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Good on you; We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. Not every business activity fits the go

Good on you; We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. Not every business activity fits the go-big-or-go-home Zuckerberg-esque meteoric rise archetype that the Techcrunch-led hype media attracts eyeballs for portraying.

matt1 4y ago
+100 Like I mentioned in another comment, the Microconf community is a fantastic resource for learning how to build this type of business: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248246
RicoElectrico 4y ago
Amen. But if you ever happen to invent a product category that turns out to be a huge untapped market, the gatekeepers-that-be (Google, Facebook, Apple et al.) will try to enter it as well and stomp you. Even if you don't, still, they collect their rent on everything we do online nowadays.
- Axsuul 4y ago
  Usually if that happens they expand the market, not kill you.
Alex3917 4y ago
> We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. There will be a lot more example of this in the coming years because the costs of keeping a pre-PMF webapp online have basically fallen to zero. Whereas when Zuckerberg started Facebook, if it didn't take off right away then you had no choice but to shut it down. When you hear VCs and other folks cast doubt on the ability of anything that doesn't immediately capture lightning in a bottle to succeed in the long term, they are incorrectly pattern matching to a trend from the past that just happened to be an artifact of the economics of that time period.
- chrisweekly 4y ago
  "PMF"?
  - jocaal 4y ago
    product-market fit
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- waprin 4y ago
  Yeah it’s interesting reading the old pg essays where he says, VCs suck but they are a necessary evil. After all, racking reliable servers will cost at least 20k, paying a PR firm so that there’s a chance anyone will hear about your site will cost at least 20k etc etc Now basically every PaaS has a free or cheap (<$50/mo) tier, tons of helpful tools with free or cheap tiers, you can get users / customers for free on social media and probably more effectively than traditional ads / PR coverage. It’s not strictly true because some projects use GPUs for ML , sometimes there’s some technical rot if you don’t upgrade your stack a bit, market change could make you irrelevant etc But in general there’s a lot of products that can simmer and slowly iterate for a long time as long as founder keeps chipping away as evidenced here.
  - didgetmaster 4y ago
    It has gotten much cheaper to host stuff, but I really wonder if marketing costs have fallen as well. You can certainly find cheap or free avenues (like HN) to tell people about your product, but it can be lost in the sea of information. Good marketing to the best subset of potential customers is essential in getting anything off the ground. That can be expensive especially if you are an engineer with very little marketing experience.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
      My take is that marketing now can have very little out-of-pocket cost, but a massively increased time cost because you are now constantly engaging with people, making new posts, answering questions, exploring new avenues, etc.
stsrki 4y ago
I did something similar with Blazorise, a personal project of mine, https://blazorise.com/ https://blazorise.com/. It started as a hobby project. After some time it grew too large that it took most of my time, not to mention the time I could spend with my wife and son. Things changed during the Covid when I was laid off. Then I started freelancing for a while, and last year I finally took a big step and went full-time with Blazorise. Switched to dual licensing, where larger enterprises must purchase a commercial license. It is working, and hopefully, it will continue to work. Or otherwise, my wife will rage on me :/
didgetmaster 4y ago
It's not just SaaS or web based products that fall into this category. There are plenty of applications and systems that run stand-alone on a disconnected computer that can add real value and may take many years to develop for a sole engineer. I have a data management system that I have been working on for many years. It is core technology that could eventually be used in a SaaS or web based model, but for now it runs on a single computer with no dependencies to the Internet (other than to download the beta software at https://www.Didgets.com https://www.Didgets.com). Many of the features (file system imports, database tables, quick analytics, logging framework, indexing service, etc.) have come about one weekend or a series of evenings at a time. Congrats to Matt for sticking with it for so long.
kilroy123 4y ago
It's tough though. I've been slow-burning on a side project for two years. I'm unsure if I need to be patient and keep working on it. Or cut my losses and put my time and effort into something else.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  Do you enjoy it?
  - kilroy123 4y ago
    Some times. I'm adding a lot of features this year to learn next.js. So far, I like that. The legacy stuff I don't want to touch. Ha!
- dthedavid 4y ago
  I'm in the same boat. Been working on www.bannerbox.io for 2 years, no customers, no revenue. Marketing is important to the success of any project. This year I plan on focusing at least 50% of my time creating content; mostly blog posts and sharing my journey so far. With persistence any idea should work out.
  - kilroy123 4y ago
    If that is the case, I would personally throw in the towel. My project has zero revenue, but thousands of users and many people use it daily. That's what keeps me going.

matt1 4y ago

+100 Like I mentioned in another comment, the Microconf community is a fantastic resource for learning how to build this type of business: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248246

RicoElectrico 4y ago

Amen. But if you ever happen to invent a product category that turns out to be a huge untapped market, the gatekeepers-that-be (Google, Facebook, Apple et al.) will try to enter it as well and stomp you. Even if you don't, still, they collect their rent on everything we do online nowadays.

Axsuul 4y ago
Usually if that happens they expand the market, not kill you.

Alex3917 4y ago

> We need more examples highlighted of entrepreneurs leading the slow-burn (in a good way) types of ventures. There will be a lot more example of this in the coming years because the costs of keeping a pre-PMF webapp online have basically fallen to zero. Whereas when Zuckerberg started Facebook, if it didn't take off right away then you had no choice but to shut it down. When you hear VCs and other folks cast doubt on the ability of anything that doesn't immediately capture lightning in a bottle to succeed in the long term, they are incorrectly pattern matching to a trend from the past that just happened to be an artifact of the economics of that time period.

chrisweekly 4y ago
"PMF"?
- jocaal 4y ago
  product-market fit
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
waprin 4y ago
Yeah it’s interesting reading the old pg essays where he says, VCs suck but they are a necessary evil. After all, racking reliable servers will cost at least 20k, paying a PR firm so that there’s a chance anyone will hear about your site will cost at least 20k etc etc Now basically every PaaS has a free or cheap (<$50/mo) tier, tons of helpful tools with free or cheap tiers, you can get users / customers for free on social media and probably more effectively than traditional ads / PR coverage. It’s not strictly true because some projects use GPUs for ML , sometimes there’s some technical rot if you don’t upgrade your stack a bit, market change could make you irrelevant etc But in general there’s a lot of products that can simmer and slowly iterate for a long time as long as founder keeps chipping away as evidenced here.
- didgetmaster 4y ago
  It has gotten much cheaper to host stuff, but I really wonder if marketing costs have fallen as well. You can certainly find cheap or free avenues (like HN) to tell people about your product, but it can be lost in the sea of information. Good marketing to the best subset of potential customers is essential in getting anything off the ground. That can be expensive especially if you are an engineer with very little marketing experience.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    My take is that marketing now can have very little out-of-pocket cost, but a massively increased time cost because you are now constantly engaging with people, making new posts, answering questions, exploring new avenues, etc.

stsrki 4y ago

I did something similar with Blazorise, a personal project of mine, https://blazorise.com/ https://blazorise.com/. It started as a hobby project. After some time it grew too large that it took most of my time, not to mention the time I could spend with my wife and son. Things changed during the Covid when I was laid off. Then I started freelancing for a while, and last year I finally took a big step and went full-time with Blazorise. Switched to dual licensing, where larger enterprises must purchase a commercial license. It is working, and hopefully, it will continue to work. Or otherwise, my wife will rage on me :/

didgetmaster 4y ago

It's not just SaaS or web based products that fall into this category. There are plenty of applications and systems that run stand-alone on a disconnected computer that can add real value and may take many years to develop for a sole engineer. I have a data management system that I have been working on for many years. It is core technology that could eventually be used in a SaaS or web based model, but for now it runs on a single computer with no dependencies to the Internet (other than to download the beta software at https://www.Didgets.com https://www.Didgets.com). Many of the features (file system imports, database tables, quick analytics, logging framework, indexing service, etc.) have come about one weekend or a series of evenings at a time. Congrats to Matt for sticking with it for so long.

kilroy123 4y ago

It's tough though. I've been slow-burning on a side project for two years. I'm unsure if I need to be patient and keep working on it. Or cut my losses and put my time and effort into something else.

sirsinsalot 4y ago
Do you enjoy it?
- kilroy123 4y ago
  Some times. I'm adding a lot of features this year to learn next.js. So far, I like that. The legacy stuff I don't want to touch. Ha!
dthedavid 4y ago
I'm in the same boat. Been working on www.bannerbox.io for 2 years, no customers, no revenue. Marketing is important to the success of any project. This year I plan on focusing at least 50% of my time creating content; mostly blog posts and sharing my journey so far. With persistence any idea should work out.
- kilroy123 4y ago
  If that is the case, I would personally throw in the towel. My project has zero revenue, but thousands of users and many people use it daily. That's what keeps me going.