Thank HN: 7 months ago, I asked for help. Now I've got 5 employees.
Patio11 was among those: he offered to pay me 400 USD a month, every month, to make a custom Wordpress theme for him. I took him up on it. His offer really helped. The ability to hammer out a Wordpress theme and cover my living costs in a short period of time meant that I could hire out someone else to do the tasks that were taking all of my time to pay for my food and rent. With the new-found free time, I was able to focus on marketing and sales and grow the service I had been doing myself into a larger business. By the time the 2nd Wordpress theme was due, I had run overdue on its deadline because my tiny business had been covered by some major media and I was swamped with just keeping it up and running. Thankfully Patrick was understanding when I turned in the late 2nd project and told him I simply had no more time to design for him due to my personal business's growth.
Fast-forward a few months. I now have 5 people working under me (3 full-time, 2 part-time) and my own office. Things are still hard, and I'm not rich, but I'm in a much better place than I was when I first posted. Thank you!
117 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] threadYes.
Maybe there's a competitive reason he's not divulging, or he's just too darn busy? ;)
(I'd love to know, too)
I wasn't actually planning on revealing this, but you guys seem to really want to know and the community has been good to me. And maybe you can give me more advice.
I actually have a degree in CS and I love to code, but I tried for a while and never managed to make money on my own with my tech skills before Patrick. I figured (correctly, I think) that my problem was not with my hacking abilities but with my business skills - I had absolutely no good sense of what people would give me money for.
In my mind, I saw myself stumbling around on a seemingly infinite plane while I was trying to follow a hill-climbing algorithm to maximize the amount of money I was making. So I imagined something like a random-restart approach might work: let's jump somewhere totally different and try climbing any hills we find there. Plus, I knew that people were willing to give money for baked goods, so I figured that simplified the business component to an extent.
It turns out I was right - I did find a hill to climb and I've gotten a lot better at business in general.
The dilemma now is I really enjoy coding and actually think I have the skills to run a softare business (which could ultimately be more lucrative), but have a growing food business on my hands. I'm certainly not complaining - really, anything that brings me more money to buy stuff like a dryer makes me happy - but sometimes I feel out of place.
Now that I've hired a manager for the bakery, I have a bit more control of my time and I've recently been able to take on a bit of consulting work, which has turned out well, and I'm pumping the money into growing the bakery.
I think that's the optimal strategy I can follow for now. What do you guys think? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on my relatively twisted path.
Edit: Why not build a web app for your bakery? Allow customers to order via the web. If you provide some sort of customization so that customers can request custom cakes and confections it could turn into an interesting internet aided brick and mortar business. Whatever you do don't downplay the value of having a business that makes real money selling real things.
I just discovered an innovative little app from Domino's Pizza here in Sydney: Firstly I was able to order the entire pizza online in a very intuitive interface (with a few issues), and then pay for it online. Once paid, a ticking clock appeared that showed the exact time that they received the order, started on the pizza, baked it, and when it was complete and ready for pickup. While waiting, in the same window they did a good job of trying to offer entertainment by showing movie trailers (not my cup of tea but well implemented).
Stuff like this makes a difference.
"Programming as a profession is only moderately interesting. It can be a good job, but if you want to make about the same money and be happier you could actually just go run a fast food joint. You are much better off using code as your secret weapon in another profession.
People who can code in the world of technology companies are a dime a dozen and get no respect. People who can code in biology, medicine, government, sociology, physics, history, and mathematics are respected and can do amazing things to advance these discipline."
Your application of programming in such an area makes you more interesting and creative - not less.
Also please start a blog!
Really neat. I wished there was more stuff like this on HN.
In a great way! People helping people. And in a very Hacker News sort-of way, helping people get a business off the ground! He's the master of his own destiny now and that's awesome.
That is a fascinating observation... because interestingly enough the business of Reddit and Hackernews is focused only on the community itself, and nothing else.
It almost reminds me of the Zappos story and how they treat their employees.
Make your employees #1 - and you will prosper. Make your community #1 - and you will prosper.
After some of the other tech focused user submitted news sites outgrew their roots, I wandered around for years not feeling compelled to join another community. HN is different, it is the reason I joined and this story highlights why.
Can you talk about your marketing and sales effort? It's always difficult for technical folks.
Generally, being a social person (which does not come easily to me at all) is very helpful. If you have a lot of friends, it's very likely one of them will be able to help you market or sell in some way or another. I relied heavily on friends and friends of friends. I still do.
More specifically, figuring out who are major journalists or trend-influencers (potential customers who can convince their friends to become customers) within your target market and then befriending them is very useful.
I'd add to that:
Do what you love. Be passionate about your work. Share that passion freely with anyone who will listen.
If you're an engineer, consider buying "Get Clients Now". The cover looks awful. However, it's a great recipe book for learning to market yourself.
I imagine a similar process would work for online-only businesses.
In random order:
Employees watch what you do very carefully. Their behavior is strongly influenced by yours.
Having several conservative ways to make small amounts of money if necessary is good.
Emotional stability is an important skill. The ability to dampen both optimism and anxiety is something that comes with experience, I think. Multiple backup plans help with the latter.
It is relatively easy to siphon off pieces of business when the market is large. Profitable competition tells me that I can probably find buyers, so long as I can think of a twist.
Being a generally friendly, helpful person, even to people who you think have nothing to offer you in return, is good for business. I'm a much friendlier person now than I was when I started. I've also found being friendly and helpful just makes me happy.
Congrats on getting to a better place; hopefully you can go further and expand more!
Maybe you can tell us more about what you did right, and what your business does!
$300-400 usd seems very little to get by. At the time of your posting, it seemed like a "student" in need of the cash.
It's pay back time - your experiences,lessons learnt will be appreciated.
I'm married with a kid and own a home now, but back in the days when I lived with my parents, even paying them a modest rent and share of utilities I could have "lived" on $500 a month without causing them much/any expense. Just. :)
Shenzen ain't China and 400$ is a lot of money in the rest of the country.
Disclaimer: I live in Hong Kong and have a number of coworkers and friends in China.
What's that like for accessing stuff outside of .th? I hear about lots of cheap Internet with high bandwidth deals around the world but I have to wonder whether for accessing the typical US sites, a 1Mbps connection in the US would always be a win over even a 100Mbps connection in, say, Korea.
[1]: http://www.speedtest.net/result/983221226.png
[2]: http://www.speedtest.net/result/983225975.png
[3]: http://www.speedtest.net/result/983227297.png
minimum theoretical latency = d/c = 42.5 ms (EDIT: thanks for correction, ArturSoler!)
c = 300000 km/s, speed of light, http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs...
d = 12761 km, distance between San Francisco, CA and Bangkok, Thailand http://www.travelmath.com/flight-distance/from/San+Francisco...
By the way, speaking of locality, here in St.-Petersburg, Russia, now that I'm connected to the new Ethernet internet provider, I get 3 ms to google's servers, which means they are in the city already (they are; 8 hops). I haven't got such low latency to any Russian site yet. I actually decided to traceroute them when I read about a new Google's data center in Kotka, Finland and read suggestions that it might be used to serve Russia too. Good guess, but Google already does better than that, which shows their attention to maximizing quality of service.
Those latencies are achievable with a good Ethernet provider. DSL will add 10..20 ms, depending on modulation. Radio will add hundreds.
Your calculation is (300000 km/s)/(12761 km) = (23.5 (1/s))
Note the result is s^-1, not ms.
1/23.5 is 0.0425s, or 42.5ms, so that latency is not possible.
Here in Germany some providers even charge you on a monthly bassi to deactivate interlaving which they call "Fast Path" then…
It's cool to know that I could uproot to a place like Bangladesh if I so decided. That $900/month doesn't factor in the non-monetary costs of living in Oklahoma, which can build up :(
I am originally from a second tier city called Surat in India. I think I can have a very comfortable life in 400$. Here's the breakdown (all costs in Indian Rupees):
Monthly Rent for 1 Bedroom: Approx 4000
Internet: 2,000 (Not the fastest but hey, we are not hosting servers from the bedroom)
Food: 1,500 (50 Rupees per day (eating out) for 30 days)
Others (Gas (Petrol)/Clothes/Entertainment/Electricity etc.): 3,500 (A rough estimate)
Total: 11,000 INR, approx 250 USD, I am still left over with 150$.
There are probably people in parts of the USA who are surviving on $700 a month.
Jastis, to answer your question, you do it one step at a time, because if you try to do too many things (or too big of a thing) at once then nothing gets done. Bite off one small thing a day and you'll be amazed how much gets done in half a year.
Or are you using some sort of plugin that gives you more info inline?
I've been working steadily on my startup since I left my job in April. My "DONE" list has 88 items. Last night I finished another task: adding proper logging to my web service. There are a lot more tasks on my "TO DO" list, but now there are none blocking me from launching the beta version of my service next week.
I think he nails it. Want to start doing something? Do it. It won't be pretty at first but you'll learn from your own experiences which is invaluable. And, by selling just $50 of services or products to your friends next month, you'll be $50 closer to your goals.
I might be misreading, or Patrick may have backfilled you, but the 1 thing I know about business to be more true than most things, is you take care of your early customers, specifically if they were good to you.
The entire point of consulting arrangements is to allow businesses to set the most flexible and reasonable terms to work under. If Patrick wanted a Wordpress theme factory forever, he could have made that a contract term. Somehow, I doubt he did.
Matasano engaged Patrick. We may be one of his earliest clients! Somehow, I doubt he'll be as available for tactical one-off projects for much longer. That makes me happy.
> I'd be able to give you one project a month for $400 until you either got sick of doing them or decided to move upmarket.
[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1171663]
It's really only now that I'm starting to get back a bit of time where I can do things like write this. I sent him an email telling him about this thread, but I'd bet he's asleep now.
Sounds like a typical startup plan to me!
As others have mentioned, we'd like to know what your business is. Is it web based? Are you manufacturing widgets? Share the details :D
It would be nice to read about your whole experience though. Thx
I can't decide if I want to customize themes or hire a designer. I've tweaked my own theme a dozen times this year.
My life (and work) has been infinitely better since I let go and paid good money to good designers to do good work. Find one, build a relationship and trust and then trust their judgement.
That's basically my thought process.
One of the beautiful thing about the Internet is how it allows you to set up nice lifestyle businesses. If I have a successful application (I'm 20), I could easily travel around the world working wherever there is an Internet connection and just getting by nicely. At least for a few years!
Not only my financial situation changed, but also the way I view the world. Just 400 days before now, $25 is my monthly money pocket that I get from my parents and it should cover all my expenses (except clothes, food and obviously housing).
Now I have my own Internet subscription ($30 a month) and also I just purchased a VPS and a couple of SaaS service. I did bought my Nokia feature phone ($150) also myself and this little netbook I'm typing from ($400). That in 300 days or so, and by the end of this year, I'm planning on buying a Sony Z series, 23'' monitor and a smartphone.
I have 3 years browsing and reading the Internet, but it's only in the last year that I started making money out of it (not browsing! the internet). This wouldn't be done without Hacker News. I should also mention that my English was revamped considerably and ... okay, lot of things actually.
Thanks HN! You didn't give me money but you did teach me how to make it and also LIVE happy.
I try to prioritize the items I need. An external hard-drive comes first, because I should have a backup strategy. The monitor is more important, because I need better display...
Certainly, I'll offer myself an Android as a gift and that also should serve and help me in business (read emails in the go, check statics, HN on mobile instead of computer...)
Let's say you started investing/saving at the age of 18 up until 65, and lets say the amount you put in per month over that period of time was $800 per month - this is pretty low, given how much your income should increase over time.
At a conservative rate of return of 5%, at age 65, it would be worth around $1.8 million, $1.35 million of that being the compound 5%, and only roughly $450,000 being what you put in.
Essentially, the earlier you start saving, the bigger your runway, and the more comfortable you'll be later in life, without having to compromise on your lifestyle right there and then.
The later you start, the more you have to put in each month to get the same outcome at the end.
Something I wish my parents had taught me :)
Of course, if you start your own business, and are successful enough, the numbers look way, way, better. This is essentially just your fallback position.
All investments have a certain lifespan on them - with things like bonds and T-bills, interest payments and maturity are fixed and contractually obligated, while with equities it's up to company performance. To really do well, you have to think like a trader and run all investments over a specific timeframe with predetermined exit signals for profit, loss, or trend changes.
It may look as if Warren Buffett lets money sit in the market. But he is actually running trades over decades of time. He has to - he literally has too much money to make useful(percentage-wise) profit in smaller time frames.
I think that the "misleading and harmful" part is more important--which was the crux of my original comment about the lack of consistency.
Also, pick toys which have utility, make you work out, teach you something, and are different than the past toys you've bought. Try to learn from play too.
This alone is a hugely valuable lesson. When you need help, and someone offers help, accept the help. (Of course, you had already learned the first lesson: When you need help, ask for help.)
I think the majority of HN readers are just like you : interested in what _we_, as 'hackers', can do. Related to 'change the world', or 'make money'. The thing is to combine both. You seem to be pretty well. Bravo and keep up the good work !