching VCs for money to buld your, can reduce these feelings of floating and inadequacy, and give you some human contact.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#88

Post by svantana »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #77

For a solo founder, the bottom line is neither traction, recurring revenue, nor monthly active users. The bottom line is emotional health/fitness. For example, as a solo creator, anytime I resolve my single-biggest source of stress I get in a flow producing my best work. I'm more open to looking at problems from new angles. Without the typical external structures, emotional fitness dictates everything: ability to mak…

Exactly! Your business can be a threat to your emotional wellbeing, but your emotions are definitely a threat to your business as well. If you're alone then there's nobody to stop you from following your whims. It's very alluring to do what you _want_ rather than what you _should_. A team has a sort of inertia in that there's pressure to not let the others down, and changing course requires that more than one person wants to do that.

I think solo founders (including myself) should ask themselves: why are you solo? If you (like me) want co-founders but can't find any, maybe your idea isn't so great. If you prefer to be alone then scouting customers may not be your strength.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#89

Post by katzgrau »

huzaif wrote: post #55

Solo Founder. I have done Meditation, gratitude journals and focused transitions. It all helps. However, for me the activity that helps the most is hard workouts early in the morning. Once I get going, I am fighting against gravity and fatigue. I am no longer thinking about my past, future or even the day. Just focused on the moment. I am in a similar boat as you OP. I am very happy on a daily basis, building the pro…

It's amazing how overlooked exercise, eating well, and sleep can be. Sprinkle a little gratitude in and you're mentally prepped for the day.

Been running my company for 8 years, and I take the same approach to the day.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#90

Post by kashgoudarzi »

Question for the solo founders out there:

How much certainty or revenue did you have before quitting your job?

I’m in the common dilemma of not being able to leave my job because my business isn’t making money. But my business isn't making money because I’m working 10 hours a day for another company and don’t have time to work on my business.

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