AMA - I built a software company worth 8 figures

[Vasudev Soni]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 975526" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=975526" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-975526">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I&#039;ve been wanting to do an AMA (Ask me anything) for a while. I&#039;ve built a desktop software company worth 8 figures, but I&#039;m aiming for $1 billion, not to be a unicorn, but just because I think its the natural progression of where I&#039;m headed. I started the company in 2016 and I have 15 employees and I&#039;ve never taken on investor money despite rejecting quite a few offers. In MJ&#039;s own words he thinks that my company will be the first 9 figure (hopefully 10 though) exit on the forum. I built everything from the ground up on the business end by myself. I brought on my initial founding partner with equity and a few initial employees with equity. I&#039;ve had experience negotiating a multi-million dollar contract and building an entire IP from nothing which has seriously upset an industry as we came out of nowhere. We also follow profit first accounting methods and do quarterly dividends. I don&#039;t want to publicly name the company here but I&#039;m happy to answer general business questions or give advice on situations you may be in.<br /> <br /> I don&#039;t really believe in outsourcing cheap labor or paying/treating employees like dispensable objects. Everyone in my company makes a minimum of $80,000 a year, even if in their country it&#039;s perfectly acceptable that they&#039;re paid a fraction of what we pay them. I believe in treating both customers and employees as well as I possibly can in an effort to retain their strong talents.<br /> <br /> Ask me anything about:<br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Managing employees and building a team</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Subscription and permanent license based software</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bootstrapping your business &amp; working on the biz while you have a day job</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dividend distributions and taking money out of your business</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Building a successful software company, even if you can&#039;t code (I can&#039;t)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">General business advice, mindset, etc</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Anything that you feel you want to know about someone who&#039;s gotten as far as I have</li> </ul><br /> <br /> <br /> <b>If you know the company I run or my industry, please do not mention it in this thread. It is irrelevant, and if anything it&#039;s a harder industry to be in than most.</b> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Do you have a thread about how you did it? Or something like a progress thread that I can follow.<br /> <br /> I also run my own software company and want to figure out how to grow it more and more.</div>

 

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[Vasudev Soni]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 976257" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=976257" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-976257">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> 1. I initially coded a very bad prototype myself after buying a c++ book. I knew I needed a technical co-founder who could actually build the product.<br /> 2. We did 60/40 (i got 60%), then for future employees we both diluted equally.<br /> 3. Sure it&#039;s fine, in some cases maybe too much. I gave away too much in my opinion but whats done is done.<br /> <br /> <br /> I can code a little bit but theres a zero percent chance of me being able to do what my team can. I haven&#039;t coded for the company since 2016. My technical ability is definitely on par with my programmers in terms of terminology and understanding. Our software is very technical by nature anyway. Having a technical background can prevent you from asking your team to do stupid shit that most likely isn&#039;t possible or having unrealistic expectations on how long something takes. I hired people who had similar projects and that made it easy.<br /> <br /> <br /> Solve a problem and provide value, don&#039;t make something just because it seems like a good idea.<br /> <br /> <br /> I don&#039;t have any patents, they are completely useless for software, hinder development, and you literally give out your &quot;secret sauce&quot; to everyone. Someone only needs to change a few things and have a few alterations to clone it *and* possibly do it better after you publish your patents. On my end I feel that it&#039;s morally wrong to patent software as it stifles innovation via patent trolling.<br /> <br /> <br /> Reference my expectation thread here: <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/managing-your-expectations-is-everything-expectations-an-integral-piece-to-your-first-million-in-sales.97827/" class="link link--internal">NOTABLE! - Managing Your Expectations Is Everything! Expectations.. An Integral Piece To Your First Million In Sales.</a><br /> <br /> And figuring out what you want: <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/a-fundamental-question-for-any-entrepreneur-what-do-i-want-from-my-business.88221/" class="link link--internal">NOTABLE! - A fundamental question for any entrepreneur: What do I want from my business?</a><br /> <br /> <br /> Racing gokarts, yoga, going out for drives, venting to friends or my coach. I&#039;m not the best at stress management right now though.<br /> <br /> <br /> Not sure on forums, but I&#039;m sure they&#039;re still active in those programming servers yeah.<br /> <br /> <br /> 1. I&#039;m alright at coding as mentioned above.<br /> 2. I didn&#039;t read a whole lot other than TMF. No other books inheriently stand out to me as recommendable other than &quot;How will you measure your life?&quot; by Clayton Christensen<br /> I religiously read all of <a href="https://successfulsoftware.net" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Successful Software</a> before starting. In general, the journey has been pretty lonely and devoid of advice that applies to me as we&#039;re a desktop software company, not an online SaaS product.<br /> 3. We&#039;re all organic (YT, Twitter, FB group, Reddit, etc) and capture emails, we have never purchased emails or spent money on advertising. Most of revenue comes from people trying the software or through an email campaign. No affiliates as I want to control how content is presented to keep our brand on point.<br /> 4. I run the business, Co-founder (lead programmer), other 3 were programmers we needed for specific tasks relevant to our application.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Twitter and YouTube. Got us really far due to the &quot;nature&quot; of our software. Probably wouldn&#039;t work for a lot of SaaS products etc. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Thank you for this immensely valuable post.</div>

 

[ZackerySprague]

<div class="bbWrapper">Absolute Gold Mine.<br /> <br /> Summary:<br /> 1. Raven built a &quot;Desktop Software Company&quot;, not SAAS guys.<br /> 2. Used the power of others or Teamwork to create his product by giving up equity.<br /> 3. Does want or need patents, everything is a trade secret including the code that is built.<br /> 4. Found a job within his marketplace to get insider knowledge for the product he was creating.<br /> 5. Used the principles of Profit First by Mike Michalowtiz<br /> 6. Found his need based on a problem he encountered himself.<br /> 7. Used Social Media such as Twitter and YouTube to organically get customers. <br /> 8. Created an amazing product that others share.</div>

 

[Sterling729]

<div class="bbWrapper">Thanks for doing this. As a software dev myself and trying to get something off the ground, I&#039;m planning on creating potentially a string of web apps all with the same stack (html/js, nodejs, sql server, AWS) so that I can get a mvp up and running quickly. If the current one doesnt gain traction I plan to quickly move onto building the next one.<br /> <br /> My question is, should I immediately put a paid subscription option with each app that I start to build? This is just so that I can get a sense if there is real demand and if I should continue, rather than get user feedback with merely an &quot;oh yeah, that&#039;s cool&quot;. I&#039;m a bit unfimiliar with setting up the login setup with Cognito and using tokens from my nodejs to authenticate subscribers, and then have to find a reliable secure way of getting these users to pay. But I figure once I know how to do it, I can quickly replicate it the next time.</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 133243" data-quote="Sterling729" data-source="post: 1108230" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1108230" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1108230">Sterling729 said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Thanks for doing this. As a software dev myself and trying to get something off the ground, I&#039;m planning on creating potentially a string of web apps all with the same stack (html/js, nodejs, sql server, AWS) so that I can get a mvp up and running quickly. If the current one doesnt gain traction I plan to quickly move onto building the next one.<br /> <br /> My question is, should I immediately put a paid subscription option with each app that I start to build? This is just so that I can get a sense if there is real demand and if I should continue, rather than get user feedback with merely an &quot;oh yeah, that&#039;s cool&quot;. I&#039;m a bit unfimiliar with setting up the login setup with Cognito and using tokens from my nodejs to authenticate subscribers, and then have to find a reliable secure way of getting these users to pay. But I figure once I know how to do it, I can quickly replicate it the next time. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote> I feel like you&#039;re setting yourself up to fail by planning a string of web apps. That tells me low quality for each, poor attempts, and money chasing. <br /> <br /> Apps are a dime a dozen. Go forth and execute at 100% with full integrity behind it. It took like 6 months before we made our first dollar. And took 2 years to break $2k/m. <br /> <br /> But I believed in our product and mission.</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 111997" data-quote="Vasudev Soni" data-source="post: 1069392" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1069392" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1069392">Vasudev Soni said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Do you have a thread about how you did it? Or something like a progress thread that I can follow.<br /> <br /> I also run my own software company and want to figure out how to grow it more and more. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> See the insiders thread in my signature (on a PC) for the entire story. It&#039;s like 25 pages of everything I&#039;ve done.</div>

 

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[Sterling729]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 1108281" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1108281" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1108281">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I feel like you&#039;re setting yourself up to fail by planning a string of web apps. That tells me low quality for each, poor attempts, and money chasing.<br /> <br /> Apps are a dime a dozen. Go forth and execute at 100% with full integrity behind it. It took like 6 months before we made our first dollar. And took 2 years to break $2k/m.<br /> <br /> But I believed in our product and mission. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Interesting, thanks for replying. I guess I&#039;m just worried about wasting too much time on one app (and going for a shotgun approach I guess). Not really concerned about the money at the beginning, it&#039;s more of an indicator that I should continue to work on it. <br /> Did you work on any apps prior to this one where you realized there wasn&#039;t a market and had to stop or pivot? Or did you mostly rely on prior experience and having a good sense what the market needs and the features you can put into the app?</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 133243" data-quote="Sterling729" data-source="post: 1108301" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1108301" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1108301">Sterling729 said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Interesting, thanks for replying. I guess I&#039;m just worried about wasting too much time on one app (and going for a shotgun approach I guess). Not really concerned about the money at the beginning, it&#039;s more of an indicator that I should continue to work on it.<br /> Did you work on any apps prior to this one where you realized there wasn&#039;t a market and had to stop or pivot? Or did you mostly rely on prior experience and having a good sense what the market needs and the features you can put into the app? </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> There were a couple of things that I did before my main business but they weren&#039;t software related in particular, just services online. Both of which did make money, but I wasn&#039;t truly into solving the issues those services fixed. It was more so in my current business with the product that took 2 years to get to 2k per month that I should focus on our flagship product which within just a year after starting its development got us to $20k per month the month we launched it.<br /> <br /> The flagship product was always the idea, it was just very difficult to create and I started with something smaller to learn the ropes of selling software and solving a simple problem to gain trust over a small user base.<br /> <br /> I feel like the shotgun approach is an indicator that you don&#039;t have any strong conviction towards one particular product when I feel like that&#039;s what&#039;s going to give you the most success. This is just my opinion though.</div>

 

[ZackerySprague]

<div class="bbWrapper">How do I code &quot;Hello World&quot; in PHP? Haha just kidding!</div>

 

[Zardiw]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 975526" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=975526" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-975526">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I&#039;ve been wanting to do an AMA (Ask me anything) for a while. I&#039;ve built a desktop software company worth 8 figures, but I&#039;m aiming for $1 billion, not to be a unicorn, but just because I think its the natural progression of where I&#039;m headed. I started the company in 2016 and I have 15 employees and I&#039;ve never taken on investor money despite rejecting quite a few offers. In MJ&#039;s own words he thinks that my company will be the first 9 figure (hopefully 10 though) exit on the forum. I built everything from the ground up on the business end by myself. I brought on my initial founding partner with equity and a few initial employees with equity. I&#039;ve had experience negotiating a multi-million dollar contract and building an entire IP from nothing which has seriously upset an industry as we came out of nowhere. We also follow profit first accounting methods and do quarterly dividends. I don&#039;t want to publicly name the company here but I&#039;m happy to answer general business questions or give advice on situations you may be in.<br /> <br /> I don&#039;t really believe in outsourcing cheap labor or paying/treating employees like dispensable objects. Everyone in my company makes a minimum of $80,000 a year, even if in their country it&#039;s perfectly acceptable that they&#039;re paid a fraction of what we pay them. I believe in treating both customers and employees as well as I possibly can in an effort to retain their strong talents.<br /> <br /> Ask me anything about:<br /> <br /> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Managing employees and building a team</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Subscription and permanent license based software</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bootstrapping your business &amp; working on the biz while you have a day job</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dividend distributions and taking money out of your business</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Building a successful software company, even if you can&#039;t code (I can&#039;t)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">General business advice, mindset, etc</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Anything that you feel you want to know about someone who&#039;s gotten as far as I have</li> </ul><br /> <br /> <br /> <b>If you know the company I run or my industry, please do not mention it in this thread. It is irrelevant, and if anything it&#039;s a harder industry to be in than most.</b> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>I don&#039;t know why you won&#039;t say what company it is.......or what it does........without that any info is of minimal usefulness...........Did you find some kind of niche?.........Develop something needed that didn&#039;t exist?..............What?.........lol....<br /> <br /> One question I have is how did you advertise/get customers?<br /> <br /> Z</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 101491" data-quote="Zardiw" data-source="post: 1108401" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1108401" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1108401">Zardiw said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I don&#039;t know why you won&#039;t say what company it is.......or what it does........without that any info is of minimal usefulness...........Did you find some kind of niche?.........Develop something needed that didn&#039;t exist?..............What?.........lol....<br /> <br /> One question I have is how did you advertise/get customers?<br /> <br /> Z </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> Buy fastlane insiders and go read my thread with 700+ posts. I don&#039;t say it on the outside of the forum because I don&#039;t want google to link people (my customers or competitors) here. If the info is minimally useful then you should read this whole thread.<br /> <br /> I got customers by posting videos of the product results on twitter and youtube. I also setup a small website to capture leads and build an email list of around 6,000 people before we actually launched our flagship product. Never paid for advertising.</div>

 

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[NewManRising]

<div class="bbWrapper">Hi Ravens_Shadow,<br /> <br /> I have a question about the compensation side of things with your business. I know you bootstrapped it and offered equity as initial compensation for your co-founder and employees. <br /> <br /> I also read that you now pay salaries, dividends, bonuses, etc.<br /> <br /> When you started your business and offered equity, it meant that if it failed those that worked for you would get nothing or very little. So, they were taking a risk. <br /> <br /> Starting from offering just equity, how did the compensation structure change and what indicated that you can now start paying beyond just equity?<br /> <br /> How did you make this transition? I know you said some employees did not get equity. How are your co-founder and initial employees compensated now in addition to the equity they received?<br /> <br /> I guess I am trying to figure out how you went from equity only (high risk to those involved) to being able to pay salaries, dividends, bonuses and all that good stuff.</div>

 

[Zardiw]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 96450" data-quote="ZackerySprague" data-source="post: 1108314" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1108314" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1108314">ZackerySprague said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> How do I code &quot;Hello World&quot; in PHP? Haha just kidding! </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>&lt;?php<br /> echo &quot;Hello World&quot;;<br /> ?&gt;</div>

 

[Zardiw]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 52069" data-quote="NewManRising" data-source="post: 1139458" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139458" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139458">NewManRising said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Hi Ravens_Shadow,<br /> <br /> I have a question about the compensation side of things with your business. I know you bootstrapped it and offered equity as initial compensation for your co-founder and employees.<br /> <br /> I also read that you now pay salaries, dividends, bonuses, etc.<br /> <br /> When you started your business and offered equity, it meant that if it failed those that worked for you would get nothing or very little. So, they were taking a risk.<br /> <br /> Starting from offering just equity, how did the compensation structure change and what indicated that you can now start paying beyond just equity?<br /> <br /> How did you make this transition? I know you said some employees did not get equity. How are your co-founder and initial employees compensated now in addition to the equity they received?<br /> <br /> I guess I am trying to figure out how you went from equity only (high risk to those involved) to being able to pay salaries, dividends, bonuses and all that good stuff. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> Seems pretty obvious..........he started getting a shit ton of revenues.........<br /> <br /> Z</div>

 

[NewManRising]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 101491" data-quote="Zardiw" data-source="post: 1139460" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139460" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139460">Zardiw said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Seems pretty obvious..........he started getting a shit ton of revenues.........<br /> <br /> Z </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>That is not the question I was asking. I am just having a hard time phrasing it. He started with equity only. Then when he made money, yes, it is obvious he was able to pay people and offer no more equity.<br /> <br /> I am curious about how the compensation structure was split before he was able to do this. At what point did he decide not to offer anymore equity, and did some people get some equity and some salary?<br /> <br /> I am looking for concrete examples and numbers. So, if someone else is bootstrapping and offering equity like he did, they could follow a similar path as to avoid mistakes or know what the proper compensation should be.<br /> <br /> Being vague with &quot;he made a shit ton of revenue&quot; doesn&#039;t answer the question.</div>

 

[BPH1994]

<div class="bbWrapper"><a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/12271/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="12271" data-username="@Ravens_Shadow">@Ravens_Shadow</a> how did you decide on the idea you built your business around?<br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/96450/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="96450" data-username="@ZackerySprague">@ZackerySprague</a> mentioned that you solved a problem you yourself were having. Did you get any sort of validation before you went all-in on your business? Or did you &quot;brute force&quot; it and have to stick things out for a while before you saw traction?<br /> <br /> I&#039;m struggling to come up with good business ideas. I&#039;m not very creative and have trouble coming up with something &quot;new&quot; enough that people are willing to pay for it over something already existing. I&#039;ve genuinely believed in my past ventures - and none of them have worked out - so I&#039;d love to hear how you discovered and recognized a good business idea.</div>

 

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[Supa]

<div class="bbWrapper">Thanks for doing this!<br /> <br /> Did you do market research before you started to work on your product, to see if there is a need for it or if people want a product like this?<br /> <br /> I’m working on an app that I believe to solve a problem in the weight loss area. But since there is nothing like it on the market, it’s difficult to show people what it will do without building it first.<br /> <br /> So, for my idea there’s probably no way around just creating the product and then seeing if people want it, just wondering how other, successful, software developers go about this.</div>

 

[ZackerySprague]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 1108402" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1108402" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1108402">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Buy fastlane insiders and go read my thread with 700+ posts. I don&#039;t say it on the outside of the forum because I don&#039;t want google to link people (my customers or competitors) here. If the info is minimally useful then you should read this whole thread.<br /> <br /> I got customers by posting videos of the product results on twitter and youtube. I also setup a small website to capture leads and build an email list of around 6,000 people before we actually launched our flagship product. Never paid for advertising. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>I&#039;m going to renew my insiders on Friday. I had to change banks recently. <br /> <br /> But just wanted to say this, I read the entire thing, it&#039;s worth the read. I read the entire thread. The last Tidbit of info above though is interesting <img src="/community/imgs/emoticons/em-wink.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-shortname=";)" /></div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 142181" data-quote="BPH1994" data-source="post: 1139472" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139472" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139472">BPH1994 said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/12271/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="12271" data-username="@Ravens_Shadow">@Ravens_Shadow</a> how did you decide on the idea you built your business around?<br /> <br /> <a href="https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/members/96450/" class="username" data-xf-init="member-tooltip" data-user-id="96450" data-username="@ZackerySprague">@ZackerySprague</a> mentioned that you solved a problem you yourself were having. Did you get any sort of validation before you went all-in on your business? Or did you &quot;brute force&quot; it and have to stick things out for a while before you saw traction?<br /> <br /> I&#039;m struggling to come up with good business ideas. I&#039;m not very creative and have trouble coming up with something &quot;new&quot; enough that people are willing to pay for it over something already existing. I&#039;ve genuinely believed in my past ventures - and none of them have worked out - so I&#039;d love to hear how you discovered and recognized a good business idea. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>The business I&#039;ve built solved my own problems. My actual business is detailed extensively on the insiders forum, so I&#039;ll just come up with a couple of business ideas on the spot right here that tell similar stories.<br /> <br /> &quot;I&#039;m a short guy and I cannot find pants that fit me and I have to take my clothes to a tailor. I have a 30/31 waist and 29 legs, no stores actually offer jeans, dress pants, and so on for me, so I&#039;m going to create pants for guys like me.&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;I&#039;m working on this model train and to make it more realistic, I need properly scaled diamond plate for the walkways on the train. No one seems to sell this, what if I could manufacture sheets of scale diamond plate for modelers in my hobby?&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;This software UI is absolute garbage, and all alternative options have a garbage user experience too. I bet I could do better. I&#039;m going to build a better tool and put them out of business.&quot; <br /> <br /> &quot;You know, I really like Thai Tea, its my favorite drink.. but it sucks that I can only buy it at a thai restaurant. Why can&#039;t I buy this at the gas station? Looks like I need to go make a thai tea brand and target national distribution.&quot; <br /> <br /> &quot;You know, John Deere really pisses me off by locking tractor repairs behind software. I&#039;m going to find a way to help farmers replace their john deere equipment with brands that are more oriented towards right to repair.&quot;<br /> <br /> - And just like that I&#039;ve come up with 5 extremely viable business ideas ready for the taking! Do you see a trend? It&#039;s things that *I* am interested in. It&#039;s problems I have in my daily life. It&#039;s problems that I look at and go, man.. if someone solved that, they&#039;d make millions.</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 52069" data-quote="NewManRising" data-source="post: 1139466" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139466" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139466">NewManRising said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> That is not the question I was asking. I am just having a hard time phrasing it. He started with equity only. Then when he made money, yes, it is obvious he was able to pay people and offer no more equity.<br /> <br /> I am curious about how the compensation structure was split before he was able to do this. At what point did he decide not to offer anymore equity, and did some people get some equity and some salary?<br /> <br /> I am looking for concrete examples and numbers. So, if someone else is bootstrapping and offering equity like he did, they could follow a similar path as to avoid mistakes or know what the proper compensation should be.<br /> <br /> Being vague with &quot;he made a shit ton of revenue&quot; doesn&#039;t answer the question. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I don&#039;t really want to post my shareholders equity values on a public forum, but looking back I&#039;d give initial employees somewhere around 0.5-2% if I could do it over again. To draw in the programming talent I offered equity and we all worked on the business at night since every single person had a day job. Once we launched our main product, revenues were immediately around $20k/m and I first paid me and my co-founder. As we continued to grow our margins ($30k/m - $50k/m) we started bringing the equity based programmers on one by one in the order we found them until they were all able to leave their day jobs. Once we had everyone on payroll who had equity, AND we had additional cash, we went out and hired people like you normally would. From what I recall our goal was to pay ourselves something like $60k/yr.. we weren&#039;t even close to being rich but we were making it on our own. For the first 5 years of the business I got peanuts..<br /> <br /> It&#039;s not complicated. Equity *IS* compensation, even the IRS thinks so. So you offer equity, build your product, once it makes money, hire the equity holders in the order you found them as you get the cash to do so.</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 31790" data-quote="Supa" data-source="post: 1139474" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139474" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139474">Supa said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Thanks for doing this!<br /> <br /> Did you do market research before you started to work on your product, to see if there is a need for it or if people want a product like this?<br /> <br /> I’m working on an app that I believe to solve a problem in the weight loss area. But since there is nothing like it on the market, it’s difficult to show people what it will do without building it first.<br /> <br /> So, for my idea there’s probably no way around just creating the product and then seeing if people want it, just wondering how other, successful, software developers go about this. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> The only market research I did was a I had a website section dedicated to our main product before it was out and the call to action was &quot;Join the early access waitlist&quot;. We got 6,000 people to sign up that way. Ultimately I didn&#039;t *need* market validation, or research, because I was the target market and I knew I needed it!<br /> <br /> If you&#039;re making something just to make it, there&#039;s inherent risk behind that. If you are building something because YOU need it, then there&#039;s no validation needed. You aren&#039;t special, there are probably many others with the same problem in whatever the niche is. If you&#039;re building something because its a potential gap, or an unverified niche that you aren&#039;t really in tune with, the risk is higher, but that&#039;s when you try to drive traffic to a &quot;join the waitlist&quot; sales page. And in my opinion you don&#039;t drive traffic to this sort of thing with ADs. You make videos about it on youtube and such.</div>

 

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[BPH1994]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 1139518" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139518" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139518">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> If you&#039;re building something because its a potential gap, or an unverified niche that you aren&#039;t really in tune with, the risk is higher, but that&#039;s when you try to drive traffic to a &quot;join the waitlist&quot; sales page. And in my opinion you don&#039;t drive traffic to this sort of thing with ADs. You make videos about it on youtube and such. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> How would you build a following large enough to get organic traffic to test an idea without ads? Even average-sized YouTube channels take years to build their audience - I imagine this would be very difficult to utilize if you didn&#039;t already have a personal brand built, no?</div>

 

[ZackerySprague]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 1139509" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139509" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139509">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> The business I&#039;ve built solved my own problems. My actual business is detailed extensively on the insiders forum, so I&#039;ll just come up with a couple of business ideas on the spot right here that tell similar stories.<br /> <br /> &quot;I&#039;m a short guy and I cannot find pants that fit me and I have to take my clothes to a tailor. I have a 30/31 waist and 29 legs, no stores actually offer jeans, dress pants, and so on for me, so I&#039;m going to create pants for guys like me.&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;I&#039;m working on this model train and to make it more realistic, I need properly scaled diamond plate for the walkways on the train. No one seems to sell this, what if I could manufacture sheets of scale diamond plate for modelers in my hobby?&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;This software UI is absolute garbage, and all alternative options have a garbage user experience too. I bet I could do better. I&#039;m going to build a better tool and put them out of business.&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;You know, I really like Thai Tea, its my favorite drink.. but it sucks that I can only buy it at a thai restaurant. Why can&#039;t I buy this at the gas station? Looks like I need to go make a thai tea brand and target national distribution.&quot;<br /> <br /> &quot;You know, John Deere really pisses me off by locking tractor repairs behind software. I&#039;m going to find a way to help farmers replace their john deere equipment with brands that are more oriented towards right to repair.&quot;<br /> <br /> - And just like that I&#039;ve come up with 5 extremely viable business ideas ready for the taking! Do you see a trend? It&#039;s things that *I* am interested in. It&#039;s problems I have in my daily life. It&#039;s problems that I look at and go, man.. if someone solved that, they&#039;d make millions. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>*I* can&#039;t believe that are using excel sheets upon excel sheets just for asset management for laptops, desktops, monitors, backpacks, phones, and by the model. How frustrating it is to track all of these excel sheets and inventory at companies. <br /> <br /> Asset Management sometimes is the absolute worst headache from the past 3 companies I&#039;ve worked for. <br /> <br /> Or vulnerability management and reading data from an excel sheet. Why can&#039;t their be software that tells us. This is how many assets you have in the fleet, here&#039;s who they are checked out by or assigned. Here&#039;s the applications that needs updating on the machine. Here&#039;s how much each model costs, Here&#039;s what we have at each site location or client location if you are an MSP. Here&#039;s the ones that needs repairs.</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 142181" data-quote="BPH1994" data-source="post: 1139534" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139534" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139534">BPH1994 said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> How would you build a following large enough to get organic traffic to test an idea without ads? Even average-sized YouTube channels take years to build their audience - I imagine this would be very difficult to utilize if you didn&#039;t already have a personal brand built, no? </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> No, I just posted videos about the product that I thought were cool and people found it. We had zero subscribers at that time. You don&#039;t need a million views per video, we got like 1,000 views and that was enough to capture the right audience, because they would be the only ones searching for this type of app. <b><i>I didn&#039;t even know other people in my industry yet. </i></b>I just titled the videos appropriately to the problem. To this day we have around 25k subscribers after 8 years.</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 96450" data-quote="ZackerySprague" data-source="post: 1139535" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139535" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139535">ZackerySprague said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> *I* can&#039;t believe that are using excel sheets upon excel sheets just for asset management for laptops, desktops, monitors, backpacks, phones, and by the model. How frustrating it is to track all of these excel sheets and inventory at companies.<br /> <br /> Asset Management sometimes is the absolute worst headache from the past 3 companies I&#039;ve worked for.<br /> <br /> Or vulnerability management and reading data from an excel sheet. Why can&#039;t their be software that tells us. This is how many assets you have in the fleet, here&#039;s who they are checked out by or assigned. Here&#039;s the applications that needs updating on the machine. Here&#039;s how much each model costs, Here&#039;s what we have at each site location or client location if you are an MSP. Here&#039;s the ones that needs repairs. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> What are you waiting for?</div>

 

[safff]

<div class="bbWrapper">From someone at the beginning with similar ambitions , I&#039;d love to know how you handled the early &#039;in between stage&#039; of having a product which has been validated and is functional and starting to get it out there, onboarding the first few users etc?<br /> <br /> That&#039;s where things have slowed down for me, the software is running and loved by the few that have used it, but getting it into the right hands and building a reputation is a hurdle that seems a very vertical climb at the moment.</div>

 

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[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 32142" data-quote="safff" data-source="post: 1139667" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139667" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139667">safff said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> From someone at the beginning with similar ambitions , I&#039;d love to know how you handled the early &#039;in between stage&#039; of having a product which has been validated and is functional and starting to get it out there, onboarding the first few users etc?<br /> <br /> That&#039;s where things have slowed down for me, the software is running and loved by the few that have used it, but getting it into the right hands and building a reputation is a hurdle that seems a very vertical climb at the moment. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> I guess my question would really be &quot;Onboarding, what onboarding?&quot; haha. <br /> <br /> You have to just produce great content (videos/articles) about your tool and what it does. Do walk throughs of the features and things like that and throw it up on youtube to further the reputation. In the early days though, even through today, we are very high touch when we don&#039;t have to be. Even if someone is on a monthly plan, there are times when I will get on a call and do a demo for them to help them personally. <br /> <br /> It really all just boils down to me pushing every single day trying to get it out there. I never stopped talking about it.</div>

 

[ZackerySprague]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 1139541" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139541" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139541">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> What are you waiting for? </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>I&#039;m signing up for Codeacademy on Friday. Re-subbing my insiders today. My friend and I plan on Cofounding a Software business.<br /> <br /> I&#039;ll first validate this idea from the market first and reach out to the ICPs for this market. Before building out anything.<br /> <br /> I&#039;m going to run with this idea since I have domain expertise in this area.<br /> <br /> A competitor in the market space is a company called AssetTiger who has over 25,000 active customers who pay a yearly subscription based off of a number of assets they have.<br /> <br /> Capterra allows you to see all of the cons that they don&#039;t like about the software and you can also see that other technicians were using excel sheets as well to track inventory count.<br /> <br /> I was looking at ways on how I could add 1D barcodes into the software as well as integrating Active Directory forests and the computers that are within it.<br /> <br /> 3x&#039;s my salary, I haven&#039;t found a service or skill yet within it that could that. 3x my salary, I&#039;d have to target a yearly income of $172,000 per year in profit. The max hourly rate I&#039;ve achieved was $40 an hour for a specialized product that has been discontinued by Unisys.</div>

 

[safff]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 12271" data-quote="Ravens_Shadow" data-source="post: 1139699" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139699" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139699">Ravens_Shadow said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> I guess my question would really be &quot;Onboarding, what onboarding?&quot; haha.<br /> <br /> You have to just produce great content (videos/articles) about your tool and what it does. Do walk throughs of the features and things like that and throw it up on youtube to further the reputation. In the early days though, even through today, we are very high touch when we don&#039;t have to be. Even if someone is on a monthly plan, there are times when I will get on a call and do a demo for them to help them personally.<br /> <br /> It really all just boils down to me pushing every single day trying to get it out there. I never stopped talking about it. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote> thanks for the reply <img src="/community/imgs/emoticons/em-smile2.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-shortname=":)" /> you&#039;re right, by &quot;onboarding&quot; I guess I meant &quot;get someone to give you money&quot; haha <br /> <br /> Great to hear that I wasn&#039;t completely off piste, I had been starting to do the same but drifted into that questioning the process area where you dont see results so will persevere. Much appreciated. <br /> <br /> One last question if you dont mind, did you ever worry about putting too much out there from not wanting competitors to copy your edge? Patenting seems completely toothless with software from my limited reading. <br /> <br /> Signed up for the insiders to read more of your thread in there, looking forward to it</div>

 

[Ravens_Shadow]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="member: 32142" data-quote="safff" data-source="post: 1139821" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=1139821" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-1139821">safff said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> thanks for the reply <img src="/community/imgs/emoticons/em-smile2.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-shortname=":)" /> you&#039;re right, by &quot;onboarding&quot; I guess I meant &quot;get someone to give you money&quot; haha<br /> <br /> Great to hear that I wasn&#039;t completely off piste, I had been starting to do the same but drifted into that questioning the process area where you dont see results so will persevere. Much appreciated.<br /> <br /> One last question if you dont mind, did you ever worry about putting too much out there from not wanting competitors to copy your edge? Patenting seems completely toothless with software from my limited reading.<br /> <br /> Signed up for the insiders to read more of your thread in there, looking forward to it </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote><br /> The area where you start worrying is where most people quit. Keep pushing and trying.<br /> <br /> I didn&#039;t worry too much. I knew that we had a limited window to actually release, but it&#039;s now 5 years after release of our main product and only one company has come close enough to our offering to scare us in that time. I don&#039;t believe in software patents, though they add significant value to your company in the event of a sale as it has tangible value and extends the moat around your business. The cost of getting them is too steep and putting the patent out there spills your secret sauce into the public. Doesn&#039;t take much of a change in methodology to get around a software patent IMO.</div>