[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Best resources on starting a lifestyle busin...
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       Ask HN: Best resources on starting a lifestyle business?
        
       After working in RevOps and sales for VC-backed startups for a few
       years, I'm considering creating a SaaS business that helps solve
       problems for a particular niche industry that interests me.  What
       are some resources that are useful to look at while I consider
       embarking on this journey?  My experience in RevOps & sales the
       last few years has been that so many influencers are trying to
       pitch you their guides and resources for a fee. It's made me
       suspicious of pretty much anyone selling their insights and made it
       hard to determine which are of actual value.
        
       Author : hdanirwin
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2024-02-18 19:47 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
       | hermitcrab wrote:
       | I've been running a bootstrapped, lifestyle software business
       | since 2005. I've linked to some articles you might find relevant
       | here (for free!): https://successfulsoftware.net/starting-a-
       | microisv/
        
         | jawmes8 wrote:
         | Big fan of your articles! I have a few bookmarked that I like
         | to read every now and then
        
           | hermitcrab wrote:
           | Cool. I hope they are helpful.
        
       | jmstfv wrote:
       | a few years ago, there was this forum for bootstrapped founders
       | running small-ish, profitable, and mature internet businesses --
       | a spiritual successor to the Joel on Software's forum.
       | 
       | it's been offline for a while, but the read-only archive is still
       | accessible: https://discuss.bootstrapped.fm/
        
         | hermitcrab wrote:
         | discuss.bootstrapped.fm is well worth a look. I miss Joel's
         | Business of Software forum (I was one of the moderators) -
         | sadly I don't think that is still available.
        
       | Adrig wrote:
       | In case you don't already know, the indiehacker community is now
       | quite mature with a few folks sharing their stories and lessons
       | up to a few $M of ARR.
       | 
       | Microconf is also very high quality with great talks out there, a
       | podcast and a slack community. Focused on SAAS software. Rob
       | Walling, the founder, wrote a book recently. Not my area, but I
       | heard good things about it.
       | 
       | I also like the Tropical MBA podcast. They get stories from
       | entrepreneurs outside the shiny bubble (agency owners, Amazon
       | FBA, SEO software, affiliates, etc)
       | 
       | Books that might interest you : Company of one by Paul Jarvis ;
       | Profit First by Mike Michalowicz ;
       | 
       | Other good resources for entrepreneurs: - Seth Godin & Robert
       | Cialdini for marketing - The Mom Test (how to talk to your users)
       | - Made to Stick (how to craft stories and narratives) - $100M
       | offers & $100M leads by Hormozi (currently reading them, it's
       | mainly common concepts put in a simple and actionable way)
        
       | petesergeant wrote:
       | I'm enjoying being a member of Ramen Club https://ramenclub.so/
        
       | stanislavb wrote:
       | Not exactly a resource but more of an advice - learn software
       | development. Unless you are familiar to some extent, you will
       | always be dependent on a competent software engineer, and that
       | will make it much harder to build a lifestyle business.
       | 
       | Second advice, use Ruby on Rails or Django as a web framework and
       | don't follow after the complexities of JS and other newcomers.
       | Phoenix (Elixir) is awesome but that will require much more
       | efforts and expertise compared to the established and time-tested
       | Rails and Django.
       | 
       | Good luck!
       | 
       | p.s. I'm writing this as a person managing a lifestyle business
       | (LibHunt & SaaSHub).
       | 
       | p.p.s. I'd also recommend getting into the IndieHackers community
       | for inspiration and shared experience.
        
         | golergka wrote:
         | As a JS developer, I second this. I love node, react and
         | typescript, but they're great tools to build very complex web
         | apps -- think Figma or an in-browser IDE.
         | 
         | If you're building a typical CRUD app and don't have a VC-
         | backed budget, just use a Django or Rails.
        
         | hermitcrab wrote:
         | Contrary view. Your success running a lifestyle software
         | business is likely to be far more dependent on your marketing
         | skills and efforts that what what tech stack you use.
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-18 23:00 UTC)