[HN Gopher] My eighth year as a bootstrapped founder
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My eighth year as a bootstrapped founder
Author : mtlynch
Score : 297 points
Date : 2026-02-08 11:47 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (mtlynch.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (mtlynch.io)
| mtlynch wrote:
| Author here.
|
| Happy to answer any questions or take feedback about this post.
| verelo wrote:
| I'd love to learn more about your process of the sale. And in
| your graphs, is that attributed to profit/revenue in 2024?
|
| I'm on a super similar journey. Started in 2022, did about 400k
| in revenue in 2025 at 79% margin, we'll se how this year goes.
| Theres a world where i'd love to add a lot of scale, but
| that'll rely on some experiments (underway) panning out. It's
| 'failure' in most peoples books but 2x'ing would be great too?!
|
| How did you find a buyer? How did you come to a sale price? Why
| didn't you keep going?
| mtlynch wrote:
| > _I 'm on a super similar journey. Started in 2022, did
| about 400k in revenue in 2025 at 79% margin, we'll se how
| this year goes. Theres a world where i'd love to add a lot of
| scale, but that'll rely on some experiments (underway)
| panning out. It's 'failure' in most peoples books but 2x'ing
| would be great too?!_
|
| Nice, congrats!
|
| Yeah, I think depending on what bubble you're in,
| bootstrapping to 400k and 2x'ing every few years is either
| failure or amazing. The VC/hypergrowth path doesn't appeal to
| me, so I think something that gives you $100k+/yr in profit
| is a huge success.
|
| > _I 'd love to learn more about your process of the sale._
|
| Sure, I wrote a couple of posts with the details.[0, 1]
|
| [0] https://mtlynch.io/i-sold-tinypilot/
|
| [1] https://mtlynch.io/lessons-from-my-first-exit/
| scalemaxx wrote:
| Do you do podcast interviews? Would love to dig into the
| no-VC/hypergrowth path as that's what I'm all about.
| mtlynch wrote:
| Yep, the place where I've talked about it the most has
| been _The Software Misadventures Podcast_.[0, 1]
|
| [0] https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/michael-lynch-on-
| quittin... (2022, two years into the business)
|
| [1] https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/michael-lynch-
| indie-hack... (2024, just after I sold)
| Exoristos wrote:
| I think scalemaxx is offering to interview you.
| mtlynch wrote:
| Oh, I'm open to that!
| scalemaxx wrote:
| Yes indeed! What's the best place to reach out?
| mtlynch wrote:
| You can email me through the address here:
| https://mtlynch.io/about/
| scalemaxx wrote:
| Thanks! Sent your way.
| verelo wrote:
| Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify the picture for me,
| was the 2024 jump in profit attributing the sale or was
| that just a solid year?
|
| Agreed on the 2x every year or two being a weird failure
| state. I've done both, and I'm at a junction point right
| now, but I really think a huge part of going all in on the
| VC route is finding the right money to work with. I've been
| mostly technical, hidden in dark places all my life. I love
| having the chance to be customer facing, i love the
| business side of my work, but doing that with the wrong
| backers is so unappealing i'd rather not have their money.
|
| Edit: just skimmed your prior post
| (https://mtlynch.io/i-sold-tinypilot/). Great stuff, love
| the transparency!
| mtlynch wrote:
| > _Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify the picture for
| me, was the 2024 jump in profit attributing the sale or
| was that just a solid year?_
|
| Mostly the sale. The deal closed in April, but Jan-March
| was an especially profitable quarter.[0]
|
| [0] https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/2024/04/
| Flux159 wrote:
| I'm currently a solo bootstrapped founder, have done short
| stints in the past - 1 year in 2022, then became cofounder of a
| funded startup for a year. Now doing it again.
|
| Question is how you stay motivated to keep at it - looks like
| it took about 4 years before you made similar to your Google
| salary, did family pressure or external pressure ever impact
| you? Or is it mainly just keep your eyes on the longer term
| goal?
|
| I'm also quite lucky that I was aiming for lean-FIRE before I
| left Facebook, so I have the luxury of being able to keep at
| it, but sometimes it is demotivating seeing peers / others.
| mtlynch wrote:
| > _Question is how you stay motivated to keep at it - looks
| like it took about 4 years before you made similar to your
| Google salary, did family pressure or external pressure ever
| impact you? Or is it mainly just keep your eyes on the longer
| term goal?_
|
| I found it helpful to go in with low expectations.
|
| I was listening to a lot of podcasts about bootstrapping
| while I was still at Google in 2017-2018, and even the big
| success stories usually had 5+ years of failing or succeeding
| only marginally. So, I went in with the expectation that I'd
| probably fail for the first 5 years, and so there wasn't that
| feeling of disappointment from not earning much the first few
| years.
|
| I also had a lot of lucky conditions that made it easy to
| take the risk at the time, including no family to support,
| lots of savings, low expenses.
|
| > _I 'm also quite lucky that I was aiming for lean-FIRE
| before I left Facebook, so I have the luxury of being able to
| keep at it, but sometimes it is demotivating seeing peers /
| others._
|
| Yeah, honestly I do sometimes think, "Wow, if I'd stayed at
| Google and kept getting that comp (which was about 50% equity
| IIRC), that would be a lot of money." But I also am very
| pleased with my life now, and I know I wouldn't have enjoyed
| my job nearly as much for the last 8 years had I stayed an
| employee. And that's a huge amount of my life to not do what
| I'd like to do.
| FiberBundle wrote:
| How do you see the solo bootstrapping landscape going forward?
| In what ways do you see agentic coding changing things?
| mtlynch wrote:
| > _How do you see the solo bootstrapping landscape going
| forward? In what ways do you see agentic coding changing
| things?_
|
| It's hard to say. I think it could go either way.
|
| My optimistic take is that it has a similar effect to cloud
| computing on solo bootstrapping. If you tried to start a SaaS
| company in 2005, you'd have a hard time because in addition
| to knowing software, you'd also have to know how to provision
| servers in a data center, so you didn't see a lot of one-
| person software success stories from that era. But then with
| cloud computing, it radically lowered the barrier to entry,
| and there were lots of one-person SaaS businesses making
| $1M+/yr.
|
| So, the best case for me is if that AI increases the power of
| solo bootstrappers even more so if you're great at software
| but terrible at website design / running ads, you don't have
| to hire people to help you anymore, and you can achieve more
| by yourself.
|
| The pessimistic outcome is that it becomes less profitable to
| be a bootstrapped founder because the reduced barrier to
| entry means you're competing with 10-100x as many people and
| that companies are more comfortable building in-house tools
| with AI rather than purchasing B2B SaaS products.[0]
|
| I actually have a hard time imagining B2B SaaS dying because
| AI makes it easy to roll your own tools. I feel like even if
| you reduced dev cost to nearly zero, there's still headache
| of maintaining an app. Like, for my last business, we were
| paying $200/mo for HelpScout to manage support emails. If one
| of the devs said they spun up a reimplementation of HelpScout
| over the weekend that we could run for $2/mo, I'd still say
| no because the cost of managing it internally is at least
| $200/mo of people's focus.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46888441
| subhobroto wrote:
| > I actually have a hard time imagining B2B SaaS dying
| because AI makes it easy to roll your own tools
|
| Agreed. I think software engineers are misunderstanding why
| the SaaSpocalypse is (has?) happening.
|
| It feels like software engineers think the SaaSpocalypse is
| due to technical commodity: "Oh no! Claude can bang out a
| fully functioning Slack/Monday.com over a weekend! There
| goes Slack/Monday.com"
|
| The selloff is being driven by the "Seat Replacement" fear:
| SaaS charges "per seat" or "per human user" - but if an
| agent can do the work of X (>1) humans, then "seats" sold
| shrink, reducing the valuation _and_ profitability of SaaS
| companies that are driven by seat multiples.
|
| This has no impact on the valuation or stress of
| bootstrapped businesses like yours where you don't have to
| answer to either VCs or shareholders. It's more likely
| bootstrapped businesses will get a revival as people seek
| to work closer with founders who are focused on building a
| sustainable, long term value add than an unsustainable,
| blitzscaling play.
|
| In fact, if I am not mistaken, it will reduce the edge VC
| funded companies have over bootstrapped businesses like
| yours (eg: the CAC is set on a more level field when
| blitzscaling funds reduce or disappear).
| scalemaxx wrote:
| I'm curious about your book journey. Sounds like having a big
| audience and pre-existing list really helps! How did you go
| about building that audience and list, and what helped the most
| to doing that? Which lists / audience converted the most for
| your book offer, and how did you promote or otherwise let folks
| know about your book? What was the compelling ask to pre-order
| a book? And, how do you plan to publish the book? Lots of book
| questions
| mtlynch wrote:
| > _Sounds like having a big audience and pre-existing list
| really helps!_
|
| I didn't have a particularly big audience. I had about 2k
| mailing list subscribers on my main blog, but a pretty small
| percentage of them purchased. And I had something like 600
| subscribers for the book because I've been saying I'd write
| it since 2021, but all I had was a mailing list.
|
| > _How did you go about building that audience and list, and
| what helped the most to doing that?_
|
| I haven't been focused on growing the list that much.
|
| My main goal right now is to get feedback from readers and
| use it to improve the book. Once the book is done and I can't
| think of ways to improve it, I'll probably switch to focusing
| more on finding more places to find paying readers.
|
| > _Which lists / audience converted the most for your book
| offer_
|
| I find the most paying readers from HN, actually. I don't
| think it's the most in terms of conversion percentage, but
| it's the most in absolute terms because HN is so big. And
| then there are secondary effects of something doing well on
| HN because people share the link on other, smaller sites and
| social media.
|
| > _how did you promote or otherwise let folks know about your
| book?_
|
| The thing that's always worked best for me is writing blog
| posts that I hope my target audience will find interesting.
| So the thing that's worked for the book is adapting parts of
| the book to standalone blog posts and sharing those
| online.[0] A few of those posts did well on HN because I
| tried to make them interesting to developers interested in
| writing/blogging.[1]
|
| > _What was the compelling ask to pre-order a book?_
|
| Haha, maybe I should craft that more. It's mainly that they
| get to read more of whatever samples they've already
| hopefully found useful.
|
| My pitch for early access is that early readers get to read
| it and ask me questions and help shape the book.
|
| > _And, how do you plan to publish the book?_
|
| I'm already publishing it as a PDF/epub that I sell through
| Stripe.
|
| I might eventually do a print run or sell Amazon, but I hate
| dealing with Amazon and physical products, so I'd have to be
| really confident it would have a big impact on sales.
|
| [0] https://refactoringenglish.com/chapters/
|
| [1] https://refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-
| popularity/domain/?d...
| throwaway260210 wrote:
| I've been reading your blogs for the past 8-years.
|
| Question: do you not have income concerns / pressures?
|
| Please take this question from a positive place but it seems
| like you've been able to sustain years of relatively low pay
| (especially since you're a father now) without concern.
|
| I'm not sure most people can endure as long as you have and it
| makes me wonder if you have supplemental income not accounted
| for.
|
| Not asking you to share anything you don't feel comfortable
| with ... and your transparency over the years has hugely
| influenced my thinking on should I start my own business.
| mtlynch wrote:
| Thanks for reading for so long!
|
| > _Question: do you not have income concerns / pressures?_
|
| Yes, definitely. I am a bit worried about not being able to
| get back to $100k+/yr in income, and I'm less confident that
| the safety net of "just go back to FAANG" is still available.
|
| > _I'm not sure most people can endure as long as you have
| and it makes me wonder if you have supplemental income not
| accounted for._
|
| I do. We have investments that provide additional income. We
| also live in Western Massachusetts, in an area where living
| costs are fairly low, so we fortunately don't need to draw
| down much from our investments to get by.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| I'm starting my journey as an indie developer, how do you keep
| motivated after weeks of no traction, etc.
| tizio13 wrote:
| Hey OP, thanks for posting your journey. This helps more than you
| know
| mtlynch wrote:
| Thanks for reading! I'm really glad to hear that you found it
| helpful!
| switz wrote:
| Thanks for being so transparent. As a fellow solo bootstrapper, I
| think the thing people most often misunderstand is the relative
| inconsistency (income, "wins", the camaraderie, etc.) so it's
| nice for you to bare all.
|
| That being said, you do get the consistency of independence and
| autonomy. As I watch my peers deal with crappy work environments,
| losing their jobs, and other bullshit, I just keep chugging
| along: self-directed and happy to not have to answer to anyone.
|
| I've found it tough to talk about being a solo bootstrapper
| though. People don't seem all that interested in it until you
| catch them in the right light or perspective. Mostly they just
| care to know how much money you make (which to me ends up being
| rather shallow), or they can't relate to the process since it's
| so divorced from the traditional path. I mostly just keep my head
| down and keep working, since that's what I enjoy the most.
| mtlynch wrote:
| > _Thanks for being so transparent. As a fellow solo
| bootstrapper, I think the thing people most often misunderstand
| is the relative inconsistency (income, "wins", the camaraderie,
| etc.) so it's nice for you to bare all._
|
| > _That being said, you do get the consistency of independence
| and autonomy. As I watch my peers deal with crappy work
| environments, losing their jobs, and other bullshit, I just
| keep chugging along: self-directed and happy to not have to
| answer to anyone._
|
| Yes, I completely agree.
|
| Bootstrapping, you realize that employment smooths out a lot of
| issues for you. Like if you're sick for two weeks as an
| employee, maybe it hurts your OKRs, but you'll be fine. If
| you're sick for two weeks as a solo founder, that can be
| catastrophic. And if you need to do something like take
| parental leave for six months, the company can't just continue
| on without you like it could if you worked for a large company.
|
| But as you said, you get the consistency of being your own boss
| and directing your own time, which more than makes up for it
| for me.
| switz wrote:
| Yup, I always say - the hardest part of my job is that _if I
| don 't do it, nothing gets done_. That copy error on the
| website. That minor bug. We take for granted the velocity we
| get by having colleagues. If I get lazy, everything grinds to
| a halt. And those little nits add up. But I strongly agree
| it's all worth it.
| rkuodys wrote:
| Can I ask you if you consider that AI changes anything
| about that? Since I'm embarking on the same boat, my dream
| is a team of AI which supports and ensures business
| continuity while Im on vacation or "OOO" otherwise.
| krageon wrote:
| Even Anthropic _consistently_ says their own AI can 't
| help with meaningful work in their own corporation. Any
| person that tells you it can is overhyping it. Probably
| to sell you something.
| mtlynch wrote:
| Sure, answered in another subthread here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46967082
| switz wrote:
| If we get to the point that AI can run a complete
| business unencumbered then the world looks very
| different. At this time, I have very little confidence
| that AI today can operate my business untouched while
| OOO. Nor would I want it to. I enjoy my work and I don't
| trust AI to run amuck with the valuable asset that is my
| business.
|
| But it certainly has helped me gain velocity working
| alone. My business is very hands off after ten years of
| automating most things and cleaning up the hot paths.
| Things break, but usually due to external factors that
| have nothing to do with me. A few support emails and
| hands-off monitoring is hardly a deal-breaker for me on
| vacation. I'm not entirely sure why zero-effort is a
| goal, when you can genuinely attain a 5-hour work week
| today.
|
| AI is really just a tool and there's a lot of incremental
| room between "helpful" and "totally autonomous". This
| calculus could all change one day, but it's not a
| personal desire of mine.
| move-on-by wrote:
| > if I don't do it, nothing gets done
|
| I work for a midsized fintech and I feel the same way. At
| least about the tech side of things.
| jyscao wrote:
| This is the path I want to take too. Do you find it difficult
| to focus on the marketing and sales side of the business rather
| than the building part?
| switz wrote:
| It really depends on what you want to do. By the nature of
| being self-directed, you elect what roles you want to play. I
| personally don't love the marketing and sales cycles, so my
| current business is B2C and I don't do any marketing.
|
| Almost all growth was done via word of mouth. There are
| business models whose network effects lean in this direction.
| In order to use my product, you _must_ bring along peers so
| it 's inherently 'viral'. I fell into this by accident rather
| than by some grand design, but it became obvious to me after
| I saw it happen. Design a business in which the flywheel can
| spin without you, if you don't want to spend your time
| marketing.
|
| My next business that I'm working on is B2B, so I'll have to
| have a much stronger handle on marketing and sales. But I'm
| more ready for that now, after a decade of running a B2C
| business.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| In general, most firms form relationships with marketing lead
| generation companies. i.e. you pay for customers interested
| in buying something, and pay a reward if a sale is made.
|
| Don't bother spamming with FAANG, as the conversion rates are
| still hypothetical for many. Go to trade shows, and note how
| sales people operate with the public... hint, the big deals
| are never done on the floor area.
|
| The sales conversion rates and tax postures will determine if
| this type of business is viable in your area. =3
| wseqyrku wrote:
| No, that's the lie investors keep telling you until you think
| you need them.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Most people start side-businesses for tax reasons, and those
| that seek others to solve their problems for them... usually
| don't last long in business.
|
| I've witnessed many firms run the gauntlet with varying levels
| of success, and would suggest the following:
|
| 1. sell what the customer already wants, as people with loss
| aversion stick with what they already know.
|
| 2. sell what makes customers feel good buying, and reward them
| with actual functional utility in their life
|
| 3. Never compete, focus on service with a novel niche product.
| Stupid people by their nature destroy everything around them
| regardless of long term benefit.
|
| 4. Never hire people unless absolutely necessary, and contract
| with tax responsibility clauses when possible.
|
| 5. Never buy equipment unless absolutely necessary, or lease
| when possible
|
| 6. Never enter legal or subscription agreements even with your
| own legal specialists feedback
|
| 7. Never become a poser burning $170k/month on labor in a
| vestigial office
|
| 8. Position your firm to leverage tax and grant programs
|
| 9. Stay quiet (especially online in a sea of cons), and only
| talk about the distant past when people try to goad you into
| telling them how you make revenue
|
| 10. Avoid bums in suits as many are dangerous well practiced
| thieves. Never let technical staff talk with the customers, or
| vendors. Some people go crazy when they see a bit of money, and
| do not behave rationally.
|
| 11. There must only be 1 president, and all agreements must be
| in contract form.
|
| 12. Never risk more than 15% of annual revenue on ANY deal.
| Customers lie and disappear on rare occasion... Large firms can
| grab your firm like a dog with a rag doll, and may still stiff
| you on the contract knowing the legal and fiscal power
| asymmetry
|
| 13. Chasing customers means your business model still needs
| work. If people are happy with what you are providing, than
| growth should naturally happen every year
|
| 14. Go to trade shows to see what other people are selling, and
| ask yourself what else does the customer need
|
| 15. Cash is king, as long as the money flows most other
| problems are irrelevant
|
| Best of luck, =3
| jwpapi wrote:
| I get exactly what you are saying, but honestly man freedom is
| the best. I'm so happy every day as long as I have my computer
| an can work on taking over the world. Every day feels like
| school holidays to me
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Concerning independence and autonomy, I ruefully recall hearing
| the saying "You get to work your own hours ... as long as it's
| all of them."
| mitjam wrote:
| There is a word play in German: ,,Selbststandig bedeutet
| selbst und standig." - Self-employed means yourself,
| continuously.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Some people do that but it is more of a choice than you might
| expect. For most of the twenty six years I was doing it I
| rarely worked more than three or four hours a day.
| sixhobbits wrote:
| I know it as 'Being self employed is great, you control your
| own time and can choose any 80 hours/week to work"
| bavell wrote:
| Be self-employed and be your own boss!
|
| Ooops, now you have multiple bosses (each client).
| jwr wrote:
| > I've found it tough to talk about being a solo bootstrapper
| though. People don't seem all that interested in it [...]
|
| I think you've hit the nail on the head (solo bootstrapper
| here): People are not interested because A) it's not about
| them, it's about you, B) it sounds somewhat scary, C) it sounds
| completely detached from their reality of corporate jobs, and
| finally D) it's scary because your life might be "better" than
| theirs.
|
| I don't tell people about my work anymore, and almost nobody
| ever asks, except for other entrepreneurs/bootstrappers.
| jazz9k wrote:
| I'm a consultant full-time now (no boss, make my own hours) and
| had my own business for 7 years (close to solo, with 2
| parters).
|
| Most people can't relate when they talk about a terrible boss
| or some ridiculous drama at work..and you don't have any of
| that.
|
| I don't even talk about work anymore with family.
| mrdependable wrote:
| I've had a similar journey to yours. Started January 1st 2019,
| early 30s, had a second kid. Loving every minute of it, though I
| do wonder when the fun is going to end. Every year I'm surprised
| the business keeps growing. This year my goal is to diversify to
| try and ease that gnawing anxiety, but every time I try working
| on something else I feel guilty about ignoring what's already
| been working for me. Tempted to just sell so I can have a bigger
| cushion and less distraction on my next venture, but not sure how
| the current climate would affect the valuation.
| mtlynch wrote:
| I recommend having an initial talk with a broker if you're
| thinking about it at all.
|
| The brokers I've met are happy to talk if you have a profitable
| business, even if you don't plan on selling anytime soon, and
| you don't have to sign anything to commit to them. They can
| talk to you about what you can do to prepare for an exit even
| if you don't expect that to happen for several years (and it
| might take you several years to manage yourself out of the
| business).
|
| I personally liked the broker I worked with and recommend
| him.[0]
|
| [0] https://quietlight.com/advisors/chris-guthrie/
| ssenssei wrote:
| this feels a lot like an ad or promotion, but the core idea
| is something I have never thought about.
| mtlynch wrote:
| I can see how it comes across that way. I have no
| relationship with Quiet Light except as a satisfied client.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| This is a really good idea, similar to raising money when you
| don't need it. It could help prevent you from making a
| mistake or getting into a unattractive position for when you
| are thinking of selling. I've seen this with one & few person
| companies, everything from messy ownership & cap tables, to
| tax obligations, to the structure of multi-year sales or
| contracts. This is why even big PE portfolio companies start
| planning for a sale years in advance; the difference (making
| it harder for you IMO) is that they have a pretty good idea
| when the sale will happen.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| I like these kind of stories. Insight into these situation is
| inspiring. When I hang up the gloves in my current role I'll
| probably do something similar.
|
| But, come on ... isn't it just a touch disingenuous to call this
| a bootstrap situation?
|
| I assume an ex-Google developer jettisoned with a decent safety
| net. Perhaps I'm wrong. But I have a very different idea of what
| bootstrapping is.
|
| Anyway, kudos to you ... making your own move is brave and
| commendable.
| mtlynch wrote:
| Thanks for reading!
|
| > _But, come on ... isn 't it just a touch disingenuous to call
| this a bootstrap situation?_
|
| > _I assume an ex-Google developer jettisoned with a decent
| safety net. Perhaps I 'm wrong. But I have a very different
| idea of what bootstrapping is._
|
| Yeah, I agree and wish I had a better term. I've heard people
| talking about "bootstrapping" a business with $200k+, and I
| roll my eyes.
|
| I used to call these updates "My Xth Year as a Solo Developer"
| but that stopped making sense when I was working with a team.
| hdra wrote:
| out of curiosity, which one is the bigger part of your
| "financial cushion" nowadays? is it still mostly the ex-
| Google income/savings or has the TinyPilot exit taken that
| place?
| antonvs wrote:
| $200k really isn't that much in this context. Less than a
| year's income for a good developer in the US. Even if you
| haven't worked for a FAANG, in the software industry in the
| US it's not that difficult to find yourself with that amount,
| or more, available for investment after working in the
| industry for a while. Similarly, an amount like that isn't
| necessarily going to take you very far.
| swalsh wrote:
| I think that "align your business with your passion" is a really
| important factor that divides the succesful from the not. When I
| look at Pieter Levels, he doesn't really seem to build ideas to
| make money. His projects seem to start off as play, and
| eventually they evolve into something new he can charge for.
| asdev wrote:
| Levels has no passion for his projects. They're all quick
| grifts.
| keithluu wrote:
| He does though, especially for the early ones like Nomadlist
| and RemoteOk. If you read his old blog you will see a
| significant portion of it is about digital nomadism.
| apparent wrote:
| Maybe it's just me, but it seems kind of weird to say you earned
| $8,200 in "profit" when there was no salary. Profit is typically
| the excess a business earns above its costs. For a solo founder,
| it can be a little tricky because the more you pay yourself in
| salary, the less you have in profit (and vice versa). But here,
| there was no salary. Maybe "earnings" or "income" would be a
| better term to use? Otherwise someone might (particularly for
| other years) think that the business earned $PROFIT dollars
| beyond all other costs, including presumably some sort of salary
| for all employees/contractors.
| joshuamcginnis wrote:
| Yea. Perhaps a better metric to use would be Seller's
| Discretionary Earnings (SDE) which includes the owner's salary,
| benefits, and discretionary expenses, after adjusting for non-
| recurring, non-operating, and non-cash items. This metric is
| often used when one person wants to acquire another business.
| Lalabadie wrote:
| For a solo company (which I assume is the situation here), it
| seems rather expected. Income minus expenses is the profit. No
| salary as expenses this year.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Assuming it's an S-corp, Founders will try to get as much as
| possible in profit/dividends, as that is taxed better than
| income.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| when your annual revenue is < $25K this is not typically a
| concern. Also that's true from the corporation's perspective
| but not always true because of the double taxation from the
| individual's side. I always find the timing flexibility
| (which effective tax year) far more valuable than the
| employment vs. investment income differentiation.
| paulddraper wrote:
| Dividends aren't double taxed?
|
| Unless I'm misunderstanding something.
| julianeon wrote:
| I think in a hand-wavey sense people understand that $PROFIT
| means $INCOME here.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> For a solo founder, it can be a little tricky because the
| more you pay yourself in salary, the less you have in profit
| (and vice versa)
|
| This isn't just the relatively small segment of "solo founder"
| almost all single-person and small amily businesses don't pay
| salaries like a corporate employee would recognize.
| leros wrote:
| Looking back, how do you feel about your slate of past projects?
|
| I'm curious as TinyPilot is your most successful project and it
| looks like the most business-oriented thing you built: as in, its
| a product aimed at serious businesses. Whereas Zestful is a niche
| micro-saas and Is It Keto is a niche website. Perhaps I'm
| characterizing things wrong, but that's my rough perception.
| mtlynch wrote:
| Thanks for reading!
|
| > _Looking back, how do you feel about your slate of past
| projects?_
|
| I feel like I learned something valuable from all of them.
|
| The ones I'm most proud of are TinyPilot, my book, and my
| blogging course (in that order). Those are, uncoincidentally,
| the ones where I found product-market fit, whereas the rest
| never really achieved that.
|
| TinyPilot was business-oriented by mistake. When I initially
| made it, I thought the market was entirely hobbyists who would
| rather make a DIY KVM than buy a $600 enterprise-y device. As I
| continued working on it, I found that my customers were much
| more interested in paying a higher price for a pre-made device
| than saving money with a DIY solution.
|
| But yeah, I think the fact that it appealed to businesses made
| it more viable than my other business attempts that were
| consumer-focused.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> I found that my customers were much more interested in
| paying a higher price for a pre-made device than saving money
| with a DIY solution
|
| This could have been a 50-yr-old comment about the Apple I
| computer! Lol
|
| >> Wozniak intended to share schematics of the machine for
| free; however, Jobs advised him to start a business together
| and sell bare printed circuit boards (PCBs) for the computer,
| without any components soldered on.
|
| ...
|
| Terrell told Jobs that he would order 50 units of the Apple I
| and pay $500 each on delivery, but only if they came fully
| assembled - he was not interested in buying bare printed
| circuit boards with no components.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I
| xyst wrote:
| I do give this author praise for actually being transparent.
|
| > In total, I had $8.2k in profit on $16.3k in revenue. That was
| my total income for the year, which is obviously not enough to
| support a family, but my wife also works, and we have
| savings/investments.
|
| Self bootstrapping is not for the weak. At the height of the
| "indie grind set", you would get all of these "indie developers"
| raiding your social media feeds with click bait shit like "I
| bootstrapped my project and earned 100M pre-revenue11!1!!!1"
|
| In reality, a very small minority even make a living self
| bootstrapping. It's quite literally the lottery.
|
| Author in this case clearly has fallback (rich/working partners,
| savings, and ofc probably still has $ from TinyPilot sale).
|
| Unfortunately, for the lot of us. You end up working for shitty
| Fortune 500 company, work on useless/mindless shit, grind for 8
| hrs, collect paycheck, eat, sleep, and repeat.
|
| No unions to have our backs when incompetent management wants to
| cater to shareholders. No stability. Maybe get laid off for vague
| reason. Find another shitty job and hope for less shitty
| management.
| adrianmsmith wrote:
| > You end up working for shitty Fortune 500 company, work on
| useless/mindless shit, grind for 8 hrs, collect paycheck, eat,
| sleep, and repeat.
|
| I used to think like this but what if it isn't the case? Maybe
| the market is making the right decisions after all? Maybe
| contributing a tiny amount to a successful business really is
| worth more to society than contributing a huge amount to a
| project with barely any customers, and that's why we get paid
| more working for large companies?
|
| (Not suggesting OP's projects have barely any customers, I am
| more talking about my own forays into small business.)
| mtlynch wrote:
| I'm obviously biased as a small business owner, but I think
| that logic assumes that the market is perfectly efficient,
| when it obviously isn't. Large companies have massive
| advantages in so many dimensions.
|
| As a simple example, imagine that I built a site for buying
| ebooks that's better in every way than Amazon. I pay authors
| more, readers pay less, the ebooks are compatible with every
| device, and it's easier for both authors and readers to use
| my site than Amazon. I still probably couldn't survive
| against Amazon because they'd tell their authors that if they
| sell with me, they can't sell on Amazon.[0] They have such a
| market dominance that authors would lose money by using my
| platform, even if it's a demonstrably better product in every
| way with better pricing.
|
| But it goes beyond that. Big businesses have all these other
| huge advantages so that they can succeed not because they're
| offering the most value but because they have a pre-existing
| advantageous market position:
|
| - It's a small percentage of their costs to hire attorneys to
| look for tax loopholes
|
| - They can manage the overhead of abusing the H1B visa system
| to hire workers at below-market rates
|
| - They can sue people and get sued and still have 98% of
| their employees not paying attention to any lawsuits
|
| - They can afford to sell things at a loss just to choke out
| smaller competitors
|
| Look at trillion dollar industries where 95% of money goes to
| just 2-3 companies. The iOS/Android duopoly, the
| Visa/Mastercard duopoly. Do they control the market because
| they're just so great at offering value? Or does their market
| position and terrible government policy prevent anyone from
| competing with them effectively and offering consumers better
| choices?
|
| [0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/amazon-must-
| face...
| greenspam wrote:
| I started to read your blog since the time you encountered a
| disastrous event with tinypilot hardware (something like a floor
| or fire). I really appreciate your recording and sharing of your
| experience and growth. Good luck to your book and look forward to
| your news.
| 0xferruccio wrote:
| Great article as usual, got a flashback to reading your first
| post on here 8 years ago. At the time I was starting my career in
| tech by building small projects for fun and launching them on
| Product Hunt. Great to see you're still going at it!
| apparent wrote:
| Curious to know how you think AI/vibecoding will affect the
| solopreneur path.
|
| On the one hand, it could make it accessible to many more people,
| who previously couldn't have built a business alone because they
| lacked coding skills.
|
| On the other hand, it could make it harder to get customers
| because they can also code their own customized tools, making it
| less necessary to buy software and some services.
|
| There's probably a third and fourth hand, which haven't yet
| sprung to mind.
| kaizenb wrote:
| These things also on my mind recently. I'm a freelancer,
| providing design-development services, and trying to understand
| as things changing rapidly.
|
| I don't think even the tools are advancing, allowing us to
| build in a new way, not everyone will be able to develop
| production ready products. Or good looking ones. So there will
| be always in need for people know how to orchestrate the new
| workflows with good taste and years of experience.
|
| Couple of articles I've bookmarked recently:
|
| * What, then, are we paying for?
| https://quinnkeast.com/writing/software-is-problem-ownership
|
| * Designers as agent orchestrators: what I learnt shipping with
| AI in 2025 https://uxdesign.cc/designers-as-agent-
| orchestrators-what-i-...
|
| * The new UX Toolkit: data, context, and evals
| https://uxdesign.cc/the-new-ux-toolkit-data-context-and-eval...
|
| * How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Terminal
| https://pablostanley.substack.com/p/how-i-stopped-worrying-a...
|
| * The rise of the Model Designer https://uxdesign.cc/the-rise-
| of-the-model-designer-cef429d9c...
| hdjrudni wrote:
| I just sold my first solo(ish) business, so I can speak to this
| a bit.
|
| 'ish' because I had a partner, but he was non-technical.
|
| AI is a boon. I'm currently finding it works best in apps that
| have established patterns but aren't enormous. If you lay some
| groundwork (as I did, because the AI didn't exist when I
| started), it's quite lovely for migrating heaps of old code and
| just doing all those annoying little things which were never
| very high priority but needed fixing.
|
| If you're just starting, AI will do what you ask but it just
| doesn't know how to structure things in a maintainable way. So
| I'd argue it's still not particularly great if you "lack coding
| skills" but it might trick you into thinking so.
|
| My customers (B2B) were generally older folks. They never once
| asked about AI. I don't see it being a serious threat _yet_.
| People are still afraid of spreadsheets and other things I
| would consider quite basic, the fact that coding is more
| accessible than ever... I don 't think that's really enticing
| many people. Some, sure, but why would they want to mess around
| with that if your product is fairly priced, does what they
| need, and you will maintain it for them?
|
| It's the same as us software engineers when we're deciding
| whether to pay for a 'managed' platform (SQL, Cloud, k8s) etc
| or roll our own. Sure, we can do it ourselves and for cheaper,
| but it just doesn't always make sense due to time and
| maintenance.
|
| Anyway, I'm excited for the doors this opens up for me. I was
| looking to hire someone a few years back the guys I brought on
| briefly were very mediocre and required a lot of ramp up time.
| And also hiring is really hard. I can get away with not hiring
| for much longer now because the AIs understand the project and
| are productive instantly. Going from zero to one employee is
| hard. After that I imagine it would get easier but I never made
| it that far.
| simgt wrote:
| As a technical person, how does one find a non-technical
| business partner? ;)
|
| I know about Entrepreneur First, but that's not for
| bootstrapping and has a too much of the unicorn vibe for me.
| The obvious is of course luck through one's social network.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> The obvious is of course luck through one's social
| network.
|
| I'd really counsel you to pursue this but not focus on the
| luck piece of it (which really is a big part). Just like
| hiring works best when it's a recommendation of a known
| good hire, look to your 2nd (and possibly 3rd) degree
| network. Force yourself to attend events, programs and
| communities (irl & virtual) outside of your direct sphere
| of expertise. Economic development orgs in your city/region
| might work too. Maybe you can do it with some help/practice
| and don't need a partner? You could be looking for a
| support network more than business expertise; the good news
| is IME that's easier to find than a partner.
| bavell wrote:
| > Going from zero to one employee is hard.
|
| Story of my life the last 5-10 years haha. Hard to take such
| a big risk without having a very solid position.
|
| I'm taking an AI-first approach with a project I wouldn't
| have accepted otherwise, to get a better understanding of how
| much I can delegate and how quickly I can get it done. Could
| open up a lot of doors if successful. There are many more
| projects I'd be willing to pitch/accept if I didn't have to
| do all the grunt work. Quality still needs to be there
| though.
| keiferski wrote:
| I work for a SaaS.
|
| Basically I think it depends on your customers. If they're just
| regular people, developers, etc. looking for a productivity
| tool, you should worry.
|
| But if your clients are actual businesses looking for reliable,
| secure software, I wouldn't worry too much. A real business
| isn't going to trust hacked together, vibe coded solution. At
| that level it's better to just pay $100-1,000 a month than deal
| with unpredictable problems.
| cyode wrote:
| Excellent series, I've been reading for a few years now!
|
| Q for OP: looking back at your 8 posts, I don't see you ever
| reflecting on loneliness (or lack thereof) as part of your
| founder journey. Yet both founder friends and anecdotes always
| emphasize this as a big weight.
|
| Is it a significant factor for you, compared to your past life at
| FAANG? Do you you ever think about spending your time differently
| to optimize for more social fulfillment (vs. fulfillment from
| building or becoming profitable)?
| mtlynch wrote:
| Thanks for reading!
|
| > _Q for OP: looking back at your 8 posts, I don 't see you
| ever reflecting on loneliness (or lack thereof) as part of your
| founder journey. Yet both founder friends and anecdotes always
| emphasize this as a big weight._
|
| Honestly, it hasn't been a problem for me.
|
| I'm atypical in that I enjoy solitude more than the average
| person. I had a mild illness once when I was living in NYC so I
| stayed home from work and had groceries delivered, and when I
| went outside again, I realized it had been a week since I'd
| seen another person, and I hadn't noticed until then.
|
| I do like working with a dev team, but I don't necessarily need
| to be in person to do that. I enjoyed working with other remote
| devs for TinyPilot and getting to teach and learn from them.
|
| I host an indie founders meetup in my area every other month.
| That's been a fun way to meet other founders and swap ideas.
| bambax wrote:
| > _When I tell friends and family I'm working on a book, they
| innocently ask, "Oh, so you're still on paternity leave?" -- No!
| I'm writing a book. It's a real job!_
|
| "Real job", yes and no. Writing a book is an _enormous_ amount of
| work, and people probably understand that. But, in most cases, it
| doesn 't bring any real money, and that's what's confusing to
| strangers. "How do you make a living then?" is what they mean, I
| think.
| kapimalos wrote:
| Thanks for posting. It's great to learn about it from so many
| angles. Business, family etc.
|
| Do you have advice on finding first clients? Especially in B2C?
|
| Throwing money on ads seems tempting because it's such an easy
| way to reach clients but I'm not sure about "quality" off the
| clients.
| mtlynch wrote:
| Take my advice with a big grain of salt because I'm by no means
| an expert at finding customers. I can just say what's worked
| for me.
|
| The thing that's been successful for me is to figure out who my
| customers are and find ways to show them I have something
| valuable to offer.
|
| My most successful example was TinyPilot, where I wrote about
| how I built the first prototype,[0] and that post had an
| extremely positive reception on HN[1] and reddit[2]. I
| continued writing about my homelab because readers who were
| interested in learning about homelab were also people who had a
| use for TinyPilot.
|
| I did the same thing when making my blogging course a few years
| ago. I joined a community for developer bloggers and gave
| people constructive feedback when they'd ask for notes on their
| drafts. Then, I approached the community manager and asked to
| pilot the course in the community for free (she actually
| insisted on paying me because she didn't believe in asking for
| free work). But the community liked it, the manager liked it,
| and it was great for me because it gave me feedback and
| testimonials for my course.
|
| I've used ads but never as a first step. I think the first step
| has to be highly personalized where I'm out there meeting
| customers where they are and showing I can offer something
| useful.
|
| [0] https://mtlynch.io/tinypilot/
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23927380
|
| [2]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/hwimys/tinypilot_b...
| roland35 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, I remember reading about tinypilot back when
| I was interested in starting my own thing!
|
| I had an idea for a hardware business for years and it was nice
| to dream, but thinking about it more and reading this story makes
| it pretty clear that it is way way waaay easier to continue my
| career at big tech, for better or worse (sad cry emoji)!
| aristofun wrote:
| This example once again shows me that being "pure" indie solo
| hacker is not sustainable.
|
| You have to be first and foremost indie entrepreneur and indie
| salesman and only then you can afford free hacking if you have
| time left.
| apparent wrote:
| It doesn't prove the model won't work for anyone. It just shows
| that for this one person, it hasn't worked out awesome. I think
| there are some folks who end up doing quite well as
| solopreneurs, but they tend not to talk about it on the
| internet, lest their niche become more visible, which could
| erode their margins.
| flaviuspopan wrote:
| Always enjoy reading your posts and the way you catalog and
| reflect on your journey. Thanks for making it easy for others to
| learn from you!
| mtlynch wrote:
| Hey Flavius! Thanks for reading and the kind words!
| isjsiwndkwj wrote:
| Is a massively inflated ego a requirement for bootstrapping?
|
| The conversation here is centred on how others simply "do not
| understand how awesome I am for bootstrapping". All veiled under
| a very transparent layer of self-aggrandising faux-humility.
|
| What is the deal with that? Compensating for something?
| greenie_beans wrote:
| idk maybe you should try curiously reading about the
| experiences of other people rather than belittling
| them/projecting your insecurities onto them. these people are
| earnestly sharing their experiences, including anecdotes about
| how they struggle to relate in small talk with non-
| entrepreneuers, and here you are ironically unable to relate,
| proving the point. in a comically toxic manner.
| exodys wrote:
| I'm so tired I read the title as "My eight year old bootstrapped
| a founder"
| allknowingfrog wrote:
| Is "founder" the right word for living off of savings for 8 years
| while trying various things? I haven't done anything more
| impressive, but I also don't describe myself as a founder. If
| someone killed me tomorrow, I'd be "murdered", not
| "assassinated".
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