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I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

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Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#111

Post by tailspin2019 »

nashashmi wrote: post #53
authorfly wrote: post #9

Wow I can really relate. The customer support efforts when you don't feel like it, being ghosted after helping a customer, the random or fraud disputes. It's really tricky at that stage between hiring help and having the time/motivation to maintain those very non-tech parts while trying to continue doing other core parts of the side project / startup. The first sale feels great, as does first showing the prototype. B…

> being ghosted after helping a customer I am one of those people. Gotta keep in mind to let people know that the solution worked

Me too but I only ever do this unintentionally, and it usually corresponds with a delay in the reply from support coming back to me. (Ie I’m now focused on other things or have solved the problem a different way).

Whenever I’m conscious enough of it I do try to thank people - trying to remember how hard it must be on the other end!

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#112

Post by Waterluvian »

zerkten wrote: post #62
Waterluvian wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there's often a mismatch between what one thinks a business is going to be like, and what a business is actually like. One of the things that keeps me away from doing stuff like this is that I _hate_ every part that isn't the engineering part, and the engineering part is a minority share of what it takes to run a business.

We know the answer to this even before modern tech businesses existed: running a business is a very different experience from what people expect. This is exacerbated with certain experiences that create worldviews which are closer to the opposite of running a business. This is why startup people straight out of school are often unencumbered with ideas that impact their mission. If you go into a large organization, yo…

My solution largely came out of recognizing this reality. So I just don't do side gigs. I channel that energy into little tech projects that do not seek to be a salable product. So I make my living 40 hours per week, and then do the rest on my terms.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#113

Post by mkinsella »

joshuaturner wrote: post #98

Before Reddit changed API access I built an iOS app called Pager ( https://pager.app ) that allowed users to set up alerts for content posted on Reddit. It had a lot of success but the issues you highlighted here kept me from monitizing the project. Users became so demanding and I felt like if I began to take money from them it would only get worse. Looking back on it I'm not sure it was the best choice, but at least…

Pager was great! Thank you for building it.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#114

Post by remoquete »

shash7 wrote: post #37

Can relate, I've been in a similar boat running a small B2B Saas over the last 2 years. It does get easier over time. I've learnt a few tricks for managing early stage pain points. - You need to develop a polite but curt tone of voice for customer support. - Once your core product is built, its worthwhile spending some time automating the heck out of everything. This will save a TON of time in the near future. - Inve…

Docs... And a technical writer that'll tend to them.

https://passo.uno/signs-need-tech-writer/

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#116

Post by wruza »

duxup wrote: post #79
shash7 wrote: post #37

Can relate, I've been in a similar boat running a small B2B Saas over the last 2 years. It does get easier over time. I've learnt a few tricks for managing early stage pain points. - You need to develop a polite but curt tone of voice for customer support. - Once your core product is built, its worthwhile spending some time automating the heck out of everything. This will save a TON of time in the near future. - Inve…

>You need to develop a polite but curt tone of voice for customer support. And very focused responses in terms of action items. You might think of 3 things to say, check, but sadly 90% of the people you respond to with a list will behave like they read just one of them. Sadly this also leads to dragging things out for everyone who can handle more than one thing at a time :(

I’m observing this for many years and it feels like there are two types of people. Those who perceive lists as a whole and those who list.shuffle().pop(). Try asking your colleagues/etc three semi-related questions in one message and you’ll get only a partial answer in a significant number of cases. When confronted (constructively, much later) they usually get evasive and can’t explain. I could theorize it’s a learned behavior to avoid threaded pedantry or something, but my messages aren’t even long and other people share my frustration too (we communicate 10x faster and clearer between us). I’d write it off to attention capacity issues, but these people often aren’t even busy at all.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#117

Post by 1024core »

pjc50 wrote: post #105
joshuaturner wrote: post #98

Before Reddit changed API access I built an iOS app called Pager ( https://pager.app ) that allowed users to set up alerts for content posted on Reddit. It had a lot of success but the issues you highlighted here kept me from monitizing the project. Users became so demanding and I felt like if I began to take money from them it would only get worse. Looking back on it I'm not sure it was the best choice, but at least…

The usual suggestion, often given by HN's patio11, is to charge, and charge more. For some reason free customers are the most demanding, and the more you charge the more people self-select out of the customer base.

There's this old story about an old farmer and his horse. You see, this old farmer had a horse that he loved dearly; took great care of it and pampered it. But he was getting old, and wanted to retire to the City, where he could not keep a horse.

So what do I do with this horse, he wondered? He asked a wise friend, who told him: sell the horse for the highest amount of money that you can.

What?!? replied the farmer; I love my horse dearly and would never think of selling it like some goods.

The wise man replied: if you give it away, whoever gets it will abuse the shit out of it, and treat it like a workhorse, whip it every day, etc. because they got it for free, and won't value it. On the other hand, if you sell it for a huge sum, the buyer will pamper it and take good care of it, because it's an investment to them.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#118

Post by pc86 »

justin_oaks wrote: post #73
pc86 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That gave me a chuckle too. The list of "reasons someone would use a stolen credit card" is what, 2 options?

There are 2 options? I can only think of "I'm a person with poor ethics who wants to get something without paying for it".

The other actually happened to me recently, my wife answered one of those automated bank texts checking on a transaction with no, which cancelled the card (and marked it stolen), and I tried to use it before she told me about it.

But yeah those are the only two I can think of and yours is the case 99.99% of the time.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#119

Post by gizmo »

authorfly wrote: post #91
gizmo wrote: post #33

Not all B2C is the same. If you make a product for professionals you won't get random chargebacks, incoherent emails, or general rudeness. One great way to filter for professionalism is by simply charging more. Another strategy is making it harder to purchase the product. For example by disabling the checkout process until people have completed the tutorial, or only allowing purchases after the free trial has expired…

It's better but this is not uniformly true. For one, people use random sites to test cards to see if they can get away with using stolen CC details at every stripe-integrated company I've seen, target audience irrelevant. The proportion of negative/wild interactions with support and chargebacks is always going to be in an uphill battle with positive correspondance unless you are selling multi-seat deals with support…

> people use random sites to test cards to see if they can get away with using stolen CC details

I already addressed this. By forcing people to use the product before allowing them to purchase you make drive-by fraud impossible. We use stripe and we have 0 fraud to deal with.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#120

Post by withinboredom »

remoquete wrote: post #114
shash7 wrote: post #37

Can relate, I've been in a similar boat running a small B2B Saas over the last 2 years. It does get easier over time. I've learnt a few tricks for managing early stage pain points. - You need to develop a polite but curt tone of voice for customer support. - Once your core product is built, its worthwhile spending some time automating the heck out of everything. This will save a TON of time in the near future. - Inve…

Docs... And a technical writer that'll tend to them. https://passo.uno/signs-need-tech-writer/

Spending some time to learn technical writing (if you want to bootstrap a saas) is worth its weight in gold (same with marketing, business admin, accounting).
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