What a refreshing read, it came across as authentic advice with actionable points - I feel that the "value your own time above all else" and "prepare to be wrong" are all too often missed in the more glitzy & glamorous "I make n$$$ per month" posts.
Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
91–100 of 109 posts
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#92This is sharp written, voice of truth and reality.
I know of on my own, running Reblaze for the last five and a half years.
Almost nothing comes in easily, and you end up every day with more open tasks that you have started with.
Teams, Dev, Ops, BusDev, partners, legal, HR, taxes, you name it. And all in all, you got to keep the product and production in their path, keep your customers and employees extremely happy, and the cash flow!
As we all know:
Cash-flow does not matter, until it is matters,
and when it is matter, it is the only thing that matters!
[1] https://www.reblaze.com/using-the-cloud-for-web-security-wha...
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#93The whole series is painfully accurate; glad to see someone telling it like it is. That aside, article is actually not as anti-establishment as the author makes out -- unless your source of prevailing wisdom is from click-baity 4 Hour Work Weak style articles. But I doubt any serious founder puts any stock in that stuff. There's a lot of valuable info to be learned from high quality sources like Steve Blank's article…
Can you send me some links to good authors or books, or whatever you recommend? @misterhtmlcss on Twitter Please and thank you.
Steve Blank's Udacity course is a great starting point:
https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup--ep245
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#94"Instead of coding, the vast majority of your time is going to be spent marketing, selling, optimizing funnels, and providing support. Those are the things that get (and keep) customers. Those are the things that you do when you run a business. Not writing code." This is the best part of this article for me. A lot of solo bootstrappers don't get it. They struggle. But the fact is that you have to market and sell. Tal…
You'll be lucky if users care enough about your product to send you an email. If they do treat it like gold!
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#95Hey Clifford,
I just read your blog posts regarding real SaaS experience. I'm a fellow side project sole founder bootstrapper. I launched linkpeek.com 4 years ago to Hacker news and earned the number 1 position and had exactly 0 sign ups. The struggle is real.
I'm sort of intrigued about tamboo, and I want to see what I would get if I signed up. But the urgency of the 24 hours makes me afraid to sign up when I don't have downtime to tinker with your tool.
What you should do for tamboo:
* create a couple quick animated gifs of your UI and recordings. Put them on your homepage / landing page.
* create a couple youtube videos showing what the recordings look like, a prime example would be the video which helped you debug the sign up flow and then a follow up with the fix!
PS: you should remove this part - it smells like bullshit -
"That's why I'm giving you a free 24-hour pass to use Tamboo on your website - but only if you try it out today."
PSS:
Your contact form is busted and won't post, and it takes like 1m for it to reply that "something went wrong. please try again."
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have mixed feelings about this. The 4 Hour Work Week created my "why" for me that's kept me going through thick and thin. I definitely realize that it's a ton more work than it's made out to be (and while Tim Ferriss simplifies what it takes, he doesn't downplay the amount of work involved). My company is also at a point where my business partner and I could reasonably step away and spend 4 hours a week literally r…
In my experience, that "tropical island" trope goes hand in hand with the "4 hour week" BS. I lived in tropical Thailand for 2 years (wife had a job there; now we live in Korea). And let me tell you, you'll get bored out of your mind sooner rather than later, and find yourself "sitting here on HN" more often than you'd like to admit. Creative people live for the thrill of being "in the zone", utilizing their potentia…
It's not my first time here. I can't say I'd stay here long term but it's good for focusing for a few months with high quality of life and good balance.
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, he has a point. The indyhackers Submit hub article is sub-titled: "Jason Grishkoff built a $55,000/mo SaaS business helping musicians promote their music, and he did it in under a year. Here's how."
Well, he started his business in November 2015, started charging in February 2016, and hit $55k/mo by November 2016. I don't see any hyperbole/dishonesty in saying he built his business in under a year given that he actually did so. Sometimes rapid growth happens! Of course him being able to accomplish this feat stems from skills/knowledge he acquired earlier (his blog, music industry experience, learning to code, le…
No he started his original blog years earlier, he pivoted/made a new product and sold it to the same audience. That's like saying google built the macbook pro 16 in under a year.
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your point is valid but if you read my comment I'm not arguing why the author is better or worse than the people he criticizes. My point is that the author is using questionable rhetoric and is not being honest with his audience at best (and manipulative at worst) in his article. He could have easily made his point while not being any of that.
Disagree. His rhetoric is a necessary antidote to the rhetoric of the real snake-oil salesmen who speak from an assumed position of authority and present their entrepreneurship as a matter of blind will and charisma, when in fact - as he openly says has happened to himself - the real process is much much harder. You seem not to be able to read tonal nuances: he is clearly not placing himself in a position of greater…
Oh I can read "tonal nuances", as you put it, perfectly well. On the contrary it's you who's not able to spot typical manipulative patterns.
he is clearly not placing himself in a position of greater success than his readers in order to sht on their ideas;*
He is. Just read the article or the quotes that I've extracted from it.
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#99Right in the beginning: The stone cold truth of the matter is that most of the people pandering this advice are only doing so to build up their “guru” status ... They do this so that look up to them. They do this so that you talk about them (getting you to help them grow their audience). They do this so that you’ll feel like you’re somehow less than they are ... I promise I’m not going to do any of that to you. Reall…
Wow, I'm really sorry if it came across that way. Where I was coming from with this was that I was sick of seeing all of these posts and podcasts where they were saying things in a very humblebraggy way like "Yeah, I only got something like 3,000 signups for that but was able to launch anyway" or "Yeah, I did a soft launch to $25K MRR just to my Twitter followers" or "I spent a weekend ranking #1 for this keyword and…
I totally understand your intention behind it. And it's ok to use strong tone. But as a matter of fact:
a) Say you're not going to use strong / condescending tone.
b) Use strong / condescending tone.
c) Express yourself in an honest manner.
Pick two.
Re: Bootstrapping a SaaS Startup from Scratch
#100There's lots of good stuff here, but while your code might not be the most important aspect of your SaaS startup, your code can't be garbage either. I've seen lots of startups and early-stage businesses rot from the inside because of bad coding practices and not being able to deliver features in a timely manner or what they do deliver is broken and buggy, driving customers away.
If you can't deliver the features your customers need because of shit code, that really does matter.