[sb8244]

There's a dangerous line of thinking around "my business isn't producing revenue because I'm not full-time focused on it." I've fallen into this trap and learned the hard way that full-time focus was not the issue.

You have a team for in-house mobile apps, but you don't have any revenue. Why is that? How will you fix it?

[creer]

> you don't have any revenue.

That is what struck me also. You could try and extrapolate on some revenue and growth but there isn't that. It's not because of "part time" procrastination since there is a team working on it. What's happening? (We don't need to know but you need to know.)

[kijin]

Very true. Focus is overrated.

Most "mobile app" ideas can be validated fairly easily, with a few weekends' worth of time at most. Put your MVP out there. Spend a few more weekends fixing problems and responding to user behavior. If it doesn't generate any revenue, throw it away. Try something new. Rinse and repeat. If you finally stumble on something that sticks, then you can allow yourself to focus on it full-time.

[ravelantunes]

I think this is a very valuable insight, especially in the consumer and small/medium size business. I have fallen into this trap before.

One area where I would say that full-time matters more is if your product's target is big enterprise customers. Those are a bit harder to sell bootstrapping/moonlighting.

[sb8244]

For sure. Big challenge with those companies—that I found—is that they want a lot of credentials + proof that are simply outside of the reach of small businesses. So even if you're full-time, it may be a "good luck" scenario.

Although SOC2 is fairly easy to get, it's expensive for bootstrapped founders (maybe $30-45k all in.)

It wasn't enterprise, but the 600 person company (that I knew very well) simply wouldn't work with us in the end because we were too small (2 of us.) It sucked, a lot, because the deal cycle took about 18 months to get to a firm no. Since then, everyone involved has left the company

[gunapologist99]

SOC2 (Type 1) doesn't have to be that expensive, not counting your own time. For a very small company, it can run as low as $12-15k. Shop around.

Don't invest a lot of time in individual deals when you're small. Aside from the time and probably attorney fees (and opportunity cost), it's pretty demoralizing if it doesn't come through, and most of the time it doesn't, especially when you're small. The distraction alone can kill your company.

Focus on many smaller deals rather than one or two big deals.

[sb8244]

Agree completely. Going after small deals ruthlessly would've been my biggest change. We were trying to, but so much was wrong with the actual way we were trying to sell.

Btw the price comes from my latest adventure. I think 12k is too low unless you can literally do everything without help (i could have but it would've destroyed my time.) 20k is probably a realistic price floor with pentest included.

Although type 1 doesn't require a pen test or you to actually do anything. Just to say you would do it a certain way. Every prospect that has asked for SOC2 has wanted a separate pentest deliverable.

[vaylian]

> "my business isn't producing revenue because I'm not full-time focused on it." I've fallen into this trap and learned the hard way that full-time focus was not the issue.

What was/were the issue/s if you don't mind me asking?

[brianwawok]

It’s always product market fit. If the product is right it will find users.

[sb8244]

Nah, that's not the right answer. It puts focus on the product rather than the founders. You do NOT need PMF to get 1-5 sales. If you can't even get there, it's bigger problems. PMF is needed to turn 2k MRR into 50k MRR.

In my case, it heavily stemmed from our inability to do sales (at all). We had feedback early about how this was an $XXXXX product (and we were in sales process for that) and it put blinders on us. We should've been okay with $XXX and grabbed 5-10 customers early.

Why we couldn't do sales is something I'm not going to put on the internet because it affects people other than me. (I have no issue talking about my shortcomings.)

I left that company and started another with a proven sales/marketing type within 2 months. The story is much different than my first. It's because he can sell.

Funny enough, I have a license to use my old product w/o selling it, so we do. We've gotten at least 10 customers asking to buy it. And they're fairly emphatic about it.

[badpun]

> Nah, that's not the right answer. It puts focus on the product rather than the founders. You do NOT need PMF to get 1-5 sales. If you can't even get there, it's bigger problems. PMF is needed to turn 2k MRR into 50k MRR.

It really depends on the product/market. I've worked in a startup with a competent founder who was great at sales, and which nevertheless, after 2 years, went bankrupt without making a single sale. Our product was targeting enterprises in a specific niche - there were perhaps 10-20 or so potential customers worldwide. Making even a single sale would've been huge.

[itronitron]

>> Why we couldn't do sales is something I'm not going to put on the internet because it affects people other than me.

I can appreciate that but I am wondering if you can share what you think are core skills, habits, or personality traits that are critical in order to make sales happen for a new business/product.

[sb8244]

Sure, I can do that. This isn't an exhaustive list, of course:

  * Don't be afraid to ask for the sale
  * Be comfortable "closed lost"-ing a deal instead of having non-productive conversations (SOGOTP)
  * Recap all meetings with prospects or customers (email sent to them with information such as about your product, your call with them, their painpoints, next steps, etc.)
  * Leave meetings with a tangible next step. Someone not wanting to schedule another meeting is a huge red flag
  * You don't need a sales process or methodology, but you might if you're not able to effectively manage your deals.
  * Be comfortable living in the present and future, as you want early prospects to help shape the future with you.

[metafunctor]

Yeah, there's no amount of dedication that will make the business fly if you stubbornly want to do “your thing”. You have to do what the market can find and is willing to pay for. Many of such businesses can be discovered without starting full-time.

[windexh8er]

It seems as though a lot of startup founders and product managers succumb to this illness. I've worked for a number of startups that have always had a number of people who were building things for nobody but themselves. These features, and in one case - product, were not anything any customers were willing to pay for. Instead a lot of these founders think it's their sellers and double down on ineffective solutions like thinking something such as MEDDPICC will solve the "sales" issue, except what they should be doing is having honest conversations with prospects and customers.

[sb8244]

Founders should be doing sales (not leading it, doing it) until at least 1M ARR. That solves a lot of that issue.

Maybe it's a difference between bootstrapped mindset and VC-fueled one.

[windexh8er]

I would argue there's a soft spot at around $10M ARR where founders turned full time CXO lose focus and touch with their product. They turn it over to folks who don't seem to carry the customer focus but instead have a focus on building their version. It doesn't seem to play out well and I'm curious why this seems to keep happening.

[sb8244]

I agree with this, although the timeline differs a bit between companies. I was at Salesloft from 1M ARR -> 100M ARR, so I saw this roughly play out. However, I will say that the founders did an exceptional job staying close to the product well after 10M ARR.

I think a lot of it is due to the VC playbook. The question of "who am I building my business for?" looks a lot different between VC and bootstrap. Once you start getting into heavy hitter revenue (grain of salt, I've never done this as a founder), the machine starts working largely on its own. It's probably more impactful to spend time on the business systems instead of the product.

But bootstrapped founders seem more likely to stay close to the product for longer. Eventually they may want some sort of out, and you see the playbook execute much much quicker.

Now, I have other theories on why it doesn't play out well. Going from 10M -> 50M ARR is a huge hurdle. You have to really level up a lot of the business itself to do so. It might be that it's just not possible for a lot of companies to bridge the gap. I think it's easier to go 50M -> 100M than 10M -> 50M.

[gopher_space]

> Maybe it's a difference between bootstrapped mindset and VC-fueled one.

The bootstrap mindset understands that "idea man" isn't an actual job.

[jokethrowaway]

PMF is not only about the product being right for the users but also reaching the users who are interested.

Marketing / Sales can be a blocker too.