heysander
Consistency is key
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Hey everyone,
Back on the forum after lurking years ago. At the time I had an agency with a partner. Read the Fastlane book and it clicked. Classic time-for-money trap. So we started building an e-commerce store on the side, including our own brand. Once that got traction we ditched the agency.
The partnership eventually fell apart. He was fine with 3k/month "passive income." I wanted to build something I could actually sell one day. Different games. We split in a nasty divorce. He kept the business (went bankrupt a few months ago) and I moved on.
While running the e-com business I taught myself to code and design. Started building tools to make things run smoother (shoutout codingforentrepreneurs.com). One tool kept growing: inventory management. Couldn't find anything affordable that actually worked for small retailers like me. So I built my own. Then figured, why not turn this into a product?
It works because I was the customer first. Overselling on marketplaces, stockouts during peak season, spreadsheet chaos. I lived all of it. Most inventory software is made by devs who never ran a shop. I built mine out of frustration. And with my design background I made it so warehouse employees actually understand it. No training manuals, just intuitive. Customers get that.
SaaS doesn't pay rent on day one though. Took a dev job for 3 years to fund the runway. Every night, weekend, holiday went into the product. Slow grind. Shipped features, talked to users, figured out what actually mattered.
But running a SaaS beside a full time job catches up with you. Got comfortable at the job, burned out on the business. The grind was killing momentum.
Then I read The Magic of Thinking Big. Changed how I saw things. I was doing everything myself and it was choking growth. So I hired. Support person paid by the minute. Devops contractor to keep me sane. Both eat into profit but gave me breathing room.
Quit the job in November. MRR doubled last year, on track to double again. Breaking even now with mortgage covered for the year. April should be the turning point into real profit.
Strategized every step like a chess game. Knew it was a long game going in. But this year it breaks out.
For context: read TMF around 2016, left the e-com end of 2022, been grinding on the SaaS since 2023. Every turn was time intensive. Turned 40 last year but now it finally feels like I'm on the fast track.
2025 was employee hell. 2026 is different. After revisiting TMF it feels like every checkbox is marked. The system works, I'm not trading hours anymore, and it's right in front of me now. Just riding it.
Good to be back. Looking forward to learning from people further ahead and sharing what's working.
Let's go.
Sander
Back on the forum after lurking years ago. At the time I had an agency with a partner. Read the Fastlane book and it clicked. Classic time-for-money trap. So we started building an e-commerce store on the side, including our own brand. Once that got traction we ditched the agency.
The partnership eventually fell apart. He was fine with 3k/month "passive income." I wanted to build something I could actually sell one day. Different games. We split in a nasty divorce. He kept the business (went bankrupt a few months ago) and I moved on.
While running the e-com business I taught myself to code and design. Started building tools to make things run smoother (shoutout codingforentrepreneurs.com). One tool kept growing: inventory management. Couldn't find anything affordable that actually worked for small retailers like me. So I built my own. Then figured, why not turn this into a product?
It works because I was the customer first. Overselling on marketplaces, stockouts during peak season, spreadsheet chaos. I lived all of it. Most inventory software is made by devs who never ran a shop. I built mine out of frustration. And with my design background I made it so warehouse employees actually understand it. No training manuals, just intuitive. Customers get that.
SaaS doesn't pay rent on day one though. Took a dev job for 3 years to fund the runway. Every night, weekend, holiday went into the product. Slow grind. Shipped features, talked to users, figured out what actually mattered.
But running a SaaS beside a full time job catches up with you. Got comfortable at the job, burned out on the business. The grind was killing momentum.
Then I read The Magic of Thinking Big. Changed how I saw things. I was doing everything myself and it was choking growth. So I hired. Support person paid by the minute. Devops contractor to keep me sane. Both eat into profit but gave me breathing room.
Quit the job in November. MRR doubled last year, on track to double again. Breaking even now with mortgage covered for the year. April should be the turning point into real profit.
Strategized every step like a chess game. Knew it was a long game going in. But this year it breaks out.
For context: read TMF around 2016, left the e-com end of 2022, been grinding on the SaaS since 2023. Every turn was time intensive. Turned 40 last year but now it finally feels like I'm on the fast track.
2025 was employee hell. 2026 is different. After revisiting TMF it feels like every checkbox is marked. The system works, I'm not trading hours anymore, and it's right in front of me now. Just riding it.
Good to be back. Looking forward to learning from people further ahead and sharing what's working.
Let's go.
Sander
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