Writing a Book on Pivoting from VC to Indie Hacker
by KyleI spent the early years of my entrepreneurial career building a VC-funded startup, growing sales to over $5m. It ultimately caused a tremendous amount of stress that landed me in hospital worried for my life.
In late 2018, I discovered this community and pivoted to building an indie business as a soloprenuer in 2019 while travelling the world.
In 2021 I reached 6 figures of revenue with no investment, no employees, no funding and no fixed office.
This feels like an appropriate milestone to start writing a book on my journey of transitioning from the world of venture capital.
In true hacker fashion, I've written an MVP of the book.
You can find out more & download a free chapter here 👇
https://usegravity.app/book
Read the book outline here 👇
https://www.notion.so/usegravity/Rocket-Science-6752af7e73074a38905c6d6e399b8936
I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and ideas of what you'd like to see in the book 💜
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Seeing a lot more chatter on this topic which pretty much goes along the lines of "hang on a second, do you really want to go down the (often) one-way VC path". And it's of particular relevance now. Im seeing so many companies raise capital and it only makes the path to a meaningful exit for everyone involved harder.
Really interesting topic for a book, and a nice approach!
Some thoughts.
- Before I read the post, I figured it was about someone spending years on the VC side of the table, only to switch gears and careers to become an indie hacker, but then had the "ah, he means VC-backed" moment
- The "Rocket Science" name might have VC connotations about it, as if it's promoting that path or that it's a guide explaining how to build a so-called rocketships. Something like Micro-Rocket Science might work nicely (was reading some MicroAcquire emails over the weekend, may have something to do with that suggestion there :D) And you've also already used the term micro.
- The conversation is evolving away from the binary Bootstrap v VC to a much more nuanced one. It's a continuum. And now it's no longer just a fanciful narrative about capital options, there are really a lot more options out there for founders. Your book plays into that, which is great. But you do need to make sure you're clear on the position it stakes out i.e. it's not just being bootstrapped, but also solo or micro. If that thread goes through the book, then you just need to be mindful of conflating solopreneurs with micro-teams where it doesn't make sense to do so. I see a lot of people get annoyed when examples of micro indie businesses (could be a team of 8) are mentioned in the context of one-person companies. If you nail it, people will be fine with a mix of both solo and micro, so long as you position them correctly. It might even be additive if there's an example of a company-of-one that evolved to a micro-company. But from reading your post and then reading the table of contents, I felt like there was a bit of disconnect. I might be wrong, but the book seems to be more about the micro side of things—at least as far as some of the examples and case studies are concerned.
PS. First post on Indie Hackers for me (whoop whoop)
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Thank you so much @lynnastyie! :)
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No problem @kylegawley. This also might be helpful. https://writeusefulbooks.com/ by Rob Fitzpatrick who wrote The Mom Test.
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