Ask HN: Books giving practical advice on starting a solo SaaS business?
My goal in life (as of right now at least) is to start my own SaaS business so that I can eventually quit my 40 hour work week and have more time for things I enjoy doing. To reach that goal I am first compiling practical advice from people who have already been through that process and are now sharing that advice around ideation and idea validation, marketing, pricing, etc.
I've been looking for book recommendations on this topic both here on HN and also on Indiehackers and while there are many books that are most certainly relevant in some ways and generally just good reads, I would like to start out by asking you if there are any books you've read that specifically give this type of advice. I say books to keep it simple but am of course also open to other types of high-quality resources like blog series or conference talks.
Looking forward to hearing about all the great things you guys have read!
101 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadDefinitely check out Indie Hackers though! The whole community and podcast is built around that idea.
Here is one of his podcast episodes where he talks about it though - so you can start here: https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-219
Startup for the rest of us (podcast) tracks better with my current day thinking.
There’s a major chunk of the book that’s high-level mindset and strategy that still holds up. The detailed tactics do not (unsurprising given we’re 10 years out).
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The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
This book stresses the idea of starting with customer interviews before you build anything and how to ask questions of prospective customers to get meaningful information when people's bias is to just tell you, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," even though they'd never pay money for it. I spent a long time trying to apply it, and the struggle was that in my experience, customers who don't mind diving deep into their unsolved problems for an aspiring founder are a disjoint group from customers who have serious money to spend.
My notes: https://mtlynch.io/book-reports/the-mom-test/
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Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling
This is a bit dated, but I think it has valuable takeaways. The most important for me was the value in marketing to small niche customers. Big competitors are less interested in catering to niche groups, and the more specialized, the easier they are to find and market to (e.g., they all read the same magazine or attend the same convention).
My notes: https://mtlynch.io/book-reports/start-small-stay-small/
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"Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business: Jason Cohen, Founder, WP Engine" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw)
A good recording of a MicroConf talk about useful things to consider when building a new Saas business.
For more of the same, I got a lot out of Lean Customer Development by Cindy Alvarez. Here's a talk from Cindy if you'd like to get to learn more before committing to a book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5hc7sseHbE
Yep, that makes sense. I’ll say most marketing books I listen to that are 10 years old are brutally out of date.
The focus on detail that made the book a success also made it go out of date relatively quickly.
It needs an update. That is on my to do list most years (between running MicroConf and TinySeed) and one of these days I will circle back and get it done.
Honestly, this weighs on me. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for years.
* in the niche sense
This book is really amazing and filled with a lot of practical advice. Can't recommend this enough.
https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/not-in-house-on-reinventi...
I would add things like sending newsletters (Mailchimp), monitoring (Sentry), various types of analytics (Segment, Hotjar) to the list.
With managed expectations it's very doable.
Sounds rough, but I'd recommend weighing any recommendation against this.
How about a book that motivates people to do that, like four steps to the epiphany? It isn't an either-or proposition.
You can conclude the above after absorbing the opportunity cost and burn of reading a few thousand pages of anecdotes from newly wealthy people post-hoc moralizing their luck, or you can start with it as an axiom that provides the only demonstrable path to success.
However, it's the only advice I have.
I’d argue anyone in business - as either an employee, entrepreneur, manager, etc - should read it because the basic lessons are universally applicable to every business, regardless of size or industry. Especially as a solo practitioner, there’s value in understanding the dangers of doing everything yourself.
From my point of view, he is very productive, successful, willing to give ton of advice.
He has few good websites (or call it startup or whatever).
You'll probably get a lot of practical suggestions on processes from others here, but I really enjoyed Peter Thiel's Zero to One book. It's not 100% relevant since he rambles pretty hard throughout and a lot of it needs a pinch of salt since he's so contrarian, but there's a lot of really good gems in there about how to build something legitimately new to create your own pie of income (including chapters on marketing, pricing, etc), instead of building something to get a small slice of an existing market.
https://www.joisig.com/
Might be worth it checking that out.
EDIT: As a software developer, I also second Basecamp books and their organizational culture (that is explicitly and publicly divulged on their materials - some of them are free).
Given that basically everyone would like to do this, I suggest it's a rather challenging thing to do in that it's highly competitive, and that the vast majority of Entrepreneurs, bootstrapped or otherwise, work longer hours than average.
If you calculate risk into the equation, it does not look good.
If your real objective is 'work-life balance' then there's probably an opportunity for you to contract and consult x-hours a week that has considerably lower risk dynamics.
But if your actual goal is really to start a business, then obviously that's what you want to do.
And then drop it and just start working.
There is a large swath of self-branded Indie Hackers who cling to books, blogs, conferences etc. but are too paralyzed by all the advice and input to actually do the one thing they need to: get customers.
Disclaimer: I run my own SaaS and visit Indiehacker meetups and stuff. I’m not a nay sayer, just stay skeptical.
So, even though I haven't specifically built a saas business by myself, though I have a bunch of experience growing small startups to medium to large companies, I would echo this advice.
* reproducing model training * deployment of experiments in a CI/CD pipeline * observability of models * discoverability and governance of results * versioning of data / models * optimizing for latency vs throughput * when to use batch vs real time etc
Just like a course in a computer language wouldn't necessarily teach you about CI/CD, horizontal vs vertical scaling, or domain-specific bits.
https://www.howtokicksaas.com
The SaaS Build section focuses on building with a team, but other sections don't make assumptions about team vs one-person business setup.
Lots of specifics which certain other books lack. The book is not 100% finished.
Your life will be more challenging if you start a SAAS business. It will not be easier. The only people in SAAS I know with an easy life poured their life into their company and things came good. Investors are starting to see SAAS as a 10yr investment, to give you a sense of time. Ironically those I know who have done well are some of the busiest people I know. I guess they are driven and love their work.
I think what you are describing is working part time. Maybe this is a valid option if you want to have more time doing your own thing?
The startup world likes the approach of make a plan and work backwards which is what you are currently doing. I would just suggest you re-frame your expectations. Read Peter Thiel's books but talk to the average SAAS Joe as well as we are not all SAAS rock stars :-)
When you’re solo, you are the chief everything officer. You are the sales person, the account manager, the customer support, the product manager, the designer, the developer, the always on-duty SRE, and the business admin who keeps up with all the paper work and legalities.
Going solo is hard. But it’s also very rewarding. The learning curve is off the charts.
The reality is lots and lots of customer support, constant development of new features to stay competitive, new (cheaper) entrants cloning your product once they see you're successful, ever-evolving privacy regulations, sleepless nights over security concerns, long payback periods on the cost of acquiring a customer (depending on your pricing), etc.
How does it feel knowing you are going to die and get buried and probably never accomplish that goal? Because it’s time for you to open yourself to that grim reality.
A one man SaaS will take a lot more of your time than your 40 hour a week job. Do you plan to have a wife and kid(s)? Those will also take more of your time. Your time is going to get eaten up between your one man SaaS, your family, maintaining yourself (food, sleep, exercise). After all those things have been attended to, then maybe you will have some time to spend on things you actually enjoy.
Be straight with what you want man and don’t beat around the bush. Do you want a SaaS business, or do you just want a way to make great money with as little effort as possible so you can trade work time for fun time doing whatever you want?
Because there is plenty of advice that can be given for the latter, and none of it involves SaaS. The first step to living a life of productive leisure is to admit that you simply want a life of leisure, and go straight for it. Don’t come up with indirect paths like building a SaaS that you think will sound more acceptable or noble to the rest of society or your parents.
But if you’re hellbent on a SaaS because you just want a SaaS, good luck to you. Hopefully building a SaaS is how you want to spend the majority of your time.
What does this mean, though?
It's a paradox that in order to obtain more free time you'll likely have to spend years handing over hour upon hour to your business.
If you pull it off, however, the business will give you back that time with freedom as interest.
I don't have a book to recommend but this guy's comments are usually gold: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jasonkester. He offers good advice and seems to live the life that you aspire to. Note the ten years of work though:
> The entire goal of building a business, in my mind, is to get the point where you can lounge on a beach or travel the world and not need to actively engage in anything except the pursuit of happiness. I personally averaged out at a little less than four hours of work per week in 2017, running the sort of low maintenance, feature complete, Software-as-a-Service business that the author spends a paragraph explaining is not in fact a "serious company".
> But look at the product and you'll see craftsmanship. Ten years of work, in fact as of roughly today. But never at the author's pace. Always at mine. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. That's the great thing about building a business. You can do it any way you like.
That's a wonderful way to put it. I will definitely check out his comments. Thank you!
Moral of the story, its way important to start selling even before You write a line of code!. Sounds totally non-intuitive but without actual sales, how will Your MVP be funded.
This was invaluable to me when getting started with my SaaS.
https://stackingthebricks.com/just-fucking-ship/
Get a mentor who's already been there
Read Traction by Gino Wickman
Read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg
Identify and engage a big enough channel that will sell your product for you.
Build the product that they want. You build what they want, and they'll enthusiastically sell it for you.