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Author here. Happy to answer any questions or take any feedback about this post. HN has been a huge part of my experience bootstrapping my business. I've learn

Author here. Happy to answer any questions or take any feedback about this post. HN has been a huge part of my experience bootstrapping my business. I've learned a great deal from articles and discussions here, and I've received tremendous support and advice when I share updates about my projects. I hope you enjoy this summary of my third year.

drdrey 6y ago
Hi Michael, reliably awesome post as always! How do you deal with health insurance? That’s one of the biggest roadblocks for me (and my family)
- mtlynch 6y ago
  The first year, I bought private health insurance. It was $500/month in New York, which dropped to $250/month in Massachusetts. In 2019 and 2020, it dropped to only $50/month because my income was low enough that I qualified for state-subsidized insurance. I felt a little weird about essentially drawing on welfare when I'm choosing to earn less than my maximum, but I also feel like there'd be an arrogance in rejecting it like I'm somehow too good for welfare. In the end, I decided I met the requirements of a government benefit I want, so there's no reason to turn it down.
yarinr 6y ago
I've been following your blog and "year in review" posts for some time now. I've enjoyed reading all of them, and found it inspirational that you kept going despite the somewhat-underwhelming outcome in the first couple of years. I find this kind of perseverance admirable. I'm truly glad things panned out the way they did, and wish you the best of luck going forward! I'll surely keep up to date with your blog posts :)
- mtlynch 6y ago
  Thanks for reading and sticking with me through the underwhelming parts! I'm glad you enjoyed the post!
hmsimha 6y ago
Have you considered rebooting "portfolio rebalancer" in light of the recent interest in stocks? I was just thinking earlier today about how handy a tool like this would be, as well as a similar idea for cryptocurrencies where users could deposit some amount of bitcoin and have it spit some diverse portfolio of crypto back at you.
- mtlynch 6y ago
  Thanks for reading! Oh, that's true. People are more excited about stocks recently. No, that hadn't occurred to me. At this point, TinyPilot is working well, so I'm planning to stay focused on that. It's hard for me to imagine that an hour of my time on Portfolio Rebalancer (or any other unproven product) will have anywhere near the ROI as an hour I spend on TinyPilot.

drdrey 6y ago

Hi Michael, reliably awesome post as always! How do you deal with health insurance? That’s one of the biggest roadblocks for me (and my family)

mtlynch 6y ago
The first year, I bought private health insurance. It was $500/month in New York, which dropped to $250/month in Massachusetts. In 2019 and 2020, it dropped to only $50/month because my income was low enough that I qualified for state-subsidized insurance. I felt a little weird about essentially drawing on welfare when I'm choosing to earn less than my maximum, but I also feel like there'd be an arrogance in rejecting it like I'm somehow too good for welfare. In the end, I decided I met the requirements of a government benefit I want, so there's no reason to turn it down.

yarinr 6y ago

I've been following your blog and "year in review" posts for some time now. I've enjoyed reading all of them, and found it inspirational that you kept going despite the somewhat-underwhelming outcome in the first couple of years. I find this kind of perseverance admirable. I'm truly glad things panned out the way they did, and wish you the best of luck going forward! I'll surely keep up to date with your blog posts :)

mtlynch 6y ago
Thanks for reading and sticking with me through the underwhelming parts! I'm glad you enjoyed the post!

hmsimha 6y ago

Have you considered rebooting "portfolio rebalancer" in light of the recent interest in stocks? I was just thinking earlier today about how handy a tool like this would be, as well as a similar idea for cryptocurrencies where users could deposit some amount of bitcoin and have it spit some diverse portfolio of crypto back at you.

mtlynch 6y ago
Thanks for reading! Oh, that's true. People are more excited about stocks recently. No, that hadn't occurred to me. At this point, TinyPilot is working well, so I'm planning to stay focused on that. It's hard for me to imagine that an hour of my time on Portfolio Rebalancer (or any other unproven product) will have anywhere near the ROI as an hour I spend on TinyPilot.