3 stories over 25 years as a solopreneur

[swordfish11]

3 stories with Mixed results

Hi r/SaaS,

In 2006, the first website I developed was a local Nashville Job Board

1. Spent $1000 on a LegalZoom LLC
2. Spent $200 on a GeoTrust SSL certificate
3. Spent $4000 on a local news weather spot (a banner that ran on T.V. for 2 minutes a day, 20 days a month, 1 month).

That banner got me 11,000 page views and 2 conversions where I sold 2 jobs for $100. It broke my heart and I shut the business down.

A Pivot from a Nashville Job Board. Neither worked.

Fast forward 2011.

I built an eBay feedback Reminder that made me several million dollars and still generates passive income.

My brother, I, and our wives went out to Indian food. My brother asked me to build him a program that would send him a text alert every time he got a negative feedback. Contacting people who left negatives could often get them reversed.

I built that and put it out into the eBay App Store. People began using it asking why it didn't send Feedback Reminders. But eBay already sent feedback reminders, so I'd tell them that, and they'd just cancel.

It turned out, all sellers wanted was a way to customize the reminder message.

That accidental discovery ended up making me more money in three months worth of work than the proceeding 10 years of employment had. It completely changed my life.

My wife and I got to stay at home while we raised our children, we paid off our mortgage. We travelled, got bored, and got a I eventually went back to work for a video workflow engine company called SDVI. I didn't need to work, but I did because it was more money!

One day, my boss pissed me off, so I quit.

I miss it though because most of the people there were great. If you can work, but you don't have to, you should. People will wonder why you do. Just tell them "it's more money!"

Feedback Pro was the #1 app in the eBay app store - eBay already sends feedback reminders but people paid for mine anyway because it let you customize the message.

The takeaway of Feedback Pro? The risk/reward ratio of working for other people is completely asymmetric. The sweetest place to be is under the shade of your own tree

I would also say this: billionaires are very rare. They don't sit around on LinkedIn doling out advice. My results aren't super spectacular, but they're real, and I can tell you what I've learned from my limited experience. I definitely don't know everything, and I'm still learning which is why I've started a very nascent, honest YouTube channel I'm sharing my experience on.

Fast forward to now:

I've built https://www.demo.fun which is a product for creating interactive

product demos.

demo.fun - this is my baby - the one I'm going all in on.

This product is one I can sink my teeth into because it has elements of engineering, marketing, and I love writing and showing off software.

It does have users, but its not profitable. The good news is I have infinite runway (you probably do too on whatever you want to work on if you're a solopreneur. The site doesn't cost anything to run right now aside form opportunity costs, and learning marketing is total joy for me I think makes up for it.

In the video below, I go into more detail about the results I experienced in the past well as my in new venture. I like making these videos to supplement my posts because I truly believe one day marketing is going tend towards video as AI grows. I talk about this and other things on my channel, so watch and subscribe to Coding but Clueless

 

[windxspiritx316]

@swordfish11 Man, living the dream. Building something simple that allows you to support yourself and your family, spend your time where it matters and give you back your freedom is the biggest win in my book.

 

[swordfish11]

@windxspiritx316 Thank you! But I'm by no means done. I live on a pretty strict budget, and my side income could go away at any time. It's a really shitty business aside of the fact it does everything on its own. I'm not complaining though. Believe me

 

[benyamaklog]

@swordfish11 Cool stuff

 

[swordfish11]

@benyamaklog Thank you!!

 

[allyourheartmindandsoul]

@swordfish11 What did you like more engineering or marketing?

 

[swordfish11]

@allyourheartmindandsoul Ah -- still too new to marketing. It's a completely different mind-shift, and that is something I want to talk about on my youtube channel - the difference in mentality

Programmers are averse to competing. They don't want to copy ideas or tactics. They prefer a "build it here". They consider it noble, until they release something and no-one uses and then they do whatever the hell it takes, sell their souls, cold outreach, to try and prove that their baby isn't a piece of shit.

Marketers are exactly the opposite. They attempt to quickly cut through the bullshit to see what works, and then they keep doing that over and over. So marketers are much smarter than programmers in general.

Programmers tend to be pretty stupid about business is my experience

So, personally I think marketing will be more rewarding, but I'm better suited as a programmer.

I'm just a big introvert and discussions on Reddit and such make me feel emotionally charged both good and bad. I see why it is addictive.

Thanks so much for asking!

 

[savemefrommyself21]

@swordfish11 As a programmer I can only agree to what you say sad, but true.
If we would take a bit more from marketing guys combined with the ability to build something… but it is hard to

 

[ezie]

@swordfish11 Nice read, thanks for sharing.