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Another great learning opportunity is to look at the millions of other small businesses around you. The coffee shop you're sitting in to write code... the prop

Another great learning opportunity is to look at the millions of other small businesses around you. The coffee shop you're sitting in to write code... the proprietor has: * Payroll expenses * Marketing, Sales, Promotion * Rent * Recruiting * Supply chain * Inventory and storage * Utility bills * Legal entity structure * Accounting / taxes Fundamentally, all small businesses have the same core challenges. Indie software shops are not much different.

paulkon 8y ago
How many of these could be outsourced to trusted third parties?
- mikekchar 8y ago
  All of them. That's what an employee is :-) You can find services to do most of these things too. However, all of these things eat into your profit margin. If you don't actually want to run a small business, probably the better idea is to invest your capital in somebody else's business.
- bisRepetita 8y ago
  None. I exaggerate a bit. I don't mean to be negative, but you always need to monitor, check, manage. Employees or third parties. In my experience, you never "outsource your worries", you just manage them better. Third parties execute what you want them to execute.
jasonkester 8y ago
Indie software shops are not much different. Ah, but count the items that a one-man software shop can strike off of that list above. Fundamentally, Indie Software Shops come with a crazy unfair advantage to nearly every other form of business. No rent. No payroll. No inventory or storage. No recruiting. No Utilities. It's just not fair, but nobody tell anybody. Even non-brick-and-mortar businesses like the Lawyer in that list have to deal with most of those downsides. More importantly, no amount of working from home, by himself, will get a Lawyer into a position where he's lawyered up a piece of Law that people will stumble across and pay him money for every month without any effort on his part. That, for us, is the business model. It's a pretty cool gig we have.
- gregimba 8y ago
  WA has a digital lawyer for traffic tickets. Its basically a SaaS app that shows up in court for you. Pay $200 upload ticket lawyer handles it and tells you what it was reduced by.

paulkon 8y ago

How many of these could be outsourced to trusted third parties?

mikekchar 8y ago
All of them. That's what an employee is :-) You can find services to do most of these things too. However, all of these things eat into your profit margin. If you don't actually want to run a small business, probably the better idea is to invest your capital in somebody else's business.
bisRepetita 8y ago
None. I exaggerate a bit. I don't mean to be negative, but you always need to monitor, check, manage. Employees or third parties. In my experience, you never "outsource your worries", you just manage them better. Third parties execute what you want them to execute.

jasonkester 8y ago

Indie software shops are not much different. Ah, but count the items that a one-man software shop can strike off of that list above. Fundamentally, Indie Software Shops come with a crazy unfair advantage to nearly every other form of business. No rent. No payroll. No inventory or storage. No recruiting. No Utilities. It's just not fair, but nobody tell anybody. Even non-brick-and-mortar businesses like the Lawyer in that list have to deal with most of those downsides. More importantly, no amount of working from home, by himself, will get a Lawyer into a position where he's lawyered up a piece of Law that people will stumble across and pay him money for every month without any effort on his part. That, for us, is the business model. It's a pretty cool gig we have.

gregimba 8y ago
WA has a digital lawyer for traffic tickets. Its basically a SaaS app that shows up in court for you. Pay $200 upload ticket lawyer handles it and tells you what it was reduced by.