[jasonkester]

While there are indeed lots of people doing this sort of thing, I notice people being accused of it who are in fact successful and are giving out actionable advice. (They're easy to spot if you look, because they don't ask you to buy their course).

Imagine, for example, that you had stumbled across a Magic Formula to create a niche Software as a Service business that brings in $5,000/month while only taking up 10 hours of your time each week. Why would you give that formula away when you could just use it yourself over and over and become a zillionaire?

Well, let's think about it. Assuming you do have that Magic Formula and have used it once, what are your options?

1. Go live on the beach in Thailand. Forever.

2. Build another business that brings in $5,000/month for 10hrs/week effort.

Notice that each spin of the Magic Formula cuts another 10 hours/week out of your schedule of growing your hair and hanging out with that blonde girl from the article. Spin it 4 times and you're back to having a full time job like the rest of the world.

So you don't do that. You hang out on the beach, wondering why more people don't do what you're doing. And you from time to time try to nudge a few more people into doing so themselves.

At least that's my take on it, having spun that formula twice.

[rorykoehler]

Have you written about the magic formula? Care to share?

[jasonkester]

Yes. A bit. Check out my comment history here for more detail but mostly it’s this:

Work remote contracts to fund yourself while building a saas business targetting real problems that companies will spend money on. Repeat as necessary until you hit a niche that works.

My first success was on try number six or so. The second was half a dozen tries later.

Good luck!

[rorykoehler]

It's basically what I'm doing however I have steered clear of B2B as I suspect the 10 hours a week will be hard to stick to once I have paying customers who have support requirements. How do you contain expectations in that regard?

[jasonkester]

My experience with businesses is that the bigger they are the less support they need.

All in, I spend maybe an hour a week on support, across my 2 paying products. Nearly all of that is for the cheapest accounts. Companies with money have people who know what they're doing, who can quickly figure out what the product does and how to set it up, and who then go use it as intended without needing any hand holding.

I picked 10 hours a week in my example because that's where it was when I was building those things "full time". Now that they are feature complete, it's a lot closer to zero. I haven't opened the IDE for either of my rent paying products since the summer.