Before even reading it, I just wanted to say thank you for finally writing up your experience.
Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
11–20 of 79 posts
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#12How many articles can you write on Bingo cards?
All the power to him however.
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#13Have you thought about writing an ebook like Getting Real?
I would buy this.
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#14A marvelous post about Patrick's start of his "wee business" and how he got there on the time left over from his salaryman day job with a three-hour train commute to boot. Whether this overall will work for any of the rest of us, given what seems like incredible focus Patrick seems to have, is unknown.
And this is not "work four hours per week to gain huge success in life". Like everything else he writes, this is backed by expedience, external constraints, and data-backed experience.
Patrick's business is what I call the Chicago School of Startups. (I might have just made that up.) (And at the risk of tweaking Joel, as Fog Creek Software seems to be following the Chicago model.) This is, like 37Signals, a self-funded operation, and eventually self-sustaining. The SV School, or more precisely, the YC school, emphasizes the path of seeking venture capital, and has the side benefit of a seriously enviable network of other founders and former founders.
What has been most interesting is the data-driven nature of his decisions. Many longwinded discussions on HN have focused on the importance of design,. Patrick, among others, points to A/B tests (not to mention highly successful sites like Craig's List) indicating that such design obsession might be misplaced. Minor heresy: while Mac developers are very graphically intensive people who will buy software just to lick it if the UI is good enough, many Mac users are just regular people. My Mac version has a conversion rate fully twice that of the Window version, and it is not noticeably pretty.
Perhaps there is a little leeway to tease Patrick--it does not seem that this five hours per week is sustainable. It is successful enough that he is quitting his day job, and I bet he now can't help but spend more than five hours per week on it. Congratulations.
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#15I think a large part of it is competition...you don't really have any so you can work as much or as little as you want. If you have competition like in 99% of the niches...you'll be working a lot more than that
I disagree. The big parts of it seem to be 1) Talking (as in person-to-person) to customers and potential customers 2) Focus 3) Determination.
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#16In our periodic bouts of crunch time, such as the last three months, I end up sleeping at a hotel next to the office (about 25 times this calendar year).
Oh man. Maybe it's just me being an ignorant American, but doing that for anything but a company you founded is just crazy. I can't believe that's the norm in Japan.
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#17Patrick, what is the best way to contact you a la PM for startup advice?
Write an e-mail, you can find the address on his blog.
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#18"...However, you’ll quickly find that there is literally a world of people out there who are willing to work for $1.50 an hour and would be terrifically overpaid at that price..."
That's the number one reason why some clients of mine comeback to me saying their last developer didn't quite accomplish what they wanted. And the reason why sometimes I have to struggle to fix bugs and identification (yes, many low-cost devs don't have a tab key) on other peoples code.
You normally get what you paid for, but I hope it worked nice for you.
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#19Patrick, what is the best way to contact you a la PM for startup advice?
Alternatively, if he isn't able to do the contact, I would highly recommend reading all of his comments http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=patio11
and all of his blog http://www.kalzumeus.com/
Re: Running a Software Business on 5 Hours A Week
#20"...However, you’ll quickly find that there is literally a world of people out there who are willing to work for $1.50 an hour and would be terrifically overpaid at that price..." That's the number one reason why some clients of mine comeback to me saying their last developer didn't quite accomplish what they wanted. And the reason why sometimes I have to struggle to fix bugs and identification (yes, many low-cost de…
identification/Identation