I would like to know how you can stay focus and keep your passion running while staying afloat. Currently, the only problem I have is funding for my current start-up I have a vision for it but funding keeps me from doing that.
I'm pretty new in the start-up world and I want to learn from the experts here. Also looking for a mentor in this field. Any comment or reply to my post will be appreciated. Thank you, guys!
High paid freelance work -> save up for 2/3 years -> live as cheap as possible.
If you have kids/wife that isn't a viable option.
Hello, thanks for the advice!
I don't have kids and even a wife but I do have a long-term girlfriend.
We manage to start a business but staying afloat is currently probably due to the fact that my main freelance work is affected by the pandemic.
I'll take your advice personally, saving will literally save you in these times.
Freelance work is a huge pain. If you aren't doing it full time I believe it to be a bad solution.
Freelance work feels more important than your business, so you neglect the business.
Also if you don't have money you have stress and that isn't good for building a business long term. You make mistakes due to short term thinking.
It's all about balance, I do freelance work, but I make sure to allocate my time with balance. That way, no matter what, I can still make progress on my projects. But yea, sometimes it can be hard, and it can be tempting to just focus on the short term cash generating things.
This past week was one of those busy ones which unfortunately I wasn't able to spend much time developing the things for my own project. But it's just how life is sometimes I guess.
Although, there's always the routte of you focusing on only working on a few projects hands on, and hiring someone that can help you with the other projects, while still making some profit yourself.
Exactly "how how life is", it is much easier to default to freelance work as the rewards are instant. I can earn a good amount per day. Which ruins my ability to think long term.
Hiring is a huge pain and a unique skill set. Not sure it is that easy to do.
As you said, it's a skill, so, it can be developed and polished. I'd say it's basically like project management, all you have to do is find one person that would be the right fit, and then make sure to have effective communication with them. I haven't really outsourced my online work yet. But I used to lead a team of events while in college, basically event management; so, I'd think it would be similar in those aspects. But, always, communication is key.
Agreed it is a skill.
Some skills mentioned
Those are 3 unique skills while you're also starting a business that requires a ton more learning.
"If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together."
My guess is most startups should focus on going fast, then once they have hit product market fit focus on going far. (these assumptions are based on wanting to build a SaaS that isn't a micro SaaS).
Yea, that's true, although if you look at that Kombucha dude, I think it was Kombucha King on Youtube, he has a billion dollar business that he did by himself pretty much (according to the video) but that's a phyisical industralized product, but there might be a way of doing something similar with software.
But yea, I agree, having a team can make the process less stressful and more scalable.
Got it, I made a lot of mistakes... I don't expect this pandemic would ruin my whole life. I treat it as a learning curve in my journey in creating and starting my own business.
Business is hard like crazy...
It is when you try to do many things at once.
Focus is the key and understanding your customer/client. Which is a lot harder when your trying to service many at the same time.
There are developers right now earning $250/hr who are saying no to extra work. "Good" work exists.
Likewise there are founders who work on passion projects and make a good living.
Biggest problem for me was trying to decide the order and come to terms with opportunity cost.
I'm in this for about three years now, this is how I did it and still do it:
I always worked on the product when I wasn't working on client projects. But at the beginning of 2021 and months of talking and sometimes coding, I told myself I'll hammer out a MVP ( took me about 3 months). Now I can start to onboard teams while I build what they want to see.
I also set some goals of min, mid, max revenue -> doesn't really matter if freelance or SaaS (ideally the latter grows more and more). After I covered my costs of living and a budget for some fun activities I focus on the product again until I go the same route again.
Although it might be contrary to the indie hackers-way: you always can keep raising capital an option, an angel investor who has the same mindset as you might be the best option. Like others mentioned, this can take between 6 to 12 months with no guarantee of raising anything - but the same applies for product-market-fit. But you won't be talking to potential investors 24/7 so there definitely is some time to keep building or earning some money.
Let me know if you have any questions, I'm always happy to share what I've learned along the way. :)
Thanks, @kvn for sharing your experience with me... I'm literally new to this. I code for 7 years and last year I realized that I should save money so I can start a small business or SaaS project. I made a lot of mistakes but now by sharing your experiences I learned new things in life to continue. I might contact you for more information for sure.
I'm completely late...
You're welcome. Making mistakes sounds good. Even though they sometimes hurt emotionally or financially. It will always be a part of the journey.
Oh boy oh boy, this is right up my alley.
I've got a personal portfolio of 50 website projects of my own (that isn't a round number, that's how many sites I run), as well as co-founding my startup Removaly.
Through all of this, I have always been extremely risk averse. I've run a personal content writing side gig that made me around $4,000 to $5,000 a month for over a year. I've done online reputation management for high-net-worth individuals that made about the same. Income has ebbed and flowed, and that's how I always expect it to be.
That being the case, I have only a single five-week stint where I didn't have a full-time job to fall back on. I'm also married to a wonderful wife who is one year from finishing up a surgery residency and two years from being a full-fledged trauma surgeon.
Of course, that leads to major swings in income. For the four years she spent in medical school after we got married (we married young, she was 21 and I was 22, but we had been together for over five years before that) her income was technically -$50,000 per year. I was young, working as a financial analyst, so my income barely negated her student loans. That's when I started truly grinding in the online marketing world.
Now, I'm a digital marketing manager and she is a fourth-year surgery resident, so our take-home income is in a great spot, allowing us to afford a meaningful lifestyle and gives me the chance to take my side income to bootstrap additional projects and services to diversify income streams beyond the typical index funds and 401k.
All in all, here are my top three tips I've learned:
1: If you have kids, do not pull the trigger on self-employment unless you either have a) a spouse with an income that can support all living expenses plus 12 months of living expenses saved up, or b) at least 36 months of living expenses saved up and a strong backup plan if you need to re-enter the workforce.
2: The idea of "the hustle" and quitting it all to focus on a project without a backup plan is a fool's errand. In fact, if you're looking for investors, while you may consider your plans a gung-ho approach, they will likely see a strong potential for financial mismanagement.
3: Assume you are a hiring manager, and one of the resumes on your pile is someone who clearly quit a position to make it on their own with a startup that ultimately failed and they had to re-enter the workforce. That would be a big red flag for someone whose stability in a role is questionable if they were willing to leave a role to set out on their own. What would stop them from doing so again?
Again, this is coming from someone who is extremely risk averse, so your mileage may vary.
Piggy-backing off the other comment here.
I think the two major issues people will have is funding or family being an obstacle from keeping you dedicating all your time into your project.
If you don't have kids or an SO then you may have money issues.
Something people tend to do is save up for many years and then quit and pursue their project full time while living on their savings at some cheap location.
I can speak from experience. I have been working full time on my latest project but I did save up enough to survive for at least 2 years. The more money my side project makes means the longer I can stay afloat until it hopefully reaches enough to cover living expenses.
You can also decide to work and just dedicate whatever free time on the side to your project. That is the safest option and probably the most common. Just means it will take longer to accomplish what you want.
"I think the two major issues people will have is funding or family being an obstacle from keeping you dedicating all your time into your project."
You're correct! 100%
Creating your hustle is very hard... it is fun at first but when you go deeper and deeper you are seeing the way to hell.
Yeah, as per my reply from the first comment, I don't have kids and even a wife.
I left my job too early, so I spend my time doing some freelancing work but because of the pandemic, I'm also affective some of my clients did not stay with my services. That's why I'm struggling right now.
It's too stressful, I'm losing my passion because of these problems.
I'll take also your advice... saving is the key.
VC seed round
I would agree with @volkandkaya it is hard to find VC funding. My start-up is pretty new and we need more traction to get noticed by VC. Also, I don't want VC to fund my start-up since equity is expensive as hell.
Getting funding is a full time job for 6-12 months with no guarantee you will raise.
In them 6months you won't be able to focus on the product or the business.
If the company is VC fundable you would be better of applying to world class accelerators.