Unicorn Free

Do what you know. I'm sure you encountered a ton of business inefficiency in your previous life. You were around it long enough that you probably internalized these issues, and don't even recognize them as problems in need of solutions. Spend some time thinking about what these might be, and leverage the friends and acquaintances you still have in industry. Be careful about confirmation bias and the unwillingness of friends to call bullshit on your bad ideas, though. Your friends will be loathe to say "your idea sucks," so you'll need to come up with a better litmus test than that for determining if you're on the right track. Asking for money is probably a good one :) Patrick McKenzie (patio11) and Amy Hoy write about this and related topics quite regularly. Spend some time reading through what they've written: * http://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/ * http://unicornfree.com

Check out Amy Hoy [1] and Don Lancaster [2]. Both place strong stress on "manageability by one person" and avoiding outside investments/interference. Two lesser-known conferences with previous-year videos online are LessConf and MicroConf. Worth checking out. [1] http://unicornfree.com [2] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=lancaster+incredible…

Might be worth trying to make an infoproduct: http://unicornfree.com/ (like e-books, screencasts and things like that to help teach people things, distilled information certainly has a value)

Watch this space. I will soon be offering you the best damn guide for making a living off content (as a developer/designer) that's available anywhere. For sale, of course ;) But if you want less-compiled, less-curated info now... check out my old blog: http://slash7.com. I talked about the book, you can see some of my marketing first-hand. My new, biz-focused site is http://unicornfree.com. But it's still ramping up, as you can see, since I'm focused on growing http://letsfreckle.com at the moment to >$10k/mo.

Devops actually makes things a little easier I think. With Ansible, setting up a server on AWS feels a little like maintaining a vimrc file. Get a starter playbook from someone and run that to setup a server on AWS. Then you modify as needed as you go through your days as a developer. The great thing about Ansible playbooks is that it codifies the setup. You have a "recipe" that you can modify and run as needed. For me, this is much better than the days where I would set up a VPS "firing from the hip." If you had me setup 10 different servers, I would have set them up 10 different ways. I think for development knowledge in general, it might be good to look at the following people... http://www.kalzumeus.com/ (patio11 here) http://brennandunn.com/ http://unicornfree.com/ Take a read through. For these guys, it's all about products. In the end, that's all that matters. Maybe try for a change of perspective where you look at your skills in terms of products. In Amazon, there are probably projects where they lock developers in dark basements to learn arcane crafts so specialized that these engineers forget how to spell their name. These engineers would probably struggle just the same as you if the need for these specialties were to disappear. Faced with the need to "retool" - would they be able to do it? Some might, some might not. There is (and probably will be for quite some time) still a lot of need for people doing the sort of "LAMP" development that you cut your…

I and many people like me make large (six-figure annual) passive* income streams from selling information products online. My flagship product is a book/video bundle to teach web development with Ruby on Rails, and sells for $159 (http://railstutorial.org/). Many people who use it go on to get new jobs paying them 50%–200% more money, which makes the product an easy sell to the right market. *Of course, it's not perfectly passive, but it's pretty darn close: ~2 hrs per week (for customer service) plus ~3 months full-time every 15–18 months (to make a new edition). There are lots of opportunities to make product businesses like mine. It's not a startup in the traditional sense; I think of it as a medium risk, medium reward business. It can also free you up to take bigger risks, such as starting a full-blown startup, which is what I'm doing now. In particular, I'm working on a publishing platform to allow technical authors to make profitable information-product businesses. (I love meta.) I recommend reading Amy Hoy's blog [Unicornfree](http://unicornfree.com/) for ideas and suggestions, and maybe take her 30x500 course some time. You may find yourself surprised that it's not snake oil or Ponzi schemes—you can earn an honest, healthy living while still having a huge amount of time and freedom.

There is definitely a third option. You don't need to have an idea, or even investment to start a company now a days. Maybe your definition of company is much larger, but there are people who has successfully launched a SaaS company with a) no idea of what they were building and b) no money to build it themselves initially and c) no development skills to build it themselves. I am not affiliated at all, nor am i member of this group/company but I suggest you go check out http://thefoundation.com -- get the free case study about Sam. It's loaded with great information.. But the TLDR is simple: Dane Maxwell has a "system" he teaches entrepreneurs. It's a way to source a market for an idea, then actually find paying customers who are willing to wait for the product, then you turn around and use that capital as inital investment for developers. it's a system that has been replicated, and it's quite inspiring. There are also people like Amy Hoy http://unicornfree.com who actually hits many of the same types of "philosophies" when it comes to building a SaaS company. "There are too many bad companies out there" -- then don't give them your money. HackerNews community really looks down upon things like petty insults (and I believe you just called the founder of Y Combinator [creator of this site] dumb).

I'm 9 months in to my startup (consultancy/product combo for enterprise), probably 2 weeks from having the first signed deal. I quit my day job June 2012. Then I wasted 6 months spinning my wheels. What got me back on track? patio11 (http://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/) and Amy Hoy (http://unicornfree.com/). The way they think about these things is a much better match for how I think about the world than say Eric Ries (that said, great book, and anyone involved in building a gragh db has my whole-hearted admiration.) Key things for me are: -holy shit, you can charge $x0,000/week (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4805091)? What am I doing wrong? What can I do to charge that much? No seriously, what can I do to charge that much? Thinking about that pretty solid for about a month changed the way I view things (both consultancy and product). - if you're doing it right, you're customers will tell you "shut up and take my money" (http://unicornfree.com/2012/shut-up-and-take-my-money-or-how-to-pitch-… I started off with an idea and was looking for a customer. That wasn't fun. Starting with a customer and solving their problems is much nicer. Also: I'm reliably told that you don't need to quit your day job if your smart about it. That said, doing this full time is pretty sweet.

Anyone can tell people to do what makes them happy or leave their dissatisfying job. These exhortations have become platitudes. If you want to help people find fulfillment, you need to move beyond the low hanging fruit of personal development advice. You need to do work. You need to talk to people and find out why they stay in their jobs. Then you need to address those concerns. The exhortation to "do what makes you happy" has been around for a long time, yet there are still people in dissatisfying jobs. Is offering another formulation of the same message going to make a difference? If your audience doesn't respond to your message, you work on your message, you don't just repeat it with subtle variations. If you want to see someone who is doing work in this field and saying something new, read http://www.unicornfree.com/ or http://www.paulgraham.com/. There is simply no comparison between the kind of practical, "actionable" advice Amy Hoy and Paul Graham are offering and the platitudes presented in this post. Specifically, read http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html which almost exactly echoes what I just said (despite reading it only after making this post): "We've got it down to four words: 'Do what you love.' But it's not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated."

If you need some additional motivation, I recommend Just F*cking Ship (https://unicornfree.com/just-fucking-ship/). It helped me get out of a rut and focus on what's most important.

"Do you know of any resources to learn about tech lifestyle businesses?" https://unicornfree.com/ http://courses.30x500.com/

This article might help: https://unicornfree.com/2013/help-my-saas-isnt-growing (and the follow-up https://unicornfree.com/2013/how-i-increased-conversion-2-4x-with-bett… ) In short, here priorities are: - Raise prices - Convert more trials to paid - Retain more already-paying customers (already mentioned) - Convert more visitors to trials (already mentioned) - Get more visitors

So much speculation going on here. Amy Hoy actually researched it (https://unicornfree.com/2015/nobody-will-pay-10000-for-an-apple-watch-… and 10k isn't much for the kind of high-end fashion market that will buy this. In fact it is kinda low, as Amy points out the 10k will only get you the "basic bitch" version of the Berkin bag. Basically a) you are not the market and b) for those who are the market here 10k is not much. Side note I love Amy Hoys writing and suggest you all go read her site.

Amy Hoy has a great elaboration on this strategy at https://unicornfree.com/stacking-the-bricks

There’s a whole movement around Micropreneurship, which celebrates the fact that not all product businesses need to become "the next Facebook" to be successful. It all depends on your definition of success. http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/80.03.MicropreneurManifesto http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com http://unicornfree.com

Amy Hoy has some suggestions on that under what she calls "Sales Safari" here: http://unicornfree.com/ Some of it involves hanging out in places where a market you know bitches about things, and find out what their issues are.

Thanks!! Here's what I've used: http://copyhackers.com http://unicornfree.com/ Also, I've dissected landing pages from people like Ramit Sethi, Amy Hoy, Brennan Dunn, and Joanne Weibe. Hope that helps!

>That's why I simply can't believe that he (or anyone for that matter) writes these things for a purpose other than to express their occupational superiority and financial success to everyone else. You're telling me Patrick published his 2006, 2007, and 2008 reviews to boast about making a minimum wage income? >Stories like Patrick's usually involve a rare amount of luck and certain intangibles that most people don't possess (things like a large network, notoriety, etc.) If you want to call six years of work luck, sure. Or as Jefferson said, "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." The same argument in video form: http://unicornfree.com/stacking-the-bricks/

Amy Hoy: http://unicornfree.com/ Rob Walling: http://softwarebyrob.com/ Dane Maxwell: http://thefoundation.io/blog/

http://37signals.com/svn http://37signals.com/bootstrapped <- not a blog but a lot of useful examples http://unicornfree.com http://kalzumeus.com http://blog.asmartbear.com/ These are the best I've ever read.

Wow. AMAZING advice Jason. I took Amy Hoy's 30x500 course, which opened my eyes to how a 10% month to month growth rate can be crazy in just a few years. The chart shown in a recent post of hers is mind boggling: http://unicornfree.com/2012/3-years-of-bootstrapping-half-a-million-do…

In case you don't know who she is (I didn't) - http://unicornfree.com/ and the product: http://letsfreckle.com/

You mean like posts about not following your passion? Or following the money? Or telling everyone to chill the fuck out? [0, 1, 2] Are you seriously complaining about sanctimonious blog posts? A quick peek at your blog suggests Pot and Kettle are having a conversation right now. [0] http://unicornfree.com/2011/dont-follow-your-passion/ [1] http://unicornfree.com/2011/follow-the-money/ [2] http://unicornfree.com/2011/dont-let-the-bastards-grind-you-down/

He's attacking Amy Hoy, a vocal opponent[1] of the hype around startups whose current business is a time-tracking app called Freckle. Freckle's main attraction is that it has a pleasant user interface. I'm not sure how anyone was duped. I guess it's supposed to be dishonest if you're getting people to pay money for functionality they can get free elsewhere. [1]: http://unicornfree.com/2011/follow-the-money/

"If you genuinely have the spirit of an entrepreneur inside of you, it’s perfectly possible to build a $10k/month webapp business that can set you free." If you follow Amy's blogging on Unicorn Free you'll have a seen a recent post where she talks about how long it has taken her and Thomas to get Freckle to where they are now - about 2 years (http://unicornfree.com/2011/drawing-back-the-curtain/). Both Amy and Thomas hustle their tails off and yet it has taken them two years and a lot of hard work to get too where they are (not to mention the years before that leading up to it). The point is that there is very rarely an easy route, but there is absolutely a possible route if you're passionate and you hustle. You'll be lucky if you only fail a couple of times before you land on something that gains traction, but you can do it.

> What a product needs to survive, of course, is cash. And that has to be baked in from the very start; the product-baby must be trained from infancy, as it were. A product’s gotta have what it takes to convince people to turn over their hard-earned money… or it’s going to end badly. Amy's been putting out some really, really good writing lately. If you missed it, definitely check out "Don't Follow Your Passion" too - http://unicornfree.com/2011/dont-follow-your-passion/ I actually laughed out loud at the "It’s an age-old story" intro when I read it. Very good stuff.

- I'd recommend you look into Amy Hoy's writings, especially about her "Pain/Dream/Fix" approach to pitching products [1]. Sign up to her newsletter as well. - Colors and logo seem to be inspired from ProductHunt. It's fine to steal (really), but at least be a tad more creative with the logo. - If you're going for a simple page, I wouldn't hesitate to use larger font sizes. - "Designing Web Applications" from Nathan Barry may be a good investment of money [2]. He actually also took advices from Amy Hoy for his own products [3]. - I'd put a human face on this page, maybe of yourself. There are tons of studies showing that this helps building trust and rapport [4] (especially useful as it is a product in the making with no users yet). [1] https://unicornfree.com/2013/how-i-increased-conversion-2-4x-with-bett… [2] http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/ [3] http://nathanbarry.com/step-by-step-landing-page-copywriting/ [4] https://vwo.com/blog/human-landing-page-increase-conversion-rate/

Bootstrap, charge money from the beginning instead of trying to get funding for a promising idea that might (or might not) bring money in some point in the future. How to do that is beyond the scope of this answer but there are plenty of blogs that talk about bootstrapping small businesses, like https://unicornfree.com/ and https://www.google.com/search?q=bootstrapping%20business%20blog&rc… and resources like videos from MicroConf http://vimeo.com/user12790628 While the terms you describe are bad and you probably shouldn't take them (bootstrap instead), don't wallow in self-pity because you think U.S. entrepreneurs have it so much better. They don't. The number of companies funded by VCs are tiny. It's almost like winning a lottery. Don't build on the assumption that you'll win a lottery as well. The motto of Y Combinator is "Make something people want". If you do that and charge for it, you won't need the funding. Funding helps but given that you're not in a place where good funding is available, do what every other business in your country does and do without it.

I'm pretty sure the pricing was somehow related to libsyn's pricing: http://www.libsyn.com/plans-pricing/ Also, while I 100% agree on lowering costs, I think the idea of lowering pricing is foolish. I don't think cutting price in half is going to more than double sales. In fact, with as small as his sales likely are, it's very likely that he could stand to double the lower end plans. Something more like $25/$50/$100 might be more appropriate. Podcast hosting is a very small niche. It's not wordpress hosting where there are millions of potential sites. You're talking about potentially thousands of customers total in the marketplace. Now, even at 10% of 1,000 potential customers you're talking about 100 potential customers. At $9 a month that's $900 a month, which is not a lot frankly. At $25 a month you're at $2,500 a month which still isn't great but it's somewhat interesting and something you can at least reinvest in customer acquisition. At even the top end plan $100/month is going to need 100 customers to get to $10,000 which is probably salary replacement level after taxes for one developer, depending on where they live. Realistically, if the average customer pays $20, that means you need 500 customers to get to the same outcome. If the company gets 10 sales a month and has 0 churn it is going to take approximately 4+ years to get to 500 customers. Figuring on a reasonable churn rate, it's more like 5 or more years at $20/month to get to $10,000 a month. Now, if…

SpeedCurve is proving to be very profitable for a side project. Paid back initial $3k investment in server costs and now growing at 32% month on month. Can't live on it yet, but it will cover a couple of conferences and a two week holiday in New York this year. Also just won $10k in a startup competition, does that count as profit? ;) http://speedcurve.com/ For bootstrapped SaaS projects it's worth remembering how long it can take to grow the flywheel and see growth. It took Rob from HitTail a year after launch to connect with the right audience and Freckle took 5 years to get to $57k/month. It's a multiyear investment to grow something substantial. http://unicornfree.com/2013/5-years-of-saas-growth-every-month-exact-n… SpeedCurve has been in development for a year and available commercially for only 5 months. Haven't even started doing any marketing yet with all current growth via word of mouth.