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I've been a solo developer for many years now. It's definitely a skill that takes time to develop. Almost as much as trying to work with others. The main differ

I've been a solo developer for many years now. It's definitely a skill that takes time to develop. Almost as much as trying to work with others. The main difference is that other people are much more of an unknown variable. That first additional worker is a major first hurdle. Putting it off until later can make it even more daunting. Solo-dev means that certain verticals become very easy, e.g. the technicals. But a successful business has 2-3 really important parts that are more "horizontal" like good communication or business skills. Having multiple people really increases the easy of filling in that gap. In fact, I am really curious how other solo-devs solve these problems. From what I've seen, they basically don't and get by because the competition is sparse or they get lucky and they get help from not another founder, but someone that is heavily invested and acts as a strong advisor. There's also the option of just doing everything yourself by learning to be good at multiple things and taking much longer. Which is pretty high risk in that it's very sink or swim since those additional skills are unlikely to ever be useful outside of the startup the founder is working on. It's what I opted for, and we'll so how that works out.

DenisM 4y ago
>There's also the option of just doing everything yourself by learning to be good at multiple things and taking much longer. It will likely take a lot longer than you expect, sucking your whole life into it. Set a hard stop for yourself ahead of time, so that you know when to quit and try something else in life.
cercatrova 4y ago
What I did is the latter, learning everything. It's really not as hard as it sounds, due to the Pareto principle. I taught myself most of what I needed regarding sales, marketing, and design, enough to sell my products. Not sure why you say the skills aren't useful outside of the startup, sales for example is extremely good at teaching interpersonal communication.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  The main problem with doing it all yourself is the time sink/cost eventually becomes an issue, especially since in my experience communications/marketing/sales and programming/technical work tend to involve exactly opposite working styles and requirements: Programming and other technical work really benefits from long periods of uninterrupted work, whereas sales/customer service/marketing is very 'you work when the work needs done'. (I'm a programmer who worked in communications a bit.) Learning all aspects of running a business is definitely plausible, but actually doing all the work becomes a logistical nightmare of opportunity costs very quickly.
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    Business and engineering styles can both work together. What I do is alternate one week of engineering (coding, writing docs, etc) with one week of business (marketing, sales calls, writing blog posts, etc.). This was recommended to me by Jon Yongfook who got to 10k MRR this way last year and is now at 50k MRR, all by following this pattern [0]. He's also an engineer by trade but found that this alternating business and engineering week approach is extremely effective for solo founders, especially solo engineers who'd usually let their marketing fall by the wayside as they focus on coding then wonder how their startup failed after they got no customers. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25929259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25929259
    - Mezzie 4y ago
      That is definitely a good way to do it if you're going to go solo, but once you grow enough/depending on the product and market and who your competitors are, you absolutely CANNOT wait a week to respond to people/make sales pitches. If nothing else, a competitor providing the same service with an always on sales department and the ability to respond to important clients in hours rather than days will smoke you. So if you know you want take this approach, make sure to do your market research beforehand and see that it's an economically viable approach. It works great for something like Bannerbear where the clients can just find another way to make images for a week or so. If it's something crucial to client deployment of their own products or if you're B2C, less so.
trevyn 4y ago
> In fact, I am really curious how other solo-devs solve these problems. I realized that what I wanted to do is write software — the software that I wanted to write. I don’t want to build a business or an organization or make money. So that’s what I do. Material luxuries and hedonic treadmills are a trap.
- Silverback_VII 4y ago
  I get your point and also think that optimizing for money may be problematic at the moment. Ideally you should get rewarded(with money)if what you create is of great value to society. But this system seems to be broken otherwise we wouldn't have so many problems. Nevertheless I still think that society will reward you if you make a big contribution.

DenisM 4y ago

>There's also the option of just doing everything yourself by learning to be good at multiple things and taking much longer. It will likely take a lot longer than you expect, sucking your whole life into it. Set a hard stop for yourself ahead of time, so that you know when to quit and try something else in life.

cercatrova 4y ago

What I did is the latter, learning everything. It's really not as hard as it sounds, due to the Pareto principle. I taught myself most of what I needed regarding sales, marketing, and design, enough to sell my products. Not sure why you say the skills aren't useful outside of the startup, sales for example is extremely good at teaching interpersonal communication.

Mezzie 4y ago
The main problem with doing it all yourself is the time sink/cost eventually becomes an issue, especially since in my experience communications/marketing/sales and programming/technical work tend to involve exactly opposite working styles and requirements: Programming and other technical work really benefits from long periods of uninterrupted work, whereas sales/customer service/marketing is very 'you work when the work needs done'. (I'm a programmer who worked in communications a bit.) Learning all aspects of running a business is definitely plausible, but actually doing all the work becomes a logistical nightmare of opportunity costs very quickly.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  Business and engineering styles can both work together. What I do is alternate one week of engineering (coding, writing docs, etc) with one week of business (marketing, sales calls, writing blog posts, etc.). This was recommended to me by Jon Yongfook who got to 10k MRR this way last year and is now at 50k MRR, all by following this pattern [0]. He's also an engineer by trade but found that this alternating business and engineering week approach is extremely effective for solo founders, especially solo engineers who'd usually let their marketing fall by the wayside as they focus on coding then wonder how their startup failed after they got no customers. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25929259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25929259
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    That is definitely a good way to do it if you're going to go solo, but once you grow enough/depending on the product and market and who your competitors are, you absolutely CANNOT wait a week to respond to people/make sales pitches. If nothing else, a competitor providing the same service with an always on sales department and the ability to respond to important clients in hours rather than days will smoke you. So if you know you want take this approach, make sure to do your market research beforehand and see that it's an economically viable approach. It works great for something like Bannerbear where the clients can just find another way to make images for a week or so. If it's something crucial to client deployment of their own products or if you're B2C, less so.

trevyn 4y ago

> In fact, I am really curious how other solo-devs solve these problems. I realized that what I wanted to do is write software — the software that I wanted to write. I don’t want to build a business or an organization or make money. So that’s what I do. Material luxuries and hedonic treadmills are a trap.

Silverback_VII 4y ago
I get your point and also think that optimizing for money may be problematic at the moment. Ideally you should get rewarded(with money)if what you create is of great value to society. But this system seems to be broken otherwise we wouldn't have so many problems. Nevertheless I still think that society will reward you if you make a big contribution.