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Solopreneurship

flaviocopes.com

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Re: Solopreneurship

#31

Post by vladsanchez »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #30
coderholic wrote: post #20

I started https://ipinfo.io as a side project, and eventually transitioned to working on it fulltime by myself for a while. I really enjoyed that time, but as things progressed it was a huge relief to bring in other people to help. Offloading support to people that were better suited to dealing with customer issues, and enjoyed doing that more than me. Then offloading design work to someone who can actually do a good…

Any tips on hiring as a solopreneur? Where do you start and what do you tell them?

Why hire if you're "Solo"?

Re: Solopreneurship

#32

Post by MH15 »

It's been brought up before but this style this guy has of writing paragraphs of one sentence each is very distracting and doesn't add any value.

Re: Solopreneurship

#33

Post by count »

vladsanchez wrote: post #31
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any tips on hiring as a solopreneur? Where do you start and what do you tell them?

Why hire if you're "Solo"?

Because sometimes you want to tackle things that are bigger than you can do alone, or that are well outside of your personal wheelhouse (say, UX for an infra person or vice versa), and you want someone with more 'skin' in the game than a contractor.

At least, that's why I've hired as a solo founder...

Re: Solopreneurship

#34

Post by dustinmoris »

coderholic wrote: post #20

I started https://ipinfo.io as a side project, and eventually transitioned to working on it fulltime by myself for a while. I really enjoyed that time, but as things progressed it was a huge relief to bring in other people to help. Offloading support to people that were better suited to dealing with customer issues, and enjoyed doing that more than me. Then offloading design work to someone who can actually do a good…

Have you blogged or documented your journey somewhere? I love reading solopreneur success stories like this!

Re: Solopreneurship

#35

Post by CosmicShadow »

kfk wrote: post #10

I see this tendency of solo projects a lot in developers. My experience has been quite the opposite, I started to get traction as entrepreneur after accepting the idea that I needed a team. My business sells b2b so maybe it is different, but companies are tired of automated SaaS sales funnels focused on “features”, they want competent people to talk to about their problems that are never just technical ones. I think…

Ok so out of all businesses you can do alone, that example is harder, yet not impossible, but that doesn't mean there aren't a million other opportunities to successfully make a living as a solopreneur. You probably don't see many doing this because it makes no sense and it sounds like you made the right choice when things made sense, but that doesn't discount the entire premise of being a solopreneur.

Re: Solopreneurship

#36

Post by john_yaya »

tarey wrote: post #22
kwere wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, but what opportinity can You grasp other than luck? For me, in my Life (low) luck based opportunity are to shun completely.

I rarely rely on luck (although I do count myself to be very lucky up to this point). I tend to rely on myself very often, and my one principle rule is that I have every expectation that I will have to do everything by myself. Any help that I got would just be a bonus, but it is still very much just myself. This has been what it has been like all my life and I don’t intend to change.

With that attitude, I’d happily invest in whatever it is you’re creating. Looking forward to hearing about your success on HN at some point.

Re: Solopreneurship

#37

Post by gsolo »

bserge wrote: post #14

Be careful, some people (perhaps even the majority) aren't made for this. Do everything solo and soon enough you may hate everything, everyone, life itself and just wonder why you're even living.

s/hate/indifferent/ and I am the person described in the blog and also this comment.

*Do everything solo and soon enough you will be indifferent to everything, everyone, life itself and just wonder why you're even living.*

Should I be concerned?

Re: Solopreneurship

#38

Post by CosmicShadow »

john_yaya wrote: post #12
smackeyacky wrote: post #8

This sounds wonderful, but as a one man shop its missing something: customers. I am solo at the moment but that still means I'm doing zoom meetings, trying to deliver features to a budget and a deadline, trying to keep on top of the books and cashflow and keeping my system up. Customers aren't that different to having a boss. I do get the freedom to choose how things are done, but once your product ships you are no l…

One interesting bit of advice I've heard for solo founders is, pick an industry to serve that interests you, or at least one where you like the people who work in it. Yes, the customer will always be your "boss" of sorts, but at least it'll be a boss whom you identify with and genuinely want to please.

Yep, I spent a lot of time working on business ideas and building out entire SaaS apps only to realize I absolutely hate the people and the industry and would be embarrassed to be associated with them, even though it can make money.

Re: Solopreneurship

#39

Post by cyberge99 »

ronyfadel wrote: post #21
cyberge99 wrote: post #13

I’ve tried this and it failed. I applaud the author if he can make it work, but in my experience I was spread too thin and my customers suffered. I didn’t make connections, I over marketed and undersold. My failure was an important lesson for me. I also haven’t given up on entrepreneurship, I’ve learned a lot and I plan on making a comeback.

Can you share what you tried to build/sell and failed? Solopreneur here.. it ain't easy, the ride is a rush though and I wouldn't trade it for a full-time job.

An aftermarket telematics infotainment system in 2003. Open source software and hardware. I’ve since passed the torch, but I learned a lot about what doesn’t work.

Re: Solopreneurship

#40

Post by musesum »

Going solo could fall into two different writer-style idioms: Stringer vs Novelist. A Stringer is a freelancer that writes a news story. The content is short term and quasi-anonymous. A Novelist spends months writing something a bit more epic, published under their own name.

On several occasions I've tried going the Novelist route. The problem is when the money runs out and you revert to becoming a Stringer to top-off the bank account. But, then you return back to your project and find the APIs have all changed. So, there is a lot of refactoring to do.

For iOS, there is also the aspect of APIs becoming more team oriented. I met an Apple engineer and asked him what he worked on. He mentioned a very narrow aspect of one API. I asked him what else he worked on and he said that was it! In contrast, I have to juggle hundreds of APIs. There seems to be a conflict of mindset.

A counter example was from an Uber driver in San Mateo. We struck up a conversation and I mentioned that I'm an iOS developer. He showed me an app that he wrote in Flutter to track all his rides. He was on the verge of marketing it. I was kinda blown away.

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