Readit NewsA solo-developed game generating 10K-30K in MRR over more than a handful of months would already put you on the top 10% of all released games on Steam. It's not likely to happen unless you have experience in the space and possess strong artistic skills.
This! Data! okay, so it's actually rare to get there .. and you'd need skills to get there .. wouldn't it be better to push harder for compounded results?
> A person has to be completely financially incompetent not to have a very good life on $10k per month – no matter where in the world.
I don't agree, or at least it depends what "a very good life" looks like, but that's not the point, and I think it's just a strangely framed association between MRR and retirement, which is usually discussed in terms of an aggregate at some specific point.
If I make $10k a month as revenue and take it all as salary, I'm left with probably ~$7k or less after taxes, assuming I'm not paying an accountant, doing all my own paperwork, all the usual caveats. That's potentially a great salary depending on lots of factors, but it's only a retirable amount if a very healthy portion of that goes directly to retirement savings/investment. If you don't own a home yet, it's easily possible that $2-4k of that could go right into shelter costs, $1-2k to miscellaneous daily expenses and bills or transit. It's great if you're single, own a home, have no dependents, are frugal, have roommates etc... and as an income in retirement at a typical retirement age, it's probably pretty great in many cases, but as a young person you'd need to keep it up for a few decades consistently to retire on it, and idk how safe a bet it is that a small project would continue earning that money long term.
All of that might be implied, or it might not, idk anything about the person who posted it originally, but $10k a month after paying for a high CoL mortgage or rent, food, a kid, I just don't see it. $10k a month USD living in SF? $10k a month AUD living in Sydney? What about $10k a month CAD living in London?
There's just not enough information to make such a confident assertion, imho.
While $10K was a rough number, the same can be said about $20K .. it "should be", "relatively easier" to get to that solo .. the point is should you aim for that, or aim for much bigger .. which will mak you realistically hit that goal .. and my perspective had been that aiming big, while starting small (smallest complete unit to get you to a reasonable income). What you do after is another story.
So much of this depends on the context, goals and personal situation.
The answer won't be the same for a multi millionaire looking to spend his time working on a cool project or for a low wage worker trying to make it and quit a boring job.
If you already have financial freedom, i guess you should aim for the stars, as in go for something big.
I you're trying to reach financial escape velocity and get rid of your 9 to 5 job, you might want to try small ideas first as it should be easier targets and you probably only need one successful project to be free. Then you can go for the big ideas.
Ah .. I thought about this, but I've found that most people who have hit "financial freedom" generally tend to lose momentum and lose drive .. fewer of those actually end up building something bigger .. just a personal observation .. although honestly it seems compelling .. but unsure how it will affect me / my friend specifically
It's not the same effort to do something small and something big.
It may be at first, but if your goal is $30k MRR then at some point you could consider your task to be "done" (ideally, in reality its never like that). There are businesses that once set up it takes a lot less effort to keep afloat than to keep growing (and that's why they are attractive).
It is very, very hard to raise money for something small though. Maybe you can get a loan, but anything anywhere near the favorable terms that VCs give you is impossible. Games use publishers for equity funding and the terms are terrible.
So, if you are going for something big, you are better off going for pipe-dream-big. And know that once you start you will basically be on the growth-train until IPO/acquisition or exit with an empty handed. If you are going for something small, you will almost certainly have to bootstrap, which means it will take time.
Whatever it is you want to do though, just do it now. Time flies and it doesn't forgive.
This resonates .. intentionally going small may not be the same effort per se .. but because it's harder to raise money or you raise at like 50% dilution .. you're tight for budget .. all this adds up to be the same amount of work for the first few years .. this is actually a helpful perspective.
There's a "Growing B2B SaaS" podcast that had a guest that made an impression on me. He said tech is the wrong industry to try to grow a lifestyle business. You can do it, but your business is substantially more likely to be disrupted than more brick and mortar industries.
You might've had a solid calendar scheduling app in 2015, but by 2024 everyone is eating your lunch from every angle, while the plumbers continue to plumb. And the major moats like network effects or marketing specialization usually only apply to larger businesses.
His advice was to always go big, grow quickly, and sell quickly. Even if you go smaller for a higher chance success, the income stream likely will crumble as soon as you stop actively pressing forward with the product because of the intense competition in the software space. The lower risk option of growing and selling quickly, in his estimation, was the best risk-adjusted return.
This resonates .. I built top selling Mobile Apps in 2013-2015 and very quickly after making it to the top copycats came from all over and revenue dwindled.
The problem with that argument is that it will have you waiting forever for a gig as cushy at Mark Zuckerberg's.
If you wanted to start a company like Zuckerberg's you had one place (Silicon Valley) and a time period of less than ten years in which things like that were getting funded (or alternately, a similar window in China that may or may not still be open)
You'll always be able to find people who want to be partners in a restaurant, whether or not they are out of their mind is another question.
You don't need to be waiting tho .. the question is whether to deliberately go after big ideas .. Marc Randolph, founder of Netflix, specifically went after Netflix as an idea to be really big and make him a lot of money .. So did @pg with ViaWeb
1. Have a storage bin for each project. (I use stackable plastic bins of the style you might find in elementary school classrooms. I label them by making masking-tape flags that hang off the side, and then writing on the flags with permanent marker.)
2. Keep your drafts in the bins, but also put any loose notes/sentences/paragraphs/etc. that are related to the project in the bin. Thus, the bin serves not only as the project's physical storage, but also as its inbox.
3. Work out of a notebook with pages that you can tear out; or carry around notecards or other scrap paper; or grab whatever paper is at hand when you need to write during the day. But the key is to write each discrete idea (or sentence/paragraph/etc.) on a separate piece of paper. Go about your day, writing whatever you need, but keep everything you write together.
4. At the end of your day, distribute the jots/notes/drafts into the corresponding bin.
5. When it's time to work on a particular project, grab the corresponding bin. Your drafts will be there, but so will the loose materials you have created. Incorporate the loose notes into new, combined jots/notes/drafts.
Repeat the process until the project is complete.
Ideas rarely come to us all at once according to the project to which they belong, or in the proper order. The beauty of writing discrete notes on loose papers is that it's easy to capture them and then later put them in the correct bin; and when working out of the bins, it's easy to move, group, stack, and otherwise organize or delete the ideas — working with them until your project essentially writes itself.
Happy to share more of my own experiences and suggestions if you have questions. Regardless, please let me know if you find this helpful or have any feedback.
Cheers!
I noticed you didn't say anything about digital writing, about half of my writings are in digital format. I do try to write the full idea that comes to mind before ending my writing session.