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My solopreneur story

news.tonydinh.com

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Re: My solopreneur story

#621

Post by xhfloz »

skwee357 wrote: post #465

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…

Left my job in 2020 to do the same. Nowhere near as profitable as OP, but now make enough to cover rent + basic expenses in New York. Crucially: I didn't want to do hypeman social media content that (a) sold the dream of solopreneur as a marketing tactic, or (b) added excessive noise into the ether.

I'm not saying Tony did either -- I haven't followed along -- but certainly a lot of people do. I can't fully blame the people who do, though.

Anyway. The project I've built [1] is still going, and I feel proud of it on merits of software: that it pushes the bounds, however slightly; that it feels good to exist in the world; and that I genuinely care for the people using it.

All that's to say: I think there's a software solopreneur path that doesn't involve excessive hype, gross self-promotion (some degree of self-branding is necessary though), while allowing you to work by principles and also explore interesting software problems.

Feel free to DM me [2] if you have questions, or are interested in bootstrapping your own project. Especially consumer-facing. I do have some writing online [3] that covers this too.

---

[1] https://mmm.page

[2] https://twitter.com/xhfloz

[3] https://woolgather.sh

Re: My solopreneur story

#623

Post by dakna »

robomartin wrote: post #602
skwee357 wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. I never said I’m against marketing or sales. At my current stage, after building two products with the “build it and they will come” mentality, I think I understand the importance of marketing and branding way better than many other engineers. The essence of my original comment, was pointing out the fact that from entire pose of the OP, only 1-2 paragraphs were dedicated to mar…

> I don’t have the mental capacity, and desire, to participate in such games. I have moral principles, and I believe there is more than one way to achieve my goals. And the way I chose, might be harder and longer, but more aligned with what I want. I can understand and respect that. You just need to be clear on that a successful approach likely has to be within one standard deviation from the norm for the era in orde…

> Don't waste time. Get results.

Alright. Let's imagine I'm already in the boat 5km from shore, and I have one day left before I'm dropped into the ocean. What should I read, watch or listen to in order to catch up on today's approach to selling, do you have some recommendations?

Re: My solopreneur story

#624

Post by skwee357 »

xhfloz wrote: post #621
skwee357 wrote: post #465

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…

Left my job in 2020 to do the same. Nowhere near as profitable as OP, but now make enough to cover rent + basic expenses in New York. Crucially: I didn't want to do hypeman social media content that (a) sold the dream of solopreneur as a marketing tactic, or (b) added excessive noise into the ether. I'm not saying Tony did either -- I haven't followed along -- but certainly a lot of people do. I can't fully blame the…

Thanks for sharing! DMed you on twitter

Re: My solopreneur story

#625

Post by skwee357 »

netipulk wrote: post #620
skwee357 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If success is posting stupid click bait questions on twitter, then yes, I refuse to do that. I’m not a clown or an entertainer. I share my journey and provide value to people. The people who are drawn to click bait content, are not the people I want to interact with.

I feel with you, but don't delude yourself in to avoiding any kind of marketing. Marketing is an evil necessity, especially if you are starting from scratch by yourself. That's just the nature of our reality. To scoff and say you're content is an ego-fuelled move, one that pushes the problem off for later. Don't do that to yourself. Learn to market ethically at least, or else it's a real waste of time as your next st…

Never said I’m against marketing. I’m just against click bait and low effort content to draw attention / beat the algorithm

Re: My solopreneur story

#626

Post by xhfloz »

skwee357 wrote: post #624
xhfloz wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Left my job in 2020 to do the same. Nowhere near as profitable as OP, but now make enough to cover rent + basic expenses in New York. Crucially: I didn't want to do hypeman social media content that (a) sold the dream of solopreneur as a marketing tactic, or (b) added excessive noise into the ether. I'm not saying Tony did either -- I haven't followed along -- but certainly a lot of people do. I can't fully blame the…

Thanks for sharing! DMed you on twitter

Hey! FYI haven't seen anything in my inbox yet.

Re: My solopreneur story

#627

Post by rmbyrro »

skwee357 wrote: post #567
nico wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not offended. But I think you might be mis-understanding my post The main take away you should have is that you need to be consistent, have a system and give your audience what _they_ want Posting a lot about whatever topic you want to talk about whenever you want to talk about it will probably not work, especially if you are only talking about your product People don’t care about you or your product, they care about…

I agree with you. I just feel that “giving the people what they want”, is directly translated to asking stupid questions such as “do you read fantasy or sci-fi?” Or posting new-age motivational bullshit quotes. I don’t do that. I share my journey, and my insights from it. I share my experience. My up and down moments. And it between, promoting my products. I know that marketing is work, and it’s a hard work. And I re…

I see nobody here suggesting you to be like this guy.

None of the suggestions here were remotely similar to doing that.

It seems to me your conflating things and assuming that anything you don't do is being like this guy. There are probably things you're not doing that are clever and you might want to do.

If your product is good, solves a pain people have, and you really care about solving it, maybe consider reviewing your mindset around the things you currently don't do, if they would potentially help you solve this problem for more people.

Re: My solopreneur story

#628

Post by aogaili »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #579
aogaili wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say exploiting people. I said exploiting niche opportunities and piggybacking on the shoulders of corporate workers, ain't nothing wrong in that. In fact, I praise his hustling and envious of it.

> piggybacking on the shoulders of corporate workers Isn't that what we all do when use API calls? Or even open a nenw tab in Firefox?

Yes.

Re: My solopreneur story

#629

Post by aogaili »

the_only_law wrote: post #287
ink_13 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to find this kind of thing distasteful without being motivated by envy.

“You’re just jealous” has for a while now been HN’s go to any unwelcome criticism, whether the criticism is valid or not. I suppose that’s what goes for “thoughtful and substantive” comments nowadays. In that spirit l, I suggest these people are just mentally underdeveloped, to the point where the best weapon they have are childish quips.

But what if they were really jealous? What makes you think the crowd here and yourself are above that universal and highly ubiquitous human emotion? Now, did you fix that Jira?

Re: My solopreneur story

#630

Post by hsn915 »

skwee357 wrote: post #547
hsn915 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I refuse to succeed!" To each their own, I guess?

If success is posting stupid click bait questions on twitter, then yes, I refuse to do that. I’m not a clown or an entertainer. I share my journey and provide value to people. The people who are drawn to click bait content, are not the people I want to interact with.

You are framing marketing activity as click baiting and being a clown.

This is not a matter of fact. It's an emotional projection stemming from refusing to succeed.

Martyr syndrome.

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