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Fleaflicker (solo founder) Acquired by AOL
- immad 18y agoAre you the founder?
- fleaflicker 18y agoYes, thanks everyone.
- immad 18y agocongrats. Can you share the acquisition value? :P
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- axod 18y agoCongrats :) Nice to know that single founders can make it as well. Any hint about the sale price?
- jsjenkins168 18y agoCongratulations. You're an inspiration to all of us. If you dont mind me asking, did you take on investment money or was the decision to sell solely yours?
- fleaflicker 18y agoZero outside investment. Zero other employees (I've been doing this full-time for ~3.5 years). I hired an artist for the illustrations. And used a lot of open source projects.
- edw519 18y agoCool. Do you have a blog? Or perhaps you can share some bootstrapped, single founder stories. There just aren't enough of those here. I would find them especially enlightening.
- fleaflicker 18y agoNo blog but if you have specific questions feel free to ask here or contact me. http://www.fleaflicker.com/contact.do http://www.fleaflicker.com/contact.do
- edw519 18y agoGreat, thanks. Hope you don't mind, but the questions are "gushing" out right now. Your story is very compelling to me (and probably quite a few others, too): 1. Did you have personal savings before you got started? 2. In that 3.5 years, how much time did you spend on other jobs? Employee or contractor? 3. Which month (of the 42) did you see your first revenue? 4. Did you do all of the hacking, hosting, and marketing? Which was most on the "critical path"? 5. When you encountered problems (of any type), where did you turn for help? 6. Did you ever get lonely? How did you manage that? 7. If you didn't get your exit, how long were you prepared to continue this? 8. How did you manage to find your exit? I'll probably think of more. Thanks so much for joining us and sharing!
- cperciva 18y ago3.1. Which month (if any) did you first see enough revenue that this was paying for your living expenses?
- eposts 18y agoDid you apply or consider applying to YC? If not, why?
- fleaflicker 18y ago1. Yes but not much. I lived at home at first. Telling people I lived with my parents so I could develop a "fantasy game" elicited some fantastic reactions. 2. I tried to work part-time the first year. It's a bad idea. You can't do two things at once. 3. It's difficult to measure this because the site is seasonal. The first year was OK but I had to wait 8 months to see the improvement. I started making a non-negligible amount of money the second season, August 2006. 4. Yes to all 3. Obviously the most important thing is to start developing. My only focus this whole time was to make the best product. The ad money will come later. (This isn't true for all startups. Fantasy football players comprise an unusually lucrative advertising demographic.) 5. It's tough. I was pretty much on my own. I read this somewhere: "In a startup, nothing happens unless you make it happen." 6. I'm pretty stable but you can definitely go insane working alone all day every day. I don't have any advice on how to cope with this. No startup is easy. 7. I have unwavering confidence in what I am doing. I received very positive feedback almost from the first day. The site was profitable so I could have kept going indefinitely. Also, this is definitely a dream job. Fantasy applications are interesting from a comp sci perspective. 8. I was approached by AOL (and others). As for YC, I applied and was accepted right when the AOL negotiations took off. So I decided I couldn't do YC at that moment.
- electric 18y agoHow did you finance yourself (since you did it FT for 3.5 y)
- fleaflicker 18y agoVery low overhead. The largest investment by far was my time.
- dangoldin 18y agoThat's the most expensive investment.
- coglethorpe 18y agoCongrats. That is so awsome! I love hearing about someone "making it." I think I remember a post you made on Reddit about not having a co-founder. If I recall you wanted one. Guess it turned out anyway. I have a deadbeat co-founder. :-( Going solo would be better.
- fleaflicker 18y agoThat's true. Nobody took me up on it. I got one applicant and it went nowhere.
- richcollins 18y agoI've heard the live feeds are expensive. How did you pay for them?
- ericb 18y agoSolo Founder? I demand you scuttle the acquisition and stop violating pg's pet theories. congrats!!! http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
- xlnt 18y agopg's theories are consistent with some solo founders succeeding.
- ericb 18y agoYou should check out my startup, www.stoprespondingseriouslytojokes.com
- ph0rque 18y agoIt seems down. Probably because you're a solo startup... ;~)
- ericb 18y agotouche! :-)
- xlnt 18y ago"It's a joke" is a stupid excuse to say false things all the time.
- redorb 18y agoyou should always start with leading caps, and its the two thousands we no longer need the 'www' ... StopRespondingSeriouslyToJokes.com Looks better </joke>
- hacklite 18y agoIronically, he got an invite from YC despite being a single founder -- and then turned them down. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=173759 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=173759 Apparently they will "take a chance" on you as a solo founder if you have an already-established profitable business you've built up over several years to the point where an M&A event is imminent.
- edw519 18y agoLooks like you just got drafted in the "Reality Hackers League". Congratulations! You are inspiriation to the rest of us fellow single founders.
- wallflower 18y agoCongratulations! Looking forward to your next adventure/venture
- abless 18y agoGreat job. Doing something for 3.5 years on your own requires a lot of confidence and perseverance. Congratulations!
- bigbang 18y agoHe definitely deserves it for that alone. Much more inspirational than already-reach-from-paypal youtube guys selling for 1.6B
- eposts 18y agoCongrats! Looking forward to details...
- mosburger 18y agoMany congrats! You are an inspiration to all of us! So, who is your favorite NFL team? :)
- nanijoe 18y agoDuh...he's from Jersey. He has to be a Giants fan
- mosburger 18y agoYeah, I was kind of afraid that might be the case. :) </lifelong-pats-fan>
- fleaflicker 18y agoUnfortunately, the Jets.
- wave 18y agoCongratulations. how does the acquisition process initially start?
- mattmaroon 18y agoCongrats man! Good to see someone in the space cashing out.
- citris 18y agofounders bio http://www.fleaflicker.com/images/bu_profile.pdf http://www.fleaflicker.com/images/bu_profile.pdf
- rockstar9 18y agowow solo founder! definitely an inspiration.
- Fuca 18y agoCongratulations Dude, I picture you in Cancun with a margarita now, but hope you have the chance to answer: How much of your success do you think is thanks to good SEO?
- jrockway 18y agoWait, but now you have to work for AOL :)
- sfalbo 18y agoHow did you go about getting the word out about your site? Did you purchase advertising or was it all word of mouth? Congrats!
- vikas5678 18y agoCould you tell us some technical details about the project? What did you use to make it? How the website handles the huge increase in traffic during football season? I'd be interested to know about any technical information you would be willing to share.
- rob 18y agoWhat programming language did you use?