My solopreneur story • Hacker News Board

Re: My solopreneur story

#101

Post by Aurornis » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

arcbyte wrote: post #80

demondemidi wrote: post #10

An arrow indicator for a twitter profile pic, a screen cap tool, and a wrapper around ChatGPT. I kinda want to shoot myself. Largely useless products that made someone rich that rely on two other ecosystems. That’s the way I guess? I’m so not an entrepreneur. Edit: apologies for using a suicide metaphor. I was being sarcastic. I’m in my 50s, really like my job, and am on a path to a good retirement. It just amazes me…

You missed everything in the article. The key to his success was to Get Started. It wasn't an arrow indicator that brought him success. That was a trivial toy. But having gotten started, he was now able to identify the next step amd the next step that lead to Black Magic being a twitter analytics tool. He would never have planned to build the end product from sitting on his couch back in the beginning. It was only af…

> The key to his success was to Get Started.

Not really. The key was to find a niche that worked. He “Got Started” with tools he wanted to build and it didn’t work out. It wasn’t until he pivoted to identifying trends, building an audience, and building tools for them which he could market to his audience that he found success.

Re: My solopreneur story

#102

Post by gumballindie » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #87

demondemidi wrote: post #10

An arrow indicator for a twitter profile pic, a screen cap tool, and a wrapper around ChatGPT. I kinda want to shoot myself. Largely useless products that made someone rich that rely on two other ecosystems. That’s the way I guess? I’m so not an entrepreneur. Edit: apologies for using a suicide metaphor. I was being sarcastic. I’m in my 50s, really like my job, and am on a path to a good retirement. It just amazes me…

Survivorship bias. These stories are the few lucky ones, the rest didn't have nearly the same success. Remember flappy bird?

This is such a false statement.

Amazon and apple are making trillions on the backs of small indie folks. Google too. The apple app store is monetised by nearly a million people, google makes money largely from small businesses, amazon’s filled with small independent sellers.

Any time someone’s success reaches the bubble of corporate workers the workers that cant fathom there’s success out there and freedom claim “survivorship bias”. Couldnt be further from the truth.

Re: My solopreneur story

#103

Post by benjaminwootton » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:51 PM UTC

I don't know if I'm in an algorithmic rabbit hole, but my Twitter shows hundreds of people like this talking about how much they are making, how many signups they are getting for their products, how many Twitter followers they have.

It seems like some strange playbook where you build a very simple product and shout about (possibly exaggerate) your success to attract eyeballs. Then you sell the real thing which is a course or info product to the people who want to replicate your success.

No bitterness here and I haven't even read this particular post properly to cast aspersions at him. I've just felt something didn't add up with this corner of the internet for some time.

Here are a few more random ones from the top of my "For You" feed. Again nothing against the specific posters, just to illustrate what I am seeing:

https://twitter.com/MrNick_Buzz https://twitter.com/marc_louvion https://twitter.com/Timb03

Re: My solopreneur story

#104

Post by DecayingOrganic » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:51 PM UTC

I've noticed that negative comments often float to the top. That’s a bit of a bummer. No one's entrepreneurial success should make you question your life choices or become a reason for your frustration.

Congratulations Tony! I remember the time you quit your job and set a goal of reaching $10K/mo with a few products on twitter, it seemed crazy. But you pulled it off! Hats off to you.

Re: My solopreneur story

#105

Post by damascus » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

zztop44 wrote: post #61

damascus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A private person who controls the production of his work and sells it in an open market economy is definitely capitalism.

Where is capital involved? Capitalism is not the only form of open market economy.

From Investopedia: Capitalism is focused on the creation of wealth and ownership of capital and factors of production, whereas a free market system is focused on the exchange of wealth or goods and services.

It's not the free market part that defines it as capitalism but rather the fact he owns the method of production. He owns the code he writes and he owns the business processes around those applications. He privately owns the capital assets (applications and business processes) which make the money.

Re: My solopreneur story

#106

Post by IAmGraydon » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

demondemidi wrote: post #10

An arrow indicator for a twitter profile pic, a screen cap tool, and a wrapper around ChatGPT. I kinda want to shoot myself. Largely useless products that made someone rich that rely on two other ecosystems. That’s the way I guess? I’m so not an entrepreneur. Edit: apologies for using a suicide metaphor. I was being sarcastic. I’m in my 50s, really like my job, and am on a path to a good retirement. It just amazes me…

I think what a lot of would-be entrepreneurs don’t get is the sheer scale of the global market. There are many, many billions of dollars trading hands every single day. You only have to dip the very tip of your pinky finger into that economic stream and you can make more money than you imagined. If you ever think of a product and then talk yourself out of it with “no one will buy this”, just remember that there are 8.1 billion people out there. If you create a product for $10/month, you only have to convince 0.0001% of them of the value of your product to make $1M per year.

Also, I completely disagree that OP’s product is useless or due to luck. He intentionally created something people want, and it’s actually a pretty cool product IMO.

Re: My solopreneur story

#107

Post by crossroadsguy » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

demondemidi wrote: post #10

An arrow indicator for a twitter profile pic, a screen cap tool, and a wrapper around ChatGPT. I kinda want to shoot myself. Largely useless products that made someone rich that rely on two other ecosystems. That’s the way I guess? I’m so not an entrepreneur. Edit: apologies for using a suicide metaphor. I was being sarcastic. I’m in my 50s, really like my job, and am on a path to a good retirement. It just amazes me…

I wouldn’t mind escaping the grind if I can crack the next fruit cutting or a bird flapping or a site or an app that does something like, I don’t know, add random words to people’s names (?) and people can use it and I can just show ads and retire or so. Fuck yeah! Yeah I am evil.

Re: My solopreneur story

#108

Post by janmo » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

A lot of people here complaining that Soloproneurs only make "useless" "pet rocks".

There is a big bias here, only the pet rock solopreneurs are very public about what they are doing and their success at it, because that is their marketing, YOU (their audience on HN and Twitter) are the pet rocks buyers.

Solopreneurs with stuff other than pet rocks often don't want to share their success and how much they are making especially not to a tech savvy and entrepreneurial audience, as this would just cause more competition.

Re: My solopreneur story

#109

Post by Waterluvian » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

unsupp0rted wrote: post #38

HN: "It's okay to make something nobody wants = damn right! Do it for the craft and the process and the learning and the joy." Also HN: "A guy makes 45K/mo by building tiny time-saving apps, starting with ones he himself wants = what a sad world of frivolous side-hustles!"

I wish this absolutely ridiculous, unthinking trope of treating communities of thousands of people as one mind that’s only allowed to have one opinion would finally stop.

Re: My solopreneur story

#110

Post by getrealyall » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

demondemidi wrote: post #10

An arrow indicator for a twitter profile pic, a screen cap tool, and a wrapper around ChatGPT. I kinda want to shoot myself. Largely useless products that made someone rich that rely on two other ecosystems. That’s the way I guess? I’m so not an entrepreneur. Edit: apologies for using a suicide metaphor. I was being sarcastic. I’m in my 50s, really like my job, and am on a path to a good retirement. It just amazes me…

This is the endgame of rent-seeking and an abundance of (concentrated) capital, in a country that is largely comfortable letting everyone fend for themselves. Who needs to build cars when you can tickle Sam Altman's Markov chain generator for $45,000 a month? I mean, I don't blame anyone, and I need money as much as the next husk of a man, but I really wish hustle culture would stop permeating every last open space of our lives. I'm depressed about it, too, and I don't see it getting better any time soon.

Edit: clerical error.

Edit 2: added despair.