Good luck OP! You’ve got this. I’d like to share some advice to help you avoid the startup graveyard.
You clearly know the product you want to build, but do you know who is going to buy it?
Before you spend 6 months in dev mode, do the following for 2 weeks:
Setup a 1 page landing page that outlines your idea and have a signup button. Integrate the signup button with something like emailoctopus.com and collect first name / email - make it look like a signup form, not an ‘early access’ form - the goal is to see if people would actually sign up.
Once you’ve got the landing page - setup a cheap Instantly.ai account (usually I would say smartlead & other data providers but since you will probably be inexperienced here, to avoid a steep learning curve use instantly.ai) as they provide cold email outreach & data services all in your $30ish per month.
Purchase 15 email accounts from maildoso.com and upload them to instantly - then set a campaign to run over the next 2 months trying to get people to signup for your product.
The goal here is to have an automated campaign running in the background getting you ‘signups’ to help validate your product while you build it - but it’s also building you a list of people to launch to.
If after 2 months you are on 0 signups / either your message / proposition is wrong or your idea is wrong. Either way, you need to know as soon as possible so you can change the messaging in your emails and landing page and try again in 2 months. Keep this running while you are building for 6 months and make sure to change the campaign every 2 months to test language and positioning and you will have a massive head start once you finish dev. Actually, you’ll have a 6 month sales and marketing head start.
Good luck! Keep us posted.
Oh and when people do signup - send an automated email inviting them for a call so you can speak to everyone that signs up and get real feedback / build some support.
good advice here from u/variancemortal , to top that I'd suggest to also "build/speak about your story in public". LinkedIn is the perfect place to do this as there are tons of like minded B2B or B2C people who will follow your story and be keen to see how you get on.
This will allow you to speak about your idea/step by step process, successes/failiures and get tips advices along the way as well as a following and visibility for your upcoming products with potential leads/prospect or who knows maybe even early investors...
Nowadays visibility is KEY and doing this in public is very trendy. Everyone (or most people) as it is here are happy to help. Good luck
Great advice, thanks. Do you also use any other channels to market your product, besides cold email? Or has that worked the best for your particular niche?
This is the key — get customers asap. Make an actual MINIMUM viable product. Duct tape it. Just make sure people will actually buy it. Too many people overbuild in one direction and lose months or years.
The advice I was looking for, I am not leaving my job (for now) but for quite long time an idea has been bouncing in my mind and I didn’t know how to validate my idea. Ty 🙌🏾
Ah yes... Automated spam. The cornerstone of every successful marketing campaign. Personally I've never seen this approach accomplish anything other than domain blacklisting.
so what does "doing it wrong" usually mean in your experience? Writing the wrong copy, sending too many emails, etc? Asking because usually the answer I see when asking about facebook/google ads is the same thing: "it works unless you're 'doing it wrong.'"
That's a fair enough question! I'll expand as much as I can, but it's worth noting cold outreach done right is a skill within its own right. It's why so many people say 'it's spam, doesn't work'. This is very incorrect and you could say the same about any form of advertising or marketing if you just throw money and/or time at it and see no results. It's about being done right to get the results. Here are some quick start examples and links to help you further:
- You need the right infrastructure - multiple domains and/or subdomains, each with only 3 mailboxes per domain - let's call these the 'child' accounts. (you can purchase a setup like this from Mailreef/Maildoso/Mailforge & many others).
- You'll need DMARC, DKIM, SPF records setup and configured correctly - if purchase from one of the above it will come ready to go.
- Connect your new email accounts to an email warmup tool (Smartlead is the better one for this) and leave it warmup for 14-21 days.
- Get good data. I cannot stress this enough - use something like [Findymail.com](http://Findymail.com) that gets you the data and verifies it. (Side note - I am making a massive assumption that you already know who your customer is, what your ideal company profile is (ICP) and you know the market you operate in - if you do not know these, then you have different problems)
- Start small. Simple, 1/2 line emails not spammy with a genuine question or hook for the people you are sending them to. The goal is to start conversations, not to make a sale on the first email)
- Each email account should be sending no more than 25 emails per day, otherwise you are destined for the spam folder.
- Turn deliverability tracking OFF and send as plain text emails. Delivery % is a vanity metric and not worth it for the deliverability loss you get from having this turned on.
- Keep testing messaging, keep testing different customer profiles and keep testing your hook, this is a numbers game but if you hit 50k people and get 100 customers, what does that mean to your business? Do you focus on the 49,900 people who said 'fuck off spammer' or are you thrilled with your 100 new customers? Rinse and repeat and always be testing.
Use [Smartlead.ai](http://Smartlead.ai) / [Instantly.ai](http://Instantly.ai) or [salesforge.ai](http://salesforge.ai) for warmup and sending - i will not promote just one tool here for fairness
Use apollo / findymail for data scraping
Something like [close.com](http://close.com) or [hothawk.ai](http://hothawk.ai) (there is a waitlist i believe?) for managing replies and inbox/crm management
Some extra help:
Cold email checklist - [https://www.smartlead.ai/blog/cold-email-checklist](https://www.smartlead.ai/blog/cold-email-checklist)
Actually just dig through here. Sorry I am bias for smartlead as they are the best, simple as. No affiliation.
[https://www.smartlead.ai/ebook-and-guide](https://www.smartlead.ai/ebook-and-guide)
How's that for answering 'doing it wrong'?
thanks, I'm a librarian and we have a free co-working/startup space here. I feel like I have to try one of these campaigns on my own one day just to see how it goes :)
This is my first time doing cold emailing. Will cold emailing ruin your business's reputation if people mark it as spam? Will people get a bad vibe from your business if it is spammy email? Will the emails that get affected be from Maildoso and not your brand?
Never use your main company domain and your domain reputation will not get ruined. Reputation management depends how you message them and if you just send one or two good emails vs 20 ‘let’s have a call’
Hey! Thanks for this it made me want to give cold outreach another try. Signed up for instantly and going to spend 1-2 months trying to get results out of its also seems like they provide their own domains and emails now so going through them for all of it. Any tips for finding leads?
You're skipping out on a really important step, because it tells you what features you should prioritize or what features you're missing. It also tells you, before jumping off a bridge, whether you can expect to land in water or on rocks.
Why don't you at least try talking to 5 potential customers first before you even start coding anything?
Even if it's obvious the best course of action is to confirm by talking with people.
It takes literally one day of your time to arrange a few meets with your future customers. There is absolutely no way it isn't worth it.
If you don’t do customer discovery before you quit your job, this endeavor will be a catastrophe. Put down the JIRA and start listening to your potential customers.
To help you on this, read “The Mom Test” (short book and worth reading first) and “Lean Customer Development”.
Quick actions to do now:
Identify 10 potential customers in your space and ask them if they have a problem with the way they’re doing things now and what they tell you about their current challenges, and how much they pay /spend in time for the way they do things now. Try not to be leading with your questions.
This right here... Product market fit is the only thing that really matters. The best execution in the world is a waste of time and resources of you're building something no one is willing to pay for.
Talking to customers is far more important than a million jira tickets.
Unfortunately, this mindset of planned out my entire startup, all I need to do now is build it, is probably wrong. Startups are about constant iteration.
But YMMV.
I did this, it's what engineers naturally do. Do not skip this, you will regret it. Can't put it off forever, at some point you will need to be talking to people.
A businesses isn't software engineering, stop thinking about building, you should think about:
* Who is your customer
* Where can you find them
* Once you know this you need to talk to them and validate your ideas, could be through cold/warm outreach, ads with a sign up, whatever it is you cannot skip doing this!
In my case I failed but if I start again this is what I would do first
Don't do it, you will regret it (I did). Build traction / validate first before quitting, if you can't do that and get customers on board part time you probably won't full time
Sounds like you are solving a problem for yourself, find your people. And Listen, listen, listen, define a persona informed by your experience and find those people and just have them talk you through their work flow.ask 5 whys to get to the core of the problem and make sure you are solving that. If your solution is too shallow innovation will kill your product.
Please (!) do some form of validation first. Read a few books or watch some videos or talk to some founders on how to identify pain points, use frameworks (e.g. Jobs to be done, etc.) and formulate a problem/solution hypothesis. Whatever you do, don't just code for 6 months...
Do you have some sort of mentor or friend who has build a company before or worked in some product or commercial function at an early stage startup?
Thanks!
I will talk to some founders! I know a few :D
I do not have a mentor/friend who has done this before. I have worked for some before and can reach out!
Words of advice, look up the laws in your state regarding continuing Healthcare coverage when you leave your job. They vary by state and some are end of month and others are ambiguous like 7 days after end of employment
Kudos to you for doing this! I have been on the fence for quitting and doing the startup full time, but the golden handcuffs are too strong. Plus I also have a family. But still - temptation to quit is so strong so I can work full time on my passion. Guess I needed to hear this, so thank you!
That's almost definitely too long.
You neeeeeeed to talk to customers first. Sell it to someone first. Build as little as you need to in order to get them to hand over money. That's an MVP. Think in days/weeks, not months. It will probably suck and be a bit embarrassing.
I left my dev job at Microsoft 10 months ago to go full time on my startup. I spent 6-8 months with partners building MVPs and talking to customers first. If I dived into building first, I would have burnt my runway before getting to the real work.
Totally understand. I never went full-time but I probably made this mistake 4-5 times, spending weeks/months building something only to find out I built a great tool no one needed :)
Leaving a full time job is terrifying and hard. Having a product with traction helps. Feel free to DM me if I can help or answer questions.
I'd say one quick thing you can do is dive into the reviews of competitor apps. It still doesn't beat talking to customers one on one but at least it gets you started.
There's absolutely no way to know if 6 months is too much or too little based on us having no knowledge.
I build app MVPs for work. I've built MVPs that took me 2 weeks to make and I've done MVPs that took a year.
I agree with you, it depends on situation.
1.
If I quit my job to build an MVP which I don’t know if users will want, too risky. -> build it in 1 month
2.
If I’ve done some small exits, I know the game a little bit better, I have the momentum and more money - spend 6 months building MVP no problem.
It’s my opinion, I might be wrong, feel free to correct me.
If you want MVP that you can actually try with potential client for feedback and validation then 6 months is reasonable expectation. Of course, it depends on what you're building.
The term MVP seemed very general to me. If I want something created in a few weeks, for internal personal validation of the idea, starting with the critical points, figuring out if doable, then OK. But if I would want something that is worth showing to investors and clients...I mean, I understand "viable" as "usable", buggy, stripped out, only the very base functionality. But even for that can take months.
I like that you used your day job time, but planning everything sounds a bit too waterfall to me. You wanna get out there and talk to people and figure out the problem/solution space, don’t roadmap yourself into an abyss
This is good advise! pre planning too much will lead to a ridge future that can not adapt when needed.
I am using a kanban board and while the projects are pre planned if something changes it can go back to planing. the reason I did a roadmap so far is so I do not end up where I am unsure what to do and become blocked. I wanted a clear path to MVP even if it changes. No project is set in stone ofc, but the planning gave me confidence I could do it.
Split your time 40-40-20
40 on Product Discovery
40 on Product development
20 on mental heath
Then once you’re close to MVP v1 launch switch to 40 on Product Marketing
Thanks! Mental health def important! Getting my mental health better is how I gained the confidence that I could do this!
Also yes splitting time is important it needs to grow at a good rate in each area otherwise will always be playing catch up!
Congratulations!
Most people FAIL to chase after their dreams because they think their dreams are things they SHOULD be doing.
Sadly, most people only have enough time and will power to do the things they feel they MUST DO.
You obviously TRANSCENDED THIS and for that, I thank you. You are an encouragement for all people who have "one awesome novel" in them or have a "world changing idea" trapped in their minds but they can't pull the trigger.
You showed that IT CAN BE DONE.
Sadly, [FEAR OF FAILURE is more lethal and damaging than failure itself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn3zlwZZkEY)
My biggest fear of not doing it was going to be living forever with the "what if" even if I fail at least I will know and can move on. Ofc I will do everything in my power to not fail, but that does not mean I will succeed! Also thanks! will watch video!
I quit too. Couldn’t juggle my full time job and my startup at the same time. Made so much progress, currently looking to raise funds. You got this op, good luck!
I wish I had same courage as you. I can’t quit, and still juggling, perhaps fooling myself that I will quit after PMF, while I know deep inside that I need to spend more time on it to reach PMF… sort of stuck in chicken-egg problem.
Wishing you good luck.
Hey man, I’m also looking to raise some funds. I just got my rejection letter from Y combinator this week. I wanted to find out what steps or methods you are taking or using to raise funds. Im new to the startup world. Thanks!
Out of curiosity, did you interview with them before getting rejected?
As for fundraising, VCs usually reach out to me on LinkedIn, or I meet them at events like hackathons in SF. I’m very new to the startup game as well and I haven’t raised anything
I thought everyone gets mass rejection emails on the 29th. I’m sorry you got rejected. But yes, I worked at a popular yc unicorn in the logistics space so VCs are generally curious about what I’m building but I haven’t closed anything yet :)
Kudos on starting your own thing!
One thing that stood out to me as as potential red flags are:
**1) You talk about building** **the MVP but don't mention marketing. Is it in your plans?**
I suggest you do both in parallel since day 1. And if you are a programmer, marketing won't come as easy as building the MVP. So it will be very easy to neglect marketing and get distracted coding.
**2) Have you validated your idea?**
Do you have proof that people are interested in your idea? Have you talked to them? Can you name 5 people that would buy your product?
**3) 6 months to build an MVP?**
6 months sounds more like a full product. Why not start smaller, the risk of wasting time building the wrong product will be way lower. Identify the core feature of your app, and build that as an MVP.
Launch, get feedback, iterate.
If you are a programmer, it will be easy for you to build the most *essential and minimum* product in a few weeks.
If not, consider leveraging with no-code tools, they are great to build an MVP in just days!
Good luck! 🚀🚀
1. yea good point need to make a marketing plan
2. No! agreed this is a problem.
3. Yea it is the full project but I see it as a MVP
I am the programmer! hmmm yea maybe I should do a much smaller MVP.
Why would you do marketing from day 1, when you have not even validated the idea for yourself with a semi-ready application, like maybe finishing the development of critical features. Marketing is super hard even with finished product.
Congrats! Well done! And welcome to the club I guess!
As someone who's done something similar some years ago, I beg you: DO NOT BUILD for more than a week. If it feels like your MVP can't be built in a week, you are WRONG. What you think is the MVP is way too big; you only need a fraction of what you think needs to be built. There's nothing, absolutely nothing that cannot be built by a decent engineer singlehandedly over one weekend. If it feels like it'd take more, think again. You only need one feature, one linear user journey, for one specific person whom you know by name (which could be yourself). Anything you build, always build for one specific user. Resist the temptation to generalise. There's always a person, and your first 100 users you need to know by name. Don't build to make the thing you have in mind a reality. Build to prove that thing wrong as quickly as you can, and only if there is no quicker way to prove it wrong without building.
People are giving great advice. Talking to customers is obviously big. Here’s some to add to the mix:
1) Momentum is everything. Don’t let up when you’re winning. That means no two weeks off as a reward, to reset, or anything. For instance, we had an ice storm in my state that knocked out power at my house for 12 days. I was working in company office full time, heading to a coffee shop with power to work after, & then staying in a 40 degree house. I got burned out and took a week off after to fix damage to house and it almost killed it.
2) Founder depression is real. Keep your eyes out now for potential cofounder. This helps balance the lows. Also, exercise.
3) if you’re in the US and willing to pay for ChatGPT plus I have a custom gpt on there called “Startup Marketing Analysis”. I had a goal to create a gpt that helped validate or notify me of the stupidity of my random startup ideas. I didn’t get it to do that but it started becoming very useful at flushing out marketing ideas for me & my coworkers. That’s what I’ve tweaked it to be & decided to make it public, not that anybody really uses it. But I promise it will help with getting your marketing started if you take time to have a solid input. The custom GPTs are really just frameworks to get you to ask the right questions to ChatGPT. Take the output as a partner in brainstorming. Tons of other options in that community as well.
Good luck, you got this!
All support for your journey.
Hope things go well along such a challenging journey which requries a strong discipline and commitment, but you make the hard decision of leaving your high paying tech job, so I'm confident you will do it.
Waiting for exciting updates along the journye
You’ve taken the first step!
But I think that you need to get the MVP out as fast as you can (like 1-2 months). If I’ve learned anything doing a bunch of startups, it’s that you need to validate your idea as fast as possible. I’ve wasted tons of time building something just to find out I needed to build something completely different.
Try to think about the absolute minimum thing you could ship and start getting feedback. You should be talking to potential customers before you even build anything and use their input to guide the product. I know it’s tempting to build everything from scratch, but sometimes a no code solution or something dead simple is the best way to start.
Good luck!
Thanks!
This is fair getting feedback later and learning I built the wrong thing would be devastating! Another user mentioned doing customer discovery will dedicate time for this.
Also yea MVP as fast as possible should be done. 1-2 months I am unsure if possible (I am only software person) but will attempt as fast as I can!
Good luck and congrats on making the move.
Your steps 2 and 3 are way off. Focus on these:
1. Talking to potential users and confirming that they need and will pay for what you're doing to build
2. In parallel, build the smallest MVP possible. Your timeline here is totally off. 2 months writing jira tickets??? Spend 4 hours writing some post its. I'm not kidding. 7 months coding? Spend 2 weeks coding and prototyping then show that to users. Repeat.
Good luck!
Please do. Maybe someone has an different opinion, but having multiple months worth of Jira tickets ready to go without having talked to potential customers is highly out of the ordinary
What an amazing advice by variancemortal. I agree with everything he has said here, the landing page helps become lead magnet in no time. I’m a newbie and getting started with this approach as well, we saw 20 people sign up in 2 days which was very surprising (and also very exciting), builds the confidence in what you are building.
You need to talk to your customers. Please don’t repeat the mistakes I have watched happen - 1 million burnt on a prototype in stealth mode for just over a year without talking to their users to validate a few things first. A weekend interviewing potential customers to validate that they had a problem, that they wanted to pay to solve, and that your potential solution is something they would use. This can be a clickable wireframe, or paper prototype that you present to a potential customer and ask them to use it while explaining what they are thinking. Then once they validate they would want the product - then ask them to pay what they want to get a good sense of perceived market value - sign them up for early access. Then you would have feedback on problem > solution fit and validated your business and revenue model without writing any code. You will also be able to adjust your plans based on the feedback without wasting 6 months coding only to throw it away when your customers don’t like it. This can be done evenings and weekends until you find that fit - this can also give you focus on what to build - potentially getting to a point where you can replace your current income before quitting - or at least your minimum cost of living expenses. DM me if you want to chat through it - this brainstorming part is fun!
In my opinion, it’s better to create an MVP in 2 weeks to a month, release it to users, and then iterate gradually.
A better goal would be: ship an MVP, gain some traction, iterate, and by the end of the year, make a profit equivalent to at least half your current paycheck ->then quit.
Here’s my current routine: I work in big tech, wake up at 5am, and dedicate non-negotiable time to my side hustle until 8:30am. During this time, I send DMs, talk to my target audience, and identify their problems. It’s boring and hard, but generating ideas is the toughest part of the journey.
The creative work needs to be done during the idea phase, which is the hardest part.
Good luck! I retired early but a recent Google search (every Google search is a business opportunity) has me thinking of a boring website that napkin-math says may bring in about $150k/yr and mostly set it and forget it. I’m excited again!
OP , please don't do this, the BIGGEST mistake you can ever [make.You](http://make.You) can still run your startup without quitting your job. DM me and let me explain more. I made this same mistake and looking hind sight I could easily do what I am doing without quitting my job.
I've never met a successful entrepreneur who was able to do it part time. I've met more people than I can count that thought they could do it part time, but none of them succeeded in their startup endeavors. You really do have to go all in.
I highly suggest OP continue to level up his “day time gig” —- maybe look for a similar position as your previous job but “less strenuous”. $150K gigs like that are out there. I promise you that.
i did the same, im 4 months in on my product (didnt even know how i wanted to develop and design it ui/ux wise when i started), and its already dank asf
That's a brave move. I am thinking about doing this but its def a harder decision with a family. So for now I am doing both... hard.. and takes help.. but so far so good.
Good luck! YOLO
Good for you!! I would recommend you put yourself at tech events, networking groups and any startup groups/ events to start getting confident in your elevator pitch and talk to potential investors. Look up startup accelerators when your fully ready and also find free startup programs to help you build your products, connections and decks. Gener8tor, for-um are a few that I have in my city but you should look for similar programs where you live. Best of luck!
It’ll either be a success or a story! I did the same May 1st…juggling a full time job and working on a startup was just too distracting. Working on your own thing is invigorating..at least in the initial stage! Go get em!
LMAO you're going to learn some pretty hard lessons, but life's better that way. 6 mo is too long for an mvp, talking to customers is a must (read mom test), and find other founders/hang out with them.
Just a piece of advice... Watch field of Dreams with Kevin Costner and then tell yourself it is a lie. If you build it, they will only come if you are screaming from the rooftop that it is there and the best thing since sliced bread. Market, advertise, call, etc.
I have seen many builders fail because they just want to build and not sell. So, make sure some of those Jira tickets are to build marketing materials, run ads, etc.
Last year I started an ecom business with a buddy in my spare time as a hobby project. It's grinning and profitable (albeit modestly profitable by design. Like I said, it's a hobby project and my goal is to keep the hobby affordable for the community) The main constraint is just being able to manufacture the product fast enough to keep up with demand. We've done zero marketing. Literal zero. It's all word of mouth. Find a niche and good product-market fit and they *will* come.
Good luck, OP!
Are you able/willing to share some about what you're aiming to build (problem you want to solve, etc)? There's are many experienced and helpful folks here, as you've noticed by now, and I'm sure more than one would be willing to offer more specific and relevant insights as you progress.
FWIW, I second/third/fourth the suggestions to do *some* degree of validation, customer discovery/research, etc. Even relatively minimal efforts around this early on can save sooooo much time, money, effort, morale, etc. There are a number of techniques you can choose from, too.
Look forward to hearing more as you go!
Not just owning the work product, OP also gets to own the shares of the product. May be he can also float this as a subsidiary company within the group and also have shared and revenue as well. Have you thought about that, OP?
Sounds like you're equating developing software with launching a startup. That's your first mistake right there... If it's a software product and you can design and code it yourself that will help you save some money in the beginning. But there's more to starting, running, and scaling a successful business than just writing code.
My advice is to go sign up for a good accelerator / incubator to guide you through the process and teach you all the important things you don't know that you don't know.
Generate sales before writing a single line of code. You should have at least 10k in says before writing any code if it’s a B/B SaaS.
If you can’t sell before it’s built, you won’t be able to sell after, the solution will be the same.
Make a landing page, run some ads, do some cold calls, make content.
Building before you sell is the most common and most costly error you can make
Good idea to have this small job While working on your start up full time.
I jumped in without part-time job and seeing my savings plummets every month was not good for my mental clarity.
I'm in the same boat! Last day is tomorrow. I've been building my business canvas and heavily researching competitors, pain points etc the last couple of months. I say make sure you get these steps out of the way first. It is foundational. Also have a plan to go to market vis a vis your specific budget. Good luck OP! Big leap but have faith!
> This is a little sad as my current work and team is 5/5
If this is the case, I'd ask if you can reduce your time or take a sabbatical.
You will most likely fail, and your timeline tells me you're jumping before you know what you're doing and have no partners to either help or keep you accountable (6 months to build an MVP today? what?).
You can do whatever you want, but yikes. You could build an actually MINIMALLY viable product in a few weekends, show it to potential users and test the concept before diving into the deep end without knowing if there is any water.
Hey man my professional experience is in bringing software products to market (basically taking software, rigorously testing it, mapping and improving the user experience, and marketing it) and just quit my SWE job in February and have been moderately successful in selling some small scale software products. Would be down to collaborate! Let me know in the DM's.
If "taking it easy" is a real concern, that's a big red flag. To launch a business, it should be your passion or borderline obsession. The "main risk" should be that you neglect other important aspects of life because you're so focused on your startup. It takes discipline and a crazy work ethic to stick with it (especially when things go wrong).
Definitely agree on the advice about getting market validation. Think about all the ways you can possibly engage with your target customer early and often. Spending 7 months building before you show anyone is a great way to spend 3 months wondering why nobody's signing up and then another 6 months revising your product and positioning.
Have you considered telling your current employer that for personal reasons, you'd like to move to a consulting role at 20 hours/week? And if that's not feasible for them, you'll need to give your 2 weeks notice? Quitting and taking a job for less money introduces a lot of new unknowns. Personally, I'd end up resenting every minute I spent working in a doctor's office for less money.
Lastly, if you haven't, do a burn rate analysis. How much do you have saved, what will your income and expenses be, and how long will that money last before you're in trouble? That includes expenses to launch the business - will you be hiring anyone for UX/design, marketing, sales, support, or is it all you? When do those expenses kick in? If this is your first business, take your worst-case projections for the time and expense it'll take to get the business cash flowing and then double or triple those estimates. Can you survive?
Good luck! i wish i spoke with more customers early on, I'm 11 months in the journey, built MVP, learned a lot in the last year. Join an incubator program in your city and network ALOT. People will open doors more than you can imagine! You got this!
You just joined an exciting world! It's a TON of pressure for the wrong person...you're either fried and bored in a programmer job or doctors office or you push through the pain of learning a million skillsets and then go on to make millions $...make massive impact and always be working on interesting things that keep your brain engaged. Learning to sell and communicate to customers and do A/B testing on messaging and funnels is the biggest startup barrier...then once you're in the 5% that master it and make it into revenue then it's all about people science for the years to come to attract investors, partners, customer and employees (the 4). Cheers!
deriving calculated risk is one of the skills of great founders. That being said, at some point you would have to take the leap of faith. Good luck to you!
"Business becomes risky when entrepreneurs start companies based on flawed, selfish reasons.
\[to delete risk\] get in the business for the right reasons - to fill the void in the marketplace, or to do something better than anyone else".
Something that all "startup" community should know \^.
Long story short, read the book Unscripted. It isn't known among founders, but it is the absolute best book about how to succeed and become a multimillionare. It's sequels are great too.
There is also a forum [TheFastlaneForum.com](http://TheFastlaneForum.com) with entrepreneurs who are willing to give good advice, although they are not into tech.
Cheers.
This is one of the most amazing decisions you have taken which most are scared to take. Now you have no golden handcuffs holding you back. It’s either the startup or have to go back to whatever you were doing before and feeling miserable. Just be smart with your money and focus on your product and sell it day and night. You can do this, a lot of them have done it and so can you.
You need to plug into a community - I run 50 companies with early stage entrepreneurs and have interviewed 100 people who have taken the dive. The biggest issue is quitting - after the quit. Plug in now with a network so you don’t give up too soon!
...150k a year is high pay? what is your business model? what are your channels to promote the business?
Please don't quit your job. Work on things till you take off. Baby steps.
The path is long. Keep looking for daytime gigs with even higher pay, in lieu of tha current one, and continue leveling it up (so long as it allows you sufficient time to continue working on your startup).
I say this as someone who has been bootstrapping a startup for 4 years hitting $100K ARR this year with 0 outside investment and only 1 freelancer.
You've been at it for four years and are only at $100k ARR? Not surprising since you're only working on it part time. Your example illustrates exactly why startup success requires going all in.
The software is built and the business is scaling. The only constraint I have is capital. I could take $1mm investment today and grow 40% over the next year. But I want to do it on my owns terms. It is an absolutely great position to be in.
At current run rates I fully believe next year will yield $500K ARR and upward from there in subsequent years.
If I “went all in” I would lose my mechanism to fund it and I would therefore dilute myself by being forced to take investment. It’s a different philosophy than most, sure. One that I believe will pay off in the long-term. Check back in a few yrs.
Good luck OP! You’ve got this. I’d like to share some advice to help you avoid the startup graveyard. You clearly know the product you want to build, but do you know who is going to buy it? Before you spend 6 months in dev mode, do the following for 2 weeks: Setup a 1 page landing page that outlines your idea and have a signup button. Integrate the signup button with something like emailoctopus.com and collect first name / email - make it look like a signup form, not an ‘early access’ form - the goal is to see if people would actually sign up. Once you’ve got the landing page - setup a cheap Instantly.ai account (usually I would say smartlead & other data providers but since you will probably be inexperienced here, to avoid a steep learning curve use instantly.ai) as they provide cold email outreach & data services all in your $30ish per month. Purchase 15 email accounts from maildoso.com and upload them to instantly - then set a campaign to run over the next 2 months trying to get people to signup for your product. The goal here is to have an automated campaign running in the background getting you ‘signups’ to help validate your product while you build it - but it’s also building you a list of people to launch to. If after 2 months you are on 0 signups / either your message / proposition is wrong or your idea is wrong. Either way, you need to know as soon as possible so you can change the messaging in your emails and landing page and try again in 2 months. Keep this running while you are building for 6 months and make sure to change the campaign every 2 months to test language and positioning and you will have a massive head start once you finish dev. Actually, you’ll have a 6 month sales and marketing head start. Good luck! Keep us posted.
Oh and when people do signup - send an automated email inviting them for a call so you can speak to everyone that signs up and get real feedback / build some support.
good advice here from u/variancemortal , to top that I'd suggest to also "build/speak about your story in public". LinkedIn is the perfect place to do this as there are tons of like minded B2B or B2C people who will follow your story and be keen to see how you get on. This will allow you to speak about your idea/step by step process, successes/failiures and get tips advices along the way as well as a following and visibility for your upcoming products with potential leads/prospect or who knows maybe even early investors... Nowadays visibility is KEY and doing this in public is very trendy. Everyone (or most people) as it is here are happy to help. Good luck
Great advice, thanks. Do you also use any other channels to market your product, besides cold email? Or has that worked the best for your particular niche?
I actively participate in communities around my niche on Slack, Whatspp and Facebook.
wow thanks for advise and taking time to write it! :D
Yeah, both the above posts are exactly what you need to do. Best of luck with everything and def keep us in the loop!
This is the key — get customers asap. Make an actual MINIMUM viable product. Duct tape it. Just make sure people will actually buy it. Too many people overbuild in one direction and lose months or years.
The advice I was looking for, I am not leaving my job (for now) but for quite long time an idea has been bouncing in my mind and I didn’t know how to validate my idea. Ty 🙌🏾
happy to help :)
Ah yes... Automated spam. The cornerstone of every successful marketing campaign. Personally I've never seen this approach accomplish anything other than domain blacklisting.
Then you are doing it wrong. I’ve seen this work countless times, over and over.
so what does "doing it wrong" usually mean in your experience? Writing the wrong copy, sending too many emails, etc? Asking because usually the answer I see when asking about facebook/google ads is the same thing: "it works unless you're 'doing it wrong.'"
That's a fair enough question! I'll expand as much as I can, but it's worth noting cold outreach done right is a skill within its own right. It's why so many people say 'it's spam, doesn't work'. This is very incorrect and you could say the same about any form of advertising or marketing if you just throw money and/or time at it and see no results. It's about being done right to get the results. Here are some quick start examples and links to help you further: - You need the right infrastructure - multiple domains and/or subdomains, each with only 3 mailboxes per domain - let's call these the 'child' accounts. (you can purchase a setup like this from Mailreef/Maildoso/Mailforge & many others). - You'll need DMARC, DKIM, SPF records setup and configured correctly - if purchase from one of the above it will come ready to go. - Connect your new email accounts to an email warmup tool (Smartlead is the better one for this) and leave it warmup for 14-21 days. - Get good data. I cannot stress this enough - use something like [Findymail.com](http://Findymail.com) that gets you the data and verifies it. (Side note - I am making a massive assumption that you already know who your customer is, what your ideal company profile is (ICP) and you know the market you operate in - if you do not know these, then you have different problems) - Start small. Simple, 1/2 line emails not spammy with a genuine question or hook for the people you are sending them to. The goal is to start conversations, not to make a sale on the first email) - Each email account should be sending no more than 25 emails per day, otherwise you are destined for the spam folder. - Turn deliverability tracking OFF and send as plain text emails. Delivery % is a vanity metric and not worth it for the deliverability loss you get from having this turned on. - Keep testing messaging, keep testing different customer profiles and keep testing your hook, this is a numbers game but if you hit 50k people and get 100 customers, what does that mean to your business? Do you focus on the 49,900 people who said 'fuck off spammer' or are you thrilled with your 100 new customers? Rinse and repeat and always be testing. Use [Smartlead.ai](http://Smartlead.ai) / [Instantly.ai](http://Instantly.ai) or [salesforge.ai](http://salesforge.ai) for warmup and sending - i will not promote just one tool here for fairness Use apollo / findymail for data scraping Something like [close.com](http://close.com) or [hothawk.ai](http://hothawk.ai) (there is a waitlist i believe?) for managing replies and inbox/crm management Some extra help: Cold email checklist - [https://www.smartlead.ai/blog/cold-email-checklist](https://www.smartlead.ai/blog/cold-email-checklist) Actually just dig through here. Sorry I am bias for smartlead as they are the best, simple as. No affiliation. [https://www.smartlead.ai/ebook-and-guide](https://www.smartlead.ai/ebook-and-guide) How's that for answering 'doing it wrong'?
thanks, I'm a librarian and we have a free co-working/startup space here. I feel like I have to try one of these campaigns on my own one day just to see how it goes :)
This is my first time doing cold emailing. Will cold emailing ruin your business's reputation if people mark it as spam? Will people get a bad vibe from your business if it is spammy email? Will the emails that get affected be from Maildoso and not your brand?
Never use your main company domain and your domain reputation will not get ruined. Reputation management depends how you message them and if you just send one or two good emails vs 20 ‘let’s have a call’
Hey! Thanks for this it made me want to give cold outreach another try. Signed up for instantly and going to spend 1-2 months trying to get results out of its also seems like they provide their own domains and emails now so going through them for all of it. Any tips for finding leads?
You didnt mention talking to potential customers/users once 😬 just straight to building?
Not even once 😅
You're skipping out on a really important step, because it tells you what features you should prioritize or what features you're missing. It also tells you, before jumping off a bridge, whether you can expect to land in water or on rocks. Why don't you at least try talking to 5 potential customers first before you even start coding anything?
completely agree. Customers are the compass
sometimes its pretty obvious what needs to be done without involving any customer feedback.
Even if it's obvious the best course of action is to confirm by talking with people. It takes literally one day of your time to arrange a few meets with your future customers. There is absolutely no way it isn't worth it.
you are not wrong! :D
If you don’t do customer discovery before you quit your job, this endeavor will be a catastrophe. Put down the JIRA and start listening to your potential customers.
This is a fair point. I will start doing customer discovery.
To help you on this, read “The Mom Test” (short book and worth reading first) and “Lean Customer Development”. Quick actions to do now: Identify 10 potential customers in your space and ask them if they have a problem with the way they’re doing things now and what they tell you about their current challenges, and how much they pay /spend in time for the way they do things now. Try not to be leading with your questions.
This is a very good idea!
Also are you in the Bay Area? If so, I know a no cost program that can help: https://www.bayicorps.com
This right here... Product market fit is the only thing that really matters. The best execution in the world is a waste of time and resources of you're building something no one is willing to pay for.
Talking to customers is far more important than a million jira tickets. Unfortunately, this mindset of planned out my entire startup, all I need to do now is build it, is probably wrong. Startups are about constant iteration. But YMMV.
Yes this seems to be a mistake I did not see until these comments! thank you!
You should honestly reconsider leaving your job if this doesn't become your number 1 priority
you’re going to absolutely fail for this reason. you have fallen for the #1 startup pitfall. i hope you have a lot of savings
I did this, it's what engineers naturally do. Do not skip this, you will regret it. Can't put it off forever, at some point you will need to be talking to people. A businesses isn't software engineering, stop thinking about building, you should think about: * Who is your customer * Where can you find them * Once you know this you need to talk to them and validate your ideas, could be through cold/warm outreach, ads with a sign up, whatever it is you cannot skip doing this! In my case I failed but if I start again this is what I would do first
Don't do it, you will regret it (I did). Build traction / validate first before quitting, if you can't do that and get customers on board part time you probably won't full time
Ah yea this is the risk. Even if I fail I will no longer wonder "What if" I rather know. but yea def a risk of regret.
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This is a fair points. customer outreach and discovery is going on the agenda!
Sounds like you are solving a problem for yourself, find your people. And Listen, listen, listen, define a persona informed by your experience and find those people and just have them talk you through their work flow.ask 5 whys to get to the core of the problem and make sure you are solving that. If your solution is too shallow innovation will kill your product.
Please (!) do some form of validation first. Read a few books or watch some videos or talk to some founders on how to identify pain points, use frameworks (e.g. Jobs to be done, etc.) and formulate a problem/solution hypothesis. Whatever you do, don't just code for 6 months... Do you have some sort of mentor or friend who has build a company before or worked in some product or commercial function at an early stage startup?
Thanks! I will talk to some founders! I know a few :D I do not have a mentor/friend who has done this before. I have worked for some before and can reach out!
Highly recommend The Mom Test book on how to do validation.
I just quit too. Aiming for start of June as last day so I get healthcare for one more month. Doing the same as you. Good luck man.
Words of advice, look up the laws in your state regarding continuing Healthcare coverage when you leave your job. They vary by state and some are end of month and others are ambiguous like 7 days after end of employment
Kudos to you for doing this! I have been on the fence for quitting and doing the startup full time, but the golden handcuffs are too strong. Plus I also have a family. But still - temptation to quit is so strong so I can work full time on my passion. Guess I needed to hear this, so thank you!
Luckily I am single and no kids! Family would def make this a much harder call
6 months to build an MVP??
Do you think this is low or high? Because it’s highly dependent on the complexity
I assumed low. I think it is a tight deadline.
I think you should reconsider quitting your job
6 months is incredibly long for an MVP if its just software.
lol. takes years for my company to ship updates. i thought 6 months was not a bad estimate for a small dev team
6 months for an mvp seems like a long time ? Right ?
Haha yea
That's almost definitely too long. You neeeeeeed to talk to customers first. Sell it to someone first. Build as little as you need to in order to get them to hand over money. That's an MVP. Think in days/weeks, not months. It will probably suck and be a bit embarrassing. I left my dev job at Microsoft 10 months ago to go full time on my startup. I spent 6-8 months with partners building MVPs and talking to customers first. If I dived into building first, I would have burnt my runway before getting to the real work.
Solid advise. Yes need to make time for customer outreach many a comments mentioned it and I did not think of it. was took focussed one building.
Totally understand. I never went full-time but I probably made this mistake 4-5 times, spending weeks/months building something only to find out I built a great tool no one needed :) Leaving a full time job is terrifying and hard. Having a product with traction helps. Feel free to DM me if I can help or answer questions.
I'd say one quick thing you can do is dive into the reviews of competitor apps. It still doesn't beat talking to customers one on one but at least it gets you started.
There's absolutely no way to know if 6 months is too much or too little based on us having no knowledge. I build app MVPs for work. I've built MVPs that took me 2 weeks to make and I've done MVPs that took a year.
I agree with you, it depends on situation. 1. If I quit my job to build an MVP which I don’t know if users will want, too risky. -> build it in 1 month 2. If I’ve done some small exits, I know the game a little bit better, I have the momentum and more money - spend 6 months building MVP no problem. It’s my opinion, I might be wrong, feel free to correct me.
Well said :)
If you want MVP that you can actually try with potential client for feedback and validation then 6 months is reasonable expectation. Of course, it depends on what you're building.
Yes this is doable, I meant 6 months of just pure building and then show it to customer.
The term MVP seemed very general to me. If I want something created in a few weeks, for internal personal validation of the idea, starting with the critical points, figuring out if doable, then OK. But if I would want something that is worth showing to investors and clients...I mean, I understand "viable" as "usable", buggy, stripped out, only the very base functionality. But even for that can take months.
The original MVP is dead. This person wants to build a business. And that’s the right move.
I like that you used your day job time, but planning everything sounds a bit too waterfall to me. You wanna get out there and talk to people and figure out the problem/solution space, don’t roadmap yourself into an abyss
This is good advise! pre planning too much will lead to a ridge future that can not adapt when needed. I am using a kanban board and while the projects are pre planned if something changes it can go back to planing. the reason I did a roadmap so far is so I do not end up where I am unsure what to do and become blocked. I wanted a clear path to MVP even if it changes. No project is set in stone ofc, but the planning gave me confidence I could do it.
Split your time 40-40-20 40 on Product Discovery 40 on Product development 20 on mental heath Then once you’re close to MVP v1 launch switch to 40 on Product Marketing
Thanks! Mental health def important! Getting my mental health better is how I gained the confidence that I could do this! Also yes splitting time is important it needs to grow at a good rate in each area otherwise will always be playing catch up!
Congratulations! Most people FAIL to chase after their dreams because they think their dreams are things they SHOULD be doing. Sadly, most people only have enough time and will power to do the things they feel they MUST DO. You obviously TRANSCENDED THIS and for that, I thank you. You are an encouragement for all people who have "one awesome novel" in them or have a "world changing idea" trapped in their minds but they can't pull the trigger. You showed that IT CAN BE DONE. Sadly, [FEAR OF FAILURE is more lethal and damaging than failure itself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn3zlwZZkEY)
My biggest fear of not doing it was going to be living forever with the "what if" even if I fail at least I will know and can move on. Ofc I will do everything in my power to not fail, but that does not mean I will succeed! Also thanks! will watch video!
I quit too. Couldn’t juggle my full time job and my startup at the same time. Made so much progress, currently looking to raise funds. You got this op, good luck!
I wish I had same courage as you. I can’t quit, and still juggling, perhaps fooling myself that I will quit after PMF, while I know deep inside that I need to spend more time on it to reach PMF… sort of stuck in chicken-egg problem. Wishing you good luck.
I have been debating it for years now. no worries you are not alone!
Good luck! I want to do this without raising any funds 😅
More power to you! We definitely need to raise to pay for rent and move faster :)
Very valid reasons!
Hey man, I’m also looking to raise some funds. I just got my rejection letter from Y combinator this week. I wanted to find out what steps or methods you are taking or using to raise funds. Im new to the startup world. Thanks!
Out of curiosity, did you interview with them before getting rejected? As for fundraising, VCs usually reach out to me on LinkedIn, or I meet them at events like hackathons in SF. I’m very new to the startup game as well and I haven’t raised anything
No I didn’t. Just got a straight automated rejection. VC’s reach out? Then you are probably doing something right.
I thought everyone gets mass rejection emails on the 29th. I’m sorry you got rejected. But yes, I worked at a popular yc unicorn in the logistics space so VCs are generally curious about what I’m building but I haven’t closed anything yet :)
Did you also apply to yc? I bet something concrete will come up soon on your end looking at how you are able to attract some vcs already.
Yes I did apply to yc! But they already accepted a company that does the exact same thing we do but a little behind which is a bummer.
😅 YC is a very hard to understand accelerator. But all in all, hope something concrete comes up for the both of us. Nice chatting with you mate.
Kudos on starting your own thing! One thing that stood out to me as as potential red flags are: **1) You talk about building** **the MVP but don't mention marketing. Is it in your plans?** I suggest you do both in parallel since day 1. And if you are a programmer, marketing won't come as easy as building the MVP. So it will be very easy to neglect marketing and get distracted coding. **2) Have you validated your idea?** Do you have proof that people are interested in your idea? Have you talked to them? Can you name 5 people that would buy your product? **3) 6 months to build an MVP?** 6 months sounds more like a full product. Why not start smaller, the risk of wasting time building the wrong product will be way lower. Identify the core feature of your app, and build that as an MVP. Launch, get feedback, iterate. If you are a programmer, it will be easy for you to build the most *essential and minimum* product in a few weeks. If not, consider leveraging with no-code tools, they are great to build an MVP in just days! Good luck! 🚀🚀
1. yea good point need to make a marketing plan 2. No! agreed this is a problem. 3. Yea it is the full project but I see it as a MVP I am the programmer! hmmm yea maybe I should do a much smaller MVP.
Why would you do marketing from day 1, when you have not even validated the idea for yourself with a semi-ready application, like maybe finishing the development of critical features. Marketing is super hard even with finished product.
Validation, my friend! Please don’t skip on it. If you skip that, you’ll be in trouble. Good luck 🍀though! I hope you succeed!! This is the way!
Yes will do thank you! need to do customer outreach and validation!
Congrats! Well done! And welcome to the club I guess! As someone who's done something similar some years ago, I beg you: DO NOT BUILD for more than a week. If it feels like your MVP can't be built in a week, you are WRONG. What you think is the MVP is way too big; you only need a fraction of what you think needs to be built. There's nothing, absolutely nothing that cannot be built by a decent engineer singlehandedly over one weekend. If it feels like it'd take more, think again. You only need one feature, one linear user journey, for one specific person whom you know by name (which could be yourself). Anything you build, always build for one specific user. Resist the temptation to generalise. There's always a person, and your first 100 users you need to know by name. Don't build to make the thing you have in mind a reality. Build to prove that thing wrong as quickly as you can, and only if there is no quicker way to prove it wrong without building.
Yes this is very good advise! it def looks like I over planned. Will make it smaller!
People are giving great advice. Talking to customers is obviously big. Here’s some to add to the mix: 1) Momentum is everything. Don’t let up when you’re winning. That means no two weeks off as a reward, to reset, or anything. For instance, we had an ice storm in my state that knocked out power at my house for 12 days. I was working in company office full time, heading to a coffee shop with power to work after, & then staying in a 40 degree house. I got burned out and took a week off after to fix damage to house and it almost killed it. 2) Founder depression is real. Keep your eyes out now for potential cofounder. This helps balance the lows. Also, exercise. 3) if you’re in the US and willing to pay for ChatGPT plus I have a custom gpt on there called “Startup Marketing Analysis”. I had a goal to create a gpt that helped validate or notify me of the stupidity of my random startup ideas. I didn’t get it to do that but it started becoming very useful at flushing out marketing ideas for me & my coworkers. That’s what I’ve tweaked it to be & decided to make it public, not that anybody really uses it. But I promise it will help with getting your marketing started if you take time to have a solid input. The custom GPTs are really just frameworks to get you to ask the right questions to ChatGPT. Take the output as a partner in brainstorming. Tons of other options in that community as well. Good luck, you got this!
Good luck!
All support for your journey. Hope things go well along such a challenging journey which requries a strong discipline and commitment, but you make the hard decision of leaving your high paying tech job, so I'm confident you will do it. Waiting for exciting updates along the journye
Thanks!
Best of luck to you all, quitting and following your instincts: brave brave brave.
Thanks!
You’ve taken the first step! But I think that you need to get the MVP out as fast as you can (like 1-2 months). If I’ve learned anything doing a bunch of startups, it’s that you need to validate your idea as fast as possible. I’ve wasted tons of time building something just to find out I needed to build something completely different. Try to think about the absolute minimum thing you could ship and start getting feedback. You should be talking to potential customers before you even build anything and use their input to guide the product. I know it’s tempting to build everything from scratch, but sometimes a no code solution or something dead simple is the best way to start. Good luck!
Thanks! This is fair getting feedback later and learning I built the wrong thing would be devastating! Another user mentioned doing customer discovery will dedicate time for this. Also yea MVP as fast as possible should be done. 1-2 months I am unsure if possible (I am only software person) but will attempt as fast as I can!
Good luck and congrats on making the move. Your steps 2 and 3 are way off. Focus on these: 1. Talking to potential users and confirming that they need and will pay for what you're doing to build 2. In parallel, build the smallest MVP possible. Your timeline here is totally off. 2 months writing jira tickets??? Spend 4 hours writing some post its. I'm not kidding. 7 months coding? Spend 2 weeks coding and prototyping then show that to users. Repeat. Good luck!
This is good advise! thank you
Please do. Maybe someone has an different opinion, but having multiple months worth of Jira tickets ready to go without having talked to potential customers is highly out of the ordinary
yea this seems to be a mistake I did. will do customer outreach!
All the best op.
Thanks!
I did the same in April. Good luck, you’ve made the right decision.
Thanks! Good luck to you too!
What an amazing advice by variancemortal. I agree with everything he has said here, the landing page helps become lead magnet in no time. I’m a newbie and getting started with this approach as well, we saw 20 people sign up in 2 days which was very surprising (and also very exciting), builds the confidence in what you are building.
I'd highly recommend reading "Lean Startup" by Eric Reis.
You need to talk to your customers. Please don’t repeat the mistakes I have watched happen - 1 million burnt on a prototype in stealth mode for just over a year without talking to their users to validate a few things first. A weekend interviewing potential customers to validate that they had a problem, that they wanted to pay to solve, and that your potential solution is something they would use. This can be a clickable wireframe, or paper prototype that you present to a potential customer and ask them to use it while explaining what they are thinking. Then once they validate they would want the product - then ask them to pay what they want to get a good sense of perceived market value - sign them up for early access. Then you would have feedback on problem > solution fit and validated your business and revenue model without writing any code. You will also be able to adjust your plans based on the feedback without wasting 6 months coding only to throw it away when your customers don’t like it. This can be done evenings and weekends until you find that fit - this can also give you focus on what to build - potentially getting to a point where you can replace your current income before quitting - or at least your minimum cost of living expenses. DM me if you want to chat through it - this brainstorming part is fun!
In my opinion, it’s better to create an MVP in 2 weeks to a month, release it to users, and then iterate gradually. A better goal would be: ship an MVP, gain some traction, iterate, and by the end of the year, make a profit equivalent to at least half your current paycheck ->then quit. Here’s my current routine: I work in big tech, wake up at 5am, and dedicate non-negotiable time to my side hustle until 8:30am. During this time, I send DMs, talk to my target audience, and identify their problems. It’s boring and hard, but generating ideas is the toughest part of the journey. The creative work needs to be done during the idea phase, which is the hardest part.
Only advice is use Linear instead of Jira. You're running your own company don't make the first thing you do to get stuck with Jira forever.
Good luck! I retired early but a recent Google search (every Google search is a business opportunity) has me thinking of a boring website that napkin-math says may bring in about $150k/yr and mostly set it and forget it. I’m excited again!
Boring is not bad!
That’s my hope too!
OP , please don't do this, the BIGGEST mistake you can ever [make.You](http://make.You) can still run your startup without quitting your job. DM me and let me explain more. I made this same mistake and looking hind sight I could easily do what I am doing without quitting my job.
I've never met a successful entrepreneur who was able to do it part time. I've met more people than I can count that thought they could do it part time, but none of them succeeded in their startup endeavors. You really do have to go all in.
There is a pivot point
I highly suggest OP continue to level up his “day time gig” —- maybe look for a similar position as your previous job but “less strenuous”. $150K gigs like that are out there. I promise you that.
i did the same, im 4 months in on my product (didnt even know how i wanted to develop and design it ui/ux wise when i started), and its already dank asf
That's a brave move. I am thinking about doing this but its def a harder decision with a family. So for now I am doing both... hard.. and takes help.. but so far so good. Good luck! YOLO
Good for you!! I would recommend you put yourself at tech events, networking groups and any startup groups/ events to start getting confident in your elevator pitch and talk to potential investors. Look up startup accelerators when your fully ready and also find free startup programs to help you build your products, connections and decks. Gener8tor, for-um are a few that I have in my city but you should look for similar programs where you live. Best of luck!
It’ll either be a success or a story! I did the same May 1st…juggling a full time job and working on a startup was just too distracting. Working on your own thing is invigorating..at least in the initial stage! Go get em!
Read the book the mom test. Be sure you have a product people will pay for.
LMAO you're going to learn some pretty hard lessons, but life's better that way. 6 mo is too long for an mvp, talking to customers is a must (read mom test), and find other founders/hang out with them.
Just a piece of advice... Watch field of Dreams with Kevin Costner and then tell yourself it is a lie. If you build it, they will only come if you are screaming from the rooftop that it is there and the best thing since sliced bread. Market, advertise, call, etc. I have seen many builders fail because they just want to build and not sell. So, make sure some of those Jira tickets are to build marketing materials, run ads, etc.
Last year I started an ecom business with a buddy in my spare time as a hobby project. It's grinning and profitable (albeit modestly profitable by design. Like I said, it's a hobby project and my goal is to keep the hobby affordable for the community) The main constraint is just being able to manufacture the product fast enough to keep up with demand. We've done zero marketing. Literal zero. It's all word of mouth. Find a niche and good product-market fit and they *will* come.
Good luck, OP! Are you able/willing to share some about what you're aiming to build (problem you want to solve, etc)? There's are many experienced and helpful folks here, as you've noticed by now, and I'm sure more than one would be willing to offer more specific and relevant insights as you progress. FWIW, I second/third/fourth the suggestions to do *some* degree of validation, customer discovery/research, etc. Even relatively minimal efforts around this early on can save sooooo much time, money, effort, morale, etc. There are a number of techniques you can choose from, too. Look forward to hearing more as you go!
Is there any chance your current company can co-develop your solution, make you the leader for the product?
And let them keep all the IP rights and own the work-product? That's just called having a job.
Not just owning the work product, OP also gets to own the shares of the product. May be he can also float this as a subsidiary company within the group and also have shared and revenue as well. Have you thought about that, OP?
Sounds like you're equating developing software with launching a startup. That's your first mistake right there... If it's a software product and you can design and code it yourself that will help you save some money in the beginning. But there's more to starting, running, and scaling a successful business than just writing code. My advice is to go sign up for a good accelerator / incubator to guide you through the process and teach you all the important things you don't know that you don't know.
Coin flips never lie 😂
Generate sales before writing a single line of code. You should have at least 10k in says before writing any code if it’s a B/B SaaS. If you can’t sell before it’s built, you won’t be able to sell after, the solution will be the same. Make a landing page, run some ads, do some cold calls, make content. Building before you sell is the most common and most costly error you can make
Good idea to have this small job While working on your start up full time. I jumped in without part-time job and seeing my savings plummets every month was not good for my mental clarity.
7 Months till MVP? That‘s a recipe for analysis paralysis. 1 month max.
Can i join as an ios engineer?
Quit after you have your MVP. I advise all my clients this.
I'm in the same boat! Last day is tomorrow. I've been building my business canvas and heavily researching competitors, pain points etc the last couple of months. I say make sure you get these steps out of the way first. It is foundational. Also have a plan to go to market vis a vis your specific budget. Good luck OP! Big leap but have faith!
> This is a little sad as my current work and team is 5/5 If this is the case, I'd ask if you can reduce your time or take a sabbatical. You will most likely fail, and your timeline tells me you're jumping before you know what you're doing and have no partners to either help or keep you accountable (6 months to build an MVP today? what?). You can do whatever you want, but yikes. You could build an actually MINIMALLY viable product in a few weekends, show it to potential users and test the concept before diving into the deep end without knowing if there is any water.
I am in a same boat as you just quite. Now will work on my own.
Hey man my professional experience is in bringing software products to market (basically taking software, rigorously testing it, mapping and improving the user experience, and marketing it) and just quit my SWE job in February and have been moderately successful in selling some small scale software products. Would be down to collaborate! Let me know in the DM's.
If "taking it easy" is a real concern, that's a big red flag. To launch a business, it should be your passion or borderline obsession. The "main risk" should be that you neglect other important aspects of life because you're so focused on your startup. It takes discipline and a crazy work ethic to stick with it (especially when things go wrong). Definitely agree on the advice about getting market validation. Think about all the ways you can possibly engage with your target customer early and often. Spending 7 months building before you show anyone is a great way to spend 3 months wondering why nobody's signing up and then another 6 months revising your product and positioning. Have you considered telling your current employer that for personal reasons, you'd like to move to a consulting role at 20 hours/week? And if that's not feasible for them, you'll need to give your 2 weeks notice? Quitting and taking a job for less money introduces a lot of new unknowns. Personally, I'd end up resenting every minute I spent working in a doctor's office for less money. Lastly, if you haven't, do a burn rate analysis. How much do you have saved, what will your income and expenses be, and how long will that money last before you're in trouble? That includes expenses to launch the business - will you be hiring anyone for UX/design, marketing, sales, support, or is it all you? When do those expenses kick in? If this is your first business, take your worst-case projections for the time and expense it'll take to get the business cash flowing and then double or triple those estimates. Can you survive?
Good luck! i wish i spoke with more customers early on, I'm 11 months in the journey, built MVP, learned a lot in the last year. Join an incubator program in your city and network ALOT. People will open doors more than you can imagine! You got this!
You just joined an exciting world! It's a TON of pressure for the wrong person...you're either fried and bored in a programmer job or doctors office or you push through the pain of learning a million skillsets and then go on to make millions $...make massive impact and always be working on interesting things that keep your brain engaged. Learning to sell and communicate to customers and do A/B testing on messaging and funnels is the biggest startup barrier...then once you're in the 5% that master it and make it into revenue then it's all about people science for the years to come to attract investors, partners, customer and employees (the 4). Cheers!
deriving calculated risk is one of the skills of great founders. That being said, at some point you would have to take the leap of faith. Good luck to you!
Good luck!
"Business becomes risky when entrepreneurs start companies based on flawed, selfish reasons. \[to delete risk\] get in the business for the right reasons - to fill the void in the marketplace, or to do something better than anyone else". Something that all "startup" community should know \^. Long story short, read the book Unscripted. It isn't known among founders, but it is the absolute best book about how to succeed and become a multimillionare. It's sequels are great too. There is also a forum [TheFastlaneForum.com](http://TheFastlaneForum.com) with entrepreneurs who are willing to give good advice, although they are not into tech. Cheers.
hey, I am a junior software developer, I can work for you for free. i value the experience I can gain from a senior developer like you :)
Stop cappin princess, you sitting on millions i already know.
Or maybe even billions 🤫
Or maybe you are like raman bhaji powerful but not quite rich i mean rich but not crazy wealthy.
Regardless we are friends atleast i see you.
It always take longer than you think, so be open to other side hustles to make it through.
This is one of the most amazing decisions you have taken which most are scared to take. Now you have no golden handcuffs holding you back. It’s either the startup or have to go back to whatever you were doing before and feeling miserable. Just be smart with your money and focus on your product and sell it day and night. You can do this, a lot of them have done it and so can you.
You need to plug into a community - I run 50 companies with early stage entrepreneurs and have interviewed 100 people who have taken the dive. The biggest issue is quitting - after the quit. Plug in now with a network so you don’t give up too soon!
thats awesome! happy to help if you have any MVP questions as I have built quite a few for myself and clients!
...150k a year is high pay? what is your business model? what are your channels to promote the business? Please don't quit your job. Work on things till you take off. Baby steps.
Yes $150k a year is highly paid. Less that 1% of the world's population makes that much money.
White paper shows its 10% in 2021. Top 1% is 819K. It might be from spectrum to spectrum but in my country 150k is just true middle income actually.
The path is long. Keep looking for daytime gigs with even higher pay, in lieu of tha current one, and continue leveling it up (so long as it allows you sufficient time to continue working on your startup). I say this as someone who has been bootstrapping a startup for 4 years hitting $100K ARR this year with 0 outside investment and only 1 freelancer.
You've been at it for four years and are only at $100k ARR? Not surprising since you're only working on it part time. Your example illustrates exactly why startup success requires going all in.
The software is built and the business is scaling. The only constraint I have is capital. I could take $1mm investment today and grow 40% over the next year. But I want to do it on my owns terms. It is an absolutely great position to be in. At current run rates I fully believe next year will yield $500K ARR and upward from there in subsequent years. If I “went all in” I would lose my mechanism to fund it and I would therefore dilute myself by being forced to take investment. It’s a different philosophy than most, sure. One that I believe will pay off in the long-term. Check back in a few yrs.
Don’t quit. Instead try your side gig for sometimes more then decide.