Rob Walling

Rob Walling's books are pretty good and his first one "Start Marketing The Day You Start Coding" is a free download from his website https://robwalling.com/#books

Spend some time around Rob’s universe: https://robwalling.com/ There are a lot of people like you. You don’t need to move and you don’t need to hire anyone unless you want to. You need product market fit and the ability to learn. Find others to speak to, maybe go to microconf.

Rob Walling coined the "Stair Step Approach" as a way to get yourself into startups in a lower risk way: https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stair-step-method-of-bootstrappi… He has also talked about it on his "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast: https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-222-the-stair-… Might be worth trying Rob's approach before leaving your job and betting the farm on a startup idea...

Big fan of Rob and his work, for those unfamiliar with him he's one of the founders of MicroConf, half of the "Startups for the Rest of Us" podcast and built and then sold Drip (an Email Service). Whether or not you're seeking to build your own microsaas or you're going full VC funding I feel pretty strongly that you'll see the time spent reading his book as worthwhile. Here's a direct link to it (it's not gated on his site, so this seems fine to share) https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf

"The new business road test" - John Mullins "Will it fly" - Pat Flynn "Start marketing" - Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/assets/ebook.pdf) I recommend the article on "Why Startup Founders Should Stop Reading Business Books" ;) https://youtu.be/19WpIbBhxJU (don't know where I got this...) Ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions. Explanation: AWFUL IDEA -1 WEAK IDEA 1 SO-SO IDEA 5 GOOD IDEA 10 GREAT IDEA 15 BRILLIANT IDEA 20 NO EXECUTION $1 WEAK EXECUTION $1000 SO-SO EXECUTION $10,000 GOOD EXECUTION $100,000 GREAT EXECUTION $1,000,000 BRILLIANT EXECUTION $10,000,000 To make a business, you need to multiply the two. The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000. That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see their execution.

> Are all startups at my age generally side hustles that become profitable enough to quit my day job? Maybe yes. But that's only the first step. 40yo here, married, 3 kids (5yo, 3yo, 1yo), and a mortgage. I am more in the risk-averse side. I was a CIO ('I' as in 'investment') in a family office. In 2019 I started building a document processing service (eg merge, encrypt PDFs) as a side hustle. It grew slowly and steadly, until, in May 2022 I got enough recurring revenue to ask my employer to reduce my load to half-time, taking a paycheck cut. In the other half of the day, I am working in a more ambitious idea. I expect that at the time I am ready to launch, the income from my document processing service will be near 100% of my full-time FO paycheck, so I am taking very little financial risk. Two resources that would have helped me a lot when I was having the same questions as you are: - Rob Walling's "Stair Step Method" https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stair-step-method-of-bootstrappi… - Dan Hulton's "Evaluating Modest SaaS Business Ideas" https://greaterdanorequalto.com/evaluating-modest-saas-business-ideas/

Building an online course[1] has been one of the easiest ways to make money in my personal experience. Other things I've tried building: SaaS, Trades business, Freelancing business. I've made over $8k since I launched last month and it's been a great stepping stone into other ideas. The main problem I see going forward is getting consistent traffic. Building the course was the "easy" part and now I'm focusing hard on SEO to keep consistent traffic going to my page. Long term I think I can make $100-$300 a day with it. I floundered trying to build SaaS and other types of business for years before making some money online. Selling a one time purchase can be a game changer for those looking to go independent. Look at the stairstep approach[2] for reasons why this works so well. Overall, if you invest a few days and put something out there, I think an online course can be a great way to build some income. [1] https://www.vim.so [2] https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stairstep-approach-to-bootstrapp…

Here are a couple links if you want to get started with my work, all focused on bootstrapping profitable SaaS companies: [Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping] https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stair-step-method-of-bootstrappi… [Podcast] https://startupsfortherestofus.com [Book] https://saasplaybook.com [YouTube] https://microconf.com/youtube

Somewhat related, I know of people who buy smaller companies on MicroAcquire or elsewhere, typically for some small 4 or 5 figure USD sum, then they simply monetize it with ad spend and paywalling certain features. They generate 10x revenue then they sell it again for another 5-10x multiple, rinse and repeat. For example, Rob Walling, cofounder of Drip, MicroConf and now TinySeed, did this: https://robwalling.com/2015/12/02/what-i-learned-buying-growing-and-se… https://vimeo.com/70901901 Now instead of buying the company, you can simply do the same for free via repackaging the open source project.

If you have design or product mindset, then the idea of spending a few weeks to launch products make sense. One good reference is the "stair step" approach. You can make something that a few people will pay $50-$100/month for. Maybe like a theme or a designed landing page. Then you can ramp up to make something that does $100-$250/month. Once you have those two, then aim for something that brings in $300-$600 month. If the 1000-1500 range seems daunting, then aim for an intentionally low, but consistent amount, then repeat. Link: https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stairstep-approach-to-bootstrapp…

Now that I already have a Step 1 business that I'm surviving on. I'm looking to move up to Step 2 or 3. I have been reading up a lot on customer acquisition especially from 0 - 100 and also tweeting abt it (https://twitter.com/p0larboy). If anyone has a good resource on this, please let me know. Stairstep analog from Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stairstep-approach-to-bootstrapp…

There's more details on Rob Walling's blog here: https://robwalling.com/2018/10/12/my-next-act-the-first-startup-accele…

First, it is just very hard to make money from ad/donation supported niche content sites. I am running few sites like this for half decade and my income is basical half of what it was last year every year, even with 20%/year increase of traffic. It basically went from being able to pay my mortgage to paying for nice dinner each month. I like what is described as The Stairstep Approach: https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stairstep-approach-to-bootstrapp…