Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Persisting as a solo founder

vishnu.tech

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 263 posts

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#151

Post by indymike »

an_opabinia wrote: post #131
captainmuon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, a…

So, you've got a choice: $200K/year at bigco, or $120K/year + a one time payout of $2m when you sell your company in five year. Yes, slow and steady can win the race, but last I looked, $200K x5 is $1m. The solo founder will make $2.6m. Of course, there's no guarantee of any of this. The talented engineer could be caught up in layoffs at bigco, and the founder could go out of business or never sell. Usually, exits are done at a multiple of revenue, so it is not uncommon to sell a small company with $600-700K/year of revenue for 3-5x that amount.

BTW, raising tens of millions for one million in revenue doesn't happen that often.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#152

Post by mlacks »

https://github.audio/ is a game changer. one thing I find hard about lo-fi channels is the sheer amount of visual/ mental noise to break through in order to get the video/ station up and running on various platforms.

One thing that I have taken to in my quest for zone-out material is to put this type of music on a separate Hi-Res music player; I have a Sony A20 Walkman, Sony PHA-1A DAC / Amplifier, and Sony MDRV6 Studio Monitor Headphones as my setup.

Github.audio is perfect for when I don't want to/ can't set all that up

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#153

Post by an_opabinia »

indymike wrote: post #151
an_opabinia wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, a…

So, you've got a choice: $200K/year at bigco, or $120K/year + a one time payout of $2m when you sell your company in five year. Yes, slow and steady can win the race, but last I looked, $200K x5 is $1m. The solo founder will make $2.6m. Of course, there's no guarantee of any of this. The talented engineer could be caught up in layoffs at bigco, and the founder could go out of business or never sell. Usually, exits ar…

Everyone I know who has worked at the top tech companies for 5 years has earned considerably more than the entire startup's revenue. I wasn't ever talking about the startup's equity value, but even if I was, they were earning more than the equity value they would receive too.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#154

Post by kyawzazaw »

aerovistae wrote: post #145

I find my biggest holdup is designing UI. I'm not a designer so while I can implement it, it usually looks a bit meh in terms of colors and layout. This costs me a lot of time because without a clear image of what it looks like, I find I don't know exactly what I'm building.

How about trying to hire out a UI designer?

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#156

Post by pritovido »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #45
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…

It's hard to get out of an engineering mindset and into a product/customer focused mindset. We like building things, and making them fast and powerful and efficient. The customer doesn't care about any of that though. They just want something that helps them.

Of course the customer cares about fast, powerful and efficient things they can use.

What happens is that most of the time making something fast, powerful and efficient implies so much resources that the ambitious engineer can not complete the project in time.

Customers prefer something that works today, even with limited functionality that something perfect that only works inside the mind of the engineer.

That is the reason Steve Jobs said no so many times, because this way his company could ship products in time.

That in engineers mindset problem: It is painful to say No, like the song says, we "want it all".

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#157

Post by ultrasounder »

ente (/ɛn'tɛ/ meaning: mine): In South Indian Language, Malayalam Ente means mine, which I presume is the OP's mother tongue. I agree with all that is being said here, but would like to add one more. Thats just based on my own experience. Please for the love of God, don't quit Your day job while You build, validate and find Post-Launch PMF(Product-Market fit). Its not just the financial Security that comes with us, but as a solo-builder/founder the, feedback/implement cycle is very long and can be soul crushing. If You had a contract/Freelance or even a F.T. job that keeps Your mind busy during those idle periods of lull, You will be able to stay motivated.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#158

Post by TaylorAlexander »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #45
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…

It's hard to get out of an engineering mindset and into a product/customer focused mindset. We like building things, and making them fast and powerful and efficient. The customer doesn't care about any of that though. They just want something that helps them.

This is why I work as a “prototype engineer” :)

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#159

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

aerovistae wrote: post #145

I find my biggest holdup is designing UI. I'm not a designer so while I can implement it, it usually looks a bit meh in terms of colors and layout. This costs me a lot of time because without a clear image of what it looks like, I find I don't know exactly what I'm building.

Use component libraries with their default themes until you can afford to hire designers.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#160

Post by jozzy-james »

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…

sometimes a person seemingly doing unrelated things is still 'working'. i know at least for myself, i run through various scenarios of the outcome rather than staring at the code before i make my decision to implement.

edit: and i'll typically run through those scenarios while doing seemingly unrelated stuff, like shitposting on reddit or sitting in a blacked out room.

Post reply on HN