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Persisting as a solo founder

vishnu.tech

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Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#161

Post by outside1234 »

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…

You forgot to discount the $2M payout by like 0.05 (or 5%) which generously is the number of startups that will get anywhere near that.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#162

Post by XCSme »

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

Thanks for creating Gumroad, it really helped me save a lot of time and use it for building my product instead!

Are you still working full-time at Gumroad or you are more into VC or "influencer" nowdays?

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#163

Post by mindhash »

xwdv wrote: post #2

Although the author is persisting, I get the sense that he is forcing himself to feel happy about what is essentially a zombie startup* (a photo organizer). It shouldn’t feel hard or even lonely to be a solo founder. There’s so many people you will have to interact with that are not your co-founder. There’s so many people you can share your feelings with that are not your co-founder. And having a co-founder is no gua…

The product could find a market with privacy conscious Parents. So I wont call it a dead end yet.

Though an extremely tough market to crack, something drop box realised early on and moved out of photo business

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#164

Post by rpedela »

jahbrewski wrote: post #46
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…

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.

One exception would be if your product has really good and obvious search keywords that are being searched at a reasonably high volume. Google ads can work really well in this scenario. Even better if no one else is buying ads for those keywords.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#165

Post by acruns »

GordonS wrote: post #121
bushido wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales can definitely feel like that. Without more context on your market, decision maker personas etc. the one piece of advise that I can give confidently is this: Start with Senior Sales Leadership. Ideally someone with experience in your target market. Reach out to a few individuals, in your network or on LinkedIn or similar. Ask them for advice, see the type of advice they provide. If you like them, ask them to re…

B2B sales is an area I'm going to need help with quite soon. Solo-bootstrapping a startup means that money can be tight though. Do you think it would be possible to get part-time help using the approach you describe? Alternatively, do some sales professionals work on a commission-only basis? Also, do you have any idea what typical commission is expected?

Getting part-time help in sales is going to be hard. It will depend on how long your sales cycle is too.

Sales reps will happily work on commission only if they see a huge market for your product. Which might be difficult to show with a new product.

The commission rate is negotiable at the hiring point. If they are great at sales and know there is a big market they will want a lower base with a higher commission. You should also set a commission cap at some point as your variable costs increase your profit will drop and you could end up at a point where the sales team is making more than the company.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#166

Post by gkoberger »

As a single founder, I agree. The only advice I give anyone, ever, when starting a company is to not do it alone.

Think about how much of a disadvantage you are, early on, when you have to switch between tech and business. Longer term vision vs short term. Running a product vs running a company. It's almost impossible.

That being said, you mentioned "how that would compound the difficulty involved in finding an investor." The good news is after you get a bit of success, this goes away. You can hire the things you're missing. Some things, like having a cofounder, are an early signal that goes away once things go well.

(If you ever need to talk, my email is in my bio)

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#167

Post by alehul »

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…

The more simple your MVP can be, the more indicative it is that you have a market.

If you need to build for years to release something [1], it's less likely that you're addressing a real need. The best products can start dead simple, even ugly, but still solve the problem.

[1] Deep tech is the obvious exception here.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#168

Post by ErikAugust »

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…

The first business I started out of college was enabled solely by the fact I couldn’t find a full-time job. Like, at all really, for any pay. Was the business I started modestly successful? Sure. But did I move on when far better opportunities came about? Yes, I did. Opportunity cost is very much a real thing that dictates who actually starts a business or goes to work for one for under market rates.

I have met some people who implicitly or even explicitly claimed they were above being an employee but I think they weren’t being honest about their actual employment prospects.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#169

Post by wolco »

alehul wrote: post #167
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…

The more simple your MVP can be, the more indicative it is that you have a market. If you need to build for years to release something [1], it's less likely that you're addressing a real need. The best products can start dead simple, even ugly, but still solve the problem. [1] Deep tech is the obvious exception here.

The problem with some deep tech is the tech doesn't solve a problem until the next generation. It's less appealing as a solo bootstrap founder business.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#170

Post by tyrex2017 »

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…

agree with everything but havent gotten to know people who work 12+ hours but spend a lot on news sites

i have worked these hours in the past, plus my colleagues, and when there is so much pressure the least we wanted to do, and the least we did, was spending time on news sites because we were constantly tired and would rather choose to spend half an hour more on sleep

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