My Second Year as a Solo Developer(mtlynch.io)
mtlynch.io
My Second Year as a Solo Developer
https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-2/
374 comments
I see a lot of comments criticizing your path and progress. Making remarks like "why didn't you stay at Google".
I applaud your decision, effort, and perseverance. I admire your risk taking and having skin in the game. Trying to make it out on your own.
People forget the journey is not just about the money. It's about learning, growing and bringing your ideas to life. Being an artist, and expressing yourself through products.
Keep on going my friend. There's no doubt you'll get there.
I applaud your decision, effort, and perseverance. I admire your risk taking and having skin in the game. Trying to make it out on your own.
People forget the journey is not just about the money. It's about learning, growing and bringing your ideas to life. Being an artist, and expressing yourself through products.
Keep on going my friend. There's no doubt you'll get there.
Author here. Happy to answer any questions or hear any feedback about this post.
Discussion from my first annual update last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19054150
Discussion from my first annual update last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19054150
Good stuff.
I've seen a bit of negativity about this being a waste of time since you're not making equivalent money to old job. For those people: This isn’t any different from spending time earning a degree by returning to full-time study. And your attempts are growing. The compound interest from these investments in time and effort will help you regardless. Even if you fail on every business at first you'll still get so much experience and momentum you can't help but do better next time. And I doubt any will actually fail: each will have an element that wasn't good enough but still capable of being tweaked to fix it. Even if you don't fix it, you've still learnt something in the attempt.
I've seen a bit of negativity about this being a waste of time since you're not making equivalent money to old job. For those people: This isn’t any different from spending time earning a degree by returning to full-time study. And your attempts are growing. The compound interest from these investments in time and effort will help you regardless. Even if you fail on every business at first you'll still get so much experience and momentum you can't help but do better next time. And I doubt any will actually fail: each will have an element that wasn't good enough but still capable of being tweaked to fix it. Even if you don't fix it, you've still learnt something in the attempt.
Just some honest feedback.
I have a use for Zestful, and the price is good. But playing around, it seems good at the easy stuff (but I can do the easy stuff myself) it's not so good at the hard stuff.
For example the string "3/4 cup risotto rice, Arborio or Carnaroli"
It identifies the unit and quantity fair enough, and it's right when it says "Risotto rice" is the product. But then it says "Arborio or Carnaroli" is a preparation method. I can totally see WHY it says that. But I'm not sure that's correct.
At your price point though, I might still use it. Ultimatley to parse everything I need to parse it would be a lot cheaper than spending even an hour writing it myself. But that was my first thoughts playing around with it.
I have a use for Zestful, and the price is good. But playing around, it seems good at the easy stuff (but I can do the easy stuff myself) it's not so good at the hard stuff.
For example the string "3/4 cup risotto rice, Arborio or Carnaroli"
It identifies the unit and quantity fair enough, and it's right when it says "Risotto rice" is the product. But then it says "Arborio or Carnaroli" is a preparation method. I can totally see WHY it says that. But I'm not sure that's correct.
At your price point though, I might still use it. Ultimatley to parse everything I need to parse it would be a lot cheaper than spending even an hour writing it myself. But that was my first thoughts playing around with it.
Naive question by someone who’s never started a business: when bootstrapping companies while keeping your day job, how do you deal with intellectual property clauses in employment contracts, such that your employer owns the “inventions” you create in your free time, on your own equipment, unrelated to the business area you work in? I know laws vary by state, but I would find it especially disheartening if you spent years of effort and sacrificed your social life only to have your product snatched away from you once it finally became profitable or popular.
My non-lawyer reading of the internet’s opinions suggest that you need to discuss it with your company, or possibly edit your employment contract before signing, but the latter seems a bad suggestion if you’re afraid of not getting a job. I’ve also read that these kinds of clauses can even apply several months after you terminate at your day job, which suggests that you can’t even start on the product until months after you’ve left.
All of that makes me unlikely to try to build a business in tech, since I would never have the capital to take such a long break away from a company, nor to build a product for a long time before it’s profitable without having a day job to support me.
My non-lawyer reading of the internet’s opinions suggest that you need to discuss it with your company, or possibly edit your employment contract before signing, but the latter seems a bad suggestion if you’re afraid of not getting a job. I’ve also read that these kinds of clauses can even apply several months after you terminate at your day job, which suggests that you can’t even start on the product until months after you’ve left.
All of that makes me unlikely to try to build a business in tech, since I would never have the capital to take such a long break away from a company, nor to build a product for a long time before it’s profitable without having a day job to support me.
Thanks for writing this. It is good to see a perspective where a business is being built up slowly as opposed to the typical "I quit my job and now my side project makes $30k a month two months in" posts we usually see.
Do you ever feel issues with motivation when you don't see growth as quickly as you'd like?
Do you ever feel issues with motivation when you don't see growth as quickly as you'd like?
I read your previous post about Zestful, and this years update, and I just don't understand who would buy this as a hosted API. To me, it sounds like this should be a library, not an API. For every use case that I can think of, having a library would be 100x better than an API.
In my experience, APIs are generally slow, unreliable, and tend to change without notice.
I don't understand what advantage an API has, except making it easier for the developer to charge based on usage.
Do people really buy APIs like this? Am I missing something?
In my experience, APIs are generally slow, unreliable, and tend to change without notice.
I don't understand what advantage an API has, except making it easier for the developer to charge based on usage.
Do people really buy APIs like this? Am I missing something?
If you're netting at best a few grand a year and need to survive on savings anyway, why not just drop the business pretense and work for free on stuff you actually find interesting? A popular open-source project could yield more long-term value for one's career than an unprofitable or barely profitable "lifestyle business".
Sorry to say but this proves that for someone who actually has to work for a living ie earn money, corporate life is absolutely the correct choice. Even for Mr Lynch these experiments in charity wouldn’t be possible without the nest egg from google (which he acknowledged). To go from net 100k+ to below zero and still be unprofitable after two years is a financial disaster.
How did you cut down so drastically on expenses in the second year, +50%, or was there a large investment in the first year, sorry I havent read last years update yet!
Also, I'm just coming accross your Zestful service and can't believe that is exactly what i am looking for and actually started to write, but I have other stuff to do so no point re-inventing the wheel!
Consider me a new client sir!
PS: Congratulations !
Also, I'm just coming accross your Zestful service and can't believe that is exactly what i am looking for and actually started to write, but I have other stuff to do so no point re-inventing the wheel!
Consider me a new client sir!
PS: Congratulations !
All personal stuff aside (and on that note - I’m a huge fan of this story Mike and love what you’re doing!)
This is a great piece of advice for solo devs out there:
> Great! You can pre-pay for three months of service, and your billing cycle won't start until that feature is available.
> I've never been burned on a feature request since.
I imagine it’s super easy to fall into the custom feature trap when the temptation of a big new customer is right around the corner, and this seems like an excellent solution!
This is a great piece of advice for solo devs out there:
> Great! You can pre-pay for three months of service, and your billing cycle won't start until that feature is available.
> I've never been burned on a feature request since.
I imagine it’s super easy to fall into the custom feature trap when the temptation of a big new customer is right around the corner, and this seems like an excellent solution!
I like how you call that home "a modest two-bedroom home" in the linked blog. I guess it's a matter of perspective. Here in Israel, where everything is cramped, this would be something I'd be very content with.
So awesome seeing your posts at the top of HN!
>> I've also noticed that readers are less interested in business lessons unless the story involves thousands of dollars — earning or losing large sums both seem to work.
I would love to read more about the mundane, small business lessons, because that's where I am. And I'm positive I'm not the only one.
Keep writing about the smaller day-to-day struggles, you got readers!
>> I've also noticed that readers are less interested in business lessons unless the story involves thousands of dollars — earning or losing large sums both seem to work.
I would love to read more about the mundane, small business lessons, because that's where I am. And I'm positive I'm not the only one.
Keep writing about the smaller day-to-day struggles, you got readers!
last corner of graphic right bottom is a wrong amount.
I use to be a number guy, ie accountant hacker. Its not 18k positive as far as net revenue increase from the two years.
the percentage is probably right but not the sign before the net rev number.
and note you have to reach profits soon per how you file with the IRS..sorry to burst your bubble.
same sort of errors in the saas net rev numbers.
bone up on your accounting stats as there are books out there on how to do it
I use to be a number guy, ie accountant hacker. Its not 18k positive as far as net revenue increase from the two years.
the percentage is probably right but not the sign before the net rev number.
and note you have to reach profits soon per how you file with the IRS..sorry to burst your bubble.
same sort of errors in the saas net rev numbers.
bone up on your accounting stats as there are books out there on how to do it
Encouraging to see your progress, keep it up!
Reading about your projects, it strikes me that some have different potential than others for perhaps one clear reason: solving a problem vs not. Why not double down on Zestful? There is demand there, and some are willing to pay...
This post I wrote recently may be helpful for you: https://tinyletter.com/garybasin/letters/how-to-know-what-pe...
Reading about your projects, it strikes me that some have different potential than others for perhaps one clear reason: solving a problem vs not. Why not double down on Zestful? There is demand there, and some are willing to pay...
This post I wrote recently may be helpful for you: https://tinyletter.com/garybasin/letters/how-to-know-what-pe...
If folks liked this story, check in with Daniel Vassallo who quit a job at Amazon on well over 500k / year salary and benefits to start out on his own as a solo, small-business founder. https://twitter.com/dvassallo
He shares lots of personal stats like his incoming & expenditure - quite inspirational and can show that circumstances and luck can also play a part.
He shares lots of personal stats like his incoming & expenditure - quite inspirational and can show that circumstances and luck can also play a part.
I think it's especially important to make sure that you interview customers and find out what their problems are before you even think about writing a single line of code. You should strive to get a mix of qualitative (because the stories you hear will let you empathize with the customer problems) as well as quantitative via surveys / small ad experiments. Once you have some signal, then proceed to start exploring solutions (and again, this isn't about writing code, you can do this entirely with mockups/napkin drawings, whatever it takes to get your point across) and test those solutions with the customers you interviewed earlier. Once you have some evidence that a) you have a problem that customers will pay to solve, and b) you have a solution that you have validated THEN you proceed to start writing the code.
The biggest change at my company is doing product development this way: understand the customer problem and the solution before writing code.
Hope this helps.
The biggest change at my company is doing product development this way: understand the customer problem and the solution before writing code.
Hope this helps.
Great post Micheal, and awesome to see it hit the top of HN - a reminder I guess that the core bootstrapper/hacker community is on here and strong as ever!
The numbers and stuff aside (which are looking promising, btw, congrats - look forward to see how the trends continue in y3) the part I liked best was the I still love it section. It's incredibly important and, I'm sure you know, the real driver behind doing what you're doing, not money.
I think there's a tendency, maybe especially for technical people, to want to quantify and maximise etc, and money is an easy metric for doing that with and therefore to focus on. But on reflection, it's pretty obviously not the main reason we do what we do.
The numbers and stuff aside (which are looking promising, btw, congrats - look forward to see how the trends continue in y3) the part I liked best was the I still love it section. It's incredibly important and, I'm sure you know, the real driver behind doing what you're doing, not money.
I think there's a tendency, maybe especially for technical people, to want to quantify and maximise etc, and money is an easy metric for doing that with and therefore to focus on. But on reflection, it's pretty obviously not the main reason we do what we do.
FYI: on isitketo.org/cream-cheese, the link to "keto dessert recipes" is broken (it's an internal link). Looks like it's being prefixed with the domain and the url ends up having two http segments.
I can closely relate to this post. Often times I build and develop software that is simply not worth my time. I think one important thing that you are doing well is capturing data for revenue. I think you should also take your hourly rate and multiply it by the amount of time it is taking you and that will give you a better idea of what this is costing you to build. I've started to capture this data for myself (https://marcell.me) to get a better idea of what it is actually costing me.
love it! If my two cents matter to you... I did a similar thing for a few years, and it wasnt until I went all in on one product/problem did I finally start to see some great returns.
With that said, I have a friends dad who owns like 10 different businesses and he has people manage all of them, while he sits back and collects. These are not software businesses they are more brick and mortar like long term storage, etc, but maybe you can build the same model with online businesses! :)
Good luck, and thanks for posting, really enjoy reading the content!
With that said, I have a friends dad who owns like 10 different businesses and he has people manage all of them, while he sits back and collects. These are not software businesses they are more brick and mortar like long term storage, etc, but maybe you can build the same model with online businesses! :)
Good luck, and thanks for posting, really enjoy reading the content!
I'm also a solo developer, or at least building a Ltd company starting at one. I wrote up about my developer setup here, and thought it might be of interest.
https://blog.alexellis.io/building-a-linux-desktop-for-cloud...
Would folks like to see more posts about branching out and working for yourself? I'd consider writing-up my perspective from the UK if it was interesting to people here.
https://blog.alexellis.io/building-a-linux-desktop-for-cloud...
Would folks like to see more posts about branching out and working for yourself? I'd consider writing-up my perspective from the UK if it was interesting to people here.
What Got Done is basically Google's internal Snippets. I wish there was an on-prem setup to do that. The idea is basically every week you write, in free form text, what you've done, and possibly what you're planning to do, and your team mates get to view it, and subscribe to updates conveniently. If you're anything like me, you will find this valuable not only day to day, but also when the review time comes and you need to beat your chest a little. I tend to forget how much I've done.
Great read, thanks for writing this. One of the hardest parts of doing a bootstrapped startup is the peer pressure and the perceived opportunity cost. The numbers won't add up for a bootstrapped business for many years (I am talking upwards of 5 years even). The only thing that keeps you going is your ambition ('this is what i want to do', 'nothing else i would rather do').
The best way I have learnt to deal with this is to surround myself with people who think similar.
The best way I have learnt to deal with this is to surround myself with people who think similar.
I work at a big tech company and also have my own small firm for freelance work. Even though I don't have my own product and implement what customers need, ranging from new website to SIEMs and stuff, I find it pretty lucrative. And my prices are about $20/hr.
But yes, I don't know if I can survive without working full job.
LE: and revenue is not that small, about 25k per year.
LE: and revenue is not that small, about 25k per year.
These businesses all seem like something that very well could make you money, but would never scale into a growth startup.
And it seems the time it takes to build one of these or a growth startup isn't going to be too different.
I might even say that you similar chances of making a similar amount of money from either.
So why not shoot for the larger moon?
So why not shoot for the larger moon?
Interesting analysis. I especially like your personal goals and the "Raise prices, even if nobody's buying". This is a really valuable insight. Thanks for sharing that.
I have one question: Do you have a feeling about the market size you are in and how does this influence your planning?
I have one question: Do you have a feeling about the market size you are in and how does this influence your planning?
I read your original post 2 years ago, and was waiting for the conclusion. Thank you for posting this.
Reading the post makes me most curious about how you live so cheaply? Halfing your burn rate doubles your time to death which more than doubles your chances of success
These products do not appear obviously commercializable and multiple years invested into them without materially improving the businesses does not decrease my confidence in that snap judgment. You could probably talk to business owners with problems, launch an (appropriately priced; hundreds to thousands of dollars per year) product against those problems, build contingent on getting 10 commits to buy, and be at +/- $100k in 12 to 18 months. Many people with less technical and writing ability have done this in e.g. the MicroConf community. If you want the best paint-by-numbers approach to it I've seen, c.f. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw&t=2s
(I'll note that What Got Done is probably a viable boutique SaaS business if you somehow figured out distribution for it, at price points between $50 and $200 per month. My confidence on this approaches total. HNers skeptical because it is technically trivial should probably reflect for a moment on how much time is spent on standups at a company with 20 or 200 engineers, what one hour of their time is worth, and how likely that company is to put an engineer on this project specifically.)
If you run an API-based business in the future: Usage-based billing is a really tricky business model for a solo developer. Note that you can say "Usage-based billing but we have a minimum commitment", and probably should prior to doing speculative integration engineering work. Your minimum commitment should be north of $1,000 per month; practically nobody can integrate with your API for cheaper than a thousand dollars of engineering time, right.
This also counsels aiming at problems amenable to solutions with APIs which are trivially worth $1,000++ a month to many businesses which can hire engineers. Parsing recipe ingredients seems like a very constrained problem space. Consider e.g. parsing W-2s or bank statements or similar; many more businesses naturally care about intake of those documents, getting accurate data from them, and introducing that data into a lucrative business process that they have.
I would encourage you, to the maximum extent compatible with your sanity, to prioritize "Will this get me more customers?" over behind-the-scenes investments like CI/CD which are very appropriate to Google but will under no circumstance show up in next year's report as One Of The Most Important Things I Did This Year.
For similar reasons, I would suggest devoting approximately zero cycles to cost control. You don't have a cost problem and no amount of cost control will bend the curve of your current businesses to sustainability. You have a revenue problem. Your desired state in the medium term will make it economically irrational for you to think for more than a minute about a $50 a month SaaS expense; marketing and sales gets you to that desired state, not cost control.