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The 10k Bootstrap Challenge
- iusable 14y agoInteresting idea. Tiny typo. It should be 'live' not 'life'. "So I'm betting £10k that I can build a portfolio of products which is profitable enough to life off before running out of money." should be "So I'm betting £10k that I can build a portfolio of products which is profitable enough to live off before running out of money."
- voodoochilo 14y agocurious already.
- peteretep 14y agoI may well be trying to do something similar in a year, so I look forward to seeing how you do! Good luck.
- tobydownton 14y agoPeople love start-up stories and case studies, this will be a real-time version, I'm off to make some popcorn, best of luck!
- HarrietJones 14y agoI'm sort of doing this. I'm 4 months in, I've had one scrapped project, one failed project and one project which isn't really taking off. I'll be watching this with interest.
- HarrietJones 14y agoWhat I should have done is posted the fact that I'm doing the same to Hacker News. I'm guessing that if his blog gets enough traction, he'll succeed. Not because the product is great, but because this "10k GBP - can I make money" sideproject brings in the eyeballs.
- gravitronic 14y agoWhile HN brings eyeballs it does not really bring profits unless you are innovating in the "productivity / programming / business" product space. What it CAN do is give you decent SEO via reposts that helps diversify your inbound links resulting in better pageranking. My month of blogging has brought me from ~90th for "android dj app" to ~9th in google search.
- robfitz 14y agoIf only I hadn't made the idiotic decision to compete with twitter for the term "bootstrap" :)
- clarky07 14y agoI did this about a year ago. It took me about 2 months to get self sustaining and 6 months to reach my previous salary. Been thinking about writing it up, maybe I should go ahead and do it. Good luck, living off income from things you make is a great thing.
- masanqi 14y agoPlease do. Sounds like it could be very helpful.
- axefrog 14y agoWould love to hear about it! Do you blog?
- alinajaf 14y agoYes please! I've been trying to crack this particular nut for nigh on half a decade and still haven't made much headway, so it would be great to read about how you managed it.
- gawker 14y agoWould love to hear about it and how it has changed your life.
- JHSheridan 14y agoYes...please do! I need all the encouragement I can get.
- nyddle 14y agoplease, do it
- yashchandra 14y agoPlease share. I will even pay for such sharing.
- clarky07 14y agoSince so many asked for it I decided to knock it out. Here's my story - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3982830 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3982830
- mendable 14y agoNice idea. What is the product you are working on? You talked about about the numbers, but some general idea of the app would be interesting if we are going to follow along with your progress.
- drsim 14y agoThis could work really well to harness the power of learning from the community if you reveal your product. I'm sure lots of folks, especially here, would jump in and help you improve your registration rate if we had visibility.
- CharlesPal 14y agoI'm very curious about this guy's background. He seems to have experience in product development, marketing and customer acquisition. Having said that... I'm not sure how long ~16k USD (10k GBP) lasts in London but here (Boston) that would not give too many months of runway. Not using consulting for at least a short time he is giving himself a small window for success. I wish him the best of luck but his approach does seem a bit aggressive.
- Hannan 14y agoLiving in London was quite expensive for me. He estimates four months: "All my expenses come from the £10k but I can only make money from products (e.g. no consulting). London is expensive, so this gives me about 4 months."
- CharlesPal 14y agoSpending £2.5k/month to live in London? In your experience, how accurate does that sound?
- objclxt 14y agoSounds about right, the London Living Wage (a suggested but not mandatory minimum wage for living in London) works out at just under £400 per week, so maybe £5k to live on, the remaining £5k for other expenses, etc. Bear in mind it's not £2.5k/month for living expenses: it's £2.5k per month for all expenses: including building the product, etc etc.
- beck5 14y agoThat is living an fairly decent life. You could scrape on £1k a month if you really wanted to.
- megablast 14y agoThis is what I do, rent and bills is around £800 a month, and can live quite well on another £300 to £400, and that includes going out.
- danvoell 14y agoWhat's your first product?
- corford 14y agoI'm two thirds through a very similar process. I quit my job in late Dec 2011 and temporarily moved myself and my girlfriend in with my folks. 5 months, 1 pivot and ~£8K later I'm almost ready to release a public beta. With a bit of luck, this will happen before the end of June. I've then got a further 6 months left in the budget to feed us until the site (hopefully!) starts bringing in enough money to live off. Failing that, it's back to salaried employment (if any one will have me...)!
- bking 14y agoI wish you good luck, and I am excited to see your portfolio develop. /sips coffee
- iharris 14y agoIt takes guts to take a leap like this. Good luck, I hope you succeed.
- jstanley 14y agoThe domain name is registered by Rob Fitzpatrick of thestartuptoolkit.com. I wonder what the relationship is? Edit: Looks like this site is also by him, just not submitted by him.
- rmATinnovafy 14y agoKeep us posted. Specially the marketing side of things. Good luck.
- robfitz 14y agoHey guys! Thanks for the support. You caught me pretty early in the process, so not terribly much to show just yet, but I hope you'll stick around for the ride. If you're curious, the first product I'm trying to make profitable (and the one whose numbers I reference in the video) is at http://whattowrite.org http://whattowrite.org But, as I say, the stats on it are pretty bleak at the moment (I need to improve the funnel performance by ~1000%). I may end up spending 2 weeks invalidating it and then move on to greener pastures. Regarding the amount of money and number of months it gives me, I chose the amount (10k) in order to give myself 4 months, rather than the other way around. 4 months feels about right. If I could live happily on £1k per month, I would have made it the £4k bootstrap challenge ;) Thanks again!
- sparknlaunch12 14y agoGood concept. What is the writers site built with andhow will it generate revenue? Are you adopting a lean startup approach? Good luck.
- robfitz 14y agoDjango/jquery/sendgrid, I have no idea (yet!), and yes. On the first idea the main stuff I'm pulling from lean is analytics, but if this one doesn't work out I'll do more custdev and in-person stuff as appropriate.
- sparknlaunch12 14y agoCool. Really like how the form filling flows. Will wait to see how you monetise this. I suspect there are some serious writers/bloggers out there looking for inspiration and willing to pay?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- BiWinning 14y agoAffiliate marketing bro. I make six figures doing it. Not saying it's a great long term solution but in your situation you could turn a profit quite quickly potentially. Just look around at various affiliate programs and see if you can come up with a solution to add value to the customer experience. Maybe just a simple price comparison site. Then drive traffic to it, paid works well as long as you can do it profitably. If you can turn a profit on an Adwords advertising campaign you may well be on your way to a tidy income.
- sparknlaunch12 14y agoReminds me of Joe Stump's entrepreneur goal- to figure out how to make $30 a month from 1000 people. The key is having focus and a goal in mind. If one can stick to the plan then they are already ahead of the game.
- joshmlewis 14y agoZ-index your footer to 9999. YouTube video covers it up on iPad. Also the white form field on the left sidebar overruns into the text. I'm on an iPad so not sure how desktop version differs.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bignoggins 14y agoI'm a big fan of bootstrapping, allow me to add my own data point. I was the typical bored-at-BigCo guy but was afraid to completely jump into startups full time (I have a family). I decided to bootstrap my startup (mobile app) at the beginning of 2010, while working full time for 6 months. 6 months after that I quit my job full time as the income from the startup surpassed my SV engineering salary (made 75K in 6 months). In 2011, I traveled the world for 7 months with my wife while making my 2nd app, and my income went up to 340K. This year, I'm pretty much working ~20 hrs a week and I'm on track to hit at least 600K (already did 300K YTD). No full time employees, no VCs, no board, minimal expenses (macbook + iphone), no hassle. I have friends and relatives who have done YC, gone the whole fundraising route, etc. Some who are fairly successful, but I wouldn't trade places with them in a second. I'm not saying bootstrapping is better, but if you are like me (risk averse and lazy) then it is definitely a legitimate option.
- jvrossb 14y agoCongrats! Mind sharing what kind of apps you made?
- bignoggins 14y agoIts in my HN profile
- docyes 14y agoWFHBYOB!
- timjahn 14y agoMore power to ya Jerry. That's the lifestyle I'm working toward myself.
- bignoggins 14y agothanks Tim!
- nanijoe 14y agoOh the paradox...The thought of bootstrapping being for the lazy and risk averse.
- gmq 14y agoThis is really interesting. I'm giving myself 6 months to get _something_ out there (I'm not sure what exactly, yet) or a job in a tech related field. If it doesn't work, I'll have to start applying for jobs related to my degree (teaching).
- SkyMarshal 14y agoIn case anyone not aware, check out the Facebook group HN - Monthly Launchpad: https://www.facebook.com/groups/launchinnov/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/launchinnov/ It's a network of HN'ers launching side projects and bootstrapped companies.
- bazookaBen 14y agoif the business doesn't require a lot of physical interaction , try moving to a lower cost country. Your runway will increase two/four fold.
- mmphosis 14y agoFrom the title, I thought this was a challenge to write a bootstrap loader in 10 kilobytes.
- latj 14y agoStep 1 should maybe be purchase train tickets to bulgaria where you can stretch your 10k GBP out for a year.
- Aftershock21 14y agoI am doing similar thing, I quit my job in Oct 2011 and making iPhone apps. Made 4 apps so far but just earning $10/day from it. But its a lot of fun and exciting than a job.
- robfitz 14y agoNice -- my email is in my profile if you're up for some sort of occasional peer support
- sidman 14y agoIn the same boat as you, quit my job around the same time you did (august of 2011), built an iPhone app and have some affiliate marketing. Turned over a bit more then 10 bucks a day (average about $70) but still in the ball park of can do much better :) And yes it is fun ! i guess we just gotta keep going