Solopreneurship(flaviocopes.com)
flaviocopes.com
Solopreneurship
https://flaviocopes.com/solopreneurship/
55 comments
I started https://ipinfo.io as a side project, and eventually transitioned to working on it fulltime by myself for a while. I really enjoyed that time, but as things progressed it was a huge relief to bring in other people to help. Offloading support to people that were better suited to dealing with customer issues, and enjoyed doing that more than me. Then offloading design work to someone who can actually do a good job of design. Then getting help optimizing some DB queries. And before you know it we're a team of 17 globally :) I sometimes fondly remember the times that it was just me working in a coffee shop by myself, they were certainly simpler times. But the business would never have been able to get to the stage its at if I was doing this by myself.
Have you blogged or documented your journey somewhere? I love reading solopreneur success stories like this!
Yeah I've talked about it on a few podcasts. Here are a couple that focus a lot on the journey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r79AuXgTy-4
https://saasclub.io/podcast/ipinfo-ben-dowling/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r79AuXgTy-4
https://saasclub.io/podcast/ipinfo-ben-dowling/
Awesome, thanks!
Any tips on hiring as a solopreneur? Where do you start and what do you tell them?
Why hire if you're "Solo"?
Because sometimes you want to tackle things that are bigger than you can do alone, or that are well outside of your personal wheelhouse (say, UX for an infra person or vice versa), and you want someone with more 'skin' in the game than a contractor.
At least, that's why I've hired as a solo founder...
At least, that's why I've hired as a solo founder...
Initially it was mostly through upwork.com, and the HN monthly who's hiring posts. The first hires were either for specific project work, or part-time contractors. I kept giving the best ones more and more projects or hours until they eventually wound up full time :)
I see this tendency of solo projects a lot in developers. My experience has been quite the opposite, I started to get traction as entrepreneur after accepting the idea that I needed a team. My business sells b2b so maybe it is different, but companies are tired of automated SaaS sales funnels focused on “features”, they want competent people to talk to about their problems that are never just technical ones. I think the Enterprise tech market is very underserved at the moment, but I find it hard to believe you can approach b2b solo.
> "I find it hard to believe you can approach b2b solo."
You can, as an independent consultant for hire ... but totally agree - with the exception of consultant, I'd be extremely tough.
You can, as an independent consultant for hire ... but totally agree - with the exception of consultant, I'd be extremely tough.
Ok so out of all businesses you can do alone, that example is harder, yet not impossible, but that doesn't mean there aren't a million other opportunities to successfully make a living as a solopreneur. You probably don't see many doing this because it makes no sense and it sounds like you made the right choice when things made sense, but that doesn't discount the entire premise of being a solopreneur.
Especially the bigger companies have procurement that deals with contracts and are so used to having a salesperson as contact. I can imagine that your salesforce would be one of the limiting factors for these customers.
Not disagreeing that a team might be better for targeting Enterprise SaaS but is the implication that a solo founder can’t learn to talk about other people’s non-technical problems?
My experience working on B2B in a bigger company is that enterprise accounts can be extremely demanding. They want you to be engaged while closing the sale and whenever they feel like it for the entirety of the deal.
My clients were the type of folks who didn't want a link to documentation, they wanted me to turn that documentation into a powerpoint and spoon feed it to them.
If you can satisfy these folks and do engineering at the same time good on you
My clients were the type of folks who didn't want a link to documentation, they wanted me to turn that documentation into a powerpoint and spoon feed it to them.
If you can satisfy these folks and do engineering at the same time good on you
Serving B2B clients requires more time than you'd have as a solopreneur because they require a lot of handholding through the entire lifecycle. Even a small SaaS company can have 5-10 people touching a deal in some form (marketing, sales, sales engineer, etc) before its closed.
Very relaxing read. Thank you.
I have just started a similar journey as well. I have passed my bar exam and became a qualified lawyer during the pandemic. To all minds that are sane, the logical thing would be to keep my high paying job and ride out the lockdown recession. Instead, I have left my job, took up a coding bootcamp for 4 months and became a tenant at a co-working space with my laptop, setting myself a 6-month goal to create something of my own - doesn't matter what it is, as long as I can create it. As throughout my life I have always questioned myself that I haven't created anything that is worth an ounce of meaning, but now I am slowing getting that rewarding feeling.
One thing I know from this journey though, is that not getting paid do make you feel down but at the same time I got my family with me and my health. So I am still pretty happy when I wake up in the morning and work, for, myself.
I have just started a similar journey as well. I have passed my bar exam and became a qualified lawyer during the pandemic. To all minds that are sane, the logical thing would be to keep my high paying job and ride out the lockdown recession. Instead, I have left my job, took up a coding bootcamp for 4 months and became a tenant at a co-working space with my laptop, setting myself a 6-month goal to create something of my own - doesn't matter what it is, as long as I can create it. As throughout my life I have always questioned myself that I haven't created anything that is worth an ounce of meaning, but now I am slowing getting that rewarding feeling.
One thing I know from this journey though, is that not getting paid do make you feel down but at the same time I got my family with me and my health. So I am still pretty happy when I wake up in the morning and work, for, myself.
Good to see a lawyer here. I have been a venture capital lawyer for 10 years. I am still with a law firm; but have been learning Python, and have also been building a legal publishing platform by hiring a developer. It would have been nice to create the platform myself; but I think the combination of an experienced corporate lawyer and an amateur developer might be more suited in my case. One day, I hope to go solo and consult companies and law firms in implementing technology solutions to make their work-flow efficient and also run the legal publishing platform, which at that point in time would have hopefully evolved into a marketplace for trading knowledge.
Nice to see another lawyer as well! I only counted two people back in my old firm (out of 1,000 lawyers there) who are from a STEM degree and knows some coding. We are definitely a rare breed but in a nice way.
Right now, I am building a simple social media website for home decor and designs just to test myself on using frontend and backend technologies. Then on the side, I am creating small projects with ideas being inspired from the legal field. I have just started on making a lightweight timesheet app so ordinary people or programmers can record their time worked (just like how lawyers mark their time spent on client’s matter) to produce a timesheet report for their clients.
Only hurdle I have is in the aesthetics, as I am OK with building the core functions of an app, but designs wise, the bit that are client/customer facing would require some work - or I could just hire someone to build some nice looking assets for me to use.
Right now, I am building a simple social media website for home decor and designs just to test myself on using frontend and backend technologies. Then on the side, I am creating small projects with ideas being inspired from the legal field. I have just started on making a lightweight timesheet app so ordinary people or programmers can record their time worked (just like how lawyers mark their time spent on client’s matter) to produce a timesheet report for their clients.
Only hurdle I have is in the aesthetics, as I am OK with building the core functions of an app, but designs wise, the bit that are client/customer facing would require some work - or I could just hire someone to build some nice looking assets for me to use.
That's excellent! Best of luck to you. Though in a sense, you have already succeeded by harnessing your courage and doing something that gives you a sense of meaning and ownership.
Cool, but what opportinity can You grasp other than luck? For me, in my Life (low) luck based opportunity are to shun completely.
I rarely rely on luck (although I do count myself to be very lucky up to this point). I tend to rely on myself very often, and my one principle rule is that I have every expectation that I will have to do everything by myself. Any help that I got would just be a bonus, but it is still very much just myself. This has been what it has been like all my life and I don’t intend to change.
I've been a freelance / solowhatever developer for a long time but instead of being an employee you still have a boss. You usually have multiple bosses.
Instead of working 40 hours a week as a W2 employee you work as many hours as you want as a 1099 contractor. That could be 20 hours a week or 80 hours a week, it's your call.
But if you want to have semi-dependable income typically you'll be working pretty long term on-going contracts. That's cases where you might be working 10 hours a week for company A and 15 hours a week for company B for 6+ months or even years. If you drop off the face of the Earth for a month without warning chances are you're going to leave your clients wondering what's going on. That's an illusion of freedom because you still need to let them know you won't be available as often as usual and you'll likely adjust your desired time off to ensure you can fulfil your contract requirements.
There's other forms of freedom tho, like being able to say no which is really nice to be able to do. If some type of contract doesn't fit what you want to do you can say no and find work on something else.
Instead of working 40 hours a week as a W2 employee you work as many hours as you want as a 1099 contractor. That could be 20 hours a week or 80 hours a week, it's your call.
But if you want to have semi-dependable income typically you'll be working pretty long term on-going contracts. That's cases where you might be working 10 hours a week for company A and 15 hours a week for company B for 6+ months or even years. If you drop off the face of the Earth for a month without warning chances are you're going to leave your clients wondering what's going on. That's an illusion of freedom because you still need to let them know you won't be available as often as usual and you'll likely adjust your desired time off to ensure you can fulfil your contract requirements.
There's other forms of freedom tho, like being able to say no which is really nice to be able to do. If some type of contract doesn't fit what you want to do you can say no and find work on something else.
Freelance developer != solopreneur
> Freelance developer != solopreneur
That's also saying you're not a solopreneur if you do contract / freelance work but the OP mentioned he has done and potentially continues to do long-term contract work.
Personally I write blog posts, make videos on YouTube, manage a newsletter, create and sell courses along with running a podcast and doing contract work.
I see myself as having tens of thousands of bosses. Sure I can mostly work when I want but I couldn't go off the grid for 2 months without warning. The moment you stop outputting content people will find someone else to get it from and platforms like Google and YouTube heavily favor constant posting to rank well in search results. Also, if you're selling courses that comes with doing continuous support and updates.
You have freedom in the sense you can control what you work on, but you're still in a position of having non-optional obligations to pay the bills.
That's also saying you're not a solopreneur if you do contract / freelance work but the OP mentioned he has done and potentially continues to do long-term contract work.
Personally I write blog posts, make videos on YouTube, manage a newsletter, create and sell courses along with running a podcast and doing contract work.
I see myself as having tens of thousands of bosses. Sure I can mostly work when I want but I couldn't go off the grid for 2 months without warning. The moment you stop outputting content people will find someone else to get it from and platforms like Google and YouTube heavily favor constant posting to rank well in search results. Also, if you're selling courses that comes with doing continuous support and updates.
You have freedom in the sense you can control what you work on, but you're still in a position of having non-optional obligations to pay the bills.
This sounds wonderful, but as a one man shop its missing something: customers.
I am solo at the moment but that still means I'm doing zoom meetings, trying to deliver features to a budget and a deadline, trying to keep on top of the books and cashflow and keeping my system up.
Customers aren't that different to having a boss. I do get the freedom to choose how things are done, but once your product ships you are no longer really free.
OK, still better than working as an employee, but it's still work.
I am solo at the moment but that still means I'm doing zoom meetings, trying to deliver features to a budget and a deadline, trying to keep on top of the books and cashflow and keeping my system up.
Customers aren't that different to having a boss. I do get the freedom to choose how things are done, but once your product ships you are no longer really free.
OK, still better than working as an employee, but it's still work.
I guess B2C has some advantages. If you have 10,000 customers, you have no boss, only an obligation to deliver a good product that most/all of them like. One single customer can't make you go broke, just because you don't implement feature X.
One interesting bit of advice I've heard for solo founders is, pick an industry to serve that interests you, or at least one where you like the people who work in it. Yes, the customer will always be your "boss" of sorts, but at least it'll be a boss whom you identify with and genuinely want to please.
OTOH its really hard to know who you are going to like working with. For example through several iterations of our product we ended up serving HR professionals. Having only been on the receiving end of HR I never would have guessed I would enjoy working with them, but as customers I've found them to be great people to work with who are really just trying to do the best they can with limited resources.
Yep,
I spent a lot of time working on business ideas and building out entire SaaS apps only to realize I absolutely hate the people and the industry and would be embarrassed to be associated with them, even though it can make money.
Sorry to hear you had that experience. At least it’s a lesson learned, in fact you probably learned many while doing all that. If I may ask, which industry was it?
I started park.io and ran it myself for 5 years, growing it to over $1m/year in revenue.
It was an exciting and enjoyable time for me and my family. I loved the freedom to do whatever I wanted, and to move quickly. I loved taking good care of the code, because it took care of me :)
Eventually partially because I started to get tired of it and also to de-risk, I brought on a partner, which has worked out really well.
It was an exciting and enjoyable time for me and my family. I loved the freedom to do whatever I wanted, and to move quickly. I loved taking good care of the code, because it took care of me :)
Eventually partially because I started to get tired of it and also to de-risk, I brought on a partner, which has worked out really well.
Going solo could fall into two different writer-style idioms: Stringer vs Novelist. A Stringer is a freelancer that writes a news story. The content is short term and quasi-anonymous. A Novelist spends months writing something a bit more epic, published under their own name.
On several occasions I've tried going the Novelist route. The problem is when the money runs out and you revert to becoming a Stringer to top-off the bank account. But, then you return back to your project and find the APIs have all changed. So, there is a lot of refactoring to do.
For iOS, there is also the aspect of APIs becoming more team oriented. I met an Apple engineer and asked him what he worked on. He mentioned a very narrow aspect of one API. I asked him what else he worked on and he said that was it! In contrast, I have to juggle hundreds of APIs. There seems to be a conflict of mindset.
A counter example was from an Uber driver in San Mateo. We struck up a conversation and I mentioned that I'm an iOS developer. He showed me an app that he wrote in Flutter to track all his rides. He was on the verge of marketing it. I was kinda blown away.
On several occasions I've tried going the Novelist route. The problem is when the money runs out and you revert to becoming a Stringer to top-off the bank account. But, then you return back to your project and find the APIs have all changed. So, there is a lot of refactoring to do.
For iOS, there is also the aspect of APIs becoming more team oriented. I met an Apple engineer and asked him what he worked on. He mentioned a very narrow aspect of one API. I asked him what else he worked on and he said that was it! In contrast, I have to juggle hundreds of APIs. There seems to be a conflict of mindset.
A counter example was from an Uber driver in San Mateo. We struck up a conversation and I mentioned that I'm an iOS developer. He showed me an app that he wrote in Flutter to track all his rides. He was on the verge of marketing it. I was kinda blown away.
I’ve tried this and it failed. I applaud the author if he can make it work, but in my experience I was spread too thin and my customers suffered.
I didn’t make connections, I over marketed and undersold. My failure was an important lesson for me.
I also haven’t given up on entrepreneurship, I’ve learned a lot and I plan on making a comeback.
I didn’t make connections, I over marketed and undersold. My failure was an important lesson for me.
I also haven’t given up on entrepreneurship, I’ve learned a lot and I plan on making a comeback.
Can you share what you tried to build/sell and failed?
Solopreneur here.. it ain't easy, the ride is a rush though and I wouldn't trade it for a full-time job.
An aftermarket telematics infotainment system in 2003. Open source software and hardware. I’ve since passed the torch, but I learned a lot about what doesn’t work.
This is great. I definitely consider myself a solopreneur and hope to get back to being self-employed. The burnout after my first one took years to recover from… I probably wouldn’t have burned out if it was a web project instead of an iOS project
Care to elaborate?
I’ve been making a “toy” SaaS website solo, both as a dry run for future endeavors and as a way to practice broader tech skills than my day job requires. (“Toy” = real website, but not one that I expect will make more than a few hundred dollars per month at max.)
Anyone who’s been down this path have any lessons learned or general resources you found helpful to share? It’s been smooth sailing so far, but the place that I’m running into a lot of unknown unknowns is legal compliance: what do I do besides form an LLC, write a privacy policy, etc.?
Anyone who’s been down this path have any lessons learned or general resources you found helpful to share? It’s been smooth sailing so far, but the place that I’m running into a lot of unknown unknowns is legal compliance: what do I do besides form an LLC, write a privacy policy, etc.?
This is a great read. I find myself in a similar boat but always struggle with the title. Most of the people around me do not consider a person as a solopreneur unless they hire others.
I have worked a very similar way for the last decade. My company works largely in OSHW/OSS and I consider the work I do for closed source companies as "extra stuff" that I expect no long term income from.
I am a one man show...everything from Janitor to CEO duties are my responsibility. Every hour you are not in the shop you are paying for an unused building. Work (and therefore income) stops when you stop. It is hard to go on vacation for a week when you know that the meter is running and that shop costs you $xxx.xx/day.
Automation is key, in my case I use machines to supplement my time (3d printers, CNC mills, Pick and place machines, website sales) and if it is something which is better done out of house I use other companies to do the work (production machining, contract manufacturing).
Even still...it is a very difficult path. Paperwork is neverending, phone calls and emails come at any time and you are typically expected to answer them immediately. Health insurance is not included (United states), vacation/sick days are not guaranteed and in my case...retirement is something I don't even consider an option.
Why would I do all this? Because it leaves me the ability to work 20hrs a week (physical hands on time...not counting admin stuff) half of the month to focus on my loved ones and the other half of the month I work 50-80hr weeks. I have the freedom to choose to get up in the morning and take a Tuesday morning hike without having a manager upset that I clocked in late, or go swimming during the summer midday during the time when I am out running errands.
Would I make more in industry? Probably...but not likely locally. Besides...I am the type of person who does not do well in a "conventional" situation.
Yes, you do trade one boss for many customers...but you can also fire customers. From what I have found in my experience though is that it isn't the customers who are the hardest on you...it is yourself. Trying to let go for a few hours to just watch a movie without thinking about work is difficult. When I contract myself to do a design for a customer I tend to think about that design nonstop until it is complete...then often after I am still revising it and thinking of how it could have been done better/faster.
Someone once said to me "When you are self employed your boss is always an asshole." I recommend anyone who is debating becoming a solopreneur to remember that.
I am a one man show...everything from Janitor to CEO duties are my responsibility. Every hour you are not in the shop you are paying for an unused building. Work (and therefore income) stops when you stop. It is hard to go on vacation for a week when you know that the meter is running and that shop costs you $xxx.xx/day.
Automation is key, in my case I use machines to supplement my time (3d printers, CNC mills, Pick and place machines, website sales) and if it is something which is better done out of house I use other companies to do the work (production machining, contract manufacturing).
Even still...it is a very difficult path. Paperwork is neverending, phone calls and emails come at any time and you are typically expected to answer them immediately. Health insurance is not included (United states), vacation/sick days are not guaranteed and in my case...retirement is something I don't even consider an option.
Why would I do all this? Because it leaves me the ability to work 20hrs a week (physical hands on time...not counting admin stuff) half of the month to focus on my loved ones and the other half of the month I work 50-80hr weeks. I have the freedom to choose to get up in the morning and take a Tuesday morning hike without having a manager upset that I clocked in late, or go swimming during the summer midday during the time when I am out running errands.
Would I make more in industry? Probably...but not likely locally. Besides...I am the type of person who does not do well in a "conventional" situation.
Yes, you do trade one boss for many customers...but you can also fire customers. From what I have found in my experience though is that it isn't the customers who are the hardest on you...it is yourself. Trying to let go for a few hours to just watch a movie without thinking about work is difficult. When I contract myself to do a design for a customer I tend to think about that design nonstop until it is complete...then often after I am still revising it and thinking of how it could have been done better/faster.
Someone once said to me "When you are self employed your boss is always an asshole." I recommend anyone who is debating becoming a solopreneur to remember that.
This was a nice read, glad everything has worked out for Flavio. Part of why this is possible is that there is a lot more leverage available for those that are solo nowadays. It's an exciting time for sure
I started https://fabform.io as a soloprenur. I looking for feedback on how to improve my form builder.
It's been brought up before but this style this guy has of writing paragraphs of one sentence each is very distracting and doesn't add any value.
The author wrote great stuff, I hope he will update his vue2 handbook to vue3 one day.
Be careful, some people (perhaps even the majority) aren't made for this. Do everything solo and soon enough you may hate everything, everyone, life itself and just wonder why you're even living.
You might also start spending too much time in studying 19th and 20th century philosophy and truly consider your answer to Camus' most important question. It's not a dream job. Far from it.
Humans are by nature social animals. Working solo is in principle horrible. I used to do it because my pay was 10x (4000 USD vs 400 USD) compared to average salaries in my middle of nowhere country. But when I escaped the rat race I focused much more on things I find meaningful.
Humans are by nature social animals. Working solo is in principle horrible. I used to do it because my pay was 10x (4000 USD vs 400 USD) compared to average salaries in my middle of nowhere country. But when I escaped the rat race I focused much more on things I find meaningful.
Social life and work life don't have to be the same thing.
I'm a Solopreneur as well. I make a lot of money, but I also work maybe 2-4 hours per day only. If I want a social life, I go to the rock climbing gym in the middle of the day or meet people in the evening.
Once in a while, I Facetime with a friend who is also a Solopreneur.
I'm a Solopreneur as well. I make a lot of money, but I also work maybe 2-4 hours per day only. If I want a social life, I go to the rock climbing gym in the middle of the day or meet people in the evening.
Once in a while, I Facetime with a friend who is also a Solopreneur.
s/hate/indifferent/ and I am the person described in the blog and also this comment.
*Do everything solo and soon enough you will be indifferent to everything, everyone, life itself and just wonder why you're even living.*
Should I be concerned?
*Do everything solo and soon enough you will be indifferent to everything, everyone, life itself and just wonder why you're even living.*
Should I be concerned?
> One day I’m spending 10 hours at my desk writing blog posts for my daily blog schedule.
Going for quantity over quality I see.
Going for quantity over quality I see.
The ceramic anecdote gets thrown around a lot, but it seems like a third approach - where theory is combined with practice and deliberate efforts are made to refine subsequent products after each build - would’ve produced a better quality result than the quantity group.
In fact, isn’t that what a group focused on quality would actually do rather than sit around theorizing? Did this actually happen?
In fact, isn’t that what a group focused on quality would actually do rather than sit around theorizing? Did this actually happen?
Right! Practice can get you very far, until it doesn't, this is when theory comes in to give you perspective and provides new approaches to try and practice.
It's not one way or the other, but there is perhaps a tendency to overestimate one and underestimate the other, especially in relation to ability. I for example have the tendency to feel as if I get something when I read theory, when in fact I need deliberate practice to really get it. For me, doing means understanding. Others might overestimate what they know because they are so good at what they do (in the way they do it) etc. It's psychological traps and Dunning Kruger Effects all over the place!
It's not one way or the other, but there is perhaps a tendency to overestimate one and underestimate the other, especially in relation to ability. I for example have the tendency to feel as if I get something when I read theory, when in fact I need deliberate practice to really get it. For me, doing means understanding. Others might overestimate what they know because they are so good at what they do (in the way they do it) etc. It's psychological traps and Dunning Kruger Effects all over the place!
He could have a backlog of projects he’s done and wishes to document publicly (something I’m doing). I’m not sure if he’s doing a post per day, or putting time every day. Blogging well is not trivial.