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Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

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Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#81

Post by giovannibonetti »

neilfrndes wrote: post #67
al_borland wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A co-worker of mine visited French Polynesia a few years ago. He mentioned most of the restaurants simply close up shop when they feel they’ve made enough money for the day. Not great for someone looking to get dinner, but I’m sure it makes life much better and less stressful for the owner and employees. They know to get by they need to make $X/day. If they hit it by 1pm, cool, half day.

This behavior was also observed in New York Cab drivers in the paper LABOR SUPPLY OF NEW YORK CITY CABDRIVERS: ONE DAY AT A TIME https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/docs/loewenstein/NYCCabdriv... > ... Our interpretation of these Žndings is that cabdrivers (at least inexperi- enced ones): (i) make labor supply decisions “one day at a time” instead of inter- temporally substituting labor and leisure across multiple days,…

They could maximize their earnings by working more on more profitable days and working less on the less profitable ones. However, many people overvalue stability and are scared of variable income.

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#82

Post by [deleted] »

mamcx wrote: post #36

The 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…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#83

Post by bmitc »

riku_iki wrote: post #76
bmitc wrote: post #40

What do you all have as your actual product? I feel that's the toughest part: having a product that can be easily maintained by one person yet still gain and retain customers.

There are actually two parts here: product(design and engineering) and gaining customers(marketing). Second part is much harder for some people(like me).

I think what I was getting at was a step before that: product ideation.

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#84

Post by rickydroll »

JohnFen wrote: post #57
mrdependable wrote: post #28

This 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".

I wish I had learned this earlier. A couple of years ago, I hired a part-time assistant to handle invoicing and other financial matters, which was a major sanity saver. He noticed a couple of companies getting behind in payments faster than I would have and saved me from some financial potholes.

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#85

Post by golergka »

orev wrote: post #49
golergka wrote: post #42

Earlier 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.

> Or the profit margins are so small they can’t justify the cost.

You mean the cost increase? I'm afraid I don't understand. Who would you need to justify the cost to, the clients? They don't know anything about your profit margins, and they don't really need any justification.

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#86

Post by bentt »

Been there as a solo. My advice is be on the constant lookout for the one person that will do all the stuff you are bad at. Find your complement. There’s a reason marriage is ingrained in most cultures. It is too risky and hard and sad to do important things alone.

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#87

Post by scurth »

Thanks a lot for being open and sharing. You are not alone, and wearing multiple hats is something all one-person companies have in common. The key points that work for me are:

- Having a close circle of friends with similar lifestyles/journeys. trustful, open exchanges are invaluable, in both directions.

- Being clear on your business's purpose, means understand why you started it and what compromises you're willing to make.

- Setting clear goals for both business development and personal life in order to maintain clarity in both areas is essential for balance and progress.

As I'm in a similar situation and work with startup/scale-up folks, I've created a toolset aimed at addressing the business aspects of these struggles. It seems to solve these types of challenges for the people I work with: https://startup-business-cockpit.de/en.index.html.

Check it out, and if any guidance is needed, feel free to DM me.

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#88

Post by lukan »

dangus wrote: post #74
lukan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Your time is worth more than any reasonable subscription fee. " Sure, but what do I do, if that service just closes tomorrow? Or they change the fee to "unreasonable" (after they gained control of the market). A SaaS would have to be way better than any offline tool, I could use 10 years from now in this shape. But in general yes, don't skimp and loose time, when there is a working alternative.

Then you migrate to another tool. It’s not a big deal.

When the data is in an standartized format, that just works with another tool sure.

But with many SaaS you are lucky if you even get your data out. And then importing it into omething else sadly is very much a big deal in many cases.

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#89

Post by jaredsohn »

janalsncm wrote: post #48
axlee wrote: post #33

Earlier 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.

I read it as your company dying although if that was implied should probably use the same 'closed' term

Re: Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?

#90

Post by nickmancol »

isaacisaac wrote: post #38

I've been working on Temple Tools[1] (CRM for Synagogues) during evenings and weekends while maintaining my day job with no drops in productivity or outcomes (in fact I've performed better) for about 9 months and have gotten a good amount of traction. I was really afraid that it was going to take over my life but I'm very happy with how straightforward things have been. Building a CRM solo has been quite a lift but i…

Great advice!
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