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I have seen more success from freelancers -> very profitable side projects than any other form. It makes sense: you're being paid real money to provide a custom

I have seen more success from freelancers -> very profitable side projects than any other form. It makes sense: you're being paid real money to provide a custom solution to a problem, so if you can make a generalizable version of that solution you can at least feel confident that you're solving a problem people will throw money at to fix. The most common thing I've seen is that freelancers will (as the situation calls for it) strike a deal with their client to carve out a feature as an independent SAAS, bill the customer a much reduced rate for that "set" of work and bring them on as the first "customer" of the SAAS so there's some social proof.

rpeden 8y ago
I think freelancers and contractors also have an advantage in that they're exposed to a far wider set of business problems when compared to a developer working as an employee. When you're exposed to a bigger set of problems, you're more likely to see something that you can provide a solution to. And when you see similar challenges happening again and again, you start to get a sense of what problems need a software solution. If only one client has a specific problem, it might not be amenable to a SaaS solution. But if you see the same problem occurring over and over across multiple clients, you might just have a good SaaS idea on your hands.
bitL 8y ago
All freelancers should learn how to quickly assemble a simple SaaS (e.g. Bootstrap + Flask + Stripe) and then quickly implement a version of whatever they were doing in their paid projects (making sure it's legal ofc) and expose it as an SaaS using their SaaS template. They can even form a separate Delaware LLC for each of them, once the SaaS is built they can just try to sell it; lots of money there as well as not many people can build a company from the scratch.
- gspetr 8y ago
  The "Stripe Delaware LLC" scheme comes with quite a few pitfalls: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18870886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18870886

rpeden 8y ago

I think freelancers and contractors also have an advantage in that they're exposed to a far wider set of business problems when compared to a developer working as an employee. When you're exposed to a bigger set of problems, you're more likely to see something that you can provide a solution to. And when you see similar challenges happening again and again, you start to get a sense of what problems need a software solution. If only one client has a specific problem, it might not be amenable to a SaaS solution. But if you see the same problem occurring over and over across multiple clients, you might just have a good SaaS idea on your hands.

bitL 8y ago

All freelancers should learn how to quickly assemble a simple SaaS (e.g. Bootstrap + Flask + Stripe) and then quickly implement a version of whatever they were doing in their paid projects (making sure it's legal ofc) and expose it as an SaaS using their SaaS template. They can even form a separate Delaware LLC for each of them, once the SaaS is built they can just try to sell it; lots of money there as well as not many people can build a company from the scratch.

gspetr 8y ago
The "Stripe Delaware LLC" scheme comes with quite a few pitfalls: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18870886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18870886