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I suspect this includes outsourcing a whole series of functions from support functions such as finance, accounting, tax and legal, to even what would be conside

I suspect this includes outsourcing a whole series of functions from support functions such as finance, accounting, tax and legal, to even what would be considered core functions such as UX, coding etc. Taken to an extreme, the startup could remain a handful of people while benefiting from a much larger team which is not included in the headcount.

ncfausti 5y ago
Sounds a lot like virtual integration. "...you basically stitch together a business with partners that are treated as if they’re inside the company." https://hbr.org/1998/03/the-power-of-virtual-integration-an-interview-with-dell-computers-michael-dell#:~:text=Virtual%20integration%20means%20you%20basically,they're%20inside%20the%20company https://hbr.org/1998/03/the-power-of-virtual-integration-an-....
madamelic 5y ago
In some instances, yes. In others, not really. If you cut out the bloat, planning meetings, etc., you can stand up an MVP pretty quickly while doing the coding yourself. I think most of the tricks are CSS frameworks, re-using parts of old projects, no-code MVP, outsourcing non-tech things. Many of the successful indie founders seem to be non-technical business people who give 0 cares about coding something the right way, so they just smash stuff together without a care to get it out the door.
ryanSrich 5y ago
You should be outsourcing as many of those as possible anyway, even if you aren’t going for the bootstrap play. There’s no strategic reason to have a finance, HR or legal team unless you have 100s of employees. That’s not to say you ignore those things, but there are so many quality SaaS services that do those at a tiny fraction of the cost of an FTE it only makes sense to use them.
matchagaucho 5y ago
That's really the key. A successful one-person SaaS company is effectively leveraging gig economy and contracting out many business functions.
TrickyRick 5y ago
Or the company is started in a country where those things don't require several full time positions. Where I live I can run a company as a software engineer (No formal education in finance, legal etc) without any problems. Things which aren't solved automatically by accounting software is usually available to read up on online.

ncfausti 5y ago

Sounds a lot like virtual integration. "...you basically stitch together a business with partners that are treated as if they’re inside the company." https://hbr.org/1998/03/the-power-of-virtual-integration-an-interview-with-dell-computers-michael-dell#:~:text=Virtual%20integration%20means%20you%20basically,they're%20inside%20the%20company https://hbr.org/1998/03/the-power-of-virtual-integration-an-....

madamelic 5y ago

In some instances, yes. In others, not really. If you cut out the bloat, planning meetings, etc., you can stand up an MVP pretty quickly while doing the coding yourself. I think most of the tricks are CSS frameworks, re-using parts of old projects, no-code MVP, outsourcing non-tech things. Many of the successful indie founders seem to be non-technical business people who give 0 cares about coding something the right way, so they just smash stuff together without a care to get it out the door.

ryanSrich 5y ago

You should be outsourcing as many of those as possible anyway, even if you aren’t going for the bootstrap play. There’s no strategic reason to have a finance, HR or legal team unless you have 100s of employees. That’s not to say you ignore those things, but there are so many quality SaaS services that do those at a tiny fraction of the cost of an FTE it only makes sense to use them.

matchagaucho 5y ago

That's really the key. A successful one-person SaaS company is effectively leveraging gig economy and contracting out many business functions.

TrickyRick 5y ago

Or the company is started in a country where those things don't require several full time positions. Where I live I can run a company as a software engineer (No formal education in finance, legal etc) without any problems. Things which aren't solved automatically by accounting software is usually available to read up on online.