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6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

lunchbag.ca

31–40 of 169 posts

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#31

Currently use YNAB and it drives me bananas. The way it refuses to reconcile budgeted money for a CC against the interest/fees for that card as monthly payments often go out BEFORE interest is assessed for the month, requiring a convoluted interest bucket and juggling. I'll give this a shot.

The way I treat interest/fees is as just another expense. Then there's no juggling. But I manually enter all the transactions, I don't know how this works if you automatically get transactions, as it would depend on how the CC or other companies add interest onto the statement (as a regular transaction or separately). So once a day (typically, at least 3-4 times a week) I go into each account and YNAB and make sure everything is present. If interest or fees are present, I add those as transactions. YNAB properly accounts for it (if you budget money into the interest/fees categories) for the next CC payment.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#33
I subscribe to this application, and I love it. I was not one of the first 100 to experience any of these difficulties, and the one bug I did experience was fixed by Jen two days after I pointed it out. In the mean time, Mint still has not deleted my account two months after I requested it...

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#34

This was super interesting! The design really helped as well. I liked this one: "Lesson learned: People care about the narrative behind your product, so don't be afraid to tell your story!" As someone who finds new things on HN all the time, I always check the "about" page, especially if it's something that isn't free. I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all…

I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We". That's something I often get instructed to use when doing freelance writing. It is considered "professional" and "corporate speak." The other thing is that women and minorities sometimes intentionally hide or downplay their personal details. One guy with a very "foreign" sounding name legally change…

I would recommend hiding your gender. You'd be surprised at how awful women can be to each other. The only people I see activity holding back women is other women. I just don't understand it.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, I might be guilty as charged! Not long ago, I officially launched greenleaves.io, a logistics startup. The main issue I have with the about us thing is, that for now it is just me. So I use a lot of we and such (the co founder will join as soon as there is enough money to sustain a second person, we both have family, so...). Would you to have quick look at https://greenleaves.io/about/ ? Because the last two we…

Try reading this: https://johnnycupcakes.com/pages/about Then sit down and "tell your story" in writing as if you were telling it over beers at a pub to a few new-ish friends who don't all equally well know your backstory. Get someone to read through it before publishing it. Good feedback is very helpful. Also, grammar check, spell check, etc. You want to be somewhat entertaining, but more importantly you want to cap…

I agree with the "tell the story as if you were telling it over beers at a pub" part but please don't make your page 9Mb like in the first example ;)

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We". That's something I often get instructed to use when doing freelance writing. It is considered "professional" and "corporate speak." The other thing is that women and minorities sometimes intentionally hide or downplay their personal details. One guy with a very "foreign" sounding name legally change…

I would recommend hiding your gender. You'd be surprised at how awful women can be to each other. The only people I see activity holding back women is other women. I just don't understand it.

Women being hit on anywhere they show a picture is pretty common. In western culture it's the men that are supposed to do the approaching, and if you're attractive and a lot of men can see you, well, the same thing always happens. This is fine for Victorian parlors or whatever but not ideal for business!

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#37
post #20
post #17

"A $5 monthly membership adds up to $72 per year." Nope. Might want to fix that. https://lunchmoney.app/features/recurring

I don't even understand how you could get a number not ending in 5 or 0 and think it's remotely correct...

Probably because they AB tested multiple prices as the article states and settled on the current price and forgot to replace one mention of an older price in the copy. No biggie... doesn't mean that person is dumb.

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#38

This was super interesting! The design really helped as well. I liked this one: "Lesson learned: People care about the narrative behind your product, so don't be afraid to tell your story!" As someone who finds new things on HN all the time, I always check the "about" page, especially if it's something that isn't free. I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all…

I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all just "Us" and "We". That's something I often get instructed to use when doing freelance writing. It is considered "professional" and "corporate speak." The other thing is that women and minorities sometimes intentionally hide or downplay their personal details. One guy with a very "foreign" sounding name legally change…

The “royal we” as they say!

Re: 6 months in and $1k MRR: my biggest mistakes so far

#40

This was super interesting! The design really helped as well. I liked this one: "Lesson learned: People care about the narrative behind your product, so don't be afraid to tell your story!" As someone who finds new things on HN all the time, I always check the "about" page, especially if it's something that isn't free. I'm surprised at how often the "About Us" isn't actually "About Anyone", there's no names, it's all…

To be honest I assume 99% of startup-stories about their inspiration, their journey, and their motivation are just faked. It is nice to see when it comes from an obvious solo-developer, but mostly these things are sanitized and improved over time.

Yep. I get so tired of the "Shark Tank Template" in which entrepreneurs must pretend that they stumbled upon the need their product fills.
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