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Really resonates with me, but it’s also not the whole story. The first company Steph cofounded was kickstarted. You have to have a vc/crowd/self funded runway j
by mckn1ght 3y ago
Really resonates with me, but it’s also not the whole story. The first company Steph cofounded was kickstarted. You have to have a vc/crowd/self funded runway just to be able to attempt to get the critical mass for 100% user supported software. It can take years to build the product and customer base. Everyone has to eat. Not everyone can do it nights and weekends while they have other income, or hit the career jackpot and save it all up front. Congrats to them though for living the dream!
- kepano 3y agoI have explored just about every way to build and fund a company, including the VC route. The 100% user-supported path is by far the most fun (to me).
- dtkav 3y agoYou and the Obsidian team been a huge inspiration to me. I love how the principles of File-over-app, user-funded, and private-first can align your incentives not just with the user, but with what feels soul nourishing to actually build. It seems like there's an art to targeting a niche market segment that VC funded companies won't be able to compete in because the "gold vein" isn't large enough to support the hypergrowth and expected returns. OTOH if you plan to keep your team small then you can just set up shop and stay lean. I've been building a product that integrates with Obsidian (hopefully ready to share soon), and it has been the highlight of my career to design and build software with these principles and to not be worried about balancing misaligned incentives. Thanks for building a great product -- I'm super happy to subscribe and support y'all. <3