[HN Gopher] I Reached $4k/Mo. But How Many Great Startup Ideas H...
___________________________________________________________________
I Reached $4k/Mo. But How Many Great Startup Ideas Have Died?
Author : raunometsa
Score : 145 points
Date : 2022-08-21 14:22 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (microfounder.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (microfounder.com)
| abrax3141 wrote:
| can someone post a python to a clear and simple How To do a
| microstartup from scratch? There must be such a thing.
| mkl wrote:
| "a python"?
| abrax3141 wrote:
| Sorry typoo: A pointer.
| carom wrote:
| I have a lot of variance in how I answer "what are you building?"
| for this exact reason. There is what I am building right now and
| my vision. Getting people to see the vision is difficult.
|
| >What are you building?
|
| 1. An image labeling tool for making open datasets.
|
| 2. A data-centric training and serving platform.
|
| 3. I am going to index the physical world in the same way Google
| indexes the internet.
| scubakid wrote:
| Another thing to be cautious about is folks who steer your idea
| in a new direction towards a larger TAM (with bigger encumbents)
| because they don't see how the current idea can 1000X.
|
| Sometimes, intentionally going after a market niche can be a good
| thing; you don't always have to set your sights on being the next
| unicorn. Especially if you're starting out as a solo dev,
| building the best product out there for a very specific audience
| can be a good strategy that leaves you with enough breathing room
| to continue to innovate and grow incrementally.
|
| That's the general approach I've been taking with
| ProjectionLab.com (the personal finance simulator I've been
| building on the side for a year now) and thus far, it's been a
| fun and modestly fruitful journey.
| austinl wrote:
| When I talk to friends about what I'm working on, I call it a
| "small business", and not a "startup", even though its purely
| software and could scale without substantially growing costs. I
| think the word "startup" gives the wrong impression--I don't
| care about scaling aggressively, I don't want to grow the team,
| I don't want to raise outside capital, I'm happy to stay within
| the niche. I think this framing tends to generate less pushback
| (and focus the conversation more on how I can serve the niche
| better).
|
| I suppose the more precise word for this is a "lifestyle
| business", but not as many people are familiar with that term,
| and it can have a bit of a different connotation:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business
| scubakid wrote:
| I like the term lifestyle business... but I'd be hesitant to
| use it until the business actually supported my lifestyle.
|
| To acquaintances, I'll often just say "I'm building an app".
| Small business is a decent alternative, but a lot of the time
| when I use that term I'll feel pressure to clarify that it's
| not like.. a lawn mowing business or something. (nothing
| against those though!)
| jononomo wrote:
| On the other hand, I was hired at a startup a few years ago
| that had never raised money, had been profitable for a
| decade, and was just minting money hand over fist. It was a
| tech company, though, so it qualified as a "startup". (It was
| EasyBib.com)
| jwr wrote:
| > Sometimes, intentionally going after a market niche can be a
| good thing
|
| Solo founder of a successful self-funded business here. A
| market niche is in my opinion the best place to be. A niche
| will be enough for a small business, but might be too small for
| the crazed GROWTH GROWTH GROWTH mindset of most companies.
| That's good! It means that you won't be competing with
| companies burning through VC money and selling at below cost
| (as in $19/month B2B SaaS) just to get GROWTH.
|
| As to the main point of the article -- pretty much _all_ advice
| I was given turned out to be wrong. And nearly everything you
| read on HN (especially comments) is wrong. Or, more precisely,
| it 's advice given by people who are not in your situation,
| have never experienced your situation, and likely never will.
| This applies to business strategy, but also to technology: your
| choices will be influenced by very different factors than those
| of people commenting here. You won't care about "industry-
| standard practices", fashions, trends, or "will it help my
| career" factors. You will care about line count, total cost of
| ownership, pace of changes (things that change quickly are
| expensive to use), reliability, and the ability to fix things
| when something breaks.
|
| So, my advice would be to make your own choices and take all
| advice with a very critical mindset. Including this advice,
| obviously :-)
| scubakid wrote:
| 100%. Or actually maybe I should say 75%... I think you're
| spot on that industry veterans, seasoned entrepreneurs, and
| assorted commenters (myself included of course), often give
| advice that's not quite calibrated to one's specific scenario
| and constraints; and sometimes those calibration errors can
| lead to conclusions that are 180 degrees off the actual best
| path. But at the same time, I would also say that over the
| years I've read a lot of great commentary on HN that I'd like
| to think has improved my overall mental model of the world,
| technology, and business.
|
| P.S. I also agree that when you hear stories of venture-
| backed startups trying similar product ideas but then needing
| to pivot due to insufficient growth, that should often be
| music to the ears of a solo bootstrapper ;)
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I'm the founding CTO of a small startup, and I've been trying
| to find the business equivalent of your side project. Have you
| come across any modern tools for financial forecasting?
| telesilla wrote:
| Causal, Pry, Finmark etc are good tools. Costs can vary,
| you'll need to be clear about your specific goals to stay
| price effective.
| scubakid wrote:
| I've been shown a couple tools geared for startups that some
| of my users had been playing around with, but those didn't
| look modern or nuanced enough to me. I haven't done a formal
| search though, so perhaps there are good things out there I'm
| not aware of. Eventually, I'd like to add better support for
| business use cases to ProjectionLab; in some ways, it's
| already close, but I'll need to carefully think through a few
| things like more granular event timing/scheduling and
| short/near-term views.
| michaelsalim wrote:
| What kind of forecasting are you looking for? I'm searching
| for something similar to calculate profits & planning
| expenses over time.
|
| If I can't find something that works, this might be something
| I'm considering to build myself.
| mnembrini wrote:
| This seems exactly what you are looking for
| https://www.causal.app/
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| https://usesummit.com/
| scubakid wrote:
| Visual editor seems pretty cool. Can summit do
| probabilistic things like monte carlo simulation as well,
| or is it scoped to deterministic projection?
| wensing wrote:
| Creator here.
|
| You can use fuzzy numbers to get varied output, and if
| you want to do MC you can use the API into your model to
| call it with whatever distributions you want and
| aggregate the output. But no, our UI doesn't natively
| support doing a MC sim because the demand is frankly less
| than you'd expect. :)
| taf2 wrote:
| I feel like I heard someone once tell me if you talk about what
| you are going to do it reduces the chance you'll actually do
| it... so just do it is my approach in general... congrats on
| reaching 4k
| krm01 wrote:
| The only person you should ever ask if they like your startup
| idea are potential customers. Share with them the problem you're
| tackling and the solution you're building.
|
| opinions from anyone who is not your potential customer means
| literally nothing. Be it positive or negative. Friends,
| investors, strangers on the internet. Nobody matters except for
| customers.
|
| When I started a tiny design agency [1], I got the same reaction
| from random people (not scalable, why are you only focussing on
| B2B etc). We're doing very well luckily and it's a joy working
| with customers who love what you are offering.
|
| [1] http://fairpixels.pro
| soperj wrote:
| And how do you find these potential customers to ask?
| yomkippur wrote:
| again and again it is this road to customers that is tough as
| a technical founder, who can I hire on upwork that can take
| on this task of doing cold out reach? Business development?
| How would I structure the compensation (per lead or per hour
| or both?)
|
| so many ideas fail because they cannot get through this
| grind.
|
| I got my customers from a simple tweet that was retweeted.
| It's literally rolling dice because when I posted the same
| thing years ago there was no response.
|
| I wonder if successful people just got lucky at rolling dices
| early on that puts them in a good mentality position to build
| their chips for the bubbles in a poker tournament.
| mbesto wrote:
| This is basically the one thing that no one ever teaches you
| but is arguably the hardest part. I think Steve Blank's
| Customer Development Manifesto nails it on the head: https://
| growthorientedsustainableentrepreneurship.files.word...
|
| This is the reason you often see older (person's age)
| entrepreneurs more successful because they've already created
| network of trust, or people who have exited multiple
| companies...getting intros to potential clients for customer
| development is stupidly easy because you're already pre-sold
| because of those relationships.
|
| That being said, I've found in my career that as long as
| you're willing to listen to early potential customers most
| individuals of any size company are motivated to tell you all
| about their issues. Trust me, get someone on the phone and
| they'll air all of their dirty laundry. You gain trust with
| those early potential customers (and eventually payments) by
| being a good listener - replay back what you heard, explain
| how you're going to fix it, and then deliver.
|
| As Steve Blank says "There are no facts inside your building,
| so get outside". I'm going to generalize here, but I think
| the reason too may technically minded entrepreneurs fail is
| because they're simply too introverted to get outside.
| krm01 wrote:
| Where ever they are. Customers are school teachers? Go to FB
| groups where they gather.
|
| Targeting Marketing execs? Send them an email.
| soperj wrote:
| I'm doing a meal planning app[0], didn't really think
| there'd be a facebook group for that, but lo & behold...
| Now I guess i have to get a facebook account :/
|
| [0] - www.reciped.io
| soperj wrote:
| So I've just tried joining a few of these facebook
| groups, and a number of them ask specifically if you're
| going to try marketing to the group, and have rules
| against it. Seems like they've had enough of this tactic.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| You can learn a lot by not marketing.
| soperj wrote:
| That's a good point. I'm not a very good marketer, so
| that should be pretty easy haha.
| fragmede wrote:
| It's less organic, but you _can_ just pay Facebook to run
| ads once you 've identified the particular niche.
| raunometsa wrote:
| What I've often seen with startups on MicroFounder - cold
| outreach.
|
| _" We started with cold outreach to creators, Indie Hackers,
| and startup founders, who might be interested in our
| product." - Marie from Tally ($24k/mo)_
|
| Depending on the product, some communities can be also
| helpful, but this probably doesn't work for everything. It
| did for Julien who is building NotionForms though (now $11k
| MRR): https://microfounder.com/startups/notionforms
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| That's what Steve Jobs did. Got featured in the Ashton
| Kutcher movie.
|
| When he screams after getting hung up on--that's the 150th
| call he made that day. They were rude as shit with him.
| That rejection is too lightly touched on.
|
| And it's like a club for a novat after you ask every girl
| to dance and nothing, then go ask every girl to dance
| again. Wander. No validation. Get their contempt.
|
| He didn't add up to shit in the eyes of VCs. Nothing. His
| resume was just...and he didn't have _chapitas_ , badges of
| eg graduating from the right schools, and then a smooth up-
| and-to-the-right career trajectory that had to trace an
| exponential curve. Dropouts were nothing then, like you
| could open up a photo booth be a hippie or yes be an
| inventor--sort of in the late seventies, very limited, not
| open to everybody by that point like in the 1920's.
|
| VCs only got more open-minded by people like Jobs--him more
| than absolutely anybody--opening those skulls with the
| rippling effect of figurative kicks to the ass. Missing
| out. Getting bounced. And for a few with already open
| minds, absurd riches.
|
| Work the club.
| nazka wrote:
| You do a super neat hero page with the features your product
| will have. You say you are working on it but they can
| preorder. When they click on preorder with the price you
| actually say that no payment is required but you will shoot
| them an email when the product will be ready to be tested.
|
| That way the person saw your product, saw the price, and was
| ready to buy it.
| PeterisP wrote:
| I think that at least for B2B it's key to have someone among
| your founding team who either is/was a potential customer
| (e.g. has worked for some years in the role&industry who
| would be buying this) or personally knows a few such
| customers (e.g. because they have worked in a different role
| but in the same industry, or in a similar role in a different
| industry).
|
| If you don't have that, you can "import" that knowledge but
| that will take a lot of effort and time, and you risk making
| some very wrong assumptions early on. And IMHO there are no
| shortcuts, to understand your market you have to walk a mile
| in their shoes, and if you haven't already done so before
| starting the startup, doing that will take out a big chunk of
| your runway. So it's not about some specific activities, but
| about choosing a project that fits your team or a getting
| together a team that fits your project.
| DaveExeter wrote:
| Two words: survivor bias.
| jokoon wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076
|
| Copy pasted:
|
| Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you
| throw darts or something.
|
| Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit
| the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center
| bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American
| Dream lives on.
|
| Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try
| over and over and over again until they hit something and feel
| good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the
| center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts
| about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard work.
|
| Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones
| working it.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Don't be silly. Any self-employed plumber is an entrepreneur.
| Some of them (many of them) didn't have the cash to get a
| degree or the college experience, but their job is highly
| entrepreneurial.
| katzgrau wrote:
| Survivor here, with several failed startups in the past.
| Bootstrapped to 100k / mo over 10 years.
|
| Sufficiently cynical folks will never hear anything I say as
| anything other survivor bias.
|
| My only advice is stay bootstrapped, avoid company-ending risk
| like investment, and maintain control of the company. Through
| learning and persistence, you'll figure out how to grow it.
|
| Just remember that the survivors figured out two things: how
| not to die (much easier for the Bootstrapped), and how to adapt
| to changing conditions.
| scubakid wrote:
| "not dying" is surprisingly underrated these days :D
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Two words: survivor bias.
|
| Pfft. You're only saying this because you're alive. I want to
| hear from dead people.
| xmprt wrote:
| That's one way to put it. Another way is to say that you had a
| good enough execution to stand out from the crowd of all the
| other failed startups and the people criticizing your idea
| didn't have the same vision as you. The reality is probably
| somewhere in the middle.
| [deleted]
| dangus wrote:
| This begs the question: why is the startup now making $4k a
| month?
|
| Is it because of the _idea_ , or is it because of other factors?
| Or the idea combined with other factors? Addressable Market?
| Marketing savvy? Sales leads? Product execution? Luck/Viral
| Posts/First Mover Status?
|
| I like that this common criticism was brought up in the article:
|
| > "Doesn't this exist? So many big platforms do it. Very
| competitive."
|
| This is a validator in itself. A small business can see an
| existing, competitive market, and that's usually an indicator
| that there are a lot of potential customers. If you look at
| products like FastMail or Hey they aren't so concerned that 95%+
| of people are fine with the big free email providers, because
| literally _everyone_ uses email at some point.
|
| I think my overall point is this: The "idea" part of a startup is
| perhaps one of the _less_ important aspects of it, in my opinion.
| Maybe it 's even the _least_ important part of the equation.
| raunometsa wrote:
| > Is it because of the idea, or is it because of other factors?
|
| Not because of the idea specifically! But I've seen in my own
| life and in the lives of other "microfounders" that if you're
| not sure about your startup idea or you don't have that much
| momentum going on with it (it's a new idea, you haven't thought
| about it much) it's much easier to abandon the idea when you
| hear from friends, investors, or just some random people on
| Twitter that this idea is not a good one and it probably won't
| succeed.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I have experienced this many, many, many times, so I'm really
| grateful for what you wrote.
|
| Even if I don't think I'm absorbing other people's doubts
| about whether it would work, or even internalizing their
| certainty that it won't work, I can be doing that exact thing
| outside of my awareness.
|
| It reminds me of the quote attributed to Muhammad Ali: "I
| said I'm the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was."
|
| How often do I start to doubt my dreams because I'm talking
| with someone who doesn't share the same dreams? I've wanted
| to build an online platform to train people to be world
| leaders, almost like a martial art created by MLK. I can
| vividly remember when I said this to one guy, a stranger (!),
| who laughed and said, "I don't think you'll be the person to
| do that." That has stuck with me for years, a creeping doubt
| deep within.
|
| That's all to say: thank you very much for what you wrote. I
| think I needed to read it today.
| tomxor wrote:
| >> I don't see how this could grow 100x.
|
| This only means it's not large enough to be investible, that's
| not necessarily a problem and doesn't mean it's an inherently
| "bad" idea.
|
| Small ideas can net the individuals that work on them just as
| much as working on large ideas... the workforce might be smaller
| but once you divide it up it's all the same. If the idea provides
| value to the world, you like it, and can grow it without
| investment, go for it.
| erwinh wrote:
| This seems to be the perfect place to reply with a smart remark
| that subtly links to the project you are building:
|
| https://thestackreport.xyz
| lakomen wrote:
| In my experience "friends" are clueless, especially if they have
| ni clue about IT and the possibilities. They only see "virtual
| product" and can't imagine you being successful because after all
| they aren't and you can't be better than them. I got rid of those
| friends. In fact if you have them on board sooner or layer you'll
| have trouble with them. Them not working hard enough or not
| taking it seriously enough or not only not supporting your vision
| but actively fighting it. It's bad for the friendship and bad for
| the business.
|
| After all friends are just people you spent time with more than
| with other people, because circumstances or similar view on
| things. That was then but life goes on and people change.
| scubakid wrote:
| Is this a hot take on the risks of going into business with
| friends? Or a hot take on... friends in general?
| mellosouls wrote:
| This is a terrible take on friendship.
| Rackedup wrote:
| money is so important
| black_13 wrote:
| bdominy wrote:
| I just passed 100 downloads of my app after 6 months and I'm
| thrilled with that pace. In that time I've been able to make sure
| my backend is solid, and talk with people to gain valuable
| insights. My main metric is excitement. If I'm excited to show
| people my app and they are excited to try it after we talk, I'm
| happy.
| bagels wrote:
| Did you build the thing from the tweet? A marketplace for
| microstartup investment?
| raunometsa wrote:
| Ah, I suspected that the main image may give a wrong feeling as
| it's not really about a microstartup investments right now. But
| it fit together with the "no" and "your idea is not good" topic
| so I kept it.
|
| Anyways, I'm still planning to build a part of MicroFounder
| towards investments. Probably not legal/technical side but the
| marketplace, yes.
|
| The idea is this: you're a developer and you want to build a
| (micro)startup that pays your bills etc. But it can be hard to
| find the necessary time and energy to work on it so much that
| it will succeed (or it takes just too long). And of course
| there's a risk that it will never take off.
|
| So, you de-risk and sell part of it to an investor. Maybe even
| not a % of the company but you agree on a profit share for some
| period/amount.
|
| Because now you have an idea for a startup and - let's say --
| $120k to pay your salary until you reach $10k MRR, or something
| like that. You will focus on this startup and see if it works
| out or not after a year.
|
| Another thing is from the point of the investors. Like this
| whole MicroAcquire thing. I was considering selling my other
| solo startup RemoteHunt.com - some investors said that "hey
| take like $120k for 10% but I still need you on the project as
| otherwise I have to hire a team etc that takes a lot of money,
| time, etc.)
| bagels wrote:
| I completely understood the context of the tweet in the post,
| but was interested if there was traction in the investment
| marketplace.
|
| I've browsed microacquire both as a founder and as an
| investor. As an investor, I always come back to the same
| thought that I'd just be buying another job, which isn't so
| appealing.
| holoduke wrote:
| What is this? An article spoiled with 4000 in almost every
| sentence. As if that amount is attracting someone to start
| something. Money is never the motivator. I created several
| products on my own. All solo. Some make 30k a month. I never
| thought about becoming rich or making this amount or that amount.
| I always wanted to create a product people enjoyed. I never used
| any so called accelerator tools. Analytics usage very basic. I
| spend all my time in development. Frontend , backend , infra
| everything. Please don't believe these annoying articles or
| products they represent. They sell air.
| treelovinhippie wrote:
| s1k3 wrote:
| I think he's trying to say that you shouldn't let outside
| validation or invalidation affect your decision to build a
| startup. You as the founder should know (via research,
| interviews, insights and industry knowledge) whether your
| startup is solving a real problem. Don't let someone with less
| expertise than you talk you out of it, or converse, talk you
| into it.
| lkrubner wrote:
| Peter Drucker, perhaps the greatest business guru of the 20th
| Century, once remarked that innovators are often disappointed by
| the manner in which their innovations become popular. In his 1985
| book, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Drucker relates the story
| of Alfred Einhorn, who invented Novocain, which then became
| popular with dentists as a local anesthetic. Einhorn held a
| contempt for dentistry, since it represented such a small niche
| of medicine. He felt that Novocain should be used by surgeons for
| all forms of surgery, and so he waged a campaign against the use
| of Novocain by dentists. In the end, his innovation was
| successful despite him, rather than because of him. According to
| Drucker, this pattern, where a product or service is undercut by
| the entrepreneur who is trying to promote it, is extremely
| common.
|
| When I first read Drucker's book I found it hard to believe that
| an entrepreneur would actively sabotage their own innovation.
| However, having now spent several years working with startups,
| I've seen that it is, indeed, a common pattern. Many
| entrepreneurs starts websites at least in part because they
| consider themselves uniquely creative and insightful, and they
| want the whole world to see them as they see themselves. The
| website they launch proves them wrong: their insights are proven
| false, what works in the end is something unexpected. For
| instance, in 1992, when Bo Peabody launched Tripod, he was
| thinking that the site would offer content aimed at college
| students. His idea failed. The company was saved because some of
| the programmers at the company had started a side project that
| allowed anyone to create their own web pages. This then became
| the future of the company. In his book, Lucy or Smart, Peabody
| says it is important to be smart enough to know when you are
| getting lucky. And then, you have to be willing to accept that
| luck. This takes humility. What's needed in an entrepreneur is
| emotional resilience, the kind of strength that allows for
| openness to the unexpected.
|
| Twice now I've seen an entrepreneur sabotage their own website
| because it became successful for what they felt were the wrong
| reasons. This emotional resistance to success is nearly always
| inspired by one of two factors:
|
| 1.) The success is with a small niche. The startup was suppose to
| grow till it was larger than Google, and success with a small
| niche is, therefore, extremely disappointing. The niche might be
| big enough to potentially generate several million in revenue,
| but it won't ever be enough to catch up with Google.
|
| 2.) The success is of a conventional type and, therefore, the
| entrepreneur regards it as boring. Perhaps the site was suppose
| to pioneer an altogether new style of interaction among humans,
| and instead the part of the site that becomes popular is of an
| old type - for instance, the blog on the site becomes highly
| successful. The entrepreneur is then disappointed, maybe even
| angry, to be the owner of a boring success.
|
| Drucker also emphasized how much self-sabotage tends to trip up
| entrepreneurs. I documented a case of this in my own book, How To
| Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Three-Steps-eboo...
| stevesearer wrote:
| I have a moderately successful website and know the feeling you
| describe.
|
| One other consideration has been to find other creative outlets
| in order to not feel compelled to constantly redesign and
| overhaul it into oblivion.
| rank0 wrote:
| Ideas are cheap. Implementation is the hard part!
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I have enough experience to implement anything from
| microcontrollers and Linux drivers to react webapps and
| scalable k8s clusters. I think that I can build most projects
| alone and limited only by time, not by skills. I have yet to
| find an idea that I would consider worthy spending time on,
| despite the fact that I really want to be independent developer
| with my own project. Of course I had miriads of ideas but
| nothing that I would really trust to become a business, even
| something small. I think that it's required to have some
| different background to be able to understand what people need
| and to be able to reach those people, because anything you
| could imagine as a programmer was implemented or nobody will
| pay for it.
| yCombLinks wrote:
| I know several people with very limited tech skills that were
| able to at least make something that got them some income
| from a tech product. It sounds like you are over filtering
| ideas. Throw a few apps or pages out and see if any get
| traction after some outreach. Either ads or cold emails, etc.
| Like the famous quote saying noone would use dropbox because
| you could do it yourself. You probably come up with good
| ideas but are like "Why would anyone pay for this?"
| [deleted]
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I'm interested to hear more about your criteria for "worthy
| (to spend) time on". My email is in my profile.
| randomdata wrote:
| In my experience, you can create literally anything and there
| will be someone out there who will pay for it. Ideas don't
| matter in that respect.
|
| The hard part is implementing methods and processes that will
| capture the early adopters and learn from them so that you
| product can grow into something that is appealing to a wider
| audience.
|
| Tech implementation is easy. Business implementation is hard.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Tech implementation is easy. Business implementation is
| hard.
|
| This is what we tell the MBAs so they feel better. Keep up
| the good work!
| dt3ft wrote:
| So microfounder.com is selling a list of ~200 startups operated
| by solo founders making $4k/Mo in the process. Huh, you really
| can sell everything these days. Inspiring!
| [deleted]
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Recently I've been contemplating about creating something fairly
| small, that would eventually bring in. ~100K/year. Many would say
| it's not big enough,or so,but it would allow me to build a decent
| retirement fund, support many activities that don't cost a
| fortune but still require money and so on.
| raunometsa wrote:
| Yes! This is what my site MicroFounder is exactly about and by
| that, I don't mean you should buy the paid membership (you can
| build it without paying for any "framework" or community or
| whatever).
|
| I feature new startups built by solo founders on the front page
| (for free) to show people that it's possible to build a
| profitable internet startup to pay the bills. Or, to keep the
| job and build a retirement fund, or travel fund, or whatever.
|
| I'd say that _every_ developer should think about it. Yes, of
| course, work your full time dev job but also start thinking and
| then building some small startups. Maybe you won 't reach $10k
| MRR in a year (although I have many examples on my site who do)
| but still, you're starting to move in this direction.
|
| And there's this question of "if" - can I succeed? Others are
| doing it, but me -- me personally, can I do it? And I'd say of
| course, yes, 100% - because it's a matter of making the
| decision.
| zaroth wrote:
| I don't understand why it's just a one time payment?
|
| If you're doing a micro-startup, you need valuable tools and
| insight _today_. You don't care about 12 months from now. You
| _certainly_ don't care about $99 twelve months from now...
|
| If it was $99/yr would it decrease your conversion rate even
| a little bit?
|
| For fun, add a toggle to let people set it to _not_ auto-
| renew and Tell HN a month from now how it went?
|
| Don't actually implement any recurring billing code until 11
| months from now, just save sign-up date and what renewal
| preference they selected in a database somewhere?
|
| Possibly never bother even writing the code to kick out
| people who don't pay for their renewal?
|
| Actually, maybe frame it as a way for micro-startups that
| succeed with your help, they will basically have a way to
| keep donating $99 a year to a tool that really helped them,
| even if they outgrow it?
|
| Hmmm... pricing is hard. But lifetime service memberships
| inevitably become an albatross don't they?
|
| I can tell you this - a $99 customer has lifetime value of
| $99, but a $99/yr customer has lifetime value of $99 * 1.0 /
| C. Where C is churn and worst case churn is 1.00 but
| realistically will be less than 1.00 (100%).
|
| In any case, it would be hugely interesting to play with that
| pricing model!
| Kalium wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with a lifestyle business like this. It's
| just not something you should think about with the "startup"
| business and financial framework. Those are particular tools
| that address a particular set of problems.
|
| There's a major set of difference between a startup and a small
| business.
| encoderer wrote:
| Do it. That would also be an asset worth anywhere from
| $100k-500k (depending on the type of business, growth rate,
| etc).
| scubakid wrote:
| Curious to hear more about your idea if you feel like sharing.
| Is your 100k ARR target an estimate based on research into the
| space or more like a notional goal you'd be content with
| reaching?
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