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Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
201–210 of 233 posts
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#202Hi Matt, thanks for sharing. Just a proof of my staying power, I saw your Preceden post on HN; and paid for a license 13 years ago promptly your v0.1 and I am still here. https://i.imgur.com/ejUm3Gh.png I had bought a license purely on a whim as I was browsing HN on company-time. I was in 20's, bored and ambitious with no concrete plans and I proceeded to play on company-time in my cubicle the rest of the day and pla…
> and I proceeded to play on company-time in my cubicle the rest of the day
> To get to the bottom-line, I never got that promotion
To state the obvious .. these two are likely related.
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, you got on one of those $19 for life plans that I initially offered, that's wild! It's great to hear you got some use out of the tool and hopefully continue to do so. I look forward to your next life update in 13 years when Preceden makes the HackerNews homepage again :). PS for any aspiring entrepreneurs: don't offer lifetime plans, and definitely not for $19, lol.
Congrats on 13 years. I started selling my (desktop) software in 2005 and am still going. >don't offer lifetime plans Yep! https://successfulsoftware.net/2008/09/08/should-i-give-free...
Could tie them to the life of your dog or so. Be upfront about age and health of it and perhaps your creativity scores a few customers on that plan.
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#204Matt, this is simply an awesome story. It’s surprisingly common that people take years to get to the point where they can go full-time. I find your story far more relatable than the “I started a SaaS and reached tons of revenue in one year - and you can too!” stories we are plagued with.
Honestly I totally agree. Matt, your determination in seeing this through, and the dedication for 13 (!!) years is wildly inspiring in this, and it gives me hope for some of my SaaS dreams.
Thank you! Best of luck!
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
>(maybe in 2 years for at least 10K, rite??) grabbing the wheel and jerking hard left on the conversation, but this comment struck me as funny. rite?? like getting a 10K raise in 2 years is a rite of passage that we should all be expecting to happen to all of us, right?
A raise, no. A new salary at a new job, absolutely.
Which is odd in and by itself. Whenever you have a review with me as your employee and we discuss salary, consider this as a from-scratch negotiation. Just as if I just had quit, left the company, and now somebody new (me) showed up at the doorstep, about whom you have from a very trusted source super-reliable info about their capabilities, work ethics, etc. How much would you pay that person? If the answer results in "10K more than you today" then that's the raise I'm expecting. Anything lower is trying to trick/cheat me and banking on momentum/laziness on my end. Which ultimately would be quite offensive. So, just offer me that money and explain why. (Same goes for salary reduction, obviously. Better that than building a grudge and then suddenly firing me.)
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#206Hi Matt, thanks for sharing. Just a proof of my staying power, I saw your Preceden post on HN; and paid for a license 13 years ago promptly your v0.1 and I am still here. https://i.imgur.com/ejUm3Gh.png I had bought a license purely on a whim as I was browsing HN on company-time. I was in 20's, bored and ambitious with no concrete plans and I proceeded to play on company-time in my cubicle the rest of the day and pla…
> To get to the bottom-line, I never got that promotion, am still renting and still haven't gotten married!
i felt this so hard. similarish boat. how do we unstick ourselves?
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#207Hi Matt, Congrats on making it! I'd never heard of your projects but will give them a serious look now. How did you go about managing work/side-work/life balance with 4 kids? I really struggle with just 1 and a half.
In Preceden's early days, I didn't have any kids, so could work on some nights and weekends and it was no issue. When we started having kids and I was still full time, I greatly reduced much time I had to work on side projects. That eventually led me to switching to a contractor role with reduced hours because it was too hard to juggle a full time job, a SaaS, multiple kids, and my sanity.
I never worked on Preceden when I should have been working on my full time job, and tried not to work on it much when I should have been spending time with my family. Definitely figure out your priorities and work with your spouse to come up with some ground rules that help you make it work long term.
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#208This is inspiring, if anyone came to me with a SaaS idea to sell a timeline maker with premium plan $19/month I'd tell them to think of something else. At first blush, its too much a one off need, too cheap to have margin on marketing/sales, and there are free competitors. To build what I just described into supporting a family fulltime is amazing.
> At first blush, its too much a one off need, too cheap to have margin on marketing/sales, and there are free competitors.
You are not wrong on any of these points which is partly why it took so long.
If I could take a time machine back in time and give my younger self advice, I would tell myself not to try to start a timeline maker business :).
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like selecting Tailwind helped to make clear the specific skills you were looking to hire for and at what level you'd be working together. Good to know. Thanks for sharing.
The Precedent’s designer here. When I wrote my “for hire” ads, my bullet points were these: · Typography-based design system with Figma · Robust CSS with Tailwind CSS · Straightforward JavaScript with Alpine.js or Stimulus I also noted that my preferred back-end language and framework were Ruby and Rails (on which Preceden is built). So being clear, specific, and knowing some solid technologies and design/code tactic…
*Preceden’s (not PrecedenT’s) :D
Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years
#210I don't want to spread negativity here but such success stories from indie hackers or side projects always remind me that most of them don't make any money: https://scrapingfish.com/blog/indie-hackers-revenue
Marketing is a VERY different skill from building, and can take years to master. As someone who has built several side projects that landed in the "didn't make any money" bucket, it's easy to fall for the "build it and they will come" mental trap. I am starting the journey of learning marketing now, but I have a lot of optimism, as I am learning all sorts of things that don't work, and looking forward to trying the t…
One thing that helped me was when I was full time at Automattic, I intentionally started using my engineering skills to help the marketing team, and eventually was able to switch completely over to the marketing team to help with landing pages, analytics, attribution, data, etc. I was able to learn a lot about marketing through that experience and it helped me get a lot more savvy about it for Preceden (though it still doesn't come naturally to me). You don't have to go that route though - the Microconf videos are excellent sources of marketing advice - but if you can immerse yourself in that world in your full time job, it will go a long way.