Ask HN: One-person companies—how do you manage it all and stay sane?
106 comments
The major trick, IMHO, is not to grow.
While a "normal" startup is focused on growing! growing! growing! a small company should instead think like a physical restaurant:
"I have 10 tables * 4 seats. 4 waiters. Operate Lu-Fri 10 am - 6 pm. I can serve only up to 40 customers max per hour. My income will never be bigger than 40* Average meal. My income needs to be at minimum Costs + 3% profits".
Then you see you have too many waiters. You cut it to 2.
Then you see your meals are too cheap. You increase it a little.
Then you see you have little customers. You grow a little.
Then you see you have TOO MUCH customers. You stop growing. More costly take-over, increase the cost of the meal, etc.
What you NOT MUST DO is grow more than your max capacity.
That is it.
Size your capacity. Figure a nice profit. Keep it small.
While a "normal" startup is focused on growing! growing! growing! a small company should instead think like a physical restaurant:
"I have 10 tables * 4 seats. 4 waiters. Operate Lu-Fri 10 am - 6 pm. I can serve only up to 40 customers max per hour. My income will never be bigger than 40* Average meal. My income needs to be at minimum Costs + 3% profits".
Then you see you have too many waiters. You cut it to 2.
Then you see your meals are too cheap. You increase it a little.
Then you see you have little customers. You grow a little.
Then you see you have TOO MUCH customers. You stop growing. More costly take-over, increase the cost of the meal, etc.
What you NOT MUST DO is grow more than your max capacity.
That is it.
Size your capacity. Figure a nice profit. Keep it small.
Another example from another context: I have a friend who became a solo consultant. Specifically, she is great at diagnosing and fixing dysfunctional relationships between executives that can tank productivity for a whole company.
She found herself with too many clients, too much work, not enough sleep, and was frustrated that sometimes people didn’t even listen to her advice. She was happy as a solo practitioner and didn’t want to manage people.
My advice to her was to raise her rates…a lot. (Somehow that hadn’t occurred to her.) Now she’s happy with her time commitment, still well-compensated, and people pay attention because they’re paying more!
Bottom line: don’t assume you have to grow, but you do need to keep searching for the optimum setup for the size you want to be.
She found herself with too many clients, too much work, not enough sleep, and was frustrated that sometimes people didn’t even listen to her advice. She was happy as a solo practitioner and didn’t want to manage people.
My advice to her was to raise her rates…a lot. (Somehow that hadn’t occurred to her.) Now she’s happy with her time commitment, still well-compensated, and people pay attention because they’re paying more!
Bottom line: don’t assume you have to grow, but you do need to keep searching for the optimum setup for the size you want to be.
A co-worker of mine visited French Polynesia a few years ago. He mentioned most of the restaurants simply close up shop when they feel they’ve made enough money for the day. Not great for someone looking to get dinner, but I’m sure it makes life much better and less stressful for the owner and employees. They know to get by they need to make $X/day. If they hit it by 1pm, cool, half day.
This behavior was also observed in New York Cab drivers in the paper LABOR SUPPLY OF NEW YORK CITY CABDRIVERS:
ONE DAY AT A TIME
https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/docs/loewenstein/NYCCabdriv...
> ... Our interpretation of these ndings is that cabdrivers (at least inexperi- enced ones): (i) make labor supply decisions “one day at a time” instead of inter- temporally substituting labor and leisure across multiple days, and (ii) set a loose daily income target and quit working once they reach that target
https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/docs/loewenstein/NYCCabdriv...
> ... Our interpretation of these ndings is that cabdrivers (at least inexperi- enced ones): (i) make labor supply decisions “one day at a time” instead of inter- temporally substituting labor and leisure across multiple days, and (ii) set a loose daily income target and quit working once they reach that target
They could maximize their earnings by working more on more profitable days and working less on the less profitable ones. However, many people overvalue stability and are scared of variable income.
Wonder if they also run out of ingredients? Seems like a nice way to simplify operations if you don’t ever end up with waste.
Yes, most probably this. The grocery list is retro planned from the wages of the employees. So when they served the last dish, they earned their salary, they split the money and close the restaurant
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That helps the community too as every restaurant has a better chance to hit their own goal. Obviously this only works in a place with a population who all know each other.
Indeed.
I'd only add (or rephrase other comments to the same effect) that slow growth is not only about staying within your capacity, it's also about learning what you're doing so well that you can systematize your processes for maximum results with as little speculation and risk as possible.
You could call that "being efficient," I guess, but I think I mean it in the macro sense, not looking for nickel and dime efficiencies.
I'd only add (or rephrase other comments to the same effect) that slow growth is not only about staying within your capacity, it's also about learning what you're doing so well that you can systematize your processes for maximum results with as little speculation and risk as possible.
You could call that "being efficient," I guess, but I think I mean it in the macro sense, not looking for nickel and dime efficiencies.
Most growth is exponential until they hit a limit.
Startups are a kind of lifehack. It's probably easier to serve a million people with 7 engineers than it is to serve 3000 people with one engineer-PM-sales guy. Eventually the guy with the giant company grabs the customers of that little guy or acquires them.
So I think it's very tempting to go large. The trick is finding something with low limits. I call it deep sea ideas. Just go deep enough, outside of shark territory. A shark in the deep sea would implode. Things like specialist CRMs and funnels are classic. But I did diet apps and essential oil apps; VCs won't go near those but the market throws money at it.
Startups are a kind of lifehack. It's probably easier to serve a million people with 7 engineers than it is to serve 3000 people with one engineer-PM-sales guy. Eventually the guy with the giant company grabs the customers of that little guy or acquires them.
So I think it's very tempting to go large. The trick is finding something with low limits. I call it deep sea ideas. Just go deep enough, outside of shark territory. A shark in the deep sea would implode. Things like specialist CRMs and funnels are classic. But I did diet apps and essential oil apps; VCs won't go near those but the market throws money at it.
This will not work for SaaS in most cases. Someone will copy your idea and with VC money grow more features and customers than you, forcing you into a tighter small niche if not oblivion. Restaurants have a captive market in terms of location and maximum number of competitors in the immediate vicinity. A web startup does not.
I think it could work well (is my case actually).
A lot of SaaS is just a simpler/different take on a big one. For example, mine is way less powerful than Freshbooks/amazon. I still live from it for the last 20 years with less than 100 customers (and a lot of time just less than 50).
Having a niche or just being available to your customers on the phone and solving the issue in the next minutes/hours is enough to keep customers and run your business.
Now, the big issue is that you are growing without the capacity to grow, and then you get a big competitor in your nose and you try to catch it. That is death.
Do not try to catch the bunny. Be the turtle and forget about the race, at all.
A lot of SaaS is just a simpler/different take on a big one. For example, mine is way less powerful than Freshbooks/amazon. I still live from it for the last 20 years with less than 100 customers (and a lot of time just less than 50).
Having a niche or just being available to your customers on the phone and solving the issue in the next minutes/hours is enough to keep customers and run your business.
Now, the big issue is that you are growing without the capacity to grow, and then you get a big competitor in your nose and you try to catch it. That is death.
Do not try to catch the bunny. Be the turtle and forget about the race, at all.
Yeah, that happened to me too. But it doesn't matter.
The internet is big enough for multiple players, and niches that are too small for VC money can still be very profitable opportunities for solo entreprenurs.
The internet is big enough for multiple players, and niches that are too small for VC money can still be very profitable opportunities for solo entreprenurs.
> While a "normal" startup is focused on growing! growing! growing! a small company should instead think like a physical restaurant:
in tech you still can be focused on users/customers/revenue grows but not headcount/process complexity grows, since you are not limited by number of tables like in restaurant.
in tech you still can be focused on users/customers/revenue grows but not headcount/process complexity grows, since you are not limited by number of tables like in restaurant.
This is an awesome strategy!
I want to print this out and put it above my computer.
I want to print this out and put it above my computer.
Wouldn't a real restaurant increase the sitting area, open a second location or increase prices if it had more clients than it could serve?
I sell stuff to a lot of restaurants. Most of the people that open a second location end up making less money or end up closing everything after they just get run into the ground. Then again, some people do it successfully and make way more money. It just depends on so many things.
A bit of anecdata. My wife ran a restaurant for four years, a reasonably successful one: a lot of praise from customers, profitable enough to stay in business, but nothing like hockey-stick growth. If anything, she decreased the number of tables as the fame and revenue grew. She carefully focused on making her place distinct from other restaurants nearby, and in training her personnel.
Her long-time friend also ran a restaurant, for a much longer time, and more well-known in the city. After quite some years, she opened another, at a different part of the city. It struggled for some time, but eventually stabilized as a reasonably profitable place, after, say 6 or 7 years. Several years after that, she started planning to open a third one, and was saying that this would stretch her thin, and she's very reluctant, but the demand was apparently there.
This is exactly the kind of business VCs run away from: inevitable slow growth, no way to put in more money and scale the business to get more revenue. Large companies also often shy away from that. This may be a huge opportunity if you hold it right.
If you can find such a niche that pays you enough for your needs, it's really great because competition is low: few know about it, and of them, even fewer want to overtake you.
Her long-time friend also ran a restaurant, for a much longer time, and more well-known in the city. After quite some years, she opened another, at a different part of the city. It struggled for some time, but eventually stabilized as a reasonably profitable place, after, say 6 or 7 years. Several years after that, she started planning to open a third one, and was saying that this would stretch her thin, and she's very reluctant, but the demand was apparently there.
This is exactly the kind of business VCs run away from: inevitable slow growth, no way to put in more money and scale the business to get more revenue. Large companies also often shy away from that. This may be a huge opportunity if you hold it right.
If you can find such a niche that pays you enough for your needs, it's really great because competition is low: few know about it, and of them, even fewer want to overtake you.
Not at all, depends on the owners goals in life. If the goal is to make as much money as possible and you don't mind over working then it could grow, or take on a partner.
There was a great breakfast place near me ran by the guy who owned basically all the commercial real estate on the block - the breakfast place was only open in the mornings 6 days a week and occasionally the owner would come in and serve, it was basically a passion project and he wanted to make enough to pay for it. After 15ish years of running he started hosting popups at night and another 4-5 years after that sold to one of the popups. It was a real restaurant and widely love by those in the know.
You could say El Bulli fits the bill of don't expand, they shut down after a while and converted the space into food research and events center. A little different, but I was trying to think of a more famous "real restaurant".
There was a great breakfast place near me ran by the guy who owned basically all the commercial real estate on the block - the breakfast place was only open in the mornings 6 days a week and occasionally the owner would come in and serve, it was basically a passion project and he wanted to make enough to pay for it. After 15ish years of running he started hosting popups at night and another 4-5 years after that sold to one of the popups. It was a real restaurant and widely love by those in the know.
You could say El Bulli fits the bill of don't expand, they shut down after a while and converted the space into food research and events center. A little different, but I was trying to think of a more famous "real restaurant".
I think the analogy still works in this scenario, though. Like once you've grown so much that your at capacity in your current setup, THEN you can invest in growing your business.
For this restaurant this adding a new room or a new location in another town.
For a solo founder, this might be when you finally start hiring to free up your time for other tasks.
It's not necessarily never grow. It's about growing on your own terms when you can afford to do so.
For this restaurant this adding a new room or a new location in another town.
For a solo founder, this might be when you finally start hiring to free up your time for other tasks.
It's not necessarily never grow. It's about growing on your own terms when you can afford to do so.
If that’s an option, yes. But for many it isn’t. The building isn’t owned by them. Or there’s no available space next door to expand into. Or the capital cost of remodeling that new section is too high. Or the profit margins are so small they can’t justify the cost. Or they’re already maxed out on loans and can’t afford more.
And a second restaurant is still a second restaurant. There's still a very high (>50% for sure) chance it fails. The second location isn't quite as good. The manager you hire starts to slack off a bit. Food critic gets sick during opening week. A close family member dies and you ignore the restaurant(s) for just a little too long. The list of things that could happen that boil down to "bad luck" is endless.
> Or the profit margins are so small they can’t justify the cost.
You mean the cost increase? I'm afraid I don't understand. Who would you need to justify the cost to, the clients? They don't know anything about your profit margins, and they don't really need any justification.
You mean the cost increase? I'm afraid I don't understand. Who would you need to justify the cost to, the clients? They don't know anything about your profit margins, and they don't really need any justification.
Operating the restaurant at the current size might not provide enough revenue to pay for the expansion costs (more rent, renovation of the space, etc.).
Exactly. And day to day, ruthless prioritisation.
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I don't manage it all. Something is always slipping and I always feel like I am falling behind.
That said, here are some tactics I've used over ~2 years as a solo founder to try to keep it together:
1. Focus weeks on certain functions - ie work on developing features for one week and then switch to marketing tasks the next. Admittedly harder than it seems, but when actually followed, find I make considerable progress on that week's topic of focus. Also forces me to accomplish harder work (marketing/sales for me) vs. retreating to what is most comfortable (developing).
2. Speaking with other founders / leaders in the space I operate. This has been especially helpful as I've struggled with a growth/marketing strategy and speaking with others selling adjacent products in the same space has unblocked me many times.
3. Keeping realistic expectations that I'm doing this solo and it will be very difficult at times. Also harder than it seems.
4. Keep a founder's log to persist notable events and learnings. Useful when feeling particularly overwhelmed as I can revisit how much has been accomplished.
That said, here are some tactics I've used over ~2 years as a solo founder to try to keep it together:
1. Focus weeks on certain functions - ie work on developing features for one week and then switch to marketing tasks the next. Admittedly harder than it seems, but when actually followed, find I make considerable progress on that week's topic of focus. Also forces me to accomplish harder work (marketing/sales for me) vs. retreating to what is most comfortable (developing).
2. Speaking with other founders / leaders in the space I operate. This has been especially helpful as I've struggled with a growth/marketing strategy and speaking with others selling adjacent products in the same space has unblocked me many times.
3. Keeping realistic expectations that I'm doing this solo and it will be very difficult at times. Also harder than it seems.
4. Keep a founder's log to persist notable events and learnings. Useful when feeling particularly overwhelmed as I can revisit how much has been accomplished.
#4 is something I need to do ASAP, appreciate the tip. It's easy to see the chasm of what's still ahead but forget how far you've come.
#2 resonates. But not only leaders in the space you're building. Talk to leaders who have built one person companies. It's a unique skillset.
Don't nickle and dime yourself on tools that save you time. If there's a SaaS offering that can reduce your workload, just pay for it (unless it's a truly ridiculous amount).
Every so often there's a post on HN where a someone lists their income and expenses and the comments are always full of things like "why are you paying $100/year for Notion when you can just use org-mode for free?" Don't listen to them. Your time is worth more than any reasonable subscription fee.
Every so often there's a post on HN where a someone lists their income and expenses and the comments are always full of things like "why are you paying $100/year for Notion when you can just use org-mode for free?" Don't listen to them. Your time is worth more than any reasonable subscription fee.
I will also add - don't buy/subscribe to a tool that is a pile of building blocks that will allow you to build your own solution. Now you have taken on a new project. Just get something that works well enough out of the box.
"Your time is worth more than any reasonable subscription fee. "
Sure, but what do I do, if that service just closes tomorrow? Or they change the fee to "unreasonable" (after they gained control of the market).
A SaaS would have to be way better than any offline tool, I could use 10 years from now in this shape. But in general yes, don't skimp and loose time, when there is a working alternative.
Sure, but what do I do, if that service just closes tomorrow? Or they change the fee to "unreasonable" (after they gained control of the market).
A SaaS would have to be way better than any offline tool, I could use 10 years from now in this shape. But in general yes, don't skimp and loose time, when there is a working alternative.
> Sure, but what do I do, if that service just closes tomorrow?
You're far more likely to die tomorrow than Notion to close abruptly tomorrow.
You're far more likely to die tomorrow than Notion to close abruptly tomorrow.
Is this true though? Doesn’t pass the sniff test since most people last a lot longer than most companies.
I checked and the probability of death for an American in their 30s (median American is 37 years old) is under 0.2% in any year. I think there’s a far larger than 1 in 500 chance that Notion goes under or is acquired and cancelled.
I checked and the probability of death for an American in their 30s (median American is 37 years old) is under 0.2% in any year. I think there’s a far larger than 1 in 500 chance that Notion goes under or is acquired and cancelled.
The bliss of inexperience :)
Services shut down all the time. I've been selling indie software for a bit more than a decade, and at least half a dozen services that I was using have either shut down, pivoted, or slowly became crappy enough that I had to move.
Of course, that doesn't mean that you should build everything yourself, that's not practical. But the stuff that I have built myself doesn't suddenly stop working.
Services shut down all the time. I've been selling indie software for a bit more than a decade, and at least half a dozen services that I was using have either shut down, pivoted, or slowly became crappy enough that I had to move.
Of course, that doesn't mean that you should build everything yourself, that's not practical. But the stuff that I have built myself doesn't suddenly stop working.
I have outlived most SaaS products that have ever been developed.
Solve today's problems today. Solve tomorrow's problems tomorrow.
If Notion announces a shutdown at some point, you can export your content and import it somewhere else. The amount of time it takes to do that later won't be that big of a deal.
If Notion announces a shutdown at some point, you can export your content and import it somewhere else. The amount of time it takes to do that later won't be that big of a deal.
Then you migrate to another tool. It’s not a big deal.
When the data is in an standartized format, that just works with another tool sure.
But with many SaaS you are lucky if you even get your data out. And then importing it into omething else sadly is very much a big deal in many cases.
But with many SaaS you are lucky if you even get your data out. And then importing it into omething else sadly is very much a big deal in many cases.
That’s why you’re picky about tool choice in the first place.
Using Notion as an example, your entire workspace can be exported in standard formats.
https://www.notion.so/help/export-your-content
It’s not zero effort to migrate, but for a small business migration should be both rare and not so bad.
Using Notion as an example, your entire workspace can be exported in standard formats.
https://www.notion.so/help/export-your-content
It’s not zero effort to migrate, but for a small business migration should be both rare and not so bad.
Unsure if this is healthy - but after 12 years it’s by almost completely compartmentalising my mind, and focusing on one thing at a time. Started that habit as a freelancer and it’s probably saved me from burnout multiple times.
These days I feel like my attention is like a lighthouse, I’ll do a half day of finances here - clear my inbox there, a full week on some deadline, etc. its kind of finding a flow. needless to say this works better when your calendar isn’t flooded already
Also I put everything and I mean everything in lists or notion, I’ll put every email to reply to, every feature I need to build every decision I need to remember. The less I’m holding on to the more I can focus without feeling like I’m forgetting something.
These days I feel like my attention is like a lighthouse, I’ll do a half day of finances here - clear my inbox there, a full week on some deadline, etc. its kind of finding a flow. needless to say this works better when your calendar isn’t flooded already
Also I put everything and I mean everything in lists or notion, I’ll put every email to reply to, every feature I need to build every decision I need to remember. The less I’m holding on to the more I can focus without feeling like I’m forgetting something.
What you're describing is the Get Things Done (GTD) method. Have you read the book from David Allen?
With that note, I higly recommend the book to OP!
With that note, I higly recommend the book to OP!
I have heard of but not read, this is just a collection of hard won coping strategies!
I will say it has some downsides, though - I feel pretty fragmented outside of work.
I will say it has some downsides, though - I feel pretty fragmented outside of work.
As a first pass, you could try "profiling" how you spend your time, like you would for improving the performance of software.
That might be the easiest first pass. Then you can do the bigger things like: "I'm spending 1/4 time managing contractors, and 1/3 doing planning for which most of that time is due to needing to coordinate and adapt to contractors... So, do I need contractors? I need someone. What about a different contractor setup that doesn't need so much handholding? Or an employee? Or change the nature of the work?" Etc.
That might be the easiest first pass. Then you can do the bigger things like: "I'm spending 1/4 time managing contractors, and 1/3 doing planning for which most of that time is due to needing to coordinate and adapt to contractors... So, do I need contractors? I need someone. What about a different contractor setup that doesn't need so much handholding? Or an employee? Or change the nature of the work?" Etc.
If you're struggling to the extent that you're questioning your sanity, you're trying to do too much. There's a limit to what a single person can do.
If you want to stay a one-person company and keep your sanity, do less. Otherwise, figure out how to hire employees. But in this case, it's going to be a long journey still.
If you want to stay a one-person company and keep your sanity, do less. Otherwise, figure out how to hire employees. But in this case, it's going to be a long journey still.
Finances: Do them monthly. On the first work day of each month, I do my finances. I collect all the receipts, bank account statements etc and send them to my accountant. If there's any problem, he lets me know right away. It takes me an hour or two, but it's important I don't procrastinate on this.
When I was just starting out, I did that stuff at the end of the year, and it was extremely much work, trying to hunt down receipts for payments made a year ago. Now it's just this thing I do regularly, and at the end of the year it's all done already.
When I was just starting out, I did that stuff at the end of the year, and it was extremely much work, trying to hunt down receipts for payments made a year ago. Now it's just this thing I do regularly, and at the end of the year it's all done already.
Currently I'm building Plandex[1], a terminal-based AI coding tool, solo (though I hope to build a team around it in the future if I can swing it) and I'm also running EnvKey[2], a secrets management saas, as a sole operator.
You don't really stay completely sane, but you can get better at it. You have to get used to the feeling that you can never keep up or do enough. You just do the best you can and learn to live with that. The most important thing is not to get overwhelmed or paralyzed and then end up procrastinating/doing nothing. Making any kind of progress each day, even if it's something small, is a win.
For me, developing sustainable routines has been critical. Over time I have developed a routine that includes frequent exercise, family time, socializing, eating healthy, and sleeping enough, and I mostly don't compromise on those things unless there's literally an emergency (I do my best to build systems in a way that makes emergencies very rare).
I also do some more questionable things like work 20 hour marathon all-nighter sessions when I'm pushing hard to get something done, but then I'll follow that up with 12+ hours of sleep the next night and a more relaxed day or two. It's just a matter of finding a balance that works for you.
1 - https://github.com/plandex-ai/plandex
2 - https://envkey.com
You don't really stay completely sane, but you can get better at it. You have to get used to the feeling that you can never keep up or do enough. You just do the best you can and learn to live with that. The most important thing is not to get overwhelmed or paralyzed and then end up procrastinating/doing nothing. Making any kind of progress each day, even if it's something small, is a win.
For me, developing sustainable routines has been critical. Over time I have developed a routine that includes frequent exercise, family time, socializing, eating healthy, and sleeping enough, and I mostly don't compromise on those things unless there's literally an emergency (I do my best to build systems in a way that makes emergencies very rare).
I also do some more questionable things like work 20 hour marathon all-nighter sessions when I'm pushing hard to get something done, but then I'll follow that up with 12+ hours of sleep the next night and a more relaxed day or two. It's just a matter of finding a balance that works for you.
1 - https://github.com/plandex-ai/plandex
2 - https://envkey.com
This is something I've been struggling with recently. After a few years of adding customers at a fairly slow rate, this year I've already doubled the amount of customers I have. Unfortunately, it still isn't enough to hire an employee. I've gone from ramen profitable and doing freelance to fill the gap, to ditching freelancing altogether and working on the application full-time.
The first mistake I made was not saying no to customers. I ended up putting in basically 3 months of work between two customers adding features that would only benefit them. After that, one of them still wanted more, but I was at the end of my rope at that point and told them no.
Now, because I have more customers, I get a lot more support and feature requests. I've been trying to streamline support by setting up a better system for tracking these tickets as some have been slipping through the cracks. I've also been trying to put as much information in my support documentation as possible. Unfortunately, the feature requests have pulled me away from both of these efforts. There are just SO MANY feature requests.
To deal with the feature requests, I've really had to rethink how my application is built. Some things that should have been easy to implement have taken a lot more effort because of sloppy work I did previously trying to get features out. On the plus side, it has made me grow a lot as a software engineer because I can see how everything has played out over the years and I have a much better idea of why things should be built in a certain way. The downside is there are some systems that work and customers depend on, but to do it the right way would be a gargantuan effort. At some point I want to just get rid of them, but it's going to be painful, like sawing off an infected limb.
Once I get through most of the cruft with that, a lot of the new features that need to be implemented will be a breeze and that will hopefully free up more time for marketing, which I do basically none of. That's really the crux of it though. To hire employees I need more growth, for more growth I need to work on marketing. To work on marketing, I need to spend less time on support and feature requests.
The first mistake I made was not saying no to customers. I ended up putting in basically 3 months of work between two customers adding features that would only benefit them. After that, one of them still wanted more, but I was at the end of my rope at that point and told them no.
Now, because I have more customers, I get a lot more support and feature requests. I've been trying to streamline support by setting up a better system for tracking these tickets as some have been slipping through the cracks. I've also been trying to put as much information in my support documentation as possible. Unfortunately, the feature requests have pulled me away from both of these efforts. There are just SO MANY feature requests.
To deal with the feature requests, I've really had to rethink how my application is built. Some things that should have been easy to implement have taken a lot more effort because of sloppy work I did previously trying to get features out. On the plus side, it has made me grow a lot as a software engineer because I can see how everything has played out over the years and I have a much better idea of why things should be built in a certain way. The downside is there are some systems that work and customers depend on, but to do it the right way would be a gargantuan effort. At some point I want to just get rid of them, but it's going to be painful, like sawing off an infected limb.
Once I get through most of the cruft with that, a lot of the new features that need to be implemented will be a breeze and that will hopefully free up more time for marketing, which I do basically none of. That's really the crux of it though. To hire employees I need more growth, for more growth I need to work on marketing. To work on marketing, I need to spend less time on support and feature requests.
> Unfortunately, it still isn't enough to hire an employee.
A word of experience about having employees: avoid it for as long as you can. Everyone you hire is expensive -- not only in terms of money, but in terms of the additional time they'll take up and hassle involved.
My personal rule is "don't hire someone unless you're at imminent risk of losing a bunch of money if you don't".
A word of experience about having employees: avoid it for as long as you can. Everyone you hire is expensive -- not only in terms of money, but in terms of the additional time they'll take up and hassle involved.
My personal rule is "don't hire someone unless you're at imminent risk of losing a bunch of money if you don't".
I wish I had learned this earlier. A couple of years ago, I hired a part-time assistant to handle invoicing and other financial matters, which was a major sanity saver. He noticed a couple of companies getting behind in payments faster than I would have and saved me from some financial potholes.
how did you find your assistant and how do you manage to trust him and what are the first or most important tasks you handed off?
I found him through a stroke of luck. My first need was for someone to get the invoices out in time and to nag me to keep my work log up-to-date. I was talking to some people about how to find an assistant, and they pointed me to my current assistant.
How do I trust him? Time and experience. I started with small tasks and expanded them as we developed trust. That and I control all the money.
If you're going to get an assistant, look carefully at your needs. Start with what causes you the most grief, what you hate doing, and what you avoid doing. For me, it's financial paperwork. He now keeps track of all the expenses and invoices and makes sure my accountant gets the data. This year, he can start giving quarterly updates to my accountant so I'm not getting a $$$ surprise on taxes.
How do I trust him? Time and experience. I started with small tasks and expanded them as we developed trust. That and I control all the money.
If you're going to get an assistant, look carefully at your needs. Start with what causes you the most grief, what you hate doing, and what you avoid doing. For me, it's financial paperwork. He now keeps track of all the expenses and invoices and makes sure my accountant gets the data. This year, he can start giving quarterly updates to my accountant so I'm not getting a $$$ surprise on taxes.
Sanity is overrated. When I am overwhelmed I cope best when I manage to work on the things that feel most important at the moment. It causes the least cognitive dissonance. Now, the difficult part is to make the things that feel most important roughly congruent with the things that are actually important- that's the art. The good news is that it doesn't have to perfect.
One of the nice things about this vs being employed by someone else, is often the thing that feels the most important probably is!
For the finance and managing contractors, I use Kimai [0]. It can track your time, manage your customers, projects, your team, expenses and even generate your invoices. I only use it for tracking time, managing customers and projects and generating invoices.
My full finances are stored in Notion 1, this is because I can access that anywhere, and I can use the built-in table functions to calculate my VAT and tax. When I started, I also used Notion as a CRM that I logged customer/prospect interactions with, but that faded out after a while.
[0]: https://www.kimai.org/
[1]: https://www.notion.so/
My full finances are stored in Notion 1, this is because I can access that anywhere, and I can use the built-in table functions to calculate my VAT and tax. When I started, I also used Notion as a CRM that I logged customer/prospect interactions with, but that faded out after a while.
[0]: https://www.kimai.org/
[1]: https://www.notion.so/
Confusing pricing for Kimai. Start for free for hosted but I can't find the pricing anywhere on the website but I found a blog post about how it's no longer free. Do you pay for it and try to host it?
I self-host it. But you can also use the SaaS version. The pricing for that can be found here: https://www.kimai.cloud/pricing
Currently, this is:
Standard €2.99 Annual €35.88 per user
Currently, this is:
Standard €2.99 Annual €35.88 per user
Project time-tracking
Billable and non-billable hours
Invoicing
Data export
Audit logs
Industry-specific translations
Personal Support
All the features of "Standard"
Overtime account
Public holiday, vacation, sick leave
Expense tracking
Custom fields
Task planning
Daily backups for download
Single Sign-On with SAML
Custom domain with SSL
Access restriction via IP
Annual plan: less bookkeepingWhat kind of finance features does notion have ? It would be interesting to hear how notion can be used for finance ?
As kreetx said, I use the Excel-like features.
For example; the finances for each company should be submitted to the national tax department each quarter. I configured the Notion tables to group them by quarter of the year. For each of these quarters, it will automatically configure the income, outgoing and the result.
For example; the finances for each company should be submitted to the national tax department each quarter. I configured the Notion tables to group them by quarter of the year. For each of these quarters, it will automatically configure the income, outgoing and the result.
I'd assume it has "Excel features", which translate to finance features.
Even in a one-person company you don't have to do everything alone. You can offload certain things to other people. For example, you can get an accountant to do the finance stuff for you. There might also be tools that you can buy or rent that take away some of the load. There are lots of tools for building websites and payment solutions for example. I am sure there are planning tools as well. And once you have outsourced as much as you can, if you still cannot manage the load, that might be a signal that you need to really grow your company and to hire people, although there is also the possibility to subcontract part of your work if you do not want to commit to that.
The biggest lesson I've learned is to be very clear and honest about what you personally are good at and have the bandwidth to do, outsource the other stuff, and keep your goals in line with your available resources (which are mostly your time and energy).
By "outsource the other stuff", I mean things like hiring a bookkeeping service to keep your books and handle tax reporting all the way through to contracting out those jobs that you don't have the skills, time, or energy to do well.
The most important asset your business has is yourself. Keep that asset in good health, use it wisely, and don't abuse it.
By "outsource the other stuff", I mean things like hiring a bookkeeping service to keep your books and handle tax reporting all the way through to contracting out those jobs that you don't have the skills, time, or energy to do well.
The most important asset your business has is yourself. Keep that asset in good health, use it wisely, and don't abuse it.
I'm frequently reminded of the adage: "You want to go fast? Go alone. Want to go far? Go with a team." The team could be people or as others have suggested, tools and processes that reduce your workload.
People = meetings, disagreements, politics, recruiting, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, coaching, performance reviewing = less time focusing on what actually matters i.e. building and selling = loosing to the competition.
IMO people need to start investing less in building out a team and more in automation. The best solo-founders are going to be those that can effectively product manage AI tools.
IMO people need to start investing less in building out a team and more in automation. The best solo-founders are going to be those that can effectively product manage AI tools.
Only do 1 thing. Find the most important thing and only work on that. For ex: a product feature, sales, or whatever but just only do one thing for at least a week. Then re-evaluate what the most important thing is and do that for the next week.
The exception is I do a little customer support every day.
The exception is I do a little customer support every day.
Im 15 ish years in.
>> one-person company ... managing contractors.
You're not a one person company if you have to manage contractors. One of the definitions of being a "contractor" is "independent work". Get better people who are self starers, or more motivated, or more flexible or...
>> planning, development
The lie corporate tech tells us is that these things are different jobs. You need to re-learn how to play. You're playing with code, and ideas and features. Play has a component that has learning build in.
Learn to separate GROWING your business (development, new features) and running it (customer service, billing, accounting). Track your time into these two buckets and ask yourself if you're spending the right effort in the right places.
Lastly. You're going to work hard, maybe harder than you ever have in your life. Sun up to sun set, and then some. You don't get to party, or vacation or socialize. If you want those sorts of things "get a job" if you want to build and own something then you're going to learn to eat that shit sandwich for a bit. It took me a few years for me to get to a stable place. There are moments where I have to put in the extra time, but they are very infrequent now and mostly include a massive pay day when they happen.
>> one-person company ... managing contractors.
You're not a one person company if you have to manage contractors. One of the definitions of being a "contractor" is "independent work". Get better people who are self starers, or more motivated, or more flexible or...
>> planning, development
The lie corporate tech tells us is that these things are different jobs. You need to re-learn how to play. You're playing with code, and ideas and features. Play has a component that has learning build in.
Learn to separate GROWING your business (development, new features) and running it (customer service, billing, accounting). Track your time into these two buckets and ask yourself if you're spending the right effort in the right places.
Lastly. You're going to work hard, maybe harder than you ever have in your life. Sun up to sun set, and then some. You don't get to party, or vacation or socialize. If you want those sorts of things "get a job" if you want to build and own something then you're going to learn to eat that shit sandwich for a bit. It took me a few years for me to get to a stable place. There are moments where I have to put in the extra time, but they are very infrequent now and mostly include a massive pay day when they happen.
You have to delegate. It can be a human or a robot. For example, make stock and use tools for social media content. Use IFTTT, Zapier, Make or n8n. Hire a freelance assistant etc.
Instead of saving money, don't stop using paid tools! Today I'm getting the top package on the automation tool IFTTT, and my mind is at ease. I'm kicking myself that I wish I hadn't saved money earlier. Using tools that save time and energy increases lifespan. :)
I have noticed a lot of solopreneurs take proud in doing everything themselves and do not want to hire and expand. Yes, I get it. I once had a lot of employees and it is stressfull with too much responsibility and issues.
But, you can have 1 or 2 people. or 5. You don't need to have 10 people, or 100 or 1000.
With 1 person you can get 150% more done if you structure it well. Why? That one person can specialize. If you wanna talk about this just find me on my blog :)
But, you can have 1 or 2 people. or 5. You don't need to have 10 people, or 100 or 1000.
With 1 person you can get 150% more done if you structure it well. Why? That one person can specialize. If you wanna talk about this just find me on my blog :)
But ... even if you have just 1 or 2 people, you have to manage them. You need to have regular meetings to discuss what's done, what's to be done, you have to plan work for them. Large part of why I'm a solopreneur is because I do not want to manage or be managed. It would be awesome to find someone who just magically does great work without needing any attention. Just brief monthly summaries of high quality contributions, better than I could have done. But I'm not sure how to find someone like that, and I also don't think I could afford them ;-)
Of course you need to manage and it might not be the most fun thing. Same here.
But if you have one person, and you spend 15 minutes a day guiding them and giving them tasks, then they have 7-8 hours to do productive work.
And finding the right people can be hard, but when you finally find the right one it is worth it.
If you wanna talk about it find a time https://martinbaun.com/book
But if you have one person, and you spend 15 minutes a day guiding them and giving them tasks, then they have 7-8 hours to do productive work.
And finding the right people can be hard, but when you finally find the right one it is worth it.
If you wanna talk about it find a time https://martinbaun.com/book
If you have funds for contractors, have you considered applying some towards an assistant?
People in our field readily think of hiring help for design, development, etc but there's a lot of value in having somebody who can just take administrative (or personal!) distractions off your plate and they're often much cheaper than technical professionals. And they're far more versatile than many productized "tools"
People in our field readily think of hiring help for design, development, etc but there's a lot of value in having somebody who can just take administrative (or personal!) distractions off your plate and they're often much cheaper than technical professionals. And they're far more versatile than many productized "tools"
I am going through the same thing myself right now. After eight years of running this small product, I’ve gotten to the point where the revenue hasn’t increased significantly, but the complexity of Admin work has increased exponentially.
I plan to make it this year’s theme to simplify. For me that means:
- automating or delegating all recurring tasks;
- eliminating all processes that have become complex but are not worth it;
Eg:
- I plan to move from Stripe to Paddle (MoR) because I don’t want to deal with EU taxes anymore; we’ve save me a few hours every month + A few hundred dollars on accounting;
- we gave an affiliate program that isn’t working out great; i plan to cut it;
- we have a referral program… same, cut it;
- we have a public email address, cut it;
- etc.
In addition, what’s worked for me so far is day-theming. Mon & Tue are for admin and management. Wed-Fri are creative - I don’t even open my inbox some days. I checked recently, the world is not on fire.
P.S. One of the automation tools I use it https://recurrr.com - saves me a few hours every month. Not a lot. But enough to have kept it alive for the past 7 years (under a different name).
I plan to make it this year’s theme to simplify. For me that means:
- automating or delegating all recurring tasks;
- eliminating all processes that have become complex but are not worth it;
Eg:
- I plan to move from Stripe to Paddle (MoR) because I don’t want to deal with EU taxes anymore; we’ve save me a few hours every month + A few hundred dollars on accounting;
- we gave an affiliate program that isn’t working out great; i plan to cut it;
- we have a referral program… same, cut it;
- we have a public email address, cut it;
- etc.
In addition, what’s worked for me so far is day-theming. Mon & Tue are for admin and management. Wed-Fri are creative - I don’t even open my inbox some days. I checked recently, the world is not on fire.
P.S. One of the automation tools I use it https://recurrr.com - saves me a few hours every month. Not a lot. But enough to have kept it alive for the past 7 years (under a different name).
Thanks a lot for being open and sharing. You are not alone, and wearing multiple hats is something all one-person companies have in common. The key points that work for me are:
- Having a close circle of friends with similar lifestyles/journeys. trustful, open exchanges are invaluable, in both directions.
- Being clear on your business's purpose, means understand why you started it and what compromises you're willing to make.
- Setting clear goals for both business development and personal life in order to maintain clarity in both areas is essential for balance and progress.
As I'm in a similar situation and work with startup/scale-up folks, I've created a toolset aimed at addressing the business aspects of these struggles. It seems to solve these types of challenges for the people I work with: https://startup-business-cockpit.de/en.index.html.
Check it out, and if any guidance is needed, feel free to DM me.
- Having a close circle of friends with similar lifestyles/journeys. trustful, open exchanges are invaluable, in both directions.
- Being clear on your business's purpose, means understand why you started it and what compromises you're willing to make.
- Setting clear goals for both business development and personal life in order to maintain clarity in both areas is essential for balance and progress.
As I'm in a similar situation and work with startup/scale-up folks, I've created a toolset aimed at addressing the business aspects of these struggles. It seems to solve these types of challenges for the people I work with: https://startup-business-cockpit.de/en.index.html.
Check it out, and if any guidance is needed, feel free to DM me.
I think the best thing about running solo is I can control my own timeline and goals. I am working on multiple projects [1][2][3][4]. Every day I write down a short list of what I want to achieve on my note-taking app LogSeq[5], and I try to finish the list. Alternating projects and the nature of work (development/research/marketing) change my rhythm and keep me learning and feeling energized.
[1]: https://www.ycverify.com [2]: https://www.signalstalk.com [3]: https://contentcredentialsapi.studioxolo.com [4]: https://www.airexif.com [5]: https://logseq.com
[1]: https://www.ycverify.com [2]: https://www.signalstalk.com [3]: https://contentcredentialsapi.studioxolo.com [4]: https://www.airexif.com [5]: https://logseq.com
Another helpful exercise: sort your tasks by payoff horizon, from immediate need to long term investments.
Immediate needs like invoices and bill pay, resolving service disruptions and support tickets can be the loudest contenders for your time. Make sure you set aside some time to build tools to address the root cause of your biggest time wasters: automate repeated tasks, build diagnostic tools to speed up support responses, restructure systems to prevent bugs which happen repeatedly. Once you've matured your operations, invest time in documenting them so you can sell the business (or delegate to staff.)
Don't allow short term demands to derail your progress toward accomplishments that will make life better in the long run.
Immediate needs like invoices and bill pay, resolving service disruptions and support tickets can be the loudest contenders for your time. Make sure you set aside some time to build tools to address the root cause of your biggest time wasters: automate repeated tasks, build diagnostic tools to speed up support responses, restructure systems to prevent bugs which happen repeatedly. Once you've matured your operations, invest time in documenting them so you can sell the business (or delegate to staff.)
Don't allow short term demands to derail your progress toward accomplishments that will make life better in the long run.
You’re a company, so you have to start thinking as one.
You’re not paying a lot for an accountant, you’re investing money that will generate free time and availability for other tasks.
If you don’t enjoy something, don’t do it. Pay someone else to do it. If your company has a net profit at the end of the year, you have budget to offload tasks to others, who enjoy them and are faster at them.
Get a manager. Find a business coach who you can have 1-on-1s with once a month, quarter, week, whatever you need. You need to be able to vent about clients, get constructive feedback, review how you handled specific situations, etc.
And, no, you can’t use your life partner for this.
You’re not paying a lot for an accountant, you’re investing money that will generate free time and availability for other tasks.
If you don’t enjoy something, don’t do it. Pay someone else to do it. If your company has a net profit at the end of the year, you have budget to offload tasks to others, who enjoy them and are faster at them.
Get a manager. Find a business coach who you can have 1-on-1s with once a month, quarter, week, whatever you need. You need to be able to vent about clients, get constructive feedback, review how you handled specific situations, etc.
And, no, you can’t use your life partner for this.
I managed until I didn't, and the admin was what got me in the end - 10 years later I was diagnosed with adhd so I could at least forgive myself for being so absolutely awful with record keeping.
Back in the day though I used outlook calendar entries as the basis for my billing as I used windows mobile on a motorola flip and had sbs2003 running exchange with a custom app that would read the calendar entries and let me assign to a customer and create an order - once I had a number of orders I could create an invoice and send via email.
Back in the day though I used outlook calendar entries as the basis for my billing as I used windows mobile on a motorola flip and had sbs2003 running exchange with a custom app that would read the calendar entries and let me assign to a customer and create an order - once I had a number of orders I could create an invoice and send via email.
Not a founder, but a good piece of advice I read is to hire a remote PA. They can be cheap, and can help stay on top of things.
For me staying organised is the worst. It takes time and effort, can be very boring, the upsides are kind of invisible, downsides can be cataclysmic. Mostly you want to do the interesting bits of being a solopreneur...
For me staying organised is the worst. It takes time and effort, can be very boring, the upsides are kind of invisible, downsides can be cataclysmic. Mostly you want to do the interesting bits of being a solopreneur...
Any particular recommendations for agencies?
I assign certain days in a week, (and sometimes hours in a day) to my different personas. I only plan out a few days at a time in advance. I just dump these on my calendar as events.
Aside from a few unexpected events (like a bot attack that ruined last week for me), its been working well enough.
Been there as a solo. My advice is be on the constant lookout for the one person that will do all the stuff you are bad at. Find your complement. There’s a reason marriage is ingrained in most cultures. It is too risky and hard and sad to do important things alone.
Best advice I can offer is know your limits and that requires knowing how and when to say "No". Others have mentioned raising rates, and that works to a degree, but ultimately you have to be able to say "No" when your capacity is maxed out.
What do you all have as your actual product? I feel that's the toughest part: having a product that can be easily maintained by one person yet still gain and retain customers.
Hire a C level executive to delegate some of it, if you can afford to? Unless your question is: "How can I do everything myself while being poor/bootstrapped?"
I did this for 9 years. You don’t stay sane. You’re working 24/7. Best you can do is take vacations and schedule downtime rituals. This is why I no longer do it.
Here's the advice I've gotten:
1. Hire a VA for mundane stuff.
2. Hire a coach to fill in your blind spots.
3. Hire the most senior people you can.
1. Hire a VA for mundane stuff.
2. Hire a coach to fill in your blind spots.
3. Hire the most senior people you can.
Don't do accounting or taxes for your company. There are two ways you can do that.
I figure it's somewhat easier since you don't have to manage employees, no?
Outsource as much as you can and EXERCISE
I must be an oddball because working alone honestly feels much more preferred. People add complexity, which scales exponentially with more people. I honestly much more prefer AI workers vs. human workers for this reason. I feel like when I work alone I can focus on things that matter and actually get more and important things done, instead of managing people and their politics. It's also different relating to people as a founder vs. just another employee. If I don't want to engage with someone I can choose not to. Freedom not to talk to people I don't want to is worth every penny.
I've been working on Temple Tools[1] (CRM for Synagogues) during evenings and weekends while maintaining my day job with no drops in productivity or outcomes (in fact I've performed better) for about 9 months and have gotten a good amount of traction. I was really afraid that it was going to take over my life but I'm very happy with how straightforward things have been. Building a CRM solo has been quite a lift but it's gone quite well.
Here are my tips:
• Get your first customer as early as possible. I know this isn't "new" advice but feedback from one customer was enough to keep my busy patching holes in the product for a good 2 months straight. If I waited and got my first 10 customers all at once I would have drowned
• Separate functions into days of the week as much as possible! I've found this to be critical for not burning out and maintaining high productivity over extended periods (9 months doesn't sound like much, but it's a long time to put in essentially an extra work week). For me Mon is Marketing, Tue-Fri is coding, Sat is marketing and non-urgent customer support, and Sun is coding
• Don't stop exercising. Exercise MORE. I'm a night owl but I transitioned to the "at the gym at 5am" guy, lunchtime run, and Jiujitsu in evenings; and I ended up somehow spending more time plugging away at the keyboard. The mantra "the way you do anything is the way you do everything" really comes to mind.
• Put dates on your calendar for meta-tasks. I have a recurring bi-weekly task to update my finances, a task to do keyword analysis, etc etc. It's too easy for these to slide otherwise
• Creative uses of ChatGPT! I'm using Nylas' free tier and the ChatGPT API to automate triaging my own customer support emails, and texting myself if it's urgent. This lets me have near-zero interruptions during my day job from my side hustle.
• More ChatGPT. If you don't know how to do something, talk to ChatGPT interactively to get "good enough" at it quickly. This could be anything from finance to SEO to cold outbound. You still have to think critically enough to ask good questions like "what am I missing here" or "what's going to bite me in the ass". You absolutely need a paid subscription (I use both ChatGPT4 and Claude)
• Be your own project manager. Do NOT wing it. Sit down every once in a while and list off everything you think you have to do, break it down, triage it, prioritize it, and start burning it down. This includes both product-level tasks and business administration and marketing. This lowers cognitive load so much that you'll find you can actually take work off your mind when you're not working
• Identify opportunities for crunch times and adjust routine. I've rented an office on three separate months while working on this business. It was a fantastic way to break up the routine and get a huge amount of productivity for a short time
1 - https://temple-tools.com
Here are my tips:
• Get your first customer as early as possible. I know this isn't "new" advice but feedback from one customer was enough to keep my busy patching holes in the product for a good 2 months straight. If I waited and got my first 10 customers all at once I would have drowned
• Separate functions into days of the week as much as possible! I've found this to be critical for not burning out and maintaining high productivity over extended periods (9 months doesn't sound like much, but it's a long time to put in essentially an extra work week). For me Mon is Marketing, Tue-Fri is coding, Sat is marketing and non-urgent customer support, and Sun is coding
• Don't stop exercising. Exercise MORE. I'm a night owl but I transitioned to the "at the gym at 5am" guy, lunchtime run, and Jiujitsu in evenings; and I ended up somehow spending more time plugging away at the keyboard. The mantra "the way you do anything is the way you do everything" really comes to mind.
• Put dates on your calendar for meta-tasks. I have a recurring bi-weekly task to update my finances, a task to do keyword analysis, etc etc. It's too easy for these to slide otherwise
• Creative uses of ChatGPT! I'm using Nylas' free tier and the ChatGPT API to automate triaging my own customer support emails, and texting myself if it's urgent. This lets me have near-zero interruptions during my day job from my side hustle.
• More ChatGPT. If you don't know how to do something, talk to ChatGPT interactively to get "good enough" at it quickly. This could be anything from finance to SEO to cold outbound. You still have to think critically enough to ask good questions like "what am I missing here" or "what's going to bite me in the ass". You absolutely need a paid subscription (I use both ChatGPT4 and Claude)
• Be your own project manager. Do NOT wing it. Sit down every once in a while and list off everything you think you have to do, break it down, triage it, prioritize it, and start burning it down. This includes both product-level tasks and business administration and marketing. This lowers cognitive load so much that you'll find you can actually take work off your mind when you're not working
• Identify opportunities for crunch times and adjust routine. I've rented an office on three separate months while working on this business. It was a fantastic way to break up the routine and get a huge amount of productivity for a short time
1 - https://temple-tools.com
Great advice!
Keeping away form VCs that "know better" how to monetize my time seems like a proven technique for managing my time. Money I create directly impacts my loved ones.
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How do others in similar situations manage tasks and maintain sanity? Which strategies and tools do you find effective?