Solo founders thoughts
David
8 replies
Hi all! Solo founder here. I find it incredibly difficult to handle everything by myself sometime. Even though the platform I run is not breaking any records, there is a lot of work daily. I would like to hear your thoughts on:
1. Why are you a solo founder? Is it that you lack persons to work with or simply prefer to work on your own?
2. At what point do you think you will need to onboard some additional help? Do you have a set goal that you need to hit for this to happen?
Looking forward to discuss!
Replies
Brittany Partridge@deleted-2487397
1) solo founder because I haven't found a co-founder yet & I have to make sure my idea is as clear as possible before bringing in another opinion. I'm using an agency to build it so they listen to what I want to do
2) I'll need help once I'm out of MVP stage and about to raise funding - this will be a technical co-founder to build the product, then we'll sell it ourselves until we find the right person for sales/marketing
Blitzscaling is an idea but idk if it's relevant anymore
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@david_takacs what're your thoughts?
Storypony
@brittany_partridge I am a solo founder as I simply wanted to see if my platform was worth spending time on - didn't want to waste anyone else's time. Now that it seems my product is gaining some momentum, I will need to bring someone else in. I will be looking at a person with tech background likely in a few months' time.
Let me say this though: never had I imagined how much effort goes in being a solo founder trying to get started and maintain a product. What an eye opener (and a good challenge :)
@david_takacs what do you think is the hardest part?
Storypony
@brittany_partridge Good question:) I would say to keep the consistency of your efforts. It can be very disappointing when things don't go as planned but even in those darker days you must find the will to keep going. It seems to be a thing of habit though, I would say it's more difficult in the beginning when you are not even sure if it's worth the effort (not that I ever am sure, but there is certainly more data to help you evaluate it better).
Anything in particular you had difficulties with?
@david_takacs the thing I'm most struggling with is: done is better than perfect vs perfect is better than done. For some cases like social apps, done is better then perfect, but in my case, I think perfect is better than done applies.
Everyone says launch fast but if you're launching a shitty product with a poor user experience, that doesn't really fly these days and you're going to lose early adopters if it doesn't properly work. The AirbNb example is great but technology has come a long way and people expect more.
I'm coming from a non-tech background so the learning curve has been substantial and I'm always on-edge talking to new people about the product who might just go and make it themselves.
Right now, the struggle is that after getting feedback from someone who's opinion I really trust, the product has to change and I just implemented development with an agency that now I really feel like I should put on pause but again, everyone says ship quickly so it's a toss up.
I haven't made it to the post-dev stage yet :) What do you mean by maintain a product?