Comment by leetrout
3 months ago
> I didn’t raise any money for these projects. I funded them with my 9-5 salary. Solo. And the reason for that was simple – why on earth would I vehemently abandon boneheaded micro-managing layoff kings in the 9-5 world only to raise money & adopt a board of boneheaded micro-managing layoff kings in the startup world. If I’m gonna build, I’m gonna have free-rein decision making to pursue any and all ludicrous business models, with no oversight. If I fail, fine. That’s on me. If it works, son-of-a-gun, my job will feel like play.
I respect this. It's something I've wrestled with a lot over the past ~year (especially in the last 6 months). You can see my relevant "Ask HN: How would you raise $600k for a boring software co?"[0] in which I shared my musings around this with the community. I'm currently contracting because I have to pay some unexpected medical bills but I am hopeful I will explore solopreneurship more this year (I'd much rather not go it alone tho, as stated in the thread).
I'm very lucky to have had multiple interactions with folks in that thread as well as having contacts that have raised funds and sold businesses... the advice is a resounding "not really doable" outside of a friends & family fundraise.
All of this to say, I admire Peter (have read his writings previously) and I share the same feelings quoted above although I am still willing to entertain outside investors (and all that comes with that) for the chance to have agency in executing a software business with less "lose my house" risk. For the same reason I would also take a leadership position at a startup. I've seen the effects of bad management and lack of empathy first hand and I know I could make a difference and have a positive impact on the internal culture of software development shops... But I don't get many bites when I go fishing for that.
I respect the part of diving in to build something on your own.
I don't respect what he actually built. Leeching off others' work and while doing it blasting out ads which ended up being the first wave of making browsing unpleasant in the early 2000s. Without any actual contributions.
And that then paired with "I didn't know how to code, and I hated reading." It's this attitude that software engineering is somehow what you do after having watched a fews youtube videos and discovered stackoverflow. My aunt still thinks that. Thanks for perpetuating that myth.
I mainly 'leeched' the table, tr, td row design aspect, as I had no idea that existed.. fwiw, I didn't copy anything else (text, images, etc)... that 'scaffolding' was helpful until I discovered Wordpress. And I dislike ads just as much as you. I usually just put 1 or 2 on the page. no popup nonsense or 'blasting' ads, ha. Now, since I sell onions in the internet, I'm the one often advertising on these types of small niche sites, and they tend to perform better than larger properties... either way, my 2c. (author here)
But isn’t software engineering one of the easiest domains to self-learn? I don’t know of any other profession that has such vast amounts of completely free resources online.
The amounts might be vaster than most, but it’s hard to imagine that any profession doesn’t have enough free resources online that can get you into it.
The big difference with software engineering is that you can just do it, similar to writing or design or animation or anything that is just you creating some output. In contrast, even if you learn everything you need to know about being a lawyer online you’ll still need to go to law school and pass the bar.
I'd disagree that really learning it and being proficient is any easier than other domains. People may have impression that it's easy to pick up since the number of 20 minute python tutorials vastly outnumbers 20 minute heart surgery tutorials, but it takes a long time, hard work and good mentorship to really pick up. A formal education helps as well, just like in other professions. You can self-learn carpentry or accounting or physiotherapy, but just like with software engineering, a good (!) proper education brings you further and quicker.
Your thread is 9 months old. Do you have a product and a bit of traction? I was in a similar place to you back in 2019. Via side gigs I built a product that served a niche. Eventually, raised 180k with TinySeed (specialized in boostrapping B2B SaaS). Best move ever. Gave me and my cofounder a runway to find product market fit. We're now 8 full time at Activity Messenger and doubling year over year.
Have a listen to the podcast Startups for the rest of us. All about bootstrapping. Get inspired and start building.
> Do you have a product and a bit of traction?
No. I spent some of my money while I was employed on contractors but it didn't work out. I am back on my own as of April 1 however I had a medical issue that lasted ~5 weeks with a few bills to go along with it so I am currently contracting to make money to pay those. The unexpected expenses were ~20% of my runway so I didn't feel comfortable just trying to absorb the cost. I also missed out on a conference I intended to attend.
> raised 180k with TinySeed
That is awesome - did you invest all of it in hiring?
> 8 full time at Activity Messenger and doubling year over year
Very impressive! Congrats. Turns out we're in a similar space (as are several dozen other companies, as I am sure you are aware). JackRabbit is one of my customer's most common platforms.
FWIW… look at the portfolio pages of lots of VCs. They’re absolutely filthy with boring companies with boring products that obviously have absolutely no prayer whatsoever of being a “venture scale” business. Despite that fact, they managed to get multiple investors to put in Millions in capital. How?
They bullshitted the right sounding bullshit to a specific audience who absolutely laps up particular flavors of bullshit. Sometimes the flavor changes (e.g. DevOps, enterprise SaaS, crypto, AI), but they’re always hungry.
You of course don’t have to raise money if you don’t want to, but I’m sure you could do it too for damn near any idea you come up with as long as you also figure out how to relieve yourself of any sense of self-respect and prostrate yourself in front of the altar of VC buzzworthiness and tomes of fortune cookie wisdom.
appreciate that, leetrout (Peter here)