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My solopreneur story

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Re: My solopreneur story

#111

Post by brookst »

OmarShehata wrote: post #26
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…

There are two ways of approach entrepreneurship, and the conflict between each is why there's some dissonance here: 1) Do it to escape the grind, as one commenter here mentioned. In this way, it doesn't matter what product you make, or how you make it. The goal is self sufficiency, to find a niche that you can fill, etc. 2) Do it because you're trying to effect some specific change in the world. Something doesn't exi…

I’ve lived 3 a few times: building something small that I find amusing/useful, then more or less accidentally finding a user base and business.

It’s not necessarily a good thing; it can turn a fun hobby into an onerous obligation. But it is another path.

Re: My solopreneur story

#112

Post by getrealyall »

kirse wrote: post #63
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 must be new here / have never heard the legend of patio11: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11 It ain't stupid if it works. If you find an ethical way to get people handing you a dollar, keep going. That's business.

I doubt the people engaging in this behavior have stopped to consider the commons and the tragedies thereof that this kind of aggregate behavior might induce. Just because it works, doesn't mean it's not stupid.

Re: My solopreneur story

#113

Post by jjallen »

getrealyall wrote: post #110
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 o…

If you are saying that this person is from the US, he isn’t.

Re: My solopreneur story

#114

Post by fullstackchris »

sokoloff wrote: post #18
unsupp0rted wrote: post #4

I paid for & use one of Tony's products (Xnapper for screenshots). It's good, but I reported a cropping bug, along with a replication bullet list and .gif screencast of me replicating the bug. I got a response from a support person telling me to increase border padding beyond any reasonable aesthetic level. Aesthetics is the purpose of buying the product, otherwise non-aesthetic screenshots are built into macOS. The…

You got an unsatisfactory reply to a support ticket. What's the realistic alternative with other software vendors of $20-50 products? IMO, the most common is not "a satisfactory reply" but rather "no [edit to add: human-generated] reply".

see, i just don't get this. one of my SaaS products is essentially 100% hands off (aside from occasional package upgrading, random refunds or upgrade issues every few weeks) but i still absolutely LOVE adding new features or fixing bug requests that customers bring into my view. it gives me the classic feeling of really helping someone, even if it is just a single individual out there.

then the bug reports start to get further and further apart... now i have had one in months :)

Re: My solopreneur story

#115

Post by hyperfuturism »

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…

Beautifully put. Only something I learned recently, to stop psych:ing yourself out and just Get Started.

Re: My solopreneur story

#116

Post by ljfjklklj »

Capricorn2481 wrote: post #85
gumballindie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what’s that, let me check, oh it’s some US conservative talking point. I am confused. I thought us conservatives are fixated on corporate. Either way I am far from conservative in the sense you imply. If i do cross boundaries on some concepts thats because i am not fixated on ideology. The politburo is the corporate board. The corporate own the media through money. Selling apps is capitalism because money…

These are all functions of late-stage capitalism. Welcome to unchecked monopolies and corporate lobbying. > I guess it is confusing because i am reversing roles. In my view pure, proper, capitalism is where money is largely managed by small and medium sized entities, as to allow it to flow freely and to set the mover of capital free in the process. That's awesome, it's just never been done long-term and never will be…

[flagged]

Re: My solopreneur story

#117

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: My solopreneur story

#118

Post by lnxg33k1 »

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 mean, you want to shoot yourself because someone is making 45k$ doing something useless? If you think about facebook making billions actively damaging humanity?

Re: My solopreneur story

#119

Post by hyperfuturism »

Aurornis wrote: post #101
arcbyte wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would argue that that's what arcbyte is arguing.

He's saying to just get started, and you will figure it out. So when you're arguing that "trends", "audience", etc. is what lead to his success, yes, that's what it means to:

1. Get started (just start, and improve) 2. Become better and learn (whether that's finding trends, building audience whatever)

Many paths to success, so the lesson isn't specific in many cases imo. Hence, why arcbyte's comment is really good imo.

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