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I bootstrapped my private-journaling project into a lifestyle business
- countryqt30 7y agoNot trying to downtalk, but it took you 11 years to pull this off? This is some massively slow growth :D
- icedchai 7y agoOn the contrary, it is actually impressive compared to many startups... the ones you usually don't hear about on here.
- kitten_smuggler 7y agoaverage monthly revenue back in 2012 was 2k. Nothing to scoff at for a side hustle while working full time. This guy is killing it..
- jbverschoor 7y agoSo what’s your mrr?
- MichaelApproved 7y agoSo, nobody can offer criticism unless they are producing better results? How many NBA coaches can dunk hit a 3-pointer? Yet, the players still listen to their advice and perform better. Just because someone can't do it themselves doesn't mean they can't offer meaningful insight.
- randlet 7y agoSpeaking as someone who is trying to bootstrap a product, constructive criticism is worth its weight in gold. OP's statement was critical, and included no valuable feedback which is why it's being downvoted. "How many NBA coaches can dunk or defend? Yet, the players still listen to their advice and perform better. Just because someone can't do it themselves doesn't mean they can't offer meaningful insight. " This is true, but an NBA coach would never criticize Lebron by saying "Wow look how slow you were to learn how to dunk!" Where do you see the meaningful insight in that response?
- MichaelApproved 7y agoI get what you're saying but I'm referring to this comment: "what's your mrr?" Not only does it not provide any meaningful insight, it attempts to shut down the discussion of anyone who doesn't have Monthly Recurring Revenue. As if that's a qualifier to providing feedback.
- randlet 7y agoOk, I agree with that, the "MRR" comment was useless feedback on useless feedback!
- MichaelApproved 7y agoAgreed.
- jdironman 7y agoWhats more, they don't even have to be from the same professions to provide insight / unique perspective which sometimes gets things out of a rut. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Rice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Rice
- balls187 7y ago4k
- randlet 7y agoMost side projects earn negative dollars over 11 years so that growth over 11 years is probably in the top 0.1% of side project earnings. Very few people can say they grew a side project business into a $200k+ a year business.
- r1nkgrl 7y agoalso June 2019 - Dec 2009 != 11 years
- ska 7y agoNot trying to downtalk But then you went ahead and did anyway...
- tozeur 7y agoHe prefaced to let OP know that he doesn’t intend to be disparaging and only wants to offer feedback. Not every critique is a personal attack...
- ska 7y agoI didn't see any feedback. Just a statement of questionable veracity that reads negatively, to me at least.
- dhruvkar 7y agoI wouldn't jump to that conclusion. Given that many users here aren't native English speakers/writers, the tone that might seem obvious to you & I, might actually be completely inadvertent.
- giarc 7y agoUsing the :D emoji at the end is a way for the author to reiterate the "No offense but..." type statement. The problem is, if they use that, it's likely they recognize their comment can be taken the wrong way and should have just rephrased it instead of taking the easy way out with the :D.
- ska 7y agoAgree that tone is hard, but regardless there is nothing constructive about the comment.
- soneca 7y agoI agree that not every critique is a personal attack. But this one is (or at least seemed like one to me). There is not one character of feedback in that sentence
- sp332 7y agoYup, that's the difference between bootstrapped and venture-backed businesses. Bootstrapping takes time because you (largely) have to make money before you can invest that money in the business.
- whitepoplar 7y agoWhat a shitty comment! Go OP, you're doing great.
- sbilstein 7y agoBuster was doing lots of full time job stuff throughout this period. He was the head of product for the Slack Platform while I worked there. I think it’s pretty damn impressive he had time to do 750 words while having some very demanding full time roles.
- giarc 7y agoDuring that time he's also worked at Twitter, Slack, Patreon, Amazon, currently writing a book, had a child, built a lot of other sites/businesses. I'd say it's incredible growth.
- bovermyer 7y agoI know that you're not intentionally being condescending, but it definitely comes across that way. Consider the wide variety of activities that the author has been involved in. Also consider that 750 Words was a side project, and not the primary focus of his attention. This is an achievement worth respecting.
- dang 7y ago"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nedwin 7y agoPretty incredible if you consider that during that time he started another company, raised VC for it, shut it down, then worked at Twitter. He's had a whole different life while this has been slowing building in the background.
- busterbenson 7y agoIt is slow! No question about it. :) To be honest, most of my projects have either gotten popular fast or died slow deaths. Slow, steady growth is the anomaly and it's taken me 10 years to really appreciate how weird and special that is. And wow, the other comments to this comment really made my day. I haven't been to Hacker News in a while but it's amazing to see that it's turned into a positive environment.
- oil25 7y agoWould like to read this, but I just get a blank page with Javascript disabled. Looks like I can't even archive the page - https://archive.fo/kLTbo https://archive.fo/kLTbo. Looking at the page source code, it's completely unreadable - just a single line with a bunch of third party scripts and trackers. Disappointment over what the Web has become ensues.
- a13n 7y agoThat's really weird that the internet doesn't work with JavaScript disabled in 2019.
- paulryanrogers 7y agoNo need for the patronizing tone. Some block JS for the same reason others block ads: security and faster load times. Is it really too much to ask for a single <NoScript> tag on the home page explaining what the service is and why JS is necessary?
- dymk 7y agoYeah, I think it's a bit much to ask every single website on the internet that uses JavaScript to add a tag for the incredibly small demographic that is NoScript users.
- komali2 7y agohttps://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/10/21/how-many-people-are-missing-out-on-javascript-enhancement/ https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/10/21/how-many-people-are-missi... 1%. Of all people. Except... maybe your content is targeting exactly the kind of people to wander around the internet with Javascript disabled, and then they're suddenly a much larger slice of your potential audience. Writing articles on engineering, I imagine, already increases that slice. Anything related to security, I imagine another increase. People that participate in Indie Hacking Projects.... another big slice. Anyway, why not just make it a part of that big ol blob of meta tags we all copy over to every index.html we write anyway? Including the magical bit of viewport meta to make pages look good on mobile?
- blorenz 7y agoI'm curious why with $20K MRR it will take a Kickstarter to create a mobile app.
- randlet 7y agoI don't know if this is the case here, but I think even if you don't really "need" the money, using Kickstarter can be a great way to get more exposure for a project as well as pre-selling/validating a product which reduces the risk of investing development time.
- Topgamer7 7y agoAs well people willing to pay validates the market desire.
- radcon 7y agoNot to mention letting backers shoulder the risk in case the project fails. It's practically free money assuming you act in good faith and don't blatantly defraud people.
- maxxxxx 7y agoExactly. It's an excellent way to validate your idea.
- kolbe 7y agoWe have no clue what his costs are. For all we know he loses money each month. There's no faster way to get me to stop listening than to tell me your revenues and omit your costs.
- pinky1417 7y agoYou're right to be skeptical when costs are omitted. Skepticism is especially warranted when you're looking at a standalone company. However, cost estimation can be a bit of a dark art, especially for side projects. Sure, the article would be better if we at least got the readily available vendor cost information: hosting, contractors, etc. That still wouldn't tell us everything though: cost of the owner's time, cost of failed prior projects, etc. In short, generating a total cost estimate involves multiple choice variables. At any rate, do you believe his recurring costs, however you quantify them, are likely to be anywhere near $20k a month? It seems very likely that this is a profitable venture.
- liveoneggs 7y agogreat product, excellent story
- bovermyer 7y agoI completely forgot about 750 Words. I used to use that a lot about a decade ago. It makes sense that it went to a pay model. Maybe I'll have another go at it. That blog post is full of interesting links, though. Well worth reading through the whole thing.
- AimForTheBushes 7y agoGreat read! I'm glad he's finding success with it but I couldn't help to think how easy it is to accomplish this with iOS notes.
- aiisjustanif 7y ago> The words you write are saved and locked away, only for you to ever look at, so you can write whatever's really on your mind without fear of it getting out. Hmmm... Is it wrong I don't trust anyone with the data of my private ramblings.
- codezero 7y agoProbably not wrong, but maybe over thinking it. I say that mainly to convince myself, as I feel the exact same way. I want something I can write in that's easy to access, digital, allows some free-form writing/scribbling (if possible), and is encrypted and stored in a cloud but can also be taken with me. I've been thinking of using Apple's notes exclusively for this, but it'd be nice to have something more self contained.
- c0vfefe 7y agoThe answer is client-side encryption. https://standardnotes.org/ https://standardnotes.org/
- vbsteven 7y agoOne of the main takeaways is that it’s still running on a very old version of Rails and JQuery. Maybe not great from a security standpoint but it shows that you do not need a Kubernetes cluster and a big HA setup and a modern language/framework for a profitable project. Btw, the site does not load past the initial splash quote in Firefox on iOS with Tracking Protection enabled. Disabling tracking protection fully loads the page.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- buboard 7y agoThis is the difference between hacker news and indiehackers. People here are still dissecting the javascript virtues of the website in disbelief. Most indie hackers would agree it doesn't matter.
- c0vfefe 7y agoFocusing on technical value vs. business value.
- AlchemistCamp 7y agoAnd the site loads much faster than IH itself! I'd update it to a current version of Rails, though.
- sexy_seedbox 7y agoYep, the end user doesn't really care what your FOTM tech stack is.
- busterbenson 7y agoI’m the creator of the site in question and am just seeing this thread. Happy to answer questions about motivations, costs, etc if you give me a minute to finish lunch and get back to my computer!
- soneca 7y agoCongrats on the success! The dominant advice for bootstrappers is to make a B2B product. Do you agree with this advice? Any tips for bootstrapping going B2B? What are the biggest differentiators that a bootstrapper that really wants to go B2C should include in their product? How can I work for you at 750words? :)
- busterbenson 7y agoThank you! I'm a firm believer that I agree with all advice sometimes, including my own. In that spirit, my advice that is sometimes useful is to ignore B2B and B2C labels and to look instead at what you think you can build that people would be willing to pay for. Then to test that hypothesis as early and as many times as possible. The biggest difference between bootstrapping and VC-strapping is that every step on the path of bootstrapping has to be able to sustain itself long enough to get to the next step. SaaS models are great for this because they can scale with the revenue. I'm happy to go into more detail about any of this but it's a huge topic so we'd need to narrow it down a bit more to prevent this from turning into a novel.
- abootstrapper 7y agoHonest question. Why $5 and not $10? Did you do any testing for the optimal price point?
- pmoriarty 7y agoIs there any way I could read this article without enabling javascript?
- busterbenson 7y agoView source? :) What happens if you try to print it?
- egwynn 7y agoProbably not. Looks like the contents is loaded from Firebase after the main page loads. Not taking sides on whether this is a good/bad thing, just answering the question.
- buboard 7y agothe maker of indiehackers has said in the past that he probably wouldn't make it a SPA if he started over.