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Persisting as a solo founder

vishnu.tech

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Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#251

Post by eruci »

pknerd wrote: post #243
eruci wrote: post #35

Just like you, I quit my day job in my early 30s, and have not looked back since. Have founded a dozen companies in the meantime and am currently having the best financial year of my 15 year solo-founder career. My advice is, hang in there. If you like what you are doing persist and adapt. My best product thus far is an API I built to support my original business plan. The original product I tried to build is long de…

Dozens of companies or sites? Even sites, why did you make so many Ventures? We're they affiliate sites?

I originally started https://foodpages.ca and dinehere.us then built https://geocode.ca to provide local search functionality, then expanded worldwide with geocode.xyz and 3geonames.org, also got into collaborative fiction writing with fictionpad.com and price comparison engines with comparify.xyz & askvini.com (which I sold on flippa) and real estate aggregator sites (shitet.net and landhub.ca, landhub.us).

Currently geocode.xyz and geocoder.ca are my most profitable businesses.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#252

Post by eruci »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #218
eruci wrote: post #35

Just like you, I quit my day job in my early 30s, and have not looked back since. Have founded a dozen companies in the meantime and am currently having the best financial year of my 15 year solo-founder career. My advice is, hang in there. If you like what you are doing persist and adapt. My best product thus far is an API I built to support my original business plan. The original product I tried to build is long de…

Was it worth it financially? Like are you earning loads now?

Totally worth it. I'm currently earning around four times a senior software engineer salary, and I've got plenty of free time. Overall my average earnings over the whole 15 year period have been double what I'd have been getting in a day job.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#253

Post by throwawayinfo »

KajMagnus wrote: post #250
throwawayinfo wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I've been building algorithms which explain _why_ something was surfaced, not just being a black box. Everything is controllable from data sources, ranking/filtering weights and a feedback mechanism to tweak this. As for monetisation, I've thought about this a lot - and I don't think the time wasting is needed to create a good product. Google Search certainly isn't fueled by dopamine hits, and from an ads stand…

Feature request: When I find an article that the algorithm did Not suggest — but I like the article. Then, it'd be nice to know how I could tweak the algorithm and its config values, so it would find such articles, thereafter. And to dry-run the algorithm to verify that now it does indeed find that article. (You don't have a website yet?)

Thanks for the suggestion. A Chrome Extension was my solution for this.

I have an MVP and real userbase which I spent time growing. Now I have a platform to experiment with the grander idea here.

That being said, I'm not willing to link to this yet because it's tied to my public persona and not yet my full time job.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#254

Post by designerdonna22 »

lambdatronics wrote: post #128
superasn wrote: post #10

Being a solo founder myself here are a few tips I would like to add: 1. Solo founders are most often devs, which means they focus 90% of their energy on dev and what little remains on marketing. Unfortunately this is a easy trap to fall into and you should invest equal if not more time doing/learning SEO, content marketing (which you've done here very successfully btw) and building an audience. 2. Making a product wi…

Hey, I'd be interested in your local trello. I was meaning to write a todo-app based on best psych best practices, especially only presenting the highest priority ( = urgent * important) item at any given time. I also wanted to add ordered sub-tasks, due-date, and time estimate features so that the urgency ramps up automatically as the remaining time to complete a task approaches the estimated length of the task.

Try Restyaboard, an alternative to Trello which is an open-source version with more features https://github.com/RestyaPlatform/board

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#256

Post by subins2000 »

gramakri wrote: post #48
lukevp wrote: post #14

It sounds like you have the motivation and persistence figured out. That’s great! Have you read Lean Startup and done some customer research? Maybe I’m wrong, but gut reaction to this app is that very few people would be willing to pay for this. If someone is privacy conscious and anti-google, Apple has a much better track record for privacy. I get multiple gigabytes of cloud backup for free and can add on additional…

Nextcloud is really not a photo management solution though. The e2e support is nextcloud is really not production quality. Do you use either of these for your setup because I am happy to change my mind. I use emby these days for managing photos and auto uploads.

Nextcloud does have a photos addon : https://github.com/nextcloud/photos

how is it tho ?

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#257

Post by mceachen »

subins2000 wrote: post #256
gramakri wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nextcloud is really not a photo management solution though. The e2e support is nextcloud is really not production quality. Do you use either of these for your setup because I am happy to change my mind. I use emby these days for managing photos and auto uploads.

Nextcloud does have a photos addon : https://github.com/nextcloud/photos how is it tho ?

The fact that a number of my beta users came from nextcloud looking for an alternative is telling.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#258

Post by afarrell »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #246
afarrell wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as an ADHDer, one thing I've found key is figuring out what things in my environment and mind are the things I want to signal "you're doing the right thing, keep going." Essentially, what is your 'reward model'? -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYylPRX6z4Q Test-Driven-Development is one example of this.

That was an interesting watch but I don't get how it's supposed to illustrate your point. Can you expand a bit?

A dopamine deficiency will cause you to seek out more frequent reward. So if you find a way to make your brain recognize reward that is on your intended path, you win.

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#259

Post by jv22222 »

pknerd wrote: post #249
jv22222 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the very same! We have gradually iterated from that point toward training and community because we've seen that has a much bigger impact on founder outcomes than supplying ideas.

Awesome I remember I had specifically created a Google label for your emails. I was kind of disappointed you had quit sending and hide behind a paywall.

BTW You can login now and search all 4,000+ ideas for free.

I guess I could set up a daily random idea email if you wanted. But I couldn’t guarantee the quality of said idea :)

Re: Persisting as a solo founder

#260

Post by pknerd »

eruci wrote: post #251
pknerd wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dozens of companies or sites? Even sites, why did you make so many Ventures? We're they affiliate sites?

I originally started https://foodpages.ca and dinehere.us then built https://geocode.ca to provide local search functionality, then expanded worldwide with geocode.xyz and 3geonames.org, also got into collaborative fiction writing with fictionpad.com and price comparison engines with comparify.xyz & askvini.com (which I sold on flippa) and real estate aggregator sites (shitet.net and landhub.ca, landhub.us). Currentl…

Thanks for your kind reply. I might like to have some guidance for starting as a solo founder. Is it possible to ask you a few questions via Email or something? How may I contact you, provided if you are willing?

Thanks

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