Sold three micro-startups ($1, $2.5, $50k) now documenting current solo venture - it's lonely
Hey IH community. Thanks for having me and thanks to @cblindsey3 for the invite!
I'm attempting to share my #startup journey and #BuildInPublic to show you what I'm going through to build my startup software as a service (SaaS) company.
I've launched and sold 3 projects/startups in the past:
- TeamDoList - defunct ... a simple simple todo list management tool (no sign-in required!). Sold it on Flippa. They took 10%.
- HNDigest - HackerNews email newsletter. Still going strong and maintained by acquirer. Sold it on Flippa. They took 10%.
- Zip Recipes - A recipe plugin for WordPress. It was open source and I forked it after a company got sold and it wasn't getting maintained. Sold it through FE International. They took 15% cut. Let me know if you want to learn the full story here!
Now I'm working on a another startup and one day I was just sitting there and reflecting.
It occurred to me that startups for me have been hard and I like to compare it to survivor shows.
You have some like Bear Grylls — I mean just the name is enough — who go out there and gut a dead sheep if they feel cold and use it as a sleeping bag. Total maniacs.
On the other hand you have someone like Survivorman (Less Stroud) — a Canadian survivor show — who gets totally destroyed by the elements most of the time. He can't catch fish, start fires or keep warm. You feel his pain watching the show.
Startups for me have been much more Survivorman than Bear Grylls.
Here's my YouTube channel if you want to follow along. I'll try to post updates each week here, if anyone's interested.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJu_AwKnVOZa6J6ZgpdekUQ
(I still don't get a vanity URL from YouTube since I'm at 50 subscribers loll)
I'd be happy to receive any feedback on the content and how to make it better. I've had my share of audio and (obv.) video issues but my goal was to keep shooting no matter how bad it seems and keep improving it.
Ep. 4 captured me when I was feeling pretty low so that might be a good video to start on: https://youtu.be/nMW2W3zSb_U
Hey man, I would like to give you some suggestions for your youtube channel:
Regards
@amandwivedi But..but... I'm STARTUPMAN...😂
Honestly, I think my secret has been not knowing anything. I know what a thumbnail is but when it comes to YouTube, I have no clue. Thanks!
I do like the idea of challenges so that's a good one. This might work really well as I recall @csallen talking about creating external accountability triggers on a podcast once.
Thanks for the tips!
@HappyGezim I agree with Aman, on points 1 and 2 specifically. Check out https://www.youtube.com/hashoshi4, I think he does a pretty good job creating video thumbnails and titles that hook the viewer. Like #2 above, you only have so much real estate in the title, so I wouldn't include "Startupman Ep. N" in each one... just get straight to the catchy title on whatever that episode is about. Maybe "#N Catchy Title" if you really want the episode number in there. Study Hashoshi or other popular youtubers and mimic how they use thumbnails and titles to entice users to watch their content.
Once you've earned the click, I'd work on making the videos a bit more concise and showing a little more emotion. If you're just documenting for friends/family or to challenge yourself, that's totally fine and I think you're on the right track; but if your goal is to grow a larger, engaged audience, I think you'll need to show more excitement and vary your tone a bit :) (My two cents, anyway. I'm terrible in front of a camera and have no intentions of starting a youtube, so you're doing far better than me just by starting! 😂)
Also, if I'm going to follow anybody building in public, the first thing I want to know is what they're building! I've skimmed a few of your videos and checked out your about tab, and have no idea what you're working on or if it interests me. I think the very first line of your about tab should read something like "Building <NAME> in public: <URL>." Probably followed by a one-liner about what it does / will do. Then I can know in 5 seconds if it's something I want to spend more time investigating or a tab I will close and never return to!
Just a few thoughts, hope they're helpful. Keep up the good work, and good luck with the app!
I looked at Hashoshi's covers and wow! I see what you mean. I thought YouTube forces you to use something that's a frame in the video with minor differences. 🤔
I don't post to youtube, so I don't know exactly how it works but obviously there's some way to do it haha. I thought you could upload it separately but I guess it may need to be part of the video so you can grab a thumbnail from the video.
Either way, you could just whip up a quick thumbnail template with a colorful background, text template, and your headshot that you can update real quick with a few words relating to that video.
@iamskog I'm really curious about where our difference in thinking lies with regards to the product specifics. Why is it important to know what exactly I'm building?
Aren't all SaaS products a like. You got pricing, the product, bugs, features, customers, roadmap.
Does it matter if I'm making a hippo breeding tracker app for hippo framers vs a recipe publishing app for food companies?
Perhaps it's just personal preference (and to be honest, I don't follow a lot of building in public youtubers), but my mind just wants to know what we're talking about. A point of reference to "anchor" what you're talking about to.
BTW, if you make a hippo breeding tracker app, please let me know so I can check it out 😂
Hahaha..note to self: there's a demand for #buildinpublic for hippo breeding tracker apps 🤣
Thanks for your thoughts, @iamskog!
😂👍🏻
@iamskog I'd sub to Hashoshi and see what I can learn. Thanks for sharing.
Again, due to my ignorance, I didn't realize that people don't put the show name in the video 🤦♂️ ... easy fixes, indeed.
I have to be careful here because shooting and editing these videos is not my startup and if it starts to feel like work, I'll just quit. But I appreciate the sentiment. There's definitely some low hanging fruit I can take advantage of.
As for my monotone, I got feedback that the car clips were working well and had better content. What's your thoughts?
WRT to what I'm building, I've not been focusing on the details of it on purpose. It's a SaaS software product. Is that enough to say? I want the content to be more broadly relatable at that level and not have someone think, "oh I'm not building a recipe app" therefore it's not interesting to me.
All good, that's what feedback is for!
For sure, man. Again, I'm not sure what your goals are, but yeah grab the low hanging fruit that you can. I think the titles and thumbnails are relatively low effort / high yield.
I wasn't suggesting editing and all that. Just better thumbnails / titles and working on the monotone. I actually do like the car clips better. It feels more conversational, and I think your voice tends to show more excitement and natural inflection when you're also focused on driving as opposed to sitting in front of your computer. (You might consider a phone mount so the video is more from the front instead of the side. I've got this bad boy mounted to my windshield left of the steering wheel and it works really well. They have a newer version too, haven't tried it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076B27WP6/)
I just got an interesting mount to try ... unfortunately the one I got makes the video shaky as it's got a metal arm that kind of anchors. Still gotta play around and find a sweet spot. I'll check out the one you shared 🙏
I'd say the video is decent, but what you could do is get like a $30-$50 dollar lav mic to plug into your phone/comp rather than using the built in microphone of your airpods. (I assume that's what you are recording with, correct me if I'm wrong).
But other than that, just keep it going, and in a while, when you look back you will clearly notice the improvement.
So initially I was just using the built-in mic. Then I thought of AirPods should be great. After not seeing the difference I realized that the native Camera app on iOS doesn't use AirPods for recording. I downloaded an app called Moment which does.
Definitely been a process!
Thanks for the suggestions of the "lav mic". I'll have to Google that as I don't know if it's a brand or a type of mic.
Thanks for the words of encouragement @ItsKev 🙏
Hey @HappyGezim welcome aboard! I subscribed to your channel and good luck with your new projects!
Thank you @arstan. I appreciate you!
Welcome to the Indie hackers community! Congrats on the 3 previous projects and I am rooting for you to have success with your YouTube channel.
Thanks @Bpeeling! I appreciate that 🙏
Amazing.
Thanks @AtulGhorpade! Glad you enjoyed the story :)
Yeah.
The hard life of coder is real. People just don't understand
Haha...yup! I'm coding right now with "IT Crowd" (Netflix show) in the background to keep me focused.
Keep working!
Work hard always pays off.
Make some changes in your plan and then try to execute.
Remember the quote "If at first you don't succeed, Try, try, try again." Thomas H. Palmer
Thanks @mazaayachannel! No choice but to keep working. I think this is partly why the product isn't interesting to me to mention so much to @iamskog 's point. Whether this product succeeds or not is not the point. If there's not much traction I'll do something else :)
You say it is lonely - was that just a figure of speech with regard to doing it solo, or is it something you explicitly would like to address? To have a co-founder, or getting employees, to not do it "Bear Grylls style"?
It's been super lonely. I work out of a coworking space and usually would have someone to commiserate with. That all stopped when covid hit. The financial pressure on some days I would feel it like it's a weight pushing me to the ground on my shoulders.
Things have been looking up a bit since I hired my developer (back). I don't have a co-founder and no one to share the burden with at that level. Tried to get someone with an equity stake twice and failed both times.
I don't follow the second part of your question.
I feel you Gëzim,
I've been working remotely for most of the past decade, and on some days I can really feel the void.
The last years have been a shitshow, me and my gf had to move back to my childhood home for a while, due to a major earthquake and I had to work through every aftershock and associated panic attack.
As soon as that was over, COVID hit. Coworking spaces were off-limits, motivation was at an all time low.
When things started going back to normal, my dad passed away and it's been really hard on me. It felt like the right time for me to quit my job, take some time off and try to make it on my own. I've got savings to get me through for most of next year, but the pressure's still there, especially since I'm in savings mode.
I love working on my products, but a lot of times it feels like I'm the last man on earth pushing a button just to stop the world from falling apart.
I've had my girlfriend to rely on for emotional support, but it's been tough on her too, especially since she's unemployed and junior data science positions have been hard to find for her in here.
Anyways, this ended up feeling like a sad journal entry, but what I meant to say is that a lot of us are going through shit and are feeling the same way.
Stay strong and reach out if you're ever feeling down. It always brings me joy to see another Albanian founder in here. 🇦🇱
Eeek, a decade! Honestly when you describe the long stretch of this earthquake business and then COVID, it seems like it would feel so much longer.
In my city, the coworking space allowed us to use our discretion to come in or not. For months, I stayed home thinking it's the best thing to do but then my productivity hit an all time low and I started coming into the office.
I realize I had missed my drive terribly because that's where I do my unwinding, listening to audio books and podcasts. Who knew the commute was important 😂
Oh wow..my condolences. Was your decision to quit your job based on your dad's passing and you realizing that life is too short to keep doing something you don't love....or am I just reading the pop culture interpretation of this?
Hah...what I find frustrating is sometimes my wife asking "can you come home early?" The answer is often, yes I can but I really shouldn't.
The button pushing analogy reminds me of Desmond in Lost!
Haha..as cliche as it's come to sound, I'm starting to learn that everyone in this journey is "in this together." I recently read (fine, listened 🙄) to Hard thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz and I was surprised to hear him say some things that I've experience. I thought "successful" founders don't have the same issues as the rest of us. Wrong!
Thanks @klintmane! I appreciate the support. I suspected something was amiss when I saw the ë in my name 😆
Sorry for getting back to you so late, been a long week.
Thanks, yea that's pretty much it. Didn't really plan for it, just felt I was wasting my life one day and had enough savings to take some time off and try different things.
That's exactly the picture I had in mind when I wrote that down.
The weird thing is you'd think getting over stuff in the past makes you immune to them in the future - it doesn't. I've found out that learning from your mistakes is harder than you'd think.
You're welcome, followed you on Twitter too and checked your products. Funny coincidence is my gf has been a food blogger for 3 years, and I also have a few food blogging ideas in the back burner.
It's nice seeing other people in this space.
Thanks for reaching out, @klintmane
Small world!
(Narrator: @HappyGezim had @klintmane has an awesome zoom chat!)
I can't believe I just joined IH!
As a WFH solo freelancer/founder myself, it is lonely. Even with my wife, two year old daughter, and another on the way (all of whom I love and enjoy dearly), it's easy to feel alone and even depressed (especially in the winter, for me). And yes, lots of financial pressure.
As I've gotten older I've found I really need to be intentional about hanging out with friends besides just my family. Plan a game night, night out, road trip, adventure, whatever with a few friends and make it happen. It also helps to get out for a walk or even better a hike on a somewhat regular basis. Just to get off screen for a bit and enjoy God's creation.
I enjoyed coworking pre-covid as well, but we've moved since and it's a little far away now. Still have a few buddies from that I chat ideas with every now and then. Going to meetups to meet like-minded folk that you can talk shop with can help. Maybe join a weekly / bi-weekly mastermind call where you all take turns discussing your progress since last meeting and giving each other feedback. If you can make the time, I have a hard time with that lol.
Anyway, just a few thoughts for you and know you're not the only one feeling like that!
Loving the analogy!
@mielies91 Hahah yess! Finally someone gets it 😄
Welcome to Indie Hackers and thanks for sharing how you're doing! All of us are going through the same thing so it always helps to talk about it
Honestly, the fact that I'll have to share something is what keeps me wanting to try out different things...on the hard days.
Would anyone be interested in knowing the story of how I took an open source plugin and sold it for $50k? There's a lot that happens when you put a startup, even something small for sale.
If so, do you prefer video or a blog post?