Stats for nerds
11recommend
20mentions
15people
2013–2024years
65% recommend35% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Understand that being a successful solopreneurs (or entrepreneur for that matter) isn't just about "coding a thing." When I started educating myself about how to be a solopreneur, I realized that I'd be lucky if I spent 50% of my time coding; and would more likely spend 1/3rd of my time coding.
A couple of things to consider:
- Business is more about execution than being the first to market with an idea. Marketing, customer satisfaction, pricing, reliability, ect, all come into play. Before you create, spend time looking at the "dozens of other solutions doing the same thing." You may find a weakness, unfulfilled need, niche, ect. Often times, in early markets with lots of players, the first movers have a lot of baggage that holds them back from growing.
(IE, the first movers made a lot of false starts and end up with Frankenstien products. You can "bypass" them by better understanding the market and building something with less functionality, but just enough functionality to meet most of the market's needs. This is a huge advantage because you aren't wasting time fixing a feature that only 2-3 people use, or making sure you don't break that one feature that 2 people use.)
- Look at books like "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" by Don Lancaster or "Start Small, Stay Small" by Rob Walling.
- Read through (and watch) a lot of YC material about starting a business. Although it isn't focused on solopreneurs, a lot of the concepts are very similar.
Me: I realized that I enjoy joining a company early and turning the MVP into an industrial-strength product.
- I've been doing this for over 30 years. I've iterated to this. The first iteration was not managing my money at all.
The watershed was when I had my first real success with my own business, combined with having my first child (both happened at about the same time). That forced me to face the reality that some sort of money management was essential, and through a couple of years of experimentation, I settled on this as a balance that worked well for me.
"Pay yourself first" is something I stole from the classic book "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" by Don Lancaster. That, by the way, is the only business book I've read that I found real value in.
- Also The Incredible Secret Money Machine, which may be more relevant to this audience.
- In the Incredible Secret Money Machine, one of his tips was to cut off the power cord to your TV. (Pre Internet era!) The solid advice to not let yourself get distracted is invaluable. And harder than ever in today's world.
He also welcomed people contacting him directly with questions. Amazing. (Derek Sivers does than now: amazing).
- Another luminary passes. Thank you, Mr. Lancaster.
Although I was introduced to him through his electronics books, I think it's no exaggeration to say that of all the books I've read, it was "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" that had the largest influence in my life.
Too many years ago, when I was getting ready to start my new business, I read pretty much every business book I could lay my hands on. Although easily the shortest, "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" was the best of them by a longshot. It distills fairly commonsense business advice into a short collection of concentrated wisdom, and tailors it for the one-person venture. I think part of the value is that is isn't an academic treatise on entrepreneurship. It's more like a short writeup on what worked and didn't work for Don's own business ventures.
I think that in every business mistake I've made, I can point to a page in that book where he said outright not to do whatever I did.
- Kevin Kelly recently published a link to "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" which is about making a sustainable (but not massive) living from your hobbies.
Might be of interest to somebody: https://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/ismm.pdf
