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Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

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Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#41

Post by jmduke »

varispeed wrote: post #33
jmduke wrote: post #19

(Context — I run Buttondown ( http://buttondown.email/ ) as a solo founder, with a handful of contractors on support/documentation but no other W2s.) 1. You need to either a) have an answer for "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" or b) create a product for customers to whom that doesn't matter. In general, people really _like_ being able to chat with the founder directly (lean into that! it's a superpower!) but f…

> "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" This is actually a weasel sentence for "you are too poor" and it's kind of patronising. What do they expect to happen if solo entrepreneur get hit by a bus? That he or she has like a dead man switch that will send over all the business secrets, IP, passwords etc to a trusted person to ensure continuity? In reality the rich look for business run by someone with generational we…

I'm not saying you're wrong (I've never tried to raise a round!) but I meant that in the context in which I've encountered it, which is in sales to enterprise/larger users who absolutely do expect that if I am hit by a bus there is someone else who can ensure continuity of service.

Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#43

Post by Cpoll »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #14

Something that seems to be not well known by the general public: Landing a big contract with a big company early on can be very problematic. They have a history of screwing small companies. Small companies often seem to imagine this will solve all their problems. It seems to be the business equivalent of the fantasy of winning the lottery and then having it made in the shade. In reality, winning the lottery frequentl…

I've seen this firsthand. If the relationship isn't well managed, all resources go to niche big-customer use-cases, and the product stagnates.

Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#44

Post by wahnfrieden »

varispeed wrote: post #33
jmduke wrote: post #19

(Context — I run Buttondown ( http://buttondown.email/ ) as a solo founder, with a handful of contractors on support/documentation but no other W2s.) 1. You need to either a) have an answer for "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" or b) create a product for customers to whom that doesn't matter. In general, people really _like_ being able to chat with the founder directly (lean into that! it's a superpower!) but f…

> "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" This is actually a weasel sentence for "you are too poor" and it's kind of patronising. What do they expect to happen if solo entrepreneur get hit by a bus? That he or she has like a dead man switch that will send over all the business secrets, IP, passwords etc to a trusted person to ensure continuity? In reality the rich look for business run by someone with generational we…

enterprise deals will ask for biz continuity doc.

Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#45

Post by chadash »

ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #30
jmduke wrote: post #19

(Context — I run Buttondown ( http://buttondown.email/ ) as a solo founder, with a handful of contractors on support/documentation but no other W2s.) 1. You need to either a) have an answer for "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" or b) create a product for customers to whom that doesn't matter. In general, people really _like_ being able to chat with the founder directly (lean into that! it's a superpower!) but f…

VC can be a great way to break into markets that just have inherently large moats or barriers to entry. Stripe is an example: you can code all you like but you literally can't move money without going through a ton of very annoying (to devs, anyway) footwork to get cozy with the existing financial institutions. The connections your VCs give you can matter as much as the money. They can also literally kill your compan…

> They can also literally kill your company. VCs have a very specific strategy: they give some money to 1000 companies knowing that 990 of them will return 0% in the hopes that of the remaining ten, 9 of them return %X000 and one returns %X0000.

+1 to this.

There are definitely different models for VCs, but in general, the big "brand name" VCs are in the unicorn business. This tweet [1] does a succinct job of explaining why.

The result of this is that as a founder, if you own 49% of your company and big-VC investors own 51% of your company and someone comes along offering to buy your company for $100m, your investors are likely to turn it down. For you, that would likely be a life-changing amount of money. For a big-name VC, it doesn't move the needle. In most cases, they'd rather roll the dice and end up with $0 then get their share of a $100m exit.

[1] https://twitter.com/jasonlk/status/1670021902612549632?ref_s...

Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#46

Post by james_impliu »

1. Just be yourself, proudly. Some people _will_ hate it, others will love it. Getting product market fit is so damned hard, you are way better off looking for a smaller number of people that love you.

2. I'd shoot for 5 reference customers (paying list price, using it as you'd expect and genuinely delighted). Along the way I'd track who you try to sell to in a spreadsheet (including those that just drag on and never close) and I'd score them across the behaviors/things you would expect your target audience would have in common. This will help you create an Ideal Customer Profile - which you can then target more and more heavily (where you do marketing / what you build next and so on in future). Be _very_ specific not just ie by industry. For example, paypal targeted ebay power sellers in the early days.

3. Absolutely not. I've more than 40K customers at my startup and I live in a village no one has heard of in the UK.

4. Don't worry about scaling up via marketing until you have 5 reference customers (and generally do more of what got you the first 5 as your first step)

5. Read Secrets of Sandhill Road to understand the VC model more deeply. If you bootstrap - you have total control, might make more if you sell (because of how preferred shares work) but it will probably cause you more personal financial stress. Decide what motivates you - lifestyle business or trying to build a $10bn company. VC is an irreversible door, more or less, whereas bootstrapping isn't. I'd default with bootstrapping if unsure.

Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#47

Post by akoboldfrying »

varispeed wrote: post #33
jmduke wrote: post #19

(Context — I run Buttondown ( http://buttondown.email/ ) as a solo founder, with a handful of contractors on support/documentation but no other W2s.) 1. You need to either a) have an answer for "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" or b) create a product for customers to whom that doesn't matter. In general, people really _like_ being able to chat with the founder directly (lean into that! it's a superpower!) but f…

> "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" This is actually a weasel sentence for "you are too poor" and it's kind of patronising. What do they expect to happen if solo entrepreneur get hit by a bus? That he or she has like a dead man switch that will send over all the business secrets, IP, passwords etc to a trusted person to ensure continuity? In reality the rich look for business run by someone with generational we…

>What do they expect to happen if solo entrepreneur get hit by a bus?

Something as simple as knowing that they can get all their data out of your system and into a similar one is already some points on the board, here. Not as reassuring as a team behind you, but it is something.

I also think (a) it's not patronising, and (b) even if it were, taking exception to that perceived patronisation would not be a useful way to increase your chances of business success.

Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#48

Post by robertlagrant »

varispeed wrote: post #33
jmduke wrote: post #19

(Context — I run Buttondown ( http://buttondown.email/ ) as a solo founder, with a handful of contractors on support/documentation but no other W2s.) 1. You need to either a) have an answer for "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" or b) create a product for customers to whom that doesn't matter. In general, people really _like_ being able to chat with the founder directly (lean into that! it's a superpower!) but f…

> "what happens if you get hit by a bus?" This is actually a weasel sentence for "you are too poor" and it's kind of patronising. What do they expect to happen if solo entrepreneur get hit by a bus? That he or she has like a dead man switch that will send over all the business secrets, IP, passwords etc to a trusted person to ensure continuity? In reality the rich look for business run by someone with generational we…

> This is actually a weasel sentence for "you are too poor" and it's kind of patronising. What do they expect to happen if solo entrepreneur get hit by a bus? That he or she has like a dead man switch that will send over all the business secrets, IP, passwords etc to a trusted person to ensure continuity?

They don't expect anything. They just want to know what will happen in that instance. Most companies derisk this by hiring other people, even though that drastically reduces profits. Telling people why they should feel patronised by reasonable questions is not going to help them navigate reality.

> In reality the rich look for business run by someone with generational wealth or someone who already made it and they don't trust the poor.

This just isn't the case. No one cares about suppliers with generational wealth. If a solopreneur dies and their AWS account gets locked out and their service dies it's not about generational wealth. These memes just get in the way of thinking.

Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#49

Post by DoreenMichele »

varispeed wrote: post #36
DoreenMichele wrote: post #14

Something that seems to be not well known by the general public: Landing a big contract with a big company early on can be very problematic. They have a history of screwing small companies. Small companies often seem to imagine this will solve all their problems. It seems to be the business equivalent of the fantasy of winning the lottery and then having it made in the shade. In reality, winning the lottery frequentl…

> Feel free to bite off more than you can chew and view it as a growth opportunity, but be aware that getting too much of your revenue from one client makes you their bitch. It's like all the downside of being an employee plus all the downside of running a business. One mistake is charging the client with thinking that you will be able to service the contract yourself, but fee being not enough to hire a capable emplo…

That's probably a big part of it.

If you undercharge on some small, one-time job, afterwards you go "Whoopsie! Time to adjust my fees. No big."

You undercharge on some big, ongoing contract and it can feel like you can't make any real changes. And now you're stuck in this bad deal. (Or at least feel stuck.)

People tend to not know how to "fire" a bad client and the idea that you can choose your clients, at least to some degree via market positioning, is alien for many people.

Re: Ask HN: Tips for Solopreneur?

#50

Post by philsnow »

jedberg wrote: post #4

> It is just me - is that a red flag? Some people have asked me about my team and I told them it was just me. I got the feeling that it may have turned them off because the conversation kind of ended right there. Solo people and even small teams are a huge risk to enterprises. They will have to dedicate time to negotiating with you and integrating your solution. If you just disappear after that, that's a huge problem…

There's a pricing death valley in between "can be trivially expensed" and "needs to Go Through Purchasing"; there is a huge step function in the cost for you, the vendor, to sell into that enterprise that occurs right at that cutoff.

"What costs? I sell bits over the internet, my marginal costs are zero!" I mean the cost of either your time managing an enterprise sales cycle yourself or hiring somebody to do it so you can actually work on your product, times many many potential clients (because most will fall out of the sales funnel, so you need to have lots in flight to get some in the door by the end of the month).

It can be untenable to price a product anywhere between $500/mo (or whatever the cutoff is) and $20k/y.

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