...the travel is gonna be lonely.
You won't be able to share the wins and you won't have anybody to fight at your side in the lows.
...you will have to become a beast in marketing.
And for some very tech-focused founders that can feel paralysing.
...you will have to learn the basics of business management (people, ops, legal, financial modelling...).
etc etc.
Or you can partner with someone willing to fight at your side and that complement you and thrive together.
(and yep, that's me and it's the whole goal of this post! 🙂 )
My name is Ricardo, I live in Barcelona and 5 ago I started freelancing as a "digital marketing consultant" (yep, sorry, another one 😅).
I worked for brands like PdPaola (ecommerce, about 30M€ in sales), Qida (elderly care agency, valued around 15M€) or Taclia (Saas, can't disclose data, but they are doing great too).
And yep, I practiced what I preached: In 2019 founded HANEK. I did everything, end to end:
In 2021, I took a couple of very risky bets, and lost them (orders from VERY big B2B players that never materialized - If you are in Spain, those players were "El Corte Inglés" and "Ktuin", be careful with these big whales!). It resulted in a very "tight" period regarding cash. Basically, all our money was in "inventory".
So, after reaching 1M€ in sales, it was time to "downsize" the company. A bit the bullet, fired everybody but my VA (she is much more than just a VA, she is my life saver!) and delegate the whole thing on her (thanks SOPs!).
And now...it's time for a new adventure and this time I would love to have a partner on my side, so here I am! Feeling pretty weird exposing myself like this 😅
By now, you probably know a bit about me:
I am Spanish. That has its pros and cons. Pros: We will have awesome paellas whenever we get some free time. Cons: yep, my English could be better! (but hey, so far it's been good enough!)
I am pretty resourceful. I am one of those people that mix "marketing and tech", and I have noticed that that allows me to be quite more efficient.
I studied finance, worked in M&A for 2 years, and didn't quite like it. Too many suits, ties and egos, too little creativity and freedom (but...they paid pretty well!).
I would love (and will actually do if I don't find a co founder) to learn to code.
I have that "healthy amount of OCD" needed to create something from scratch (not kidding!).
I am honest (yep, honest marketer/businessman - I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not, pinky promise). I am including this because it's something I really need my partner to have too. We need to know that, from the day we partner, we have our backs.
I want to meet a technical co founder who is interested in (some of) the following:
Artificial intelligence: I don't know if this is going to happen in 1 year or 5 years, but I am sure this is going to be like the internet or the steam machine: it is going to change everything. And I would love to be part of the revolution.
Education/Learning: I've always loved education. I have witnessed what good education can do for you, both as a student and as a teacher.
Ecommerce: This time though, I would like to serve ecommerce owners instead of creating a brand. During the gold rush, it's probably a better bet to sell digging shovels than trying to find gold nuggets 😊 (though looking for gold nuggets is also pretty fun and I don't discard it at all!)
Please 🙏🏻 don't email or answer this thread with a "you can hire my agency". I know I can hire an agency, and we will if we need, but I am not looking for that here. I am looking for a person who loves to code and create new things and want to share the journey with someone that complements his/her skills.
And...that's all folks!
Even if you are not that person, I would love if you comment so this post gets a push and I find my partner in crime here.
Happy indiehacking
Hi @ikigai. I am wordpress developer with 15 years experience in the field of web development. But there is also entrepreneur lives inside me. All this years I tried to create some kind of business and all the time I was faild in the same place. Marketing. I so understand your phrase:
...you will have to become a beast in marketing.
And for some very tech-focused founders that can feel paralysing.
Yes. It's paralysing. Every time.
This month I have finished to work on some cool wordpress plugin. This plugin allows to convert blog post into video directly from wordpress dashboard. The plugin was approved to wordpress plugin library. And here I am again. Marketing. This time I desided to cooperate with someone who is good in marketing and together we will grow this plugin. I belive it has a big potential. There is many features that can be developed for this plugin.
If this is something that could interesting you. Let's connect.
My linkedin account
My plugin website
Hey @wpgeekil
Congrats on your project! 🙂
I am not really into wordpress plugins (More of "Shopiffy Apps" kinda guy!), but if there is something I can help you with (like...if you need advise on something related to marketing or business in general), I would be glad to help!
Btw, I just took a quick view on your website, and I really missed some video example of what the expected result of using your plugin should be!
I understand it's free to try but... I am not gonna try (install) a plugin on my site (who needs more "code leftovers" after deleting non used plugins?) unless I know the result could be useful for me.
Hi. Thank you for your replay.
You are right abot the video. I have fixed that on both website and plugins page.
Could you think what would be your marketing strategy if you would need to promote some saas product?
Thank you a lot.
Hey there!
Recommendation about the video: if I were a potential user, I don't wanna spend more than 6 minutes to understand what you do! I meant an EXAMPLE video, not an explanation video 😊. A video that helps the user understand what her/his blogpost would look like when they are transform with your tool.
In your landing, you need to make it clear above the fold your USP. Something like (don't consider this proper copy, just to convey the idea):
"Transform your posts in videos in less than 1 minute and get..."
👆🏻 something like that.
And then would add a section on your page that shows a picture of a "post" (no need to show the whole thing nor being "html text", just a picture of a long post) and the result of using your tool on that post (So I, as a user, know what to expect).
I don't think your hardest problem is to validate whether if the user sees value on transforming post to videos. That's easy to understand and should be addressed with the first section above. If the videos were good enough, I think most people would like to have their posts transformed into videos (confirm that one too, but I think that's the easy part!).
I, as a user, would be more concern about whether or not the videos your tool can generate are good enough to have a fighting chance to get the user's users attention.
Regarding long term strategy, that's a hard one without knowing more about the user and knowing your circunstances!
Cheers!
Thank you for your suggestions. I will try to think how to implement them.
First let me say that I like to think about Ikigai to figure out where to focus my attention. I have quite a number of projects and many more ideas :), so that's required every know and then.
What is your Ikigai? As in, the dream to create that will make you happy, you're good at, the world needs and makes you money?
I don't know if we should partner up, but I can see some overlap and complimentary skills. One of the things that will not be easy to build, but would be very much appreciated by the world, and probably worth a lot, would be a personal AI that will help you in your personal growth. A first simple version would focus on notification management I think.
The important part to differentiate it from others is that the user fully owns the AI. So they buy pretrained software that they will train themselves by their behavior. The company would sell upgrades to its capabilities.
Challenge here is that my AI tech skills are mediocre. Not nothing, but not great either. It's more a long term ting I'm working towards. There is a lot more to say, but what is on your mind when you think about AI, learning and persona growth?
Hello @ikigai, for a guy with bad english, your post gave me a good laugh. I like your honesty, your style of writing. Bravo! I know a whole lot of english speaking native that can't write, nearly, as well as you do.
About me. I am software engineer, (studied mathematics and software engineering at uni) with about 15 YOE. In Montreal, Canada. I worked, as a consultant, building systems for high speed trading for banks (ties, shit for brains...egos). I didn't like it. And, yes, you are right they pay very well. I liked the money, but not the work environment.
I ran my software engineering agency to this day, since early 2010. That's the year I became an "indie". Before that, I was working some desk job in, some downtown, shitty...er...shiny...office.
I am chill. Down to earth. My default type of suit is {nike sneakers, tee shirt, jeans and favorite baseball team hat}. I never stress much.
So anyways, you get can in touch. I would be happy to discuss our respective projects, visions and what not.
p-s I can, definitely, teach you how to code. Or at least, show where to get resources to continue to learn on your own. So hit me up.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/transmeta01/
same handle for twitter
peace
Appreciate the comment a ton!
Actually, I really like writting but always felt too "aware" of the fact that I am not a native speaker. I am very picky in Spanish on that regard, and the same "pickyness" that makes me be a good writer in Spanish, makes me too aware in English!
Regarding learning how to code, thank you! I think that, whatever I end up doing, learning how to code would be a good idea. It will for sure improve communication within the team, and I happen to love it! Depending on what path I take, I won't prioritize it. But it will happen eventually.
I will reach out via Linkedin!
btw, take a look at your web, seems to be throwing a 500!
Hey @ikigai - would love to chat and see if there's a fit! Will shoot you an email at the one you dropped below.
Hey @hlucas! Great, super happy to chat!
Hi Ikigai, I like your honesty! Let's chat and see if we might work with each other?
Hey @kafejo! Nice to meet you!
Sure, would love to chat! Let's connect via email, write me at [email protected] or let me know yours!
Cheers!
Hi @ikigai
You're so right. A solo entrepreneur's journey is the toughest. There's a reason YC invests in "childhood founder relationships" because that makes the journey bearable, and thus more likely to sustain and succeed.
Some people might prefer the solo journey (can't imagine). For those that don't:
Try building a small lean team or finding a tech cofounder through Githired.
With Githired you can search for your project idea(s) on Github, and use the Githired chrome extension to get in contact with the developers on any relevant projects that match what you're trying to build. That way, you get to partner with skilled developers who have already worked on your project before, and would bring their passions/failures/successes to your partnership. Check it out: https://bit.ly/githired_devs