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Zero 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 s

Zero 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 ago
Cool. 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 ago
  No 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 ago
    Great, 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 ago
      3.1. Which month (if any) did you first see enough revenue that this was paying for your living expenses?
    - eposts 18y ago
      Did you apply or consider applying to YC? If not, why?
    - fleaflicker 18y ago
      1. 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.
      - breck 18y ago
        9. I like the domain. Was it available or did you have to buy it?
      - edw519 18y ago
        Thank you, fleaflicker! I've heard #2 several times before. Nice to hear it from you, too. I am working part time and it is very hard to do.
      - nostrademons 18y ago
        10. At what point did you incorporate, and what entity type did you use? 11. Can you give us a ballpark on the acquisition price? Even just a "6-figures", "7-figures", "first half of 8-figures", "2nd half of 8-figures" range? 12. How long did it take you to launch? 13. Did you ever have scaling difficulties?
electric 18y ago
How did you finance yourself (since you did it FT for 3.5 y)
- fleaflicker 18y ago
  Very low overhead. The largest investment by far was my time.
  - dangoldin 18y ago
    That's the most expensive investment.
coglethorpe 18y ago
Congrats. 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 ago
  That's true. Nobody took me up on it. I got one applicant and it went nowhere.
  - jsrn 18y ago
    Just for nostalgia, here is the reddit comment thread: http://reddit.com/info/p8nv/comments/ http://reddit.com/info/p8nv/comments/
    - mkull 18y ago
      ha! yep I remember that post, and remember being really dissapointed when you said it was in Java. Congrats
richcollins 18y ago
I've heard the live feeds are expensive. How did you pay for them?

Zero 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 ago

Cool. 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 ago
No 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 ago
  Great, 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 ago
    3.1. Which month (if any) did you first see enough revenue that this was paying for your living expenses?
  - eposts 18y ago
    Did you apply or consider applying to YC? If not, why?
  - fleaflicker 18y ago
    1. 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.
    - breck 18y ago
      9. I like the domain. Was it available or did you have to buy it?
    - edw519 18y ago
      Thank you, fleaflicker! I've heard #2 several times before. Nice to hear it from you, too. I am working part time and it is very hard to do.
    - nostrademons 18y ago
      10. At what point did you incorporate, and what entity type did you use? 11. Can you give us a ballpark on the acquisition price? Even just a "6-figures", "7-figures", "first half of 8-figures", "2nd half of 8-figures" range? 12. How long did it take you to launch? 13. Did you ever have scaling difficulties?

electric 18y ago

How did you finance yourself (since you did it FT for 3.5 y)

fleaflicker 18y ago
Very low overhead. The largest investment by far was my time.
- dangoldin 18y ago
  That's the most expensive investment.

coglethorpe 18y ago

Congrats. 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 ago
That's true. Nobody took me up on it. I got one applicant and it went nowhere.
- jsrn 18y ago
  Just for nostalgia, here is the reddit comment thread: http://reddit.com/info/p8nv/comments/ http://reddit.com/info/p8nv/comments/
  - mkull 18y ago
    ha! yep I remember that post, and remember being really dissapointed when you said it was in Java. Congrats

richcollins 18y ago

I've heard the live feeds are expensive. How did you pay for them?