3 ms·

The title of your post is "My First Year as a Solo Developer" but then you mention "I work with an excellent developer who handles all the coding and web design

The title of your post is "My First Year as a Solo Developer" but then you mention "I work with an excellent developer who handles all the coding and web design so that I can just write.". Did I misread that and it only applies to the blog or to all development? I'm not super familiar with 4HWW, but the best advice I've seen on striking it out on your own is to do everything yourself until it becomes painfully obvious you need help, then start outsourcing the stuff that can be automated. Not to outsource everything from day one and be a project manager. (but perhaps I misread). That said, the best education for business is to try it and see what doesn't work! Best of luck! I think the comment here about gauging demand is important. Have you talked to lots of people on Keto diets? Are their biggest pain points not knowing what is keto or not (it might be #30 on a list of 31 things)? Do they have trouble searching for resources on this? etc.

cableshaft 8y ago
Especially with a blog site. That's a solved problem, more or less, with tons of free or dirt cheap options out there. Why outsource that? It's already a Jekyll powered site and has a Jekyll theme on it, so I really don't get why he needed to spend $4000 to pay somebody else to put that together for him.
- mtlynch 8y ago
  Answered a similar question about that above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19057745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19057745 tl; dr - The site is more complex than it might seem, and I highly value having someone that can give me the look and functionality I want without having to spend a lot of time managing them or doing it myself.
  - cableshaft 8y ago
    That's fair. I can understand that if those were your requirements that it would take a decent amount of extra time to put in place, and you can find it valuable to pay someone else to do it. Personally I probably would have tried to get my blog in place before quitting my day job and worked on it in the evenings, although I definitely understand how hard it can be to find the time and energy sometimes (I've let mine sit dormant for a couple of years now, I need to redo it) and how it might not get done if you had to do it yourself. Best of luck to you in your venture. I'm still hoping I can get to that point eventually, with a slightly different path. By the way, thanks for sharing the source code. I've been curious about Jekyll but haven't really invested the time into seeing how it's set up. It's nice to see an example of what it would be like in action.
    - mtlynch 8y ago
      One thing to keep in mind is that I've had the blog for about three years; I didn't add all the bells and whistles right out of the gate. The validation checks and build features have grown over time as I've discovered errors or pain points from doing things manually (e.g. breaking the site on mobile, breaking links without realizing it).
nyrulez 8y ago
Completely agreed - I am on a similar path as the author and have been sticking with the above. Outsource only when the pain becomes real. I also believe that having done some of the work before hand helps you manage the other person better. Learning a lot of the stuff initially isn't a bad idea if you can afford it time-wise and cost-wise. My biggest hurdle is not having a co-founder so far (I quit my job 4 months ago). I've tried looking in my friend circle. There are so many operational aspects that can easily split while I do the hard engineering.
- arthurcolle 8y ago
  but then you don't learn as much in terms of development... its fine if you just want to run a business but at the end of the day if you aren't spending a lot of time in the weeds of things then you aren't going to gain that domain expertise. of course, you can take this too far and then end up doing too much nonsense devops instead of actually developing new software, but still - outsource too much and you don't really learn as much.
mtlynch 8y ago
>The title of your post is "My First Year as a Solo Developer" but then you mention "I work with an excellent developer who handles all the coding and web design so that I can just write.". Did I misread that and it only applies to the blog or to all development? I hire freelance developers for some tasks, but I still consider myself a solo developer because I have no partners in my company and everyone who does freelance work for me does it either on a short-term basis or for only a few hours per month. >I'm not super familiar with 4HWW, but the best advice I've seen on striking it out on your own is to do everything yourself until it becomes painfully obvious you need help, then start outsourcing the stuff that can be automated. Not to outsource everything from day one and be a project manager. (but perhaps I misread). Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at now. My memory of 4HWW was the he was very eager to outsource anything he didn't have to do personally, but it's been awhile since I've read it. I've found it more useful to do the task myself for a while until I feel like it's sucking up a lot of my time and I can write easy instructions for someone else to follow. >I think the comment here about gauging demand is important. Have you talked to lots of people on Keto diets? Are their biggest pain points not knowing what is keto or not (it might be #30 on a list of 31 things)? Do they have trouble searching for resources on this? I got the idea from when I was promoting KetoHub in facebook groups, people would frequently ask whether X food is keto. And it is hard to just Google it because you'll get contradictory information, and a lot of it is just arguments on forum posts. I don't think it's the biggest pain point, but I think there are already lots of people competing to solve the top N pain points, so I don't want to try to enter that battle. What appeals to me about Is It Keto is that nobody else has a dedicated site for what it's doing, so I hope to be the standard thing people reference when they want to know if a food fits into the keto diet.
- sigfubar 8y ago
  You're not a developer: you're a product manager who outsources software development tasks to hired muscle.
- ndonnellan 8y ago
  Thanks for clarifying!

cableshaft 8y ago

Especially with a blog site. That's a solved problem, more or less, with tons of free or dirt cheap options out there. Why outsource that? It's already a Jekyll powered site and has a Jekyll theme on it, so I really don't get why he needed to spend $4000 to pay somebody else to put that together for him.

mtlynch 8y ago
Answered a similar question about that above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19057745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19057745 tl; dr - The site is more complex than it might seem, and I highly value having someone that can give me the look and functionality I want without having to spend a lot of time managing them or doing it myself.
- cableshaft 8y ago
  That's fair. I can understand that if those were your requirements that it would take a decent amount of extra time to put in place, and you can find it valuable to pay someone else to do it. Personally I probably would have tried to get my blog in place before quitting my day job and worked on it in the evenings, although I definitely understand how hard it can be to find the time and energy sometimes (I've let mine sit dormant for a couple of years now, I need to redo it) and how it might not get done if you had to do it yourself. Best of luck to you in your venture. I'm still hoping I can get to that point eventually, with a slightly different path. By the way, thanks for sharing the source code. I've been curious about Jekyll but haven't really invested the time into seeing how it's set up. It's nice to see an example of what it would be like in action.
  - mtlynch 8y ago
    One thing to keep in mind is that I've had the blog for about three years; I didn't add all the bells and whistles right out of the gate. The validation checks and build features have grown over time as I've discovered errors or pain points from doing things manually (e.g. breaking the site on mobile, breaking links without realizing it).

nyrulez 8y ago

Completely agreed - I am on a similar path as the author and have been sticking with the above. Outsource only when the pain becomes real. I also believe that having done some of the work before hand helps you manage the other person better. Learning a lot of the stuff initially isn't a bad idea if you can afford it time-wise and cost-wise. My biggest hurdle is not having a co-founder so far (I quit my job 4 months ago). I've tried looking in my friend circle. There are so many operational aspects that can easily split while I do the hard engineering.

arthurcolle 8y ago
but then you don't learn as much in terms of development... its fine if you just want to run a business but at the end of the day if you aren't spending a lot of time in the weeds of things then you aren't going to gain that domain expertise. of course, you can take this too far and then end up doing too much nonsense devops instead of actually developing new software, but still - outsource too much and you don't really learn as much.

mtlynch 8y ago

>The title of your post is "My First Year as a Solo Developer" but then you mention "I work with an excellent developer who handles all the coding and web design so that I can just write.". Did I misread that and it only applies to the blog or to all development? I hire freelance developers for some tasks, but I still consider myself a solo developer because I have no partners in my company and everyone who does freelance work for me does it either on a short-term basis or for only a few hours per month. >I'm not super familiar with 4HWW, but the best advice I've seen on striking it out on your own is to do everything yourself until it becomes painfully obvious you need help, then start outsourcing the stuff that can be automated. Not to outsource everything from day one and be a project manager. (but perhaps I misread). Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at now. My memory of 4HWW was the he was very eager to outsource anything he didn't have to do personally, but it's been awhile since I've read it. I've found it more useful to do the task myself for a while until I feel like it's sucking up a lot of my time and I can write easy instructions for someone else to follow. >I think the comment here about gauging demand is important. Have you talked to lots of people on Keto diets? Are their biggest pain points not knowing what is keto or not (it might be #30 on a list of 31 things)? Do they have trouble searching for resources on this? I got the idea from when I was promoting KetoHub in facebook groups, people would frequently ask whether X food is keto. And it is hard to just Google it because you'll get contradictory information, and a lot of it is just arguments on forum posts. I don't think it's the biggest pain point, but I think there are already lots of people competing to solve the top N pain points, so I don't want to try to enter that battle. What appeals to me about Is It Keto is that nobody else has a dedicated site for what it's doing, so I hope to be the standard thing people reference when they want to know if a food fits into the keto diet.

sigfubar 8y ago
You're not a developer: you're a product manager who outsources software development tasks to hired muscle.
ndonnellan 8y ago
Thanks for clarifying!