I had one product that took off, made more money than at any of my previous (big-tech) jobs, and I thought the tales were true. If you work hard enough, catch a lucky wave and have the skills to ride it, you're free.
The product peaked, and then very quickly dropped to zero in about two years, while I tried everything to prevent going out of business.
Back at the bottom, a year or two of aimless wandering, I figured, well, I've seen the light, I know how this dance needs to be danced, I can dance it one more time.
I've since had half a dozen attempts not even produce a handful of accounts (or in the better cases, paid accounts), and it's simply not sustainable.
I was finally getting to a point where I felt ready to give up last year, and decided to try one last time or get back into a regular job. The problem being, "getting back" now means that I am 20 years older and more than likely _not a great fit_ for many of the roles out there.
So, for now, I am once again knuckle-deep in a new product, about to have a first customer this week (if they sign up) and some light on the horizon.
Yet, even if I manage to surpass all the possible stretch-goals on growth I have set this year, it will still pay considerably less than minimum wage, and that's if everything (and more) works out within this and the next year or so. On occasional consulting gigs I charge $$$, and I don't even dare to compare that to what these Saas/products bring in, is just ... sad. And I hear someone clacking on their keyboard already, responding...
The usual reaction to a post like mine will and used to be: well, you've got the wrong product, audience, or both. But all I want to say after doing this for 20 years now, is: that's the default. If you're not starting from a large-enough platform, your only way to success is to be literally "failing" upwards, in baby steps, turtle-speed, and that only results in success if you can somehow sustain doing that long enough.
The default is that nothing works out. People love to skip over this and always feel it doesn't apply to them and their idea. It will fail. The game is not to make a great product, the game is to figure out how to not go under while waiting for and/or constantly provoking your lucky break.
You can get lucky, and if you try long enough and often enough, you at least stand somehwat of a (very, very, very slim) chance. And, then, even if you do, all that luck is very brief and temporary and you'll be thirsty waiting for the next strike to stay above water. There is no "I made it" — there's only "I'm safe for a second, but what do I do next" in the very best of cases.
All that said, I believe it is totally worth the life experience. Life is short, it's a noteworthy thing to go through. But after a decade of failing, it'll quietly turn into a question of character, responsibility, psychological or social issues and general life-planning skills rather than a question of "do you want it hard enough to succeed".
This resonates. Trying to get back into a tech job and they all need Kubernetes experience because microservices. I've spent 10 years developing MVPs that never scaled past 100 users, let alone anywhere large enough to need K8s.
And the ones that did have a platform team, you just write code as if you are using a lambda or something anyway. Tend to your allotment of in-house yaml and off to the races! Unless you want to be on the k8s team. I wouldn't hate it personally.
Same, at this point it feels like doing your own k8s configuration is re-solving an already solved problem. Surely deploying software in a scalable fashion is a solved problem?
It's a fifty/fifty, isn't it, part of it is actually exciting. Everytime I have a foot in a "proper" company (usually for a consulting gig), I'm always excited to learn about a bunch of stuff that I never had a moment to work with (because, as you say, it's usually a waste of time when there's less than a 100k users on it). The other part, however, is the insane slowdown of progress this usually brings with it. Everything, is, so, incred-ibly-slow at these corps. And policy and asking for permission and nobody wanting to be responsible unless upper management and and and...
Feeling the same pain of walking through the creator's hell.
Heard somewhere we are not supposed to be happy and absent minded. Staying on hard side of things shapes us and make complete.
I'm not sure if this helps, but I’ve personally stopped stressing about outcomes, "get rich quick" schemes, or being in the perfect moment.
The journey is what truly matters.
I use my own tools for consulting and eventually outsource myself as needed. If clients want to hire someone else, I don’t resist. I simply ask for two or three months’ salary for training and limited support afterward.
I’m not trying to build something worth millions to sell. I used to sell CRMs built on top of WordPress for a long time. Eventually, it evolved into a CRM I now use across several businesses. Over the years, I’ve also created numerous small tools that I’ve been using for over a decade—tools for tracking trends, education, and more.
I don’t aim to be in the top 5% of earners, just be in the middle for targeted niche is ok.
For me, freedom means working in "Pendulum mode"—six months of active client phases followed by six months of prototyping new ideas. That balance keeps me sane. No conflict of interests. Clients know I worked hard to kick off things, and productive than most other engineers in slow mode.
As for pressure of being update - I made a simple commitment to try new things 4-8 hours a week min. AI, ML, K8s, hyped programming languages. It was brutal at the beginning, and extremely joyful process now. It's getting easier and easier. The main motivation is to be connected with folks who will come after me.
I'm also trying to surround myself with builders, and be less with transactional people who simply wants salary. Helping other to overcome and internalize the essence of pain of owning code and full responsibilities make my struggles easier.
One thing I would never sacrifice for being in a creator mode - wellbeing and needs of my family. Whatever it takes to bring the food on the table. All high purposes come after.
Naval's mega episodes help me to settle things in mind really well too
It sounds like you were a bootstrapped solo founder in all of these cases? That’s the riskiest path, there are lots of other ways to navigate a career in startups that are not quite so brutal in odds or in emotional toll. (In the United States at least)
I have had a decently long career in startups (closing in on 30 years) and never once was a founder, in part because I always wanted to make a decent salary. Being an early employee at a decently funded startup has been a great tradeoff for me and my family. Even if all the equity over the years had amounted to nothing, I’d still have had few reasons to regret this path.
Yeah all bootstrapped, that's correct. And you're absolutely right, it just makes growing/building unreasonably hard at the beginning because the only funds you have are your own, and it's prohibitively expensive to run ads for the first 100k users when self-funded. The crux with investments always seemed to be the shift of power around the second or third raise for those who weren't runaway successes, when founders start to realize that pressure is now coming from two or three sources, self-worth, investors and possibly clients that were sold on promises and now want to see them implemented. In any case, I agree that being not the first but among the first dozen of employees can be a rewarding and fulfilling choice, it shields from the harshest fire but also allows enough flexibility financially to move on the job as well as in your private life, I'd guess.
The product peaked, and then very quickly dropped to zero in about two years, while I tried everything to prevent going out of business.
Back at the bottom, a year or two of aimless wandering, I figured, well, I've seen the light, I know how this dance needs to be danced, I can dance it one more time.
I've since had half a dozen attempts not even produce a handful of accounts (or in the better cases, paid accounts), and it's simply not sustainable.
I was finally getting to a point where I felt ready to give up last year, and decided to try one last time or get back into a regular job. The problem being, "getting back" now means that I am 20 years older and more than likely _not a great fit_ for many of the roles out there.
So, for now, I am once again knuckle-deep in a new product, about to have a first customer this week (if they sign up) and some light on the horizon.
Yet, even if I manage to surpass all the possible stretch-goals on growth I have set this year, it will still pay considerably less than minimum wage, and that's if everything (and more) works out within this and the next year or so. On occasional consulting gigs I charge $$$, and I don't even dare to compare that to what these Saas/products bring in, is just ... sad. And I hear someone clacking on their keyboard already, responding...
The usual reaction to a post like mine will and used to be: well, you've got the wrong product, audience, or both. But all I want to say after doing this for 20 years now, is: that's the default. If you're not starting from a large-enough platform, your only way to success is to be literally "failing" upwards, in baby steps, turtle-speed, and that only results in success if you can somehow sustain doing that long enough.
The default is that nothing works out. People love to skip over this and always feel it doesn't apply to them and their idea. It will fail. The game is not to make a great product, the game is to figure out how to not go under while waiting for and/or constantly provoking your lucky break.
You can get lucky, and if you try long enough and often enough, you at least stand somehwat of a (very, very, very slim) chance. And, then, even if you do, all that luck is very brief and temporary and you'll be thirsty waiting for the next strike to stay above water. There is no "I made it" — there's only "I'm safe for a second, but what do I do next" in the very best of cases.
All that said, I believe it is totally worth the life experience. Life is short, it's a noteworthy thing to go through. But after a decade of failing, it'll quietly turn into a question of character, responsibility, psychological or social issues and general life-planning skills rather than a question of "do you want it hard enough to succeed".
Life is short.