I'm spread too thinly. I think. Not sure what to do.
My MRR has stagnated around $500-ish ($526 right now) for a couple of weeks now. Churn has gone up significantly. I'm stuck working on a thorny database problem for months now, and, unless I get it solved (I've actually made remarkable progress, but moving databases with dozens of customers and hundreds of trial users isn't a walk in the park), I can't really focus on my marketing or adding features just yet.
At the same time, you know what has grown? Crypto.
I found myself checking charts of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tezos, ChainLink, Stellar, and what not during "startup" hours. To be fair, I made quite a handsome profit, more than doubling my life savings in a few days on a recent trade, but it has distracted me massively.
I reassured myself that my responsibility is to my own financial freedom, not necessarily any one endeavor. Whatever endeavor is doing well, I'll transfer my focus over there. That doesn't mean I ignore customer support queries on my startup; I don't. I just haven't been able to dedicate as much energy and attention to improving and growing the product.
Then my other passion job (I'm an artist... of sorts) started throwing gigs at me, so I had to take even more time and mind space out to tend to that. Hey, if you want to be a rock star, for example, would you turn down paying gigs just to hack code at your desk, which you can do anytime? The answer was simple.
And then add on to the fact that my girlfriend and my family also want to see a lot of me during the summer, particularly after a long lockdown period. I've booked 3 week-long vacations throughout July-August, and I'm not even sure I can go on those guilt-free without feeling I'm shortchanging my startup.
I don't think my startup is going to grow much or at all in these few months. And obviously I'd deserve it -- we reap what we sow.
Anyone ever has any experience dealing with the feeling of being overwhelmed before?
How did you balance all of it, while still giving due priority to your SaaS product?
It's okay to do nothing.
Maybe your startup isn't the project you really want to be working on? My personal opinion is that a startup should be something you have to take yourself away from working on, not something you have to force yourself to work on. It may make sense to consider a startup idea that works with some of your other hobbies. How do you make decisions with your crypto trades? Can software help with that?
I decided long ago that I needed a better note taking app than was currently on the market. I use it every day and my motivation to work on it is I need a feature to help me with the other aspects of my life. It so happens that other people also thought the product was great so I considered commercialization and the rebranding/retooling needed to take that step.
Perhaps. My last startup I built to $1.5k MRR (back in 2012). I was living in Southeast Asia back then, so that was quite a big of money, so I just decided to coast and live life and drink beer and party and travel and meet girls all the time. I've always had that "this startup is just a vehicle to fund my lifestyle" mindset, which I'm finding very hard to shake off.
I feel like a pariah here here I say stuff like that, which is why I'm using a throwaway, but if I'm being completely honest, I primarily care about how that startup can provide me the freedom to do the stuff I actually want to do.
Am I wrong for harboring this mindset?
I think that mindset is fine. It is important to know what it is you want in life and your startups and not pay so much attention to what other people think you should want.
Was wondering when boeing was going to post. And yet again the man speaks the truth. I myself dabbled and made a killing in biotech stocks end of last year and early this year. Everything was going well until covid hit. Now my philosophy is more of a set it and forget timeframe for stocks as i found myself spending way too much time on it. And while the pay off is great... i noticed in the long run it isn't fulfilling and with covid it isn't sustainable co-- compared to startup/project one is passionate about.
Oh, trust me I'm here daily. This is just my throwaway account, because I'm uncomfortable sharing as much as other people are here with my regular account. Call me chicken shit if you must.
And shouldn't your biotech stocks and what not be doing well since April onwards, with the Fed manipulation and all? :)
With $526 MRR you can afford to pay a contractor to solve your database problem. https://www.uclusion.com frequently uses them and they are amazing people usually wanting some variety from their day jobs. Plus specific skill set wise they can do things in days that would take you weeks.
(Edit - come to think of it we have a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t7uzNGUxFk on communicating with contractors using Uclusion.)
I actually ironed out all the bugs and inconsistencies during my database migration, thankfully, now I'm just doing a thorough testing on staging just to make sure everything is A-OK before I do the irreversible migration.
Thanks for your suggestion though!