Readit Newsjohnjago commented on My sixth year as a bootstrapped founder mtlynch.io/solo-developer... · Posted by u/mtlynch
Thanks for reading and for the kind words!
>Have you always been so disciplined in life? If not, how did you improve it?
No, I was a lot less disciplined when I was younger. I remember as a teen trying to learn Java several times and always getting bored a day or two in. I was a good student, but I would procrastinate work and distract myself while working.
I probably became more disciplined in my twenties, but I unfortunately don't think it was something I tried to do as much as it just happened.
One thing I think helped was protecting my focus more. I used to hop between different tasks a lot and constantly check social media or email if I had a moment of downtime or boredom, so I became more aggressive at stopping that.[0]
I also found the book Deep Work by Cal Newport to be helpful in staying more focused.[1]
>As you shared here (https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-1/), doubts are natural when you haven't succeeded yet; how did you keep going? Did you ever come close to giving up and going back to corporate America?
I went into it with the expectation that it might take 3-5 years for me to find a successful business, so I think that was helpful. I've spoken to other founders who feel disappointed that nothing they're doing is working because they were expecting success to come quickly.
I definitely did worry that I wasn't cut out for being a founder and that my skills made a lot more sense for a big tech employee. The thing I found comforting was reading stories and listening to podcast interviews with other founders where they talked about how many failures they had before they landed on the right business.
I never came close to going back to a corporate job because I knew I had enough savings to last me, but if my financial situation had been different, I might have given up before I landed on something that worked.
>I believe you have a partner; how did this affect your relationship with your partner?
There are lots of effects in different directions. Me not having a regular job means that my income is less consistent and certain, and she absorbs some of the risks I take. I also feel like I'm not a good partner when I'm stressed a lot about work, and so part of my motivation in de-stressing the business has been to be a better partner in my personal relationship.
>Knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
I wish I'd done educational products ("info products") earlier. They're like a microcosm of the experience of launching a product because you have to find customers, pitch to them effectively, and then deliver something they'll want. Like you can do that whole cycle in a month, whereas it would probably take 3-10x that long to do it with a SaaS. I made my first course right as TinyPilot was getting traction, and that course made more than anything I'd done in the previous three years.[2]
[0] https://mtlynch.io/eliminate-distractions/
[1] https://mtlynch.io/book-reports/deep-work/
[2] https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-year-4/#hit-the-front-page...
> I wish I'd done educational products ("info products") earlier. They're like a microcosm of the experience of launching a product because you have to find customers, pitch to them effectively, and then deliver something they'll want. Like you can do that whole cycle in a month, whereas it would probably take 3-10x that long to do it with a SaaS.
Something that helps with this fast cycle is that many people have prior experience which they can turn into an info product. For example, Daniel worked for many years at AWS, and then after quitting could write up https://dvassallo.gumroad.com/l/aws-good-parts by leveraging his many years on the job.
If the info product is along the lines Daniel describes,
"This is an opinionated book. We only cover topics we have significant first-hand experience with. You won't find most of the knowledge we share here in the AWS docs."
it's really valuable.
I find it similar to how it's more effective for a fresh university student to ask senior classmates which classes are good and which professors to avoid, rather than asking professors or academic advisors. They'll get more relatable advice from peers.
The same goes for lots of knowledge or skilled work, whether accounting, construction, or something else. First-hand experience that doesn't appear in textbooks can be so valuable to others.
The author says “The solution to search is a search engine that is aligned with the users.”
I wholeheartedly agree.
The incentives at play are often at the detriment of the person searching, and for the benefit of the company and shareholders of the search engine. Google measures ad revenue and related metrics far more than the abstract concept of whether people are getting the best search results.
The Browser Company, with 22 investors putting in over $50M, has pressure to make a return on that money. The way to do that in the long run? Show paid results. Unless they can make a subscription model work, which many search engine startups have failed at, they'll eventually resort to paid results. Then people will see what's been paid to show up, even if there might be something more relevant to their search than the ad.
Does anyone have other examples of projects with this level of architecture documentation?