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I wish there was a similar level and quality of resources for what I think are called lifestyle businesses. By that, I mean product-based businesses with at mos

• gkoberger 11y ago
  Try Getting Real and Rework by 37 Signals. https://gettingreal.37signals.com/ https://gettingreal.37signals.com/
• ska 11y ago
  By that, I mean product-based businesses with at most a few million in revenue, a 5ish person team, a solid sustainable market position, and no desire to revolutionize any unicorns. I believe this used to just be called "a small business". Not a terribly new idea, but being rediscovered perhaps by tech people?
  • vdaniuk 11y ago
    A small business is fundamentally different from lifestyle tech business or a bootstrap. There could be hundreds and thousands of small businesses, say in a certain FMCG market in different local ares. A tech market with hundreds or thousands product businesses catering to a same target audience, probably, doesn't exist at all. Product companies tend to either grow or whither. Centralization is the norm. Building a lifestyle business mostly rules out services as most desired lifestyle business model is some sort of passive income scheme. Content oriented monetization models are being slowly, but surely killed by ad blockers. An innovative product tailored to the needs of a small, well defined audience seems to be a best bet for a lifestyle business and that's very different from a classical SME.
    • ska 11y ago
      I was reacting to the definition of "lifestyle business" not the label. I don't think passive income is needed at all, I think "lifestyle business" is a useful definition for making tradeoffs in your business decisions in favor of your lifestyle. e.g. setting up a consulting business in a small coastal town because you like to surf every morning, even though it costs you potential business. To my mind, that's certainly a "lifestyle business". Doing this with a product business is harder but not impossible.
      • vonmoltke 11y ago
        > I was reacting to the definition of "lifestyle business" not the label. I don't know about you, but personally I get annoyed when people create a false dichotomy between a startup and a "lifestyle business". Not everyone who declines to play the VC game is a "lifestyle business". It should also not be a dirty word, which is the way it comes across to me sometimes.
        • vdaniuk 11y ago
          Lifestyle business is a dirty word somewhere? "Lifestyle" business is a significantly more rational choice in comparison with VC backed startup if one considers their personal happiness and psychological wellbeing as an important metric.
          • ska 11y ago
            Can't speak for poster but I suspect this is being used pejoratively in the context of "lifestyle business" == "living off passive income".
            • vdaniuk 11y ago
              That's just sad and I mean it in a non-sarcastic way.
          • deleted 11y ago
            [deleted]
  • danieltillett 11y ago
    This is as good excuse as any to link to my rant post that we need a new term for startups that are not focused on VC funding. 1. http://www.tillett.info/2014/11/24/lets-kill-the-term-lifestyle-business-for-founder-focused-start-ups/ http://www.tillett.info/2014/11/24/lets-kill-the-term-lifest...
    • Mz 11y ago
      Sort of similar: micheleincalifornia.blogspot.in/2014/03/i-love-lucy-lifestyle-business-that.html
      • danieltillett 11y ago
        Interesting post, but I am not too sure that it is that similar to my post :)
        • Mz 11y ago
          Similar in terms of rebutting the idea that a "lifestyle business" is something to be dismissed out of hand as not really a serious business.
    • bmh100 11y ago
      This has arguably already been done in the "entrepreneurship" world through the label "small giant", coined by the book [1] of the same name. "Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big" [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Small-Giants-Companies-Choose-Instead/dp/1591841496/ http://www.amazon.com/Small-Giants-Companies-Choose-Instead/...
• davepeck 11y ago
  The Basecamp (née 37Signals) folks have been beating this drum for quite some time. DHH posted "Reconsider" to their blog today, actually; it's an entertaining read, if nothing else: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider Here in Seattle, there's a great community of small software businesses with meaningful profits and impact. We have ties to the broader Seattle startup and technology community, without being a proper subset. I don't see it as an either-or proposition. Right funding for the right business, as it were.
  • TranquilMarmot 11y ago
    How can I find jobs for small software business like that (especially in Seattle!)? I want to work in a smaller environment that's not necessarily trying to be a "unicorn", but those seem to be the only jobs posted here on HN for "Who's hiring?". On other job boards, I mostly just see larger corporations hiring worker drones. I just want to write good software that solves interesting problems and make enough money to get by!
    • aeden 11y ago
      It's really up to you to go out and find them. I suggest looking for local meetups and talking to engineers who are working in those small businesses. Get to know the people in your community running these small businesses. Most of our hires were introduced through people I know. In a small business this is often the only logical way to hire because you already have some level of trust with the referrer and thus they've acted as the first gateway for a candidate to get through (and they usually can vouch for the candidate's work). Also, many small businesses are concerned largely with staying alive and making a profit, so that may mean they will be focused on "non-interesting" problems of making the business operate well. Factor this into your decision as to who you want to work for as well.
      • m_fayer 11y ago
        I'll second this, it really is a "scene." When hiring or looking for contract work, people reach out to their network first and it almost always produces someone. Reaching out to the open market is seen as a last resort and rarely happens. Also, chatting with random people at coworking spaces could be fruitful.
• deleted 11y ago
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• drewrv 11y ago
  You'd probably like "Start Small Stay Small" by Rob Walling. http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/dp/0615373968 http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/...
  • shocks 11y ago
    Oohh, thanks for this tip.
• pathelectronica 11y ago
  In the past this has also gone by the labels "shareware" and "microISV". Try searching about these should turn up some pretty good information.
• vijayr 11y ago
  Along similar lines, it would also be nice to have resources for one (or max two) person businesses, with 100-300K revenue per year (clicky was two man team making 500K/year). That is more than enough to live well and spend some time pursuing interests (not for money).
  • elliotec 11y ago
    Or pursuing other business opportunities as well.
• elliotec 11y ago
  The people doing this are too busy chilling on the beaches of the world with their moderately huge income to write much about it. But I highly recommend anything DHH says (as mentioned before) and also the 4 hour workweek book.
• aarondf 11y ago
  You might check out Starting and Sustaining: http://startingandsustaining.com/ http://startingandsustaining.com/
  • m_fayer 11y ago
    This looks great, thanks for the tip!
• subdane 11y ago
  Because they benefit from YC's value prop, it's in Sama's and PG's interest to beat the Big Startup, Fast Growth, VC train, Silicon Valley drum. It's not disingenuous, it's literally what they believe and are committed to. But it's not the only way to be happy as a technologist. I'm not even convinced it's the best way to be happy as a technologist. YC put those materials out 1) as a branding and marketing effort and 2) to be helpful (part of their brand). In order for us to get quality resources like these for doing something small instead of big, we need folks who have a sustained interest and experience in beating that drum as well. Maybe we need a "Slow Tech" movement akin to the Slow Food movement.
  • m_fayer 11y ago
    Unlike the DHH rant linked above, I'm not condemning the Big Startup / Growth / VC approach. At a societal level, it has managed to spin up many game-changing companies very quickly. I think it's a movement that will go down in the history books for creating a lot of rapid progress in the first half of the 21st century. But I'm also not convinced that it's the best way to be happy as a technologist. The system produces two things - incredible wealth and power for the few winners and a large amount of (a certain kind of) technological innovation. And it produces a lot of bodies, empty hype, churn and overpriced housing in the process. You can enjoy the innovation without joining up, and if you do join up then statistically speaking you're way more likely to be a body than a winner. I marvel at this machine but I'm aware that my happiness (or that of my loved ones) is not something it's likely to produce. To his credit, Sama's post hints at this when he says that starting a startup actually "sucks." We should listen to him. And I would be a card-carrying member of the "slow tech" movement, where do I sign?
    • stevesearer 11y ago
      I started my business 8 years ago and might be able to hire an employee soon and have been considering writing a post called "How I Hired My First Employee In Only 8 Years". The goal would be to balance out some of the other posts here about getting 10000 users in a week or "bringing in $500k of revenue in 3 months.
• icelancer 11y ago
  That's my business. 2 partners (me: President and Founder, partner: CEO who I hired), 4 employees, and 2-3 at-will contractors for sporadic work. Revenue barely $1MM but growing, probably to $4-5MM in 3 years. Really love what I do and happy to be out of the BS VC silicon valley groupthink crap.
  • rcarrigan87 11y ago
    Do you mind sharing your company? I love these kind of stories.
    • beachstartup 11y ago
      i run one like that too (a little further along) but i'll never mention the name here. there's no point, and it's risky. the other guy probably thinks the same. our businesses survive on sales and operations, not internet name-dropping. i know you're curious so instead of teasing i'll just say: all of these kinds businesses are basically the same: think of something people or businesses pay money for, then do that. generally the business morphs as you get better / identify new opportunities. and you can grow it very large given enough time.
      • icelancer 11y ago
        Yeah. There's no upside for me to share the name of the business. I would love to, but it's not in my best interest.
  • forgetsusername 11y ago
    >* happy to be out of the BS VC silicon valley groupthink crap.* If you have a 6 man company with titles like "President and Founder" and "CEO", you're buying into the SV groupthink a little. Outside of SV, in the world of small/medium business (for which I've consulted), I don't think I've ever heard the title "CEO". Meanwhile, I've gone to tech conferences and have seen sole-proprietors refer to themselves as the CEO.
    • 11y ago
• shocks 11y ago
  > lifestyle businesses I really hate this term. It makes it seem like anything that's not a high growth unicorn startup is somehow a failure. It's like a way to give it a label and somehow look down on it. (don't mean to aim this at you - just a general remark)
  • m_fayer 11y ago
    Yeah, I also say it with some distaste. This is the path I'm personally pursuing though, and I'd love to have some better terminology to describe it. I wouldn't call it a "small business" either because, to me at least, that brings to mind a small consultancy and does nothing to communicate the "sell widely but stay small and focused" approach of the intentionally-small digital B2C business. (Mouthful there, huh?)
    • shocks 11y ago
      I think it's a really good path to follow and would love to do the same one day. You might like this article if you haven't already seen it. It's been doing the rounds lately. https://medium.com/@dhh/reconsider-41adf356857f https://medium.com/@dhh/reconsider-41adf356857f As for a term... I can't think of one apart from "business". :P Heh. edit: Just noticed someone else already commented with a link to that article! Ha!
    • colordrops 11y ago
      How about the term "scale-sustainable", meaning the business is cash flow positive for most of its growth?
      • stevesearer 11y ago
        I usually just refer to my business by what it was (an office design magazine/website) as opposed to defining it by a category of technical jargon because the majority of people I interact with don't want to know. Some people ask how it makes money (advertising) or if I have raised any money (no) or if I have employees (not yet), but I've never once needed to use the term "lifestyle business" or "small business".
• sausax 11y ago
  Rob Walling and Mike Taber have and excellent podcast for solo entrepreneurs http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ . Rob Walling also wrote a book on this topic http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/dp/0615373968 http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/...
• soneca 11y ago
  This is your place I guess: http://www.microconf.com/ http://www.microconf.com/ I never went to one, I just follow patio11 tweetstorms whenever he is on it and it is full of gems (the tweets, I can only imagine the conference itself). They have lots of videos on the website, but a "playbook" format would by an awesome resource! BTW, I work at "trying-to-be-big-with-outside-investment" startup applying to YC, but I see A LOT of value on the advice of these people when I'm daily executing stuff and not daydreaming how to big a "YC startup"
  • patio11 11y ago
    Microconf is the best conference anywhere. Other options if you enjoy that one: Baconbiz and DCBKK (less software focused but much of the content and crowd generalizes). To the extent bootstrapped SaaS has a playbook, it is Start Small, Stay Small. I'd probably write one eventually but Starfighter is cutting into my writing bandwidth at present.
    • saturdayplace 11y ago
      Hold the phone. You're hoping to write the bootstrapped SaaS playbook? I know it'd be wrong (and futile) of me to ask you to put off Starfighter to write it, but I'll drop my email (again) into whatever form you'd put up to get an idea of public interest in such a work.
      • patio11 11y ago
        Thanks for indication of interest; many things to get done before I can take on a new project. (Selling AR, getting Starfighter started, and delivering a conversion optimization course first off.)
• fiatjaf 11y ago
  http://www.microconf.com/past-videos/ http://www.microconf.com/past-videos/
• nostrademons 11y ago
  Reading the advice in the handbook, I don't think it's all that different from what you'd need to start a lifestyle business. You still need to start with a business niche that is underserved where you can make a few customers very happy. You still need to focus on improving your product (or service) to the point where people will give you business via referrals - pounding the pavement for every single sale isn't a very desirable lifestyle. You still need to listen carefully to everything your users say, and to focus tightly and improve the product. The difference, I think, is that a lifestyle business is a startup where you take your foot off the gas once your income meets your personal needs. It doesn't need to be a monopoly - in fact, it's better if it isn't, because if it is some other company will likely monopolize it. And you don't need to deal with the fundraising and hiring parts of the handbook, since you never get that big. Everything else seems to apply, though.
  • m_fayer 11y ago
    The devil's in the details. The handbook emphasizes Growth Growth Growth. So when your small focused obsessively cohesive product saturates its small niche and your growth is suddenly not-so-exponential, if you're a startup you start to Expand Expand Expand your product, new use cases, new functionalities, until you've reinvented email again. If you're less growth focused, have your pricing nailed down, and are well positioned in your niche - then you should have enough new users from simple population turnover and you don't need that graph to keep angling so sharply upward to avoid ulcers.
• nedwin 11y ago
  There are tons of resources for this niche. Amy Hoy + Rob Walling would be two people I would check out.
• deleted 11y ago
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• TodPunk 11y ago
  The vast majority of businesses are not going to fit any of this playbook. The problem is this playbook covers a niche. If you don't want to play that niche game, that's totally fine. However, like me, you will have to look elsewhere to decide what game you DO want to play, and what rules you'll have to live by. Sometimes that's customer focus, sometime's that is volume focus, or diversifying, or a 12 month profitability plan (sometimes longer, like maybe a restaurant). There's no rules in business but the laws of the land. Pretending that there's one definition of success is very limiting to both focus and opportunity for all of us.
• SeoxyS 11y ago
  > They are often bootstrapped, frequently for lack of other options. The key thing that people don't understand is that investors only make money if you're trying to "revolutionize unicorns." In other words, so many company fails, that in order for your fund to have positive returns, you need to have an investment return 10,000x. Otherwise, you're losing money. Companies that don't intend to become massive business are fine; but they are not candidates for venture funding. It's not about being un-sexy, it's that the economics just don't work for venture funding. It's not enough to return the investment. It's not enough to 10x. It's not even enough to 100x.
• dools 11y ago
  There is, mixergy.com
• zdean 11y ago
  I'm a big fan of Noah Kagan...I think he offers products/help often on this front through AppSumo. Example: http://www.appsumo.com/monthly1k/?rf=brws http://www.appsumo.com/monthly1k/?rf=brws
• tlogan 11y ago
  For smaller business, my rule is that you need to be great at one of these things and other things do not matter so much. Do not try to do everything: like have a "great idea", "great team", "great product", "great execution", etc. Think as company as product: if you try to make everything "great" then everything will be actually "half-ass". If you are great at two or more things: you are unicorn. For example, if you are great at customer acquisition / SEO then you can just make something very very simple and ask people for money. No need to have "great product" at all.
• tauslu 11y ago
  I would recommend the book Small Giants by Bo Burlingham where the stories of 1 person companies to few hundred people companies are told and these companies have been around for many many years. They did not attempt to be not unicorns and are content