Return to a regular job?
Every once in a while, I doubt if I can reach ramen profitability of $$5K in monthly revenue and question myself if I should return to a regular job.
I am mostly year in my journey working full time on my project, which makes only $$141 in MRR. And the project is not profitable. I spend more on it than I earn. It is far, far away from covering our family expenses.
The growth is slow, and I might spend all our family savings in one year at the current rate. So, I have a few options that I want to consider. I might have other choices, but that's what I see from my perspective:
- Go all-in on one project—ScreenshotOne.
- Go all-in, but try to build more projects, including with partners.
- Go to work part-time or contracting if possible and build slowly on the side.
- If possible, go to work full-time and build even more slowly on the side.
- Find investments for the current project or new idea.
- Ask for a loan from financial structures or friends.
- Build quickly new project that makes money.
I will continue to grow and improve ScreenshotOne in any of these options.
All-in on one project is risky
I can't go all-in with one project because I am not sure there is a good enough market for it to make $$5K MRR. But I am sure that complete focus on the project will make to grow it faster. How fast? I don't know. But it is a serious bet.
Had the project grown faster? I would go all-in on it. I know that I am the reason why it grows slowly. But I don't know how to improve velocity.
Continue the journey, but build more projects
One of the ways to hedge single-project risk is to build more projects to see what gets more traction. That is the hard one because I need to launch constantly many projects and see what gets traction. I can't go deeper and give all the needed time to the project..
What if the project requires more time to grow? I can handle this by shutting down the project—letting it grow slowly.
Contracting for the rescue
That's one of the options that I seriously consider. It still allows me to have more free time than a full-time job, but it will move focus away from projects, so my full financial liberation might happen later than sooner.
It is also a hedge bet against having a bad CV for recruiters. But should I really care? I write code daily, and I build complex production systems from scratch.
So, contracting will prolong our savings, but at the cost of losing momentum and focus on what I do. It also prolongs the period in which I get to my financial liberation.
A full-time job
The full-time job looks like a capitulation. I am fine with it. But I doubt that I will have time to do new projects or make big features.
I will have time only to support the current project and periodically write content for it. How do I know that? Because I already worked at a full-time job. And my mental focus was always on it. I couldn't move any of my side projects. Zero progress.
Get investments or take loans
I don't believe that ScreenshotOne is eligible for investments at the current stage. While the project makes money, the growth is slow and might not be that attractive. Build a new project solely to take investments? I can't because I don't know the results, and I don't want to owe money in case of failure. I know that investors take the risk. But even mentally, I will feel that I owe them.
It might be an excellent option to force me to make it happen. But it also might be a colossal failure. It might be a good option later, once ScreenshotOne or other projects kicks off.
Loans are in the same category as investments for me.
Build quickly a new project that makes money
It is a random option that I added. Here, I think of building a straightforward SaaS with one feature in the profitable niche but starting from a life-time deal to fund the endeavor and validate assumptions. This one is a good combination and also can be done while contracting. I contemplate it.
Resume and the final decision
It is too risky for me to bet everything on one project and even on many projects. Knowing what I know now, I know there is no guarantee that I can do it in a year, two, three, or even ten.
So, I will try to find an excellent contracting opportunity, and if not, I will return to a regular job. And I will work on the side for my projects. If needed, I will hire people.
My biggest fear is to end up without savings at the end of the following year in the middle of the upcoming recession. And without the possibility of finding a job.
But having less time might force me to choose the right priorities and even progress more on my projects. I am tired of this stress of burning our savings, so let it be.
It is too risky for me to bet everything on one project and even on many projects. Knowing what I know now, I know that there is no guarantee that I can do it in a year, two, three, or even ten.
Hey Dmytro,
it looks like you've built a really fantastic product that few people need. My advice would be
Quit spending time and effort on your product, but don't delete it just yet. See if it'll pick up steam organically +1 hr/week marketing effort. Sometimes it takes a year or two for a product to start picking up steam.
Try freelancing. You're clearly an amazing developer. I'm sure there are dozens of people reading this wishing they could hire you to help them build something similar. Freelancing would allow you to make enough money to cover your expenses while also affording you the time to work on personal projects like ScreenshotOne.
Learn an important lesson from this - you need to do more/better validation before you waste too much time and money. Especially if you're going all in, funding a project from your savings.
Financially, getting a full time job is always the smartest move. But if you're like me, you'd hate to be in that position. This is why I freelance. I can make enough money to feed my family and pay my mortgage. But it also gives me freedom to do what I want.
Whatever you do, DO NOT end up in a situation where you're broke and you have family depending on you!
Best of luck!
I agree 100% with this.
I was in the same situation, that I developed a technically excellent product that almost noone needed. I ran out of money after working 1.5 years on it fulltime.
Then I freelanced a bit and after a few months and a lot of reflecting I started a market-first business, i.e. I looked at what people/companies pay for instead of what I would be excited to build. And this works 1000x better already after just a few weeks of development.
The freelancing also gave me the idea for the exact niche so IMO this is the best way forward.
Yes, Michel. Thanks for your input. I much needed it!
That's what I recently understood, I probably have chosen the small market, and it doesn't matter what I build—I might not grow at all.
For the next idea, I will choose the market first. Everything else is less important.
Market eats passion on breakfast.
Agree. I regret abandoning one of my past startups. I was just physically and mentally exhausted, and decided to destroy it. Though I'm pretty sure it would eventually succeed - more or less - if I took a break and realized it's always a marathon, not a sprint
Andy, I am sorry for you. I did the same thing many times and I regret it too. I could wait a bit, and SEO might have picked up. But let's not do it with our current projects.
Ben, I reread your reply three times. You understand what you are talking about, and it resonates powerfully with me.
You defined my problem very well. I took a very tiny market/niche that is not growing, has many competitors, and has one of the most challenging types of customers to sell to—developers.
Yes, I have never succeeded in building a project on the side with a full-time job. It sucked a lot of energy out of me. I am not sure I wasn't happy, but building on the side was tough.
And thanks for the advice. I also think that I can spend less time on the project (ScreenshotOne) and start building new ones and experimenting to see if I can jump into the growing market without killing the current project.
I took a look at Practice Probs. What a project!
One idea I had but was afraid to jump to is to build a learning platform where you can do a fully-fledged project to practice coding. Like, building a chess game with API and UI and platform guides. It splits the complex project into small challenges, and you solve them by them, but in the end, you have the complete project that works.
Have you thought about something like this? There might be a demand. Or I wrote a stupid thing?
I decided not to go with such a project exactly because it looked so complex and was a big bet that I couldn't afford without funding.
Just wanna chime in here and say that's something that I've been thinking a lot about as well @DmytroKrasun, it's actually on the roadmap for the future for my project (clientside.dev)
Yes, but think not about algorithms but about building real projects by the guide with automated checks by the platform! Isn't that great? People will already have a portfolio once they pass the course on your site.
Thanks!
The challenge with edtech is generating a reasonable amount of revenue. It's doable, but hard, given the amount of free and cheap material out there.
Speaking of coding up a chess game, I worked on something similar but I ended up putting the project on pause (see gaimbot.com). Just felt like I had a lot of work left to do before I even had a chance at being profitable.
If you feel like DM'ing me, I'd be happy to share some of my untapped ideas with you. Would love to see some of these products get built. They're things I would pay for, personally.
What a project!
I don't plan to go to education now because, as you said, it seems to be a hard-to-sell market. And I am focused on covering living expenses. But once covered, why not try?
Are you active on Twitter?
I check it once or twice a week and post occasionally. @NebNamrog
🤝
Hi Dmytro, I was looking into your application. The landing page is really well designed, it is easy to understand and I can see the value in it, so good job!
In your position I would wonder why a good product does not generate good revenue, and I think the reason for that is your target audience. Most developers I know do not need to take screenshots like that on a regular basis, and, if they do, they know how to spin up a headless instance of chromium to automate that job.
But I think your project still has good potential, if you manage to turn it into something for a wider audience. Be your own customer and offer specialized services like:
These are just a few off the top of my head, but I think you see what I mean. Apart from that I feel that it is always the safer bet to work some part-time or contracting along with your own projects.
I wish you all the best, it really seems like a nice product with good potential!
That's one of the reasons why I share my thoughts in public. But I couldn't expect that kind of reply. I don't know how to say thank you.
That's one of the things that I recently understood. I want to be the user of my products. And you proposed to me many ways to have fun and do it.
All these projects might generate attention and showcase my "main" project. In addition to that, some of them can also be monetizable.
Sorry for double posting, but another example for the great potential might be some sort of "catching up with friends" app, the app takes a screenshot of all your friends/coworkers/uncles social media pages and sends you a collage of it once per week via email, this way you can stay up-to-date and in touch while reducing the time spent on social media
No worries ❤️
Sounds like the right move.
I'm currently doing 20h/week freelance and 20h/week on our projects.
The company is break-even, and I still have plenty of time to continue building.
I would steer clear of investments or loans for sure.
You can do that to scale something that works, not to find something that works.
Stefan, man! Thanks, as usual, for your inputs. Feedback from "reality" and other entrepreneurs helps me a lot.
Do you know what I didn't expect?
Having savings is not enough. You need to be able to tolerate burning them. And I can't. I just can't.
But having a contracting or even a full-time job can help me to remove that pressure. And with the current project, I just need to support it and gradually improve.
It's understandable.
The mental pressure is also correlated with how many commitments you have.
Can't put it all on one card if you're not 20 anymore haha
That's actually super precise.
I have kids and everything. My wife doesn't push on me.
But I don't want my family to live miserably just because I am OK with being "a starving artist".
You're doing the right thing, bro.
If your product is the right thing to work on, it will be successful no matter how long it takes.
This is a good way to reduce risk for you and your family
I don't know if it is the right thing to work on. But the entrepreneurial journey I started is yes—one of the best decisions I have ever taken. If not with this product, but with others, I will succeed.
Man, thanks for the kind words and your support. I appreciate it a lot.
Only time will tell.
Good thing is, you can take all the learnings with you from this product.
And that's what it's all about.
Going through the necessary iterations.
On the product, but also on the project and company level.
Stefan 🙏 and ❤️
I would say think of "Go to work part-time or contracting if possible and build slowly on the side." . Keep your vision clear and build on it. Just believe you can do it. If you keep trying without giving up, you will learn a lot. Short term success usually don't last long and you don't learn anything from it. If you work everyday towards your goal, everyday you are succeeding, it's just not materialized yet.
Thanks for the input.
Yes, I already work daily and will continue to work toward my dream. It might be a bit slower with contracting or a full-time job, though.
As somebody who still has a full-time job, I'll just say that to me my full-time job puts pressure on me that I find motivating. I don't have all day to work on my project, so I need to be very mindful of using any free time, prioritize key features, focus on MVP first, etc.
For me, removing the stress of making money allows me to focus on my projects with the clarity I probably would have if my project was my only income stream.
Good luck with your journey.
Same here. I notice the days where I have time off, I don't get much more work done than the days where I have to go to work. It's all about prioritizing your time properly so you can get more work done in less time.
Although taking care of a family on top of a full-time job is going to be difficult as well.
Richard, thanks for the input. Do you have kids, if I can ask?
I am curious if you feel that you are involved in their life. That's one of the things that I am afraid of with having a full-time job, side projects, and kids. I am afraid of to lose connection with them.
I don't have kids, but I think time management works the same way for everyone. It's just harder for some people depending on their circumstances.
I find a good way to get a certain amount of time per day to do any activity or habit is just blocking off a time where you only focus on that activity and nothing else.
For example, I block off 30 minutes every day for meditation and 1 hour for reading. I turn off all distractions (business or personal) and only do that one thing.
I think it would be the same for children. Dedicate a certain amount of time every day to be there for them and nothing else. Similar to meditation (I've been doing it for 2 years now without missing a single day), it's more important to be consistent rather than have one really good session but then a bunch of bad or nonexistent ones.
Best of luck with your product. If you ever decide to do something new or implement new things, then I suggest going into the AI space. It's pretty hot right now and with some of the new stuff coming out, you don't need to know much ML. If you're curious I'm developing one at the moment: it's an API for various AI that allows developers to more easily integrate it with their apps.
Richard, thanks! Do you build an AI API marketplace or a specialized AI API in a niche?
Specialized AI API for a niche, we'll be the ones uploading the AI to the cloud. I'm planning on hosting Stable Diffusion (art AI) and Bloom (GPT-3 alternative, text generator) and an image resolution increaser for my first launch. If you want to follow along, I have this progress log here: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/evoke
Most of our work is just making open source AI more accessible to developers since they might be tedious to work with or require large amounts of RAM or storage to run.
Hope more customers pick up your product, but I'm curious to what it offers to other screenshot API for devs? I see plenty of paid and free options in that area that don't seem to different from yours.
That's a great product. I might need to generate images soon with AI. I might try out your product. I have followed it. Thanks for sharing.
The reason why I might try it out? Because I don't want to spend time on the infrastructure. And that was my bet for the screenshot API.
That's a great question to ask, and that's what I am working on now. I actually do what my customers ask me to do. I have chosen a tough market. The market is small, and it is hard to grow within it.
I am bullish on API products. AI API niche also attracts me, but I am not ready to jump in.
Thanks, Max.
When I shared my doubts with my friend, who works on a full-time job and has a side project, he told me the same story: it helps him prioritize and be more productive rather than having a lot of free time.
I am in the same position as you. My saas is also not bringing much profits. But I am just out of college and I don't have any responsibility right now so I am going to give my one more project a chance. If it fails I am going to get a job and continue side hustling.
It's hard for me mentally but this is the way we learn. Every successful founder has to go through this.
I would suggest giving yourself a timeline and try to achieve results within those timeline. If you can't just get a job temporarily and continue to side hustle.
Thanks for your input!
Yes, that's what I weighed, but the worst scenario scares me a bit. I mean, what if my timeline ends at the beginning of the upcoming recession? I don't know if it is severe, though and if it is really going to happen.
Hi Dmytro, how is the marketing going so far? Do you have a few channels going? How are you going about leads ?? It seems with a few more outlets, reddit, and better social proof you can garner enough attention to hit 10k. Have you talked to customers about additional features ? Wouldn't it be easier to add more components vs trying more projects?
Thanks for the thought-provoking questions, Joe.
I permanently work on marketing.
I found a use case that a few customers use, and I think to expand on it. But it takes time.
I still don't have a permanent source of leads. I work on SEO mainly. You can look at my analytics—it is open.
Ive seen apps in Facebook groups that have a fraction of the features / detail of your SEO tool. I would bet if you work on your copy, you can get a bunch of leads this week. Plenty of new business owners want to see how their ads, especially facebook ads are performing. Most of the coaches / consultants.. those who are selling info products would want this.
Yes, thanks. But the only issue is that my product is not SEO 😂
I know exactly how you feel, I neeed you to tell me how it went in every 3 months. Where do you post consistently?
Hi, thanks for sharing empathy.
I tweet daily and occasionally write on my blog.
I just followed you. Looking forward to this! I hope you make it. :D
Thanks a lot ❤️
Hey bro,
Please take your time to explore your options
Thanks, that's what I did with writing.
Hi Dmytro
Great work with your screenshot tool. I wonder if you might be jumping to conclusions too quickly. I've dropped you a DM on twitter with some ideas
Thanks
I don't know, frankly, and that's one of the reasons I shared my thoughts.
It will take time for me a bit to respond to every DM. I am grateful to you for investing your attention. Thanks, Tom!
Yea that's a tough decision.
One thing I'm grateful for is that my day job is a small startup. So there is lots of skill cross-over with indie hacking.
Stephen, thanks for investing your attention.
Do you have time to work on your projects?
I have some time, its never enough time though 😜
Yes, we all have that problem.
Hi Dmytro, I have been in a somewhat similar situation last year.
I basically went all in, had some major life changing events happen to me and then went on to do contracting after 6 months full time Indie Hacking. I have been doing this for almost a year now. E.g. contracting + indie hacking on the side.
If you have any questions on how I did it, feel free to hit me up on Twitter :) We already follow each other @jebraat
John, yes, I know and remember you, of course.
But I haven't known your story. It looks similar to mine, so I am curious a ton.
Have you shared it anywhere in public?
My suggestion is to work part time and get paid to take care of the bills. The remaining time can be spent on this project. This reduces the pressure that you have to succeed and gives you the time to learn about your market.
Stop developing new features, step back and answer these questions:
Narrow down your target market to smallest possible audience.
When I start on a new job, I have difficulty learning the steps involved in fixing bugs. It would be useful if the QA engineer attaches a gif videos to show exactly how to reproduce the problem. If they attach this video to the Jira ticket, it will save time for the team. I don't need any audio, the screen shows the error.
Instead of providing an API, what if you use your own API to provide the end result that QA can use? What if it is a Chrome Plugin? You can test your idea quickly to see if it has any traction.
Thanks a lot. I appreciate your answer. I noted the questions and will take to answer them. I already have paying customers and some data points.
But this one:
Make me curious and motivates me a lot!
If you can project the trend in your market, it can guide you to build the feature that customers cannot yet find in your competitors.
Thanks, yes! I was already asked about 2-3 features that none of my competitors has. I need to consider implementing them. It would be a different level of the game.
Hey Dmytro,
I just checked out https://screenshotone.com/, and have a few initial thoughts if it helps.
The copy and design feels very developer-centric. The language that's used is quite heavy and jargon-related. I think it's important to remember that what you're offering could be really valuable to a lot of people, but people who don't know how to code are scared away from words like, render, HTML, API, etc...
It feels to me like the copy could be much more liter, and therefore user-friendly.
As someone who owns a pretty profitable site, who also don't know how to code, I can tell you that your project looks interesting for me to use, but when I see the dev-language, as well as actual code on the landing page, it feels sort of confusing like, "why is taking a beautiful screenshot so complex?"
As far as the initial prompt of your post goes - I feel you on the thought of going back to full-time work.
I'm actually doing that right now. I built a service-based business that did make more than my FTJ, but took ALL my time. I knew I built the wrong thing (and was running it the wrong way - with me as the everything-nator). So I took a pause, got a full-time job, and in the past year built a site that I barely work on and now is doing $9k+/mn (hope it breaks 10k for the month of Nov.)
I don't really have an answer for you, but I feel you on the question, and I think it's one that a lot of us IH's ask when the project we are working on isn't accelerating as fast as we'd like.
In case you'd like more just reach out via Twttr DM, cheers!
Thanks a lot, Elliott! It looks like you already did what I would love to do.
To make money, rethink and rebuild on the side with peace of mind and then quit.
But why don't you quit now?
I am a classroom teacher, and the contract I signed ends at the end of the academic year 😎 🤙
It is so fantastic! Good luck to you, my friend 👌
Same to you, Kmytro 🤝
❤️
I already worked in a more or less mature startup (as co-founder) when I started my app (NotePlan) as a side-project. I would have never gone full-time without ongoing income.
I switched to full-time after maybe a year when I had enough income to pay my expenses (w/o family and much younger than now, which makes things easier).
Any path is hard, but taking a job would be the safest, given you find enough time and energy to keep working on your project. Contracting would be better, unless you never freelanced before (like me). Then it would take more time to get started.
Eduard, thanks for sharing your experience. I appreciate it a lot, and it is precious to me, especially in these challenging times.
Yes, contracting might be harder to start. I have a few propositions and will reach out to them. One more option is to find a part-time job, if possible. As you got it, the goal is to try to have as much freedom to work on my projects as possible.
Does NotePlan pay for your bills? I haven't known that.
I guess once you get contracting rolling, you can be very flexible. Part-Time sounds also great. I think a job in a bigger corporate is usually relatively relaxed (if you want it to be).
NotePlan pays for my bills since 2018. I went full-time as soon as I could. Living the dream since then :)
What drove me? The fear of having to take up a job or freelancing.
I sometimes think I am still not there because I don't profoundly desire it enough.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Eduard!
If you see value in the project and your customers do to, do whatever you can to maintain or grow it. Even if you’re doing it as a true side hustle.
I’d recommend reading the e-myth or built to sell to get some ideas for growth and see if that makes a difference.
That's what I do, and I plan to grow the project further. I already have > 10 paying. So there is a value. But it grows slowly.
Thanks for the recommendations.
@DmytroKrasun I am pretty much in the same boat as you.
I have been going back and forth on the same set of options. Few conclusions I drew for myself, see if this is any help to you.
Solving for money
One big bet, or many small bets
Aha! momentI can sprint like a lion until it's shipped.I strongly feel if you can solve for $$ every month (need not be product just yet)... It will make most other decisions easier.
Shashank, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It helps a lot and resonates with me.
I am with you. If I can solve the money problem, I can go much further.
Do you already have customers to build sites to solve the money problem?
There are more options but don't let them cripple you, thinking about them every time you hit a wall is worse than not doing.
A single client can help you reach your goal. Especially with your skillset, it's not far from reality.
You were looking to acquire business' iirc. You already have familiarity with what would sell and what not.
Go for marketplaces, shopify, wordpress, carrd w/e. Notion wasn't a thing few years back and we have "notion experts" by now.
Pick a topic and write, your numbers are very promising. People like to read what you have to share.
. . .
I don't know what are the returns for part-time/contracting or full-time jobs. If CV is not that important which I believe is not for the end goal. Look for a less demanding one. Better yet find one which aligns with what you are doing. Many indiehackers found jobs as developer advocates and similar positions where they need to be still present on the communities. Have more content to share.
I don't recall someone did perfect on their first venture and stick with it forever except the viral ones. Now you have all those new experiences even in the design space, it would feel way smoother to start fresh.
Thank you for your constant support, perspective, and fresh ideas.
I thought about lifetime deals. It is a good thing to fund a project. But I can't do it for the current one. I must think about what I can build quickly and fund the journey.
What do you mean by "write to sell"? To sell what? 😂
I bet you can, leave some room for upsell after LTD and you'll be gucci. And if you ever go for LTD use the funds for the next one, please. You have almost created a side project for a marketing post for screenshotone.
Beyond that screenshotone has ~10 customers and you have 2500 followers who thinks you are cool. It's quite a hard achievement actually. Build something less specific that those people who believes you are producing good stuff can use.
Write to sell could be a newsletter or an e-book. Maybe about software development, design principles. Already writing tutorials so if you enjoy it, put it into next level.
From an outsider screenshotone seems to reach its technical limitations. There are not many features to add that will bring great results except zapier integration :) All it requires is constant marketing efforts which can also be done passively.
Man, you are genius 🙏 I want to see more posts from you, please.
Hi Dmytro,
I think contracting is the best option. (if possible)
For two reasons:
Contracting can help you remove some of the pressure, and help make you more strategic decisions. (not having to break your legs in operations land)
With less pressure you can test different assumptions, ideas and channels, without having to worry about making money right from the start.
Best of luck man!
Thanks, Frederik.
I noticed that pressure works well for some, and they accomplish a lot because of it. In my case, it kills me.
Same here 😅
👌
Contracting seems like the best option 💯 it can take a few months to get going but then will allow you way more freedom to work on products on the side.
Thanks, Dagobert.
Yes, a full-time job might kill all the motivation and energy. I tried many times to start something while working full-time but never succeeded.
I would recommend you to do some financial modeling for your business/project. I wrote this free tool that can help you get started: https://increnovation.azurewebsites.net/fermi
Thanks for sharing! I would love to play with it. Do you have any contacts in case I want to ask a question?
you can email me or use the contact form?
Yes, thanks 🙏
I have used your product and I can tell you you've built something cool and have thought about some really great use-cases.
Here's what I would improve for acquisition...
You can find these people on: reddit, HN, LinkedIn, NoCode aggregators
If you think it's too much work you need to do what many other SaaS indiefounders do, find some partners!
I am rooting for you, best of luck!
Orlie, thanks for your feedback 🙏 I remember it! I am slowly processing and working on it.