Nicholas Watson

Someone once said to me "be careful that your customers don't end up owning you" and it rang true, I once tried to build everything in to please everyone and got very sidetracked. There's a fine line between sticking to your roadmap and pleasing early adopters, right?

I've had projects that were bootstrapped, yet my last big business was investor backed, including a huge crowdfunding campaign we ran on Crowdcube. I would never go the investor route again! But it's not to say I don't think it's right. Ultimately I feel everyone's position is different. One round usually means another, and further dilution. A $1bn exit at 20% is just the same return as a...

Sharing your product development journey can build a community, but does it also risk exposing your ideas to competitors? How transparent should founders be? I meet founders that are very protective of their ideas, yet others are open. I think I heard in an Indie Hackers podcast once that there is always about 10 people pursuing your idea, and execution is everything! And luck...a bit of luck ;)

If 90% of start-ups fail, why not launch 12 of them? ;) I wanted to say hi, I'm Nick. I've helped scale 100+ software projects over 10 years in a digital agency (build and marketing) and then ran my own SaaS business for 8 years. I grew fast, made some mistakes and failed hard. Now, I'm back and in the consultancy world with an epic team, building and launching a product each month, and...

Of course, having a good idea and problem you're solving is a given, but say you have all the usual things in order, what would you advise? I've found so much mixed advice online, and I want to do it ethically!