5 ms·

I'm surprised to see this on the front-page. It really doesn't seem to have much substance, just aspiration-porn driving sales of their product. I was hoping to

I'm surprised to see this on the front-page. It really doesn't seem to have much substance, just aspiration-porn driving sales of their product. I was hoping to read about how to get started, pitfalls to watch out for, etc.

tommoor 4y ago
Ah, well for that you need to buy the book ;)
88913527 4y ago
The concept could be quite appealing to people who do a tour around a few tech companies and then are ready to de-accelerate in their career. Maybe they want to coast FIRE but still have income and do something with their time. Previously, these used to be called lifestyle businesses.
- notpachet 4y ago
  > de-accelerate You can just say "decelerate".
  - lolinder 4y ago
    Unless what they meant is "stop accelerating quite so much" and not "slow down".
    - leephillips 4y ago
      That’s what I meant.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
      Both are examples of deceleration, but in the latter case, the vector is in a different direction. [edit] Apparently I'm wrong. All the definitions of deceleration I can find are actually negative acceleration.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        The next four derivatives after acceleration are jerk, snap*, crackle, and pop, respectively. (What you were describing is negative jerk.) * snap is equivalently called jounce.
  - leephillips 4y ago
    It’s not the same. To decelerate is to have d^2c/dt^2 < 0 (where c is the career measure). To de-accelerate is to reduce d^2c/dt^2 while d^2c/dt^2 remains > 0 (in other words, to make d^3/dt^3 < 0).
BackBlast 4y ago
You get started by sharpening your tools and learning about how business works. For me, it was mostly podcasts on commutes and physical chores. I listened to podcasts about web development, JavaScript, backend, data flows, infrastructure. I built small systems that used this understanding, cementing it in my brain with the pros and cons of approaches where the rubber meets the road. Then I listened to podcasts about small business, particular successful SaaS companies, marketing, sales approaches, management, hiring and all the ingredients that made them successful. Side benefit of this exploratory research is that it makes you very valuable in the market. Find a need, think of how to serve that need, judge its longevity, quality, and value. Then you put your now sharp tools to work. Idea evaluation is a good skill, and required. You need to be brutally rational about the ideas. Emotional attachment helps drive your motivation to work on it, but it won't magically make customers appear. Then you try to execute. Good execution is the hardest part, and you give yourself the best shot by head down improvements in your skills. For software, your first goal is to produce something that serves the need and can acquire a few paying customers. The less "other stuff" involved the better, just serve the need. Once you have paying customers leverage their feedback to grow the product and pick the best direction to feel out where the market for it really is. Non-paying feedback is much worse than someone else with skin in the game, paying customers are key. It's a lot more blood and sweat than the article seems to point out. I like bootstrapping, but it means long evenings and weekends unless you have a sizable nest egg for a runway. Or better if you can afford to work only part-time and can find an accommodating position. Be ready to fail the first few times and try again. 2-3 significant failures under your belt is pretty normal for a successful SaaS bootstrapper. If you have the stomach and drive for it. Then you to can reach this definition of success. There are tons of small underserved markets that would provide nicely for an individual or small team.
- 0xCAP 4y ago
  Mind sharing the mentioned podcasts?
  - Pandabob 4y ago
    not op, but here's a bunch of bootstrapper podcasts: * Startups for the rest of us * Art of product * Out of Beta * Indiehackers * Software Social * Build your SaaS The guy doing Startups for the rest of us, Rob Walling, also runs a bootstrapper conference called Microcof that I recommend checking out.
t_mann 4y ago
It's strange, it seems more like someone built the minimum number of sentences around a few tweets to make it seem like a story. If that's the work of an AI, then I'm impressed, otherwise I'm baffled.
philmcc 4y ago
Jason Cohen is one of my favorite people speaking in this space. Here’s a great, actionable, talk he did at the equally informative Rob Walling’s conference. https://youtu.be/otbnC2zE2rw https://youtu.be/otbnC2zE2rw (I have followed this advice, and it has brought me a level of success and comfort I didn’t know I could have, as an admittedly run of the mill developer)
- robocat 4y ago
  Wow - that is some very high quality information about bootstrapping. And I co-founded a profitable SaaS! Caveat: when someone talented explains things, there is a lot of “it’s obvious” (to them) and they can easily explain why it is obvious, and it all sounds convincingly obvious (successful founders often are very convincing - correlation). However the details of how he learnt his opinions and the details really really are not obvious unless you have the right talents, or perhaps if you can develop the right skills (where it is only rarely obvious how to learn them well). Aside: I loath the term micro-SaaS - especially when applied to a business with “$1,000,000 ARR” - but even the spelling is crappy. What does micro imply? Jason mentions at the start he prefers the word “self-funded” which I really like (presumably the title of the video uses “bootstrapped” because that’s more common?).

tommoor 4y ago

Ah, well for that you need to buy the book ;)

88913527 4y ago

The concept could be quite appealing to people who do a tour around a few tech companies and then are ready to de-accelerate in their career. Maybe they want to coast FIRE but still have income and do something with their time. Previously, these used to be called lifestyle businesses.

notpachet 4y ago
> de-accelerate You can just say "decelerate".
- lolinder 4y ago
  Unless what they meant is "stop accelerating quite so much" and not "slow down".
  - leephillips 4y ago
    That’s what I meant.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    Both are examples of deceleration, but in the latter case, the vector is in a different direction. [edit] Apparently I'm wrong. All the definitions of deceleration I can find are actually negative acceleration.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      The next four derivatives after acceleration are jerk, snap*, crackle, and pop, respectively. (What you were describing is negative jerk.) * snap is equivalently called jounce.
- leephillips 4y ago
  It’s not the same. To decelerate is to have d^2c/dt^2 < 0 (where c is the career measure). To de-accelerate is to reduce d^2c/dt^2 while d^2c/dt^2 remains > 0 (in other words, to make d^3/dt^3 < 0).

BackBlast 4y ago

You get started by sharpening your tools and learning about how business works. For me, it was mostly podcasts on commutes and physical chores. I listened to podcasts about web development, JavaScript, backend, data flows, infrastructure. I built small systems that used this understanding, cementing it in my brain with the pros and cons of approaches where the rubber meets the road. Then I listened to podcasts about small business, particular successful SaaS companies, marketing, sales approaches, management, hiring and all the ingredients that made them successful. Side benefit of this exploratory research is that it makes you very valuable in the market. Find a need, think of how to serve that need, judge its longevity, quality, and value. Then you put your now sharp tools to work. Idea evaluation is a good skill, and required. You need to be brutally rational about the ideas. Emotional attachment helps drive your motivation to work on it, but it won't magically make customers appear. Then you try to execute. Good execution is the hardest part, and you give yourself the best shot by head down improvements in your skills. For software, your first goal is to produce something that serves the need and can acquire a few paying customers. The less "other stuff" involved the better, just serve the need. Once you have paying customers leverage their feedback to grow the product and pick the best direction to feel out where the market for it really is. Non-paying feedback is much worse than someone else with skin in the game, paying customers are key. It's a lot more blood and sweat than the article seems to point out. I like bootstrapping, but it means long evenings and weekends unless you have a sizable nest egg for a runway. Or better if you can afford to work only part-time and can find an accommodating position. Be ready to fail the first few times and try again. 2-3 significant failures under your belt is pretty normal for a successful SaaS bootstrapper. If you have the stomach and drive for it. Then you to can reach this definition of success. There are tons of small underserved markets that would provide nicely for an individual or small team.

0xCAP 4y ago
Mind sharing the mentioned podcasts?
- Pandabob 4y ago
  not op, but here's a bunch of bootstrapper podcasts: * Startups for the rest of us * Art of product * Out of Beta * Indiehackers * Software Social * Build your SaaS The guy doing Startups for the rest of us, Rob Walling, also runs a bootstrapper conference called Microcof that I recommend checking out.

t_mann 4y ago

It's strange, it seems more like someone built the minimum number of sentences around a few tweets to make it seem like a story. If that's the work of an AI, then I'm impressed, otherwise I'm baffled.

philmcc 4y ago

Jason Cohen is one of my favorite people speaking in this space. Here’s a great, actionable, talk he did at the equally informative Rob Walling’s conference. https://youtu.be/otbnC2zE2rw https://youtu.be/otbnC2zE2rw (I have followed this advice, and it has brought me a level of success and comfort I didn’t know I could have, as an admittedly run of the mill developer)

robocat 4y ago
Wow - that is some very high quality information about bootstrapping. And I co-founded a profitable SaaS! Caveat: when someone talented explains things, there is a lot of “it’s obvious” (to them) and they can easily explain why it is obvious, and it all sounds convincingly obvious (successful founders often are very convincing - correlation). However the details of how he learnt his opinions and the details really really are not obvious unless you have the right talents, or perhaps if you can develop the right skills (where it is only rarely obvious how to learn them well). Aside: I loath the term micro-SaaS - especially when applied to a business with “$1,000,000 ARR” - but even the spelling is crappy. What does micro imply? Jason mentions at the start he prefers the word “self-funded” which I really like (presumably the title of the video uses “bootstrapped” because that’s more common?).