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My solopreneur story

news.tonydinh.com

471–480 of 669 posts

Re: My solopreneur story

#471

I’m very happy for Tony, it’s a great achievement indeed. Having said that, as an aspiring solopreneur myself, this article misses a very big part. Engineers like to talk about how they build products, but we rarely talk about how to market them. I quit my job 5 months ago, launched my first SaaS 3 months ago, and got zero users. I then started to tweet, write in LinkedIn, and focus on my newsletter. But I barely get…

It’s very hard to build a following without a system and without copying content

For LinkedIn, ideally you should be posting at least 5 times a week, reposting your best performing content, re-phrasing or straight up copying viral content, and adding as many people to your contacts as possible every day (there’s a weekly limit, and there’s also a 20k total limit, so you also need to figure out what type of contacts you want to be adding, the more focus, the better your content will perform). Additionally, on LinkedIn, commenting and liking posts related to your audience can go a long way

Definitely use ChatGPT for drafts and to help you iterate, but don’t just post whatever it gives you on the first try. Also lean heavily on scheduling tools

It takes a couple of months to get going, but if you can keep a consistent pace, you will definitely figure it out

Follow (on LinkedIn) the creators of https://www.shieldapp.ai/ their whole thing is helping people build their personal brands on that platform

Finally, make sure to build a newsletter and own your list, that’s one of the biggest moats you can build

Re: My solopreneur story

#475

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…

Hi, it's Tony here. Sorry about the experience with support. I remember this issue, it's about making the screenshot background transparent without getting the drop shadow getting cut off, right? The app is not designed well for using with transparent background. So if you prefer transparent background, it's best to make the shadow smaller, or remove the shadow completely, or… increase the padding. I considered to su…

It's not related to transparent backgrounds or drop shadows.

After taking a rectangular screenshot that is longer in width but shorter in height (such as the dimensions of this HN comment input box on desktop)... then adding an annotation arrow, Xnapper suddenly cuts off the top n pixels, cutting off its own generated backdrop, and the arrow is placed not where the user selected, but n pixels below that point.

I've given up on trying to resolve it and for shorter screenshots I now use the built-in macOS option again instead of Xnapper.

Re: My solopreneur story

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you planning to do in the following months without an income if the project doesn't pick up?

I’m working on a different project, this time with #buildinpublic on twitter/mastodon. I’m also working on getting some consulting/freelance. And sadly, and with big regret, I started to look for a job.

Wish you the best of luck!

Re: My solopreneur story

#478

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…

Reminds me of a very similar "support" experience I had just yesterday, with a well funded and relatively popular SaaS. They have a problem with their css media queries that causes necessary navigation items to completely disappear as certain screen sizes, making the software unusable. Their answer, when I reported this, was to resize the browser window. The answer, I suspect, was from a low pay support worker. Outso…

Have you tried clearing your web browser cache and resetting your cookies? Please log out and then back in again.

That should resolve the issue in at least 1 case out of 50, but if it does not please contact us again and resubmit your issue from scratch with a different agent working a different shift.

Re: My solopreneur story

#479

Business advice is often just someone handing you their winning lottery ticket. It worked perfectly for them but will probably be totally useless and not repeatable for you.

That's a stretch. There is still lots to learn from their journey. I can list at least 5 things to take from Tony's success.

One thing to keep in mind is survivorship bias…not saying that Tony’s experience is not one to glean some things from, but be very careful about what those things are and how you implement them in your journey.

Re: My solopreneur story

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't do, teach. If you can't teach, write an online course. If you can't write an online course, teach phys ed.

This kind of narrative stops aspiring teachers to go in the domain of education. Teachers play such an important rule. They have to swallow the pill that the common narrative is that cause they didn’t do whatever they are teaching hence they teach

> Teachers play such an important rule.

Citation needed

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