bootstrapper101

6 ms·

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by bootstrapper101 5y ago
Even if you assume everything I said about Peter at face value, in the end it is just an anecdote. I know quite a few people who had a great experience with him. So make your own judgement call! In my immigration journey, I worked with 8 di
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by bootstrapper101 5y ago
Most people on this forum are asking about potentially EB-1, O1, E2, Entrepreneurship parole etc. These applications can get very complicated. If it was a simple H1 application I think most solo practitioners would be fine. I stand by my co
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by bootstrapper101 5y ago
I agree that this story is one sided. If I wanted a closure with Peter, it would be in some kind of legal setting. But I have moved on. I just want to use this opportunity to let fellow entrepreneurs realize the importance of picking the ri
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by bootstrapper101 5y ago
Do I want others to benefit from my experience? Yes Do I want to help fellow entrepreneurs avoid negative immigration consequences? Yes Do I want Peter to lose his law license or get sanctioned? No. Even though I have specific proof which c
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by bootstrapper101 5y ago
Well, sole reason Peter is doing this is to get more business. My post has two parts. First part was tips related to choosing a firm and knowing what is at stake if things go wrong. Second part specifically about my experience with Peter. I
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by bootstrapper101 5y ago
Peter does a thread here every few months. So I want to share a cautionary tale about Immigration lawyers in general and Peter in particular. I had extensive immigration experience in US, where I did many filings. Worked with many different
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I think you are a bit all over the place. I would suggest a few things: Go through Naval's podcast "How to get rich". Listen it once a month for 4 months. Make notes and see how his suggestions apply to you. Focus on the thin
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
It is a digital product. I don't live in US. We do have outsourced customer service. But still I have to be aware of what the customers are complaining about. In some cases people are filing frivolous complaints to government agencies
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
No worries. Glad that we could figure this out like reasonable adults.
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I pitched my ideas just twice and got some funding for them. However either my approach was wrong or I wasn't working with the right people. I felt that funding was too big of a waste of time. Without traction, everything I did was bei
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
As I mentioned in other posts, I focussed on learning and pace. I first went moderately deep on technology skills. Then on a need basis, I kind of did a BFS on all skills needs to build and run a startup. Eventually all the skills are impor
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I feel that it's better to learn skills as a part of getting traction vs try to acquire skills in vacuum. So have a razor sharp focus on building and adoption. If things are going great then cool. If not, introspect and seek advice til
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I had kids after my startup was successful!
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
70% of expenses are marketing.
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
This is excellent advice. You should know and understand who your customer are. Otherwise you won't even know what to build. Or you will build the wrong product and won't get any feedback. Congrats on your journey and best of luck
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
Nothing beats just getting down and building something end to end. As you do it more and more, you get better and faster. I just came up with an analogy of trying to be successful at startup: Imagine someone who is just born in prehistoric
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
All the questions you are asking are coming from your head and not your heart! With wife and kids you want to follow your heart as long as your head (life situation) can support it. If you would want to love your kids and be there for them,
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
If you love what you are doing, it will give you the drive to keep doing it. Listen to Naval's podcast about "How to get rich". He knows how to put ideas much better than me. There are no shortcuts and if I tell you my winnin
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
These are great tips. We do most of these. Automate everything possible. If you still can't manage and need human support, hire someone in India/Philippines part time, treat them like a valued employee, build a relationship.
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
This is a really good point. You can have at it all but you can definitely wish ;)
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I know. We had kids around the same age. In my case my big mistake was moving to US mid way in career. It disrupted by established life and I had to start over from scratch. If I had stayed in my native country, I would have been able to ha
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
Biggest issue with customer support are: Getting customers and supporting them. Solution to both of them is making a simple product which provides incredible value which is self serve. Word of mouth will take care of the rest. Eventually bu
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
Think about how many non-basic need products that you know which consumers pay which is not some kind of exclusive or monopoly: Utilities, Cable, Cell phone, NetflixEtc, Uber*. Today's consumer doesn't like to pay for anything, es
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
Don't over think. Just start building anything that you feel could be useful to someone. Don't fall in love with the idea. The idea you start with will never be the idea when you are successful. It will evolve or likely you will p
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
We kept an iteration going as long as we saw a reasonable and viable path to keep growing the business. One of the product was consumer and had a hockey stick growth curve obvious in the first week. So it was obvious to keep going on. Anoth
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I don't think that I can guarantee success. There was some angle of luck involved. However over time, because I am getting faster, I am getting more shots at the game. Earlier I could play one game over 2 years and make many mistake (w
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I love building products. The financial success was a side product. I should have qualified my statement about failures better. Current one: Financially successful for me. Another one: Financially successful but got screwed over. Another on
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I don't spend the money I already make. Not sure what I would do with 10x money. 1% ungrateful complaining consumer out of 1 million users are 10k users. I don't like dealing with them. At 10x the business they might become 100k o
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
Every year you delay having kids, you are reducing the amount of time you will spend with your kids and grandkids. As you get older, the quality of time you spend with them will also get worse. My wife went through lot of difficulties in he
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by bootstrapper101 6y ago
I will try to answer multiple questions here because I am being throttled: > How do you handle support with just 3 people? I imagine at that scale you either have a lot of customers, or small number of customers with very specific needs.

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