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Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

mattmazur.com

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Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#111

Post by jimnotgym »

PentelicoMarble wrote: post #64
MrOwnPut wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the latter half of my sentence you ignored. It's easy to highroad everyone when you sit back reaping the benefits of what others have done.

I’m not high roading anyone, I’m merely saying I prefer products not built by war criminals. I certainly don’t reap any benefits from what Matt and his fellow soldiers did in Iraq during their illegal war, and even if I did - does that mean I can’t talk about it?

Soldiers sent to war are not automatically war criminals, whether or not the war was legitimate. Your blanket statement suggests that a mechanic, chef, or nurse who was sent to Iraq was a war criminal. You are just wrong.

I think you calling someone a war criminal is way outside of what is legitimate on this forum.

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#112

Post by waprin »

Alex3917 wrote: post #87
ricksunny wrote: post #55

Good on you; We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. Not every business activity fits the go-big-or-go-home Zuckerberg-esque meteoric rise archetype that the Techcrunch-led hype media attracts eyeballs for portraying.

> We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. There will be a lot more example of this in the coming years because the costs of keeping a pre-PMF webapp online have basically fallen to zero. Whereas when Zuckerberg started Facebook, if it didn't take off right away then you had no choice but to shut it down. When you hear VCs and other folks cast doubt o…

Yeah it’s interesting reading the old pg essays where he says, VCs suck but they are a necessary evil. After all, racking reliable servers will cost at least 20k, paying a PR firm so that there’s a chance anyone will hear about your site will cost at least 20k etc etc

Now basically every PaaS has a free or cheap (It’s not strictly true because some projects use GPUs for ML , sometimes there’s some technical rot if you don’t upgrade your stack a bit, market change could make you irrelevant etc

But in general there’s a lot of products that can simmer and slowly iterate for a long time as long as founder keeps chipping away as evidenced here.

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#113

Post by matt1 »

jimnotgym wrote: post #102
matt1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noted - thanks for the nudge to work on it!

Hey Matt, I can't develop cool looking apps like this. I'm envious. What I can tell you is that sales people at big software companies never say 'No it can't do that' as an initial conversation. They would say something like, 'I'm sure it could do that. Let's set up a call to get your requirements straight'. He might only need a subset of your features, and the api needed could be trivial. He might have a $moneyisnoo…

Great points - thanks for suggesting that approach!

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#115

Post by bisRepetita »

Alex3917 wrote: post #87
ricksunny wrote: post #55

Good on you; We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. Not every business activity fits the go-big-or-go-home Zuckerberg-esque meteoric rise archetype that the Techcrunch-led hype media attracts eyeballs for portraying.

> We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. There will be a lot more example of this in the coming years because the costs of keeping a pre-PMF webapp online have basically fallen to zero. Whereas when Zuckerberg started Facebook, if it didn't take off right away then you had no choice but to shut it down. When you hear VCs and other folks cast doubt o…

Even back then, you did not have to grow as fast as VC made you think. It was a choice by Zuck to grow fast and take a lot of investment, he did not have to grow that fast.

This is Zuck's interview in 2005 in Stanford: >So, I mean when you’re 16 running a site and your core people are the kitchen table, your operating expenses are relatively low.

>[...] we just kept our operating expenses low so far and by doing that we’ve been able to stay cash flow positive for basically the entire system’s company

>[...] we decided that it was ok to go a few months in cash flow negative while [...] like you know, using like $100,000, not like millions. So, um and then but, now were back. We do a lot of page views.

See page 26: https://www.fbcoverup.com/docs/cyberhijack/2005-10-26-Zucker...

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#116

Post by atleta »

Alex3917 wrote: post #87
ricksunny wrote: post #55

Good on you; We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. Not every business activity fits the go-big-or-go-home Zuckerberg-esque meteoric rise archetype that the Techcrunch-led hype media attracts eyeballs for portraying.

> We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. There will be a lot more example of this in the coming years because the costs of keeping a pre-PMF webapp online have basically fallen to zero. Whereas when Zuckerberg started Facebook, if it didn't take off right away then you had no choice but to shut it down. When you hear VCs and other folks cast doubt o…

This has been the case for over a decade. I've launched my first startup 11 years ago. I've used Linode and we've spent something like $20/month on hosting. (This has increased to around $80-$160 IIRC when we got funded, mostly due to the increased storage needs. We were a music startup and while S3 was pretty cheap back then too, it was easier to have everything on Linode at first. I.e. with enough funding, time was more expensive than storage.)

A bit more than a year later it went bust but I hoped I could still keep it alive, make it financially viable. I scaled back the infrastructure so costs would be below $30/mo again.

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#117

Post by stsrki »

ricksunny wrote: post #55

Good on you; We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. Not every business activity fits the go-big-or-go-home Zuckerberg-esque meteoric rise archetype that the Techcrunch-led hype media attracts eyeballs for portraying.

I did something similar with Blazorise, a personal project of mine, https://blazorise.com/. It started as a hobby project. After some time it grew too large that it took most of my time, not to mention the time I could spend with my wife and son. Things changed during the Covid when I was laid off. Then I started freelancing for a while, and last year I finally took a big step and went full-time with Blazorise. Switched to dual licensing, where larger enterprises must purchase a commercial license. It is working, and hopefully, it will continue to work. Or otherwise, my wife will rage on me :/

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#118

Post by noname123 »

Hi Matt, thanks for sharing. Just a proof of my staying power, I saw your Preceden post on HN; and paid for a license 13 years ago promptly your v0.1 and I am still here. https://i.imgur.com/ejUm3Gh.png

I had bought a license purely on a whim as I was browsing HN on company-time. I was in 20's, bored and ambitious with no concrete plans and I proceeded to play on company-time in my cubicle the rest of the day and planned out my life plan on Preceden instead of working, like the timeline for when I should get my next promotion (maybe in 2 years for at least 10K, rite??), when I should buy my 1st house etc (maybe a fix upper? duplex so I can rent it out?), when I should get married etc (in 5 years). I showed my entire life plan to my co-workers whom all laughed at me b/c (a) I planned everything out in my life, and (b) I paid for a $19 license to plot out my life plan.

To get to the bottom-line, I never got that promotion, am still renting and still haven't gotten married! So definitely you who got my $19 license fees and my co-workers got the last laugh!

(But like you I kept on and off workin' my side-hustles since 2010 even when it seemed entire hopeless - which was building a trading bot; and like anything in life after so many false starts, it eventually started becoming consistent and compounded; and my capital gains from trading has been significantly greater than my W-2 as a SWE for the last 3 years. So much has changed on HN since 2010: crypto, Web3, new JS frameworks that pop up every year, unicorns; but the only thing that has paid off at least for me - it seems is sticking to something and showing up for it every day for 13 years and counting... thanks again for sharing!)

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#119

Post by agentwiggles »

This is super inspiring.

I just started working on a side project that I hope can one day be worth something. I'm also the sole breadwinner of a household with 2 (soon to be 3) kids and a wife depending on me, so it's really inspiring to see that the dream really can happen, even if it takes a decade plus to realize.

Even if my thing never takes off, it's a tool I've wanted for a long time, so I'm motivated to keep going even if it never makes a penny.

Congratulations, wishing you lots of continued success.

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#120

Post by matt1 »

noname123 wrote: post #118

Hi Matt, thanks for sharing. Just a proof of my staying power, I saw your Preceden post on HN; and paid for a license 13 years ago promptly your v0.1 and I am still here. https://i.imgur.com/ejUm3Gh.png I had bought a license purely on a whim as I was browsing HN on company-time. I was in 20's, bored and ambitious with no concrete plans and I proceeded to play on company-time in my cubicle the rest of the day and pla…

Wow, you got on one of those $19 for life plans that I initially offered, that's wild!

It's great to hear you got some use out of the tool and hopefully continue to do so. I look forward to your next life update in 13 years when Preceden makes the HackerNews homepage again :).

PS for any aspiring entrepreneurs: don't offer lifetime plans, and definitely not for $19, lol.

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