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Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

mattmazur.com

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Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#51

Post by matt1 »

tarunkotia wrote: post #48

Hey Matt, Firstly, congratulations! This is very inspiring and I love the pragmatic approach to starting a startup. You wrote about converting to a contractor with Help Scout from being a full-time employee. How did it help you free-up your time?

Initially my intent was to go from full time employee to a ~16 hours/week contractor so I could spend the rest of my time on Preceden, but I wound up also picking up contracting work with my former employer (Automattic) and found myself working 30+ hours/week contracting. So much for focusing on Preceden.

Eventually I stopped contracting at Automattic and gradually reduced my hours at Help Scout until it made sense for me to go full time on Preceden. I'm fortunate both Help Scout and Automattic were open to me contracting as it made this transition much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#53

Post by sails »

Congrats Matt! Very cool to see.

A question. I'm trying to find a tool to visualise and document the evolution of obscure sports (purely because I find the interactions fascinating). It seems that your tool might be the perfect fit, especially the "writing" examples. I was wondering if it would be possible to visualise something along the lines of a quasi-directed graph. Nodes being specific instances of the inception of a "new" sport (hence the date requirement), and edges being the influence on other spots. Multiple edges for each node are possible, and all sports will have a start date and some an end date. I tried[2] with a basic POC but it seems the issue is that the nodes run without an end date, which breaks the dependency visualisation.

One comment. Once logged in I wasn't easily able to get back to the landing page, which had some useful info around visualisation types that I wanted to review.

And a note. I've apologised to a few people who I subjected to a variation on your SQL screener interview question [2], which contained far too much fiddling with SQLite time functions, entirely my mistake in ruining an otherwise great basic SQL test!

[1] https://www.preceden.com/timelines/868890-obscure-sports?s=e... [2] https://mattmazur.com/2018/11/12/analyzing-89-responses-to-a...

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#54

Post by matt1 »

rwalling wrote: post #50

Congrats, Matt. I've enjoyed watching your journey for the past decade and am very excited that you're able to go FT on Preceden.

Thanks Rob! I have you, Mike, Sherry, and the Microconf community to thank in large part for showing me that this route is possible. I also have a copy of Start Small Stay Small, The Single Founder, and Keeping Your Sh*t Together on my bookshelf next to me (all highly recommended for anyone here interested in this approach to building a software business).

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#55

Post by ricksunny »

Good on you; We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. Not every business activity fits the go-big-or-go-home Zuckerberg-esque meteoric rise archetype that the Techcrunch-led hype media attracts eyeballs for portraying.

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#57

Post by PentelicoMarble »

bsaul wrote: post #41
PentelicoMarble wrote: post #29

A product built by an ex-soldier who was part of an occupying force that committed countless war crimes? No thank you. Question for other HN users - would you use a product built by an officer of the Russian army who was part of the war in Ukraine? Edit: Those downvoting me, did I say anything that is not true?

Didn’t downvote you, but i assume that yes, most people here are able to understand that human life is complex, and that we should congratulate people whenever they’re doing something good. Most people are, fortunately, also able to distinguish between a soldier, his army policy, and the regime ruling over that army at a given time.

I disagree that we should congratulate anyone whenever they do something good, no matter what they did in the past.

Would you blindly congratulate a participant in the Bucha massacre on the launch of their new app?

Would you congratulate a former ISIS member?

Surely even the most amoral person on HN would draw the line somewhere?

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#58

Post by PentelicoMarble »

MrOwnPut wrote: post #49
PentelicoMarble wrote: post #29

A product built by an ex-soldier who was part of an occupying force that committed countless war crimes? No thank you. Question for other HN users - would you use a product built by an officer of the Russian army who was part of the war in Ukraine? Edit: Those downvoting me, did I say anything that is not true?

You're able to safely post that stupid comment because of soldiers and Pax Americana.

What’s stupid about it?

Re: Going full time on my SaaS after 13 years

#59

Post by MrOwnPut »

PentelicoMarble wrote: post #58
MrOwnPut wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're able to safely post that stupid comment because of soldiers and Pax Americana.

What’s stupid about it?

Because of the latter half of my sentence you ignored.

It's easy to highroad everyone when you sit back reaping the benefits of what others have done.

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