| Go for it. You will fail a lot. But where there’s a will there’s a way. And the “end” is so worth it. Similar story: I was working in software, and over the years I literally felt pain to think about working for someone else for the rest of my life. After lots of side projects alone and with friends, with VC—backable and bootstrapped ambitions, I could just feel it in my bones that solo-bootstrapped B2C-software-entrepreneurship was the best fit for my skill strengths and weaknesses, temperament, and desired lifestyle. 1. I left corporate at $3K monthly (not recurring). 2. 0 pivots on the idea that ended up “working”, but countless other side projects before AND after that idea. 3. $0 for many years. Then decided to monetize (one time purchase) a project that had decent usage and traffic. Then a few thousand a month for a year. Moved to subscription pricing and improved it a ton based on my vision and customer feedback. Now a little under $10K/m recurring after a few years from the previous milestone and growing steadily. 4. I never want to go back to working for someone else again. 5. Solo 6. See above. Two critical aspects IMO. 1. I did a lot of side projects. I had a lot of “at bats”. And each time I learned more. I developed more skills sure, but also arguably more importantly learned more about myself: what I wanted and what I could do. And you only need one hit. Doesn’t even have to be a home run. 2. Product and marketing/sales intuition are critical. I wasn’t even a software engineer, but was a technical product person. You can’t just build an impressive technical system. You have to build a product that users love (product vision/sense) and get it in front of them (marketing/sales), with extremely limited time and money (ruthless prioritization). |