I did this for 9 years. You don’t stay sane. You’re working 24/7. Best you can do is take vacations and schedule downtime rituals. This is why I no longer do it.
Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
51–60 of 107 posts
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#52The major trick, IMHO, is not to grow. While a "normal" startup is focused on growing! growing! growing! a small company should instead think like a physical restaurant: "I have 10 tables * 4 seats. 4 waiters. Operate Lu-Fri 10 am - 6 pm. I can serve only up to 40 customers max per hour. My income will never be bigger than 40* Average meal. My income needs to be at minimum Costs + 3% profits". Then you see you have t…
Wouldn't a real restaurant increase the sitting area, open a second location or increase prices if it had more clients than it could serve?
I sell stuff to a lot of restaurants. Most of the people that open a second location end up making less money or end up closing everything after they just get run into the ground. Then again, some people do it successfully and make way more money. It just depends on so many things.
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#53The major trick, IMHO, is not to grow. While a "normal" startup is focused on growing! growing! growing! a small company should instead think like a physical restaurant: "I have 10 tables * 4 seats. 4 waiters. Operate Lu-Fri 10 am - 6 pm. I can serve only up to 40 customers max per hour. My income will never be bigger than 40* Average meal. My income needs to be at minimum Costs + 3% profits". Then you see you have t…
Exactly. And day to day, ruthless prioritisation.
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#54The biggest lesson I've learned is to be very clear and honest about what you personally are good at and have the bandwidth to do, outsource the other stuff, and keep your goals in line with your available resources (which are mostly your time and energy).
By "outsource the other stuff", I mean things like hiring a bookkeeping service to keep your books and handle tax reporting all the way through to contracting out those jobs that you don't have the skills, time, or energy to do well.
The most important asset your business has is yourself. Keep that asset in good health, use it wisely, and don't abuse it.
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't a real restaurant increase the sitting area, open a second location or increase prices if it had more clients than it could serve?
If that’s an option, yes. But for many it isn’t. The building isn’t owned by them. Or there’s no available space next door to expand into. Or the capital cost of remodeling that new section is too high. Or the profit margins are so small they can’t justify the cost. Or they’re already maxed out on loans and can’t afford more.
And a second restaurant is still a second restaurant. There's still a very high (>50% for sure) chance it fails. The second location isn't quite as good. The manager you hire starts to slack off a bit. Food critic gets sick during opening week. A close family member dies and you ignore the restaurant(s) for just a little too long. The list of things that could happen that boil down to "bad luck" is endless.
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#56The major trick, IMHO, is not to grow. While a "normal" startup is focused on growing! growing! growing! a small company should instead think like a physical restaurant: "I have 10 tables * 4 seats. 4 waiters. Operate Lu-Fri 10 am - 6 pm. I can serve only up to 40 customers max per hour. My income will never be bigger than 40* Average meal. My income needs to be at minimum Costs + 3% profits". Then you see you have t…
Indeed.
I'd only add (or rephrase other comments to the same effect) that slow growth is not only about staying within your capacity, it's also about learning what you're doing so well that you can systematize your processes for maximum results with as little speculation and risk as possible.
You could call that "being efficient," I guess, but I think I mean it in the macro sense, not looking for nickel and dime efficiencies.
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#57This is something I've been struggling with recently. After a few years of adding customers at a fairly slow rate, this year I've already doubled the amount of customers I have. Unfortunately, it still isn't enough to hire an employee. I've gone from ramen profitable and doing freelance to fill the gap, to ditching freelancing altogether and working on the application full-time. The first mistake I made was not sayin…
> Unfortunately, it still isn't enough to hire an employee.
A word of experience about having employees: avoid it for as long as you can. Everyone you hire is expensive -- not only in terms of money, but in terms of the additional time they'll take up and hassle involved.
My personal rule is "don't hire someone unless you're at imminent risk of losing a bunch of money if you don't".
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#58Outsource as much as you can and EXERCISE
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#59I don't manage it all. Something is always slipping and I always feel like I am falling behind. That said, here are some tactics I've used over ~2 years as a solo founder to try to keep it together: 1. Focus weeks on certain functions - ie work on developing features for one week and then switch to marketing tasks the next. Admittedly harder than it seems, but when actually followed, find I make considerable progress…
#4 is something I need to do ASAP, appreciate the tip. It's easy to see the chasm of what's still ahead but forget how far you've come.
Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sure, but what do I do, if that service just closes tomorrow? You're far more likely to die tomorrow than Notion to close abruptly tomorrow.
Is this true though? Doesn’t pass the sniff test since most people last a lot longer than most companies. I checked and the probability of death for an American in their 30s (median American is 37 years old) is under 0.2% in any year. I think there’s a far larger than 1 in 500 chance that Notion goes under or is acquired and cancelled.
Parent means it figuratively: you're majoring in the minors if your reason for not relying on services / others is the _possibility_ that one day they go away.