I bootstrapped my private-journaling project into a lifestyle business

https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/063525ef84

by ChanningAllen • 7 years ago

355 122 7 years ago

Not trying to downtalk, but it took you 11 years to pull this off? This is some massively slow growth :D

average monthly revenue back in 2012 was 2k. Nothing to scoff at for a side hustle while working full time. This guy is killing it..

jbverschoor• 7 years ago

So what’s your mrr?

MichaelApproved3• 7 years ago

So, nobody can offer criticism unless they are producing better results?

How many NBA coaches can dunk hit a 3-pointer? Yet, the players still listen to their advice and perform better.

Just because someone can't do it themselves doesn't mean they can't offer meaningful insight.

balls187• 7 years ago

randlet4• 7 years ago

Most side projects earn negative dollars over 11 years so that growth over 11 years is probably in the top 0.1% of side project earnings. Very few people can say they grew a side project business into a $200k+ a year business.

r1nkgrl• 7 years ago

also June 2019 - Dec 2009 != 11 years

ska3• 7 years ago

  Not trying to downtalk

But then you went ahead and did anyway...

tozeur• 7 years ago

He prefaced to let OP know that he doesn’t intend to be disparaging and only wants to offer feedback. Not every critique is a personal attack...

hinkley4• 7 years ago

I think Will Farrell achieved peak lampooning of this pattern with the bit about "With all due respect, <deeply offensive and derogatory comment>."

"I said, 'With all due respect'!"

sp3323• 7 years ago

Yup, that's the difference between bootstrapped and venture-backed businesses. Bootstrapping takes time because you (largely) have to make money before you can invest that money in the business.

icedchai• 7 years ago

On the contrary, it is actually impressive compared to many startups... the ones you usually don't hear about on here.

whitepoplar• 7 years ago

What a shitty comment! Go OP, you're doing great.

sbilstein• 7 years ago

Buster was doing lots of full time job stuff throughout this period. He was the head of product for the Slack Platform while I worked there. I think it’s pretty damn impressive he had time to do 750 words while having some very demanding full time roles.

giarc2• 7 years ago

During that time he's also worked at Twitter, Slack, Patreon, Amazon, currently writing a book, had a child, built a lot of other sites/businesses. I'd say it's incredible growth.

bovermyer2• 7 years ago

I know that you're not intentionally being condescending, but it definitely comes across that way.

Consider the wide variety of activities that the author has been involved in. Also consider that 750 Words was a side project, and not the primary focus of his attention.

This is an achievement worth respecting.

dang2• 7 years ago

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nedwin• 7 years ago

Pretty incredible if you consider that during that time he started another company, raised VC for it, shut it down, then worked at Twitter. He's had a whole different life while this has been slowing building in the background.

busterbenson9• 7 years ago

It is slow! No question about it. :) To be honest, most of my projects have either gotten popular fast or died slow deaths. Slow, steady growth is the anomaly and it's taken me 10 years to really appreciate how weird and special that is.

And wow, the other comments to this comment really made my day. I haven't been to Hacker News in a while but it's amazing to see that it's turned into a positive environment.

oil25• 7 years ago

Would like to read this, but I just get a blank page with Javascript disabled. Looks like I can't even archive the page - https://archive.fo/kLTbo. Looking at the page source code, it's completely unreadable - just a single line with a bunch of third party scripts and trackers. Disappointment over what the Web has become ensues.

rtkwe• 7 years ago

"I disabled one of the core technologies of the modern web and it breaks things."

Avery3R• 7 years ago

"Just download 8 megabytes of javascript and wait 10 seconds for a page that's mainly made up of static content and should be under ~1mb and load instantly"

grey-area• 7 years ago

This statement is only true for certain values of modern web.

komali25• 7 years ago

I get your point in general regarding the internet, but I'm not clear at all on how Javascript would be required for any of the tasks in this website.

1. Show text content

2. Make the text content look good

3. Allow submission to a comment section

All of those things can be accomplished with some or none javascript. Why make the job harder than necessary? Why screw over screenreaders?

Oh, I see there's a graph there, that probably would use some JS. But why not just hide the graph for noscript users?

urda• 7 years ago

"I need 8 megs of Javascript and a loading splash screen to display my own blog article in the 'modern web'".

No you don't.

dang2• 7 years ago

Please don't be snarky.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jdironman3• 7 years ago

Archive site I believe is down for maintenance at the moment.

sp3323• 7 years ago

This site isn't the Internet Archive, which is down due to a fiber cut. https://mobile.twitter.com/internetarchive/

sp3323• 7 years ago

The site does have an odd architecture. I can't even find the article text in one of the downloaded files. Kinda looks like they serialized a large JS object into a string inside one of the JS files, wonder if it's in there.

In addition to being un-archivable, it's probably also impossible to use with a screen reader.

Edit: ok I don't really know anything about screen readers. I just miss graceful degradation being a priority of web design.

dymk2• 7 years ago

The DOM of the loaded page clearly has the article content in it (just right click -> inspect), and is visible to a screen reader.

CraneWorm• 7 years ago

I have it enabled and the only thing that loads is a fluff quote and nothing else.

bluedino• 7 years ago

I had the same problem trying to access the site with Lynx.

beat2• 7 years ago

I'm curious how you managed to post a comment about it on HN with Javascript disabled. Is it even possible to post here without using Javascript? (Maybe it is, I dunno.)

neonate• 7 years ago

I just disabled Javascript in Safari. Does this work?

mcintyre1994• 7 years ago

Why wouldn't it be? It's just HTML forms - with a server-side action.

vbsteven2• 7 years ago

It's not about hardline blocking javascript and never running a single line of code. I run NoScript (probably similar to the parent) and block all javascript by default because I don't want anyone else executing code on my machine unless I say so. I selectively enable only the JS that is required. For HN that means enabling one file with about 150 lines of surprisingly clear code.

I had the same experience as the parent in that I could not read anything unless I enabled a ton of files and once the content became readable it was stuttering all the time while scrolling. In 2019, on a beefy 8 core machine with 32GB of memory.

pmoriarty2• 7 years ago

Yes, it is possible to post a comment (or submit an article, or do just about anything else) on HN without Javascript enabled. This reply is an example. I'm using emacs-w3m to post it, and emacs-w3m does not understand Javascript.

I virtually always use HN without Javascript. It works great.

ncheek• 7 years ago

I use HN with Javascript disabled and it works just fine. I'm currently posting this comment with JS disabled so to answer your question, yes it is possible.

xwdv• 7 years ago

Want to build your own side business and save the web at the same time? Every time you come across these sites offer to convert their site to a fully static page.

blorenz3• 7 years ago

I'm curious why with $20K MRR it will take a Kickstarter to create a mobile app.

randlet4• 7 years ago

I don't know if this is the case here, but I think even if you don't really "need" the money, using Kickstarter can be a great way to get more exposure for a project as well as pre-selling/validating a product which reduces the risk of investing development time.

Topgamer7• 7 years ago

As well people willing to pay validates the market desire.

maxxxxx• 7 years ago

Exactly. It's an excellent way to validate your idea.

kolbe• 7 years ago

We have no clue what his costs are. For all we know he loses money each month. There's no faster way to get me to stop listening than to tell me your revenues and omit your costs.

pinky1417• 7 years ago

You're right to be skeptical when costs are omitted. Skepticism is especially warranted when you're looking at a standalone company. However, cost estimation can be a bit of a dark art, especially for side projects. Sure, the article would be better if we at least got the readily available vendor cost information: hosting, contractors, etc. That still wouldn't tell us everything though: cost of the owner's time, cost of failed prior projects, etc. In short, generating a total cost estimate involves multiple choice variables.

At any rate, do you believe his recurring costs, however you quantify them, are likely to be anywhere near $20k a month? It seems very likely that this is a profitable venture.

busterbenson9• 7 years ago

This is a great point. I’m the creator of 750words.com and am happy to provide loose estimation of costs if it’s useful. It’ll take me some time to put together, and I’m not at my computer, but I can share high-level numbers in a bit if it’s of interest.

a13n• 7 years ago

Keep in mind it's revenue, not profit. You never know what their expenses are.

hinkley4• 7 years ago

Isn't this exactly how business loans have worked for a few hundred years?

I have a successful business, but it's at risk from competition if I don't build a new factory/buy some new equipment/produce promotional videos.

These are my current revenues (I might be able to pay you back) and these are my projections (I believe I will continue to be able to pay you back).

iamnotacrook• 7 years ago

Rule number 1 of business - never gamble with your own money!

hinkley4• 7 years ago

He mentions mobile and internationalization. In both cases hiring consultants may be more reliable than trying to build the expertise in-house.

I've become the de facto internationalization expert at several companies and it's always rough. Everyone wants sentence structure to be simple and will fight you when you insist on something like interpolation instead of fancy string concatenation. Like Yoda, you will sound. Hmm!

And then there are straight up dodges like using Arabic numbers for everything in Japan because they have multiple counting systems. Apples and humans use different words when counting.

At the very least you will hire outside people to do the translations after you get the code in place to utilize them.

thaumasiotes4• 7 years ago

And then there are straight up dodges like using Arabic numbers for everything in Japan because they have multiple counting systems. Apples and humans use different words when counting.

In Chinese, the Arabic numerals wouldn't get you out of this, as they replace the number, but not the measure word:

3 apples -- 三个苹果 -- 3个苹果

3 people [needing to sit in a restaurant, or being honored, or what have you] -- 三位 -- 3位.

3 cats -- 三只猫 -- 3只猫.

Will an Arabic number replace both the number and the measure word in written Japanese? What's being dodged?

tjbiddle• 7 years ago

Why use your own money to scale when you can use someone else's?

throw03172019• 7 years ago

And not give up any equity!

jmull• 7 years ago

It sounds like there's about 1 FTE to run the site. Along with other costs I can see why there isn't a lot of money for development. And it sounds like the site could use some work too, so maybe any money left for development is going back into the site.

sdinsn• 7 years ago

Because he wants free money

busterbenson9• 7 years ago

The other responses were accurate. Part of it is to be able to afford a little extra help, part of it is to re-spark excitement in the project with people, and part of it is to buy a little extra time to work on it full-time since the sad truth is that without my other income we're not actually able to live in the Bay Area with a family of four even on this revenue. An alternative is to move somewhere cheaper, which we're also considering.

I also added a breakdown of costs to another comment deeper in this thread, in case that's of interest.

swiftcoder• 7 years ago

That immediately jumped out at me. The bay area seems like a pretty unsustainable economy for even relatively successful small businesses like yours.

liveoneggs• 7 years ago

great product, excellent story

bovermyer2• 7 years ago

I completely forgot about 750 Words. I used to use that a lot about a decade ago.

It makes sense that it went to a pay model. Maybe I'll have another go at it.

That blog post is full of interesting links, though. Well worth reading through the whole thing.

AimForTheBushes• 7 years ago

Great read! I'm glad he's finding success with it but I couldn't help to think how easy it is to accomplish this with iOS notes.

aiisjustanif• 7 years ago

The words you write are saved and locked away, only for you to ever look at, so you can write whatever's really on your mind without fear of it getting out.

Hmmm... Is it wrong I don't trust anyone with the data of my private ramblings.

codezero• 7 years ago

Probably not wrong, but maybe over thinking it. I say that mainly to convince myself, as I feel the exact same way. I want something I can write in that's easy to access, digital, allows some free-form writing/scribbling (if possible), and is encrypted and stored in a cloud but can also be taken with me.

I've been thinking of using Apple's notes exclusively for this, but it'd be nice to have something more self contained.

c0vfefe2• 7 years ago

The answer is client-side encryption. https://standardnotes.org/

vbsteven2• 7 years ago

One of the main takeaways is that it’s still running on a very old version of Rails and JQuery.

Maybe not great from a security standpoint but it shows that you do not need a Kubernetes cluster and a big HA setup and a modern language/framework for a profitable project.

Btw, the site does not load past the initial splash quote in Firefox on iOS with Tracking Protection enabled. Disabling tracking protection fully loads the page.

buboard2• 7 years ago

This is the difference between hacker news and indiehackers. People here are still dissecting the javascript virtues of the website in disbelief. Most indie hackers would agree it doesn't matter.

c0vfefe2• 7 years ago

Focusing on technical value vs. business value.

AlchemistCamp• 7 years ago

And the site loads much faster than IH itself! I'd update it to a current version of Rails, though.

sexy_seedbox• 7 years ago

Yep, the end user doesn't really care what your FOTM tech stack is.

busterbenson9• 7 years ago

I’m the creator of the site in question and am just seeing this thread. Happy to answer questions about motivations, costs, etc if you give me a minute to finish lunch and get back to my computer!

soneca2• 7 years ago

Congrats on the success!

The dominant advice for bootstrappers is to make a B2B product. Do you agree with this advice?

Any tips for bootstrapping going B2B? What are the biggest differentiators that a bootstrapper that really wants to go B2C should include in their product?

How can I work for you at 750words? :)

busterbenson9• 7 years ago

Thank you! I'm a firm believer that I agree with all advice sometimes, including my own. In that spirit, my advice that is sometimes useful is to ignore B2B and B2C labels and to look instead at what you think you can build that people would be willing to pay for. Then to test that hypothesis as early and as many times as possible. The biggest difference between bootstrapping and VC-strapping is that every step on the path of bootstrapping has to be able to sustain itself long enough to get to the next step. SaaS models are great for this because they can scale with the revenue. I'm happy to go into more detail about any of this but it's a huge topic so we'd need to narrow it down a bit more to prevent this from turning into a novel.

abootstrapper• 7 years ago

Honest question. Why $5 and not $10? Did you do any testing for the optimal price point?

pmoriarty2• 7 years ago

Is there any way I could read this article without enabling javascript?

busterbenson9• 7 years ago

View source? :) What happens if you try to print it?

detaro• 7 years ago

View-source and executing JS in your head, because the content is loaded dynamically :)

egwynn• 7 years ago

Probably not. Looks like the contents is loaded from Firebase after the main page loads. Not taking sides on whether this is a good/bad thing, just answering the question.

buboard2• 7 years ago

the maker of indiehackers has said in the past that he probably wouldn't make it a SPA if he started over.

I bootstrapped my private-journaling project into a lifestyle business

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