How do you support yourself while building?
Do you work full-time? Freelance? Work a part time job or do side gigs?
I'm lucky to have been living frugally just off savings for a while, but it's not sustainable for much longer and I don't want to rush building a business that sustains me. I'd love to be able to work just enough to pay the bills, while leaving enough time for the things I really want to build. Those sorts of gigs seem hard to come by in this industry.
How do you solve this problem?
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I've always had a day gig, or freelance gigs along side building up stuff. Some people get a good cashflow within 12 months or so, but for most what I find is that it takes much longer than that.
I've also been without money in the past and that is truly somewhere I do not want to go again.
Thanks for sharing. There's definitely a different feeling to hacking while working full-time. The safety of a regular paycheck makes it possible to experiment with things that take time to grow (my favourite kind)
I think a lot of people have the same problem. I thought of a solution that is a fixed amount per month for the creator (like $500) backed by supporters.
The fixed price means that every new supporter would decrease the price for everyone else, like 100 supporters paying $5/mo to help move the idea forward. If more supporters chime in, like 50 more, the price decreases to $3,33 for everyone, and so on. You got a small monthly fixed amount to pay the bills and go full time on your idea for a pre-defined period.
Moreover, you got your first 100-200 customers!
All you have to do is build a solid prototype to show the idea and maybe a pitch deck to show for supporters. The supporters would have an incentive to publicize the idea because more supporters would decrease the monthly price and lower the risk.
The experiment would have a fixed period as well, like 3-6 months to test the hypothesis. After that, the supporter could receive some kind of reward, like a lifetime membership or a special space on the website.
A single supporter could help hundreds of creators and new ideas to flourish.
I wonder how many people would be willing to live frugally to pursue their dreams with this small help.
I even got an awesome domain for it bysupers.com! Unfortunately, I didn't have time to move forward, but I'm thinking of creating a page describing the idea to collect feedback and, at least, get information with there is interest.
That's interesting @gpires! I had a similar idea after my escapades on Twitter today and yesterday trying to support creators. I think Buy Me A Coffee is attempting to help in this space, but more could for sure be done.
I would love for creators to feel like they had some steady support and could quit their jobs and go all-in more often. Great idea!
Awesome Dustin, thank you for replying. I will ping you (if you don't mind) when I have something more concrete to show. I'd love your input. Cheers.
Definitely do! That would be awesome!
I'm in a similar position, I've been living off savings for a while, which i've stretched to the bone.
I quit my job a few years have a shot at making my business, which launched but isn't a going concern if i'm honest. It's been a great learning experience, but the reality of needing income is impossible to ignore.
Like you, the ideal position would be a freelance gig that just covers bills, leaving plenty of time for startups. But that's challenging to find, and I also find that having some time as a startup founder on your CV isn't necessarily what employers want (understandably, as they generally hire for specific experience, and there's also the concern that you may leave as soon as your side project gets up and running).
Thanks for sharing. It's tough out there in indie land.
Ah yeah, it's like the PhD effect. I suppose some employers pass on overqualified employees because they think there'll be higher salary expectations too, when all they think they need is a code monkey. But surely there are some out there that value that expertise.
Yeah absolutely, there's loads of opportunity out there, the challenge is finding it, but its certainly doable. Best of luck and keep us posted with your progress!
Get a job. Depleting your savings for something that you don't know if it will work is not smart. It's tough to find the spare time, but it's the best way. If you gain traction, you can quit. We occasionally hear the story of the person that quit their job and got successful but for everyone 1 of those stories, there's a 100 untold of those that spent all their savings and had to go back and get a job.
Hey thanks for sharing your thoughts. Yes, it's definitely the smart thing to do to stay employed, especially for people with more family obligations than myself.
I left work knowing the most likely outcome would be to "fail", but I don't regret it at all in hindsight. I built some stuff I'm really proud of, and recovered from some serious burnout at the same time. The most important thing is it gave me time to reflect on my life, and I can't really put a price on that.
It’s a good idea to do a bit of freelancing. It can take longer than you expect to get everything you need setup (website, payment system, portfolio, finding new clients). Best to spend a few hours a week getting prepared.
I've been living off savings for the past 6 months that I was building my start up.
I launched this week and now have my first paying customer and a few more potential customers lined up so hopefully it can start to pay for the bills soon.
That's awesome, congrats!
I think it's all about your personal risk tolerance. I'm naturally risk adverse and I think a lot about making calculated risks, in my opinion this is no different.
For me, I worked full-time while building my product. I worked nights and weekends and any revenue I was making from the business I was saving. Once I hit about 70% of my full-time income I started free-lancing part time. While building my business I was also networking to try and help my odds of finding a good client once the time was right.
Once I was able to replace my salary, I slowed down the free-lancing work. Even though I'm full time on my business now I do free-lance from time to time but very few hours a month.
I did this for many years before I took the jump and went full-time with my business.
That's impressive, nice! I think if I hit even 25% of my full-time income I would skip the freelancing stage haha
My current answer is "the passive income from previous projects", but of course you can't expect a new starter to have that luxury.
I would say freelancing would be the best answer, but it is also not very easy to get into and pretty draining. Plus I would assume the market value for freelancers is not at where it was after the covid-19.
You're living the dream, congrats :)
I'm currently unemployed I've saved up and have good runway.I have $0 MRR so this is just my plan not an advise . Here's my plan of action -
Instead of building something now and make some money and then build something I love. I plan on building what I love in a way it gives me money. I think given some thought, research and minor discomfort and lots of discipline, I think I can to it.
Trying things like building in public and connecting with the people who I can help without compromising my way of doing things. This also possible given the size of the internet
That's it.
I'm always up for a chat if you want to know more.
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Sounds awesome, I just signed up!