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Persisting as a solo founder

vishnu.tech

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Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#131

Post by an_opabinia »

captainmuon wrote: post #111
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> These are the startups that fizzle out 2-3 years later Is that really the most common problem? I would probably be one of those engineers (if I'd start a business) and I'm a lot more afraid to sell something that doesn't exist yet than the other way around. Because now in addition to your usual problems you have legal obligations to deliver a product. I think this is one of the reasons for the crazy crunch culture…

> Is that really the most common problem?

The most common problem, if you're a really talented engineer, is that you could work for a big company and be paid more in a single year than your business will bring in for its entire lifetime.

Conversely what you really find is, the people running 20+ person companies with tens of millions in investor money to bring in only $1m in revenue a year - they lacked the talent, actually, to just make the money at a big company. That you should start with the assumption that capitalism works, and that the person doing this thing is not stupid but just shut out from a better opportunity.

So maybe you're a really talented engineer but you are foreign so you'd need an H1-B to work for Google. Or maybe you're a former product manager from Microsoft who didn't quit, but was laid off, so you really can't just go and make the money.

A transplant surgeon brings in about $1m in revenue per day for heart transplants. There is no risk there, there is unlimited demand for heart transplants. It's just extremely hard to become a transplant surgeon, it is extremely competitive, much more competitive than making a website. While I'm not suggesting every startup CEO is just a washed-out up-and-coming surgeon, there is other stuff they may have washed out from broadly, like just medicine itself, that led them to chase the worse economics of where they are.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#132

Post by rvn1045 »

Solo Founder here,

Ive tried a bunch of things to get myself into flow state over time - meditation, exercise, journalling etc. they all help.

Recently I was trying to lose some weight and did a few 48 hour fasts. Holy moly doing about 6 of them over a period of 20 days give me increased clarity and focus for the next 30 days.

I'm planning on doing a few every month.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#133

Post by nautilus12 »

I feel like there is alot of shade being thrown on partnering these days. The unreality of solo founders is that you cant be antisocial and accomplish something alone, having a partner is an excercise in trust, which is not entirely a bad thing.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#134

Post by punnerud »

biolurker1 wrote: post #73
wolco wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on that little sleep for months. It takes away from any clear thought. Very unproductive. Not something anyone should do on purpose.

Why are you on it? Covid insomnia?

Welcome to parent life! Especially if the kid have colic

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#135

Post by xenospn »

sahillavingia wrote: post #65

Solo founder of Gumroad here. Highly recommended. It forced me to learn a lot more about every aspect of building a business than I would have otherwise. I'm also a fan of investing in solo founders: https://shl.vc

Another solo founder here - I copied the Notion fund memo you posted on Twitter and used it as a template to pitch VCs, so thank you for that!

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#137

Post by capnorange »

lambdatronics wrote: post #128
superasn wrote: post #10

Being a solo founder myself here are a few tips I would like to add: 1. Solo founders are most often devs, which means they focus 90% of their energy on dev and what little remains on marketing. Unfortunately this is a easy trap to fall into and you should invest equal if not more time doing/learning SEO, content marketing (which you've done here very successfully btw) and building an audience. 2. Making a product wi…

Hey, I'd be interested in your local trello. I was meaning to write a todo-app based on best psych best practices, especially only presenting the highest priority ( = urgent * important) item at any given time. I also wanted to add ordered sub-tasks, due-date, and time estimate features so that the urgency ramps up automatically as the remaining time to complete a task approaches the estimated length of the task.

You should look at Taskwarrior for some inspiration! I use TW and it has the features you mentioned(and I use them regularly). Urgency is derived from certain coefficients[1].

[1] https://taskwarrior.org/docs/urgency.html

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#138

Post by superasn »

lambdatronics wrote: post #128
superasn wrote: post #10

Being a solo founder myself here are a few tips I would like to add: 1. Solo founders are most often devs, which means they focus 90% of their energy on dev and what little remains on marketing. Unfortunately this is a easy trap to fall into and you should invest equal if not more time doing/learning SEO, content marketing (which you've done here very successfully btw) and building an audience. 2. Making a product wi…

Hey, I'd be interested in your local trello. I was meaning to write a todo-app based on best psych best practices, especially only presenting the highest priority ( = urgent * important) item at any given time. I also wanted to add ordered sub-tasks, due-date, and time estimate features so that the urgency ramps up automatically as the remaining time to complete a task approaches the estimated length of the task.

Sure thing. It's open source and you can find it here (1).

Unfortunately it's very badly written (sorry) because I wrote it just for myself on a weekend and is very limited, just enough to get the job done for me.

(1) https://github.com/san-kumar/kanban

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#139

Post by throwawayinfo »

dsbleia wrote: post #119

>I’ve reduced my information consumption to free up brain cycles. This is so important and not discussed very often. It's so easy to get caught up with the insane amount of information distractions. It is pivotal to narrow down your focus and attention on the really important things (deep work). Eliminate and minimize the pointless information hysteria. I've worked with people who claim they 'work 12-16 hour days'. Y…

I'm trying to build something which tackles this problem. The idea would be delegating the decision of what you consume to an algorithm (that you can control), and you'll be delivered a subset of news/content daily.

Basically a giant filter through which you consume the firehouse of FB/reddit.

Although it works for me, I've no idea how practical this is on a wider scale. Would you use something like that?

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#140

Post by aledalgrande »

bushido wrote: post #79
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.

Both can be important and it really comes down to who your customer is. For B2B (SME+) - Absolutely invest in Sales. Worth mentioning that it isn't too hard hiring seasoned sales professionals, with existing relationships who are trying to find their next career move etc. They'll often agree to a higher commission payout in-lieu of a base salary. This doubles up as a good way to get feedback from the market. For B2C…

+1 here - sales dominant in B2B, but brand >> product in B2C, look at all the most successful B2C companies
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