Wanted: Web-dev to partner on my new project.
Hi IHers,
Last week I launched my new project, www.postperk.com, on Indie Hackers. Demand has been higher than expected - I'm well on track to reach $10k MRR by the end of April.
To be able to spend enough time with customers, I'm considering bringing a partner on board to help with building the product. Normally I wouldn't look for someone outside my existing network, but several threads on IH have inspired me to be a bit more open-minded and (perhaps) take a chance on someone new :)
Here's what I'm offering:
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Technical lead on a SaaS product (simple CRUD web-app which involves a little bit of Instagram/web scraping and quite a lot of sending emails)
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Make product decisions with me, technical decisions completely by yourself
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Significant equity and/or cash
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Transparency on non-tech stuff. Want to be involved in the sales/marketing stuff as well to see how it works? I've already built a b2c company to $50k+/year revenue and a b2b SaaS company to $50k+ MRR... so I've made a lot of the more painful mistakes already :)
Here's who I'm looking for:
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Competent web-dev (ideally more back end than front end)
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We get along well personally and professionally
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Timezone somewhere between PST and CET
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Fluent (not necessarily native) English speaker
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Willing to put in roughly 20-40h/week initially.
If that sounds like you, please drop me a line (email in my profile) with your Hangouts/Skype username, a few sentences about yourself, and a 20min time-slot for a quick call. You can find out more about me from my IH profile and activity.
If you're an agency, marketplace, freelancer or contractor looking for a part time gig - please don't contact me.
Thanks!
Why are you looking to offer equity from the beginning? You now have a MRR to be envious of and you have done the hard yards already.
If you are looking for someone to be all-in like yourself you might have to try and try-again a few times to find the right fit. To take out any miss-understanding I would prefer to pay a "fair" salary for the first few months and if it all works out offer a "first employee" share/profit scheme.
I'm a developer and was offered a "fair/just below market rate" salary with a startup that had proven their concept and had paying customers with a pretty ordinary prototype. After 3 months they offered an equity component as a thank you for what I had done, as an incentive to continue, and to be rewarded when we finally succeeded.
See my answer to Josh for a bit more detail.
As you can see in my original post, I am aiming to do something similar to what you described.
Having been through this process before, I really don't think I've done 'the hard yards already.' There's also no problem promising equity from the beginning (IMO) - that's what vesting schedules are for. There will definitely be some leeway on the equity/cash split though, depending on how we work together.
Why not just hire someone?
Good question. Couple of reasons:
Responsibility. This is (hopefully) a marathon, not a sprint. If I'm sick for a few days or need a long weekend break, there needs to be someone on the team to be able to jump in for me.
Accountability. I want someone who I can bounce ideas off and who challenges me. A partner will do that more than an employee will.
Risk. I don't like hiring people for positions that might not be there in a month. Sure, things are going great now. But we haven't been working on the project long enough to know what churn will look like, for example.
Lastly, as I mentioned in my post, I am willing to pay.
I'm generally skeptical about offers of development for equity. Louis, however, is an exception to the rule, and I would recommend experienced developers to take a closer look.
Louis posts some of the most intelligent and thoughtful posts on this site.
For all you struggling with side projects carefully study what louis has done here, amazing concept:
1.) A B2B offering which influences the bottom line and increases sales.
2.) A technologically simple idea, CRUD app feeding into social media APIs.
Louis, i bet you don't have to work hard to sell this product :)
Thanks, that's really kind. I've been impressed by much of the advice you've given on IH, so it really means a lot coming from you.
You'd be surprised! Conversion rate from demos/calls to becoming a paying customer is pretty decent (over 75%). Yet we aren't quite there yet on converting from cold outreach to demo/call.
It has only been two weeks though, so I'm not too worried yet. We still have some time :P
Same! That's why I'm willing to find a mix of cash and equity which works for the right person. The initial feedback from customers has been positive but, as with every early-stage project, there is still significant risk that we end up with nothing!
Louis,
Good luck with this.
It might be difficult, but if there is a way of tracking sales attributable to your product that would help with your pitch. What better selling point than an average customer ROI,
I suspect with the diffuse nature of social media, what is more feasible is calculating the exposure generated from the product - which I assume you're doing already.
Are you also pursuing a tail marketing strategy (seo/content marketing) or just the sales drive?
Thanks again.
Yes, I'm working on some ways to track sales (or at least better quantify the value we create).
Right now, it's just sales.
Launched last week and on track to reach $10k MRR? Wow! What's your secret? :)
Wish I had few more years of dev experience.
By the way, what's the tech stack?
I am also wondering what the tech stack is.
Whatever you want it to be. Just has to be something I can keep ticking over if we decide to part ways. So probably something in python, PHP or JS (or RoR).
Right now, I've cobbled together a working MVP using React, Firebase and Cloud Functions (with a bit of Zapier as well). So it would be helpful if you understand at least a little bit of JS.
I have built a few products with PHP (Laravel). My most recent tinkering has been with React and Firebase Cloud Firestore. I'll DM you today!
It's both rare and refreshing to see a non-tech or at least less technical founder leaving the choice of tech stack to their technical partner. This is a huge green flag IMO!
Thanks. I'd be more comfortable calling myself less technical than non-technical - I'm looking for a partner who can build faster and better than I can (not because I couldn't do it myself) :)
My main question will always be 'what is the quickest way to do this without it breaking before $50k MRR?'
If we get that far, we can spend the next ten years refactoring and building micro services etc.
Again, it sounds like you're completely on the right track! I suppose that's not surprising, given you said this isn't your first time doing this. Best of luck!
No secret - just sales!
I answered your tech stack question in a sub-comment.
Can you specify what exactly you sold? From my understanding you don't have a product yet, so what people were paying for? Thanks!
From a sub-comment in the same thread:
Also, as the sales have come in over the last two weeks and I'm targeting slightly larger accounts (ecommerce stores with 1k+ sales each month), I'm onboarding most new clients manually. And spending a lot of time 'hand-holding' to make sure they are happy and don't churn/do give us a great testimonial...
Does that answer your question? Or can I be more helpful?
It's clear now, thanks!
Amazing job, Louis! I have emailed you. :)
Hey Louiss,
Brilliant idea and I liked how you are tracking interest by scheduling a call and talking to customers. Also really great landing page.
Although, I'm a backend web developer by trade, I can't take on more projects unfortuantely. But I'm working on a SaaS for ecommerce and could help you picking a developer (estimates, publishing an app in Shopify, etc).
Sent you an email for scheduling a 20 min call.
Thanks wissem, that's kind. Luckily I can code, so hopefully I won't be too bad at getting that stuff right. Definitely open to a call anyway though. I'm excited to hear from you :)
Congrats on the successful launch! Very inspiring to see that. I just dropped you a line about partnering with a few questions I had from my end.
Best of luck!
Great company name (PostPerk) and a space I'm familiar with. You've done some impressive projects thus far! Look for my email soon.
Thanks Daniel - looking forward to hearing from you and having a chat.
Unfortunately, I didn't come up with the name myself - of the many things I'm not very good at, choosing names is definitely up there with the worst of them!
I am extremely interested but I am a freelancer/contractor with tons of experience :(
Maybe I wasn't too clear with my no freelancers/contractors post.
What I meant is that I'm not looking for a typical contractor/freelancer relationship. If you're a freelancer hoping to make the transition to working on your own SaaS project part/full time, then it might still be a good fit.
Ah ok! Email sent!!!
Hello louisswiss, I just created a post on IH for my App that helps you find people interested in helping with your Side Project. Would you be willing to post this on the App? The app is pretty new and not in any app stores so I would have to send a download link to your email.
Sure - happy to take a look!
Thank you. Here is the link to the form for the app. https://sideprojects.bubbleapps.io
Not commenting to put my name forward (my web dev skills are barely there XD) but this is an amazing opportunity. For anyone keen to work on a SaaS business and looking to learn about marketing, you can't do much better than partnering up with this guy ;)
Good luck Louis!
Thanks - that's really kind!
Just to be clear though - there are definitely A LOT of people out there who are better at SaaS, startups and marketing than I am...
That said, having made a lot of silly mistakes and not being a 'natural', means I'd probably be a good person to learn from.
Indeed, we all still have a lot to learn. Look forward to seeing how it goes with PostPerk!
good luck with this project and thanks for your contribution to the community! if I didn't have a project that needs to scale I'd join in a heartbeat
thanks ferruccio - that's really kind.
Best of luck with scaling the project and make sure to keep us updated :)
This is a fantastic opportunity for any developer with the time and skillset required.
A chance to get involved with a company that has already found traction is a rare one and from watching his posts here and talking to him I have no doubt that Louis would be great to work with and someone that you would definitely learn a lot from as well.
Hi Shawn,
Thanks for the kind words - means a lot coming from you!
I'm not sure we're quite at 'traction' yet, but we're definitely on the right path and heading in that direction quickly...
Send you a Facebook message.
Hope to hear you soon.
Hey Louis!
I emailed you stating - How to grow PostPerk and how us working together can impact its growth.
Looking forward to your relpy.
Cheers!
I totally would if not for being GMT+8. I've been looking for something part time to pay the bills while scaling up to ramen profitability, which will probably take me a while.
hey! Here is Leo! Great job!! I am a .Net developer, so I m afraid I can't help you this time... Good luck!
thanks!
Very interested! Sent a message your way. :) Custom domain, so double-check your spam folder.