Hesitant about future plans - Building a SaaS without experience / Buy a business or Invest in Real Estate

[rutrika]

Hello guys,
Can I ask you to share some of your thoughts - would highly appreciate it. Also, let me know if I can help you according to my living situation & experience that describe below,
1) I’m 32 years old, originally from Russia, a QE/Software engineer in test (working in internet technology - 6 figure FT job in Bay Area without overload that allows working from home for 5-6 hours per day and spend other time on development/business). I do understand web development code to some degree (mostly backend, but don’t have real-life experience with creating a web app).
I have some experience with businesses (Amazon FBA, recruiting software) that I can't say that they suceed, but I definitely learned something and got experience from it
A) I have some ideas for SaaS that need to be tested (soft/hard proofed) from blogs.
I'm not sure if it is better to buy and grow a business or build from scratch. In this case, I'll see 3 options:
- hire contractors to build software (then learn codebase to maintain). Do you know many people who have good experience with growing/maintaining a SaaS by using contractors
- find a technical co-founder (risk of dependence in the future, I don't have good friends who are interested in this opportunity)
- learn web development and build by myself (more time consuming).
I know that majority of bootstrappers/indie hackers are software engineers with 5 and more years of real experience. What are your thoughts on that - is it doable?
B) Another option I see is to buy (invest up to 40k) and grow business.

2) I have savings (60-70k) and was thinking to borrow from my relatives (up to 100k), take a mortgage and invest/rent out (with property management) multi-family or multi-complex units outside of CA. I was planning to invest 280-300k (20% payment) in real estate to have $2 mln net worth in 12-13 years, and pay out a mortgage with my business later (the worst case if the business won't suceed I'll have 5-6 k passive income when I'll be 44-45 years old)
Would you think it would be risky to recommend to build a business first and accelerate the growth of business with that money?

Thank you
Art

 

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[WestCoast]

Hi Art-

I'm so happy to never have bothered with real estate as my companies grew.
I could never imagine investing my time in something everyone else had access to... all to earn earn 10%? a year.
Yeah, I'm glad I never figured out why people were obsessed with REI.
But, that's just me.


For you, question:

Would you really use all your savings now and give up the ability to start future businesses, in exchange for $5-6k in cash flow in 15 years?

That doesn't seem like good ROI for an entrepreneur to me.
*shrug*


For the rest, you seem to have the skills and experience to solve a problem with software, which is rad:

1) So, is that what you're doing? Is it solving a BIG problem that someone has?
Or, is it a cool app/software that just interests you?

2) If 1 is solving a problem... iterative decision making can probably have you get pretty far down the path, for, almost nothing. Why not try it?
Worst that happens is it fails after a year of hard work... and, you lost some time, gained a ton of experience, networked, learned new ways of thinking, motivated yourself to do what others don't, took a risk, lived your life and .... oh yeah, you could always invest in RE at age 33 if you still had the itch.


My guess is once you figure out business for yourself, you'll be a lot happier you did than if you bought an apartment building and tied your life to that path at such a young age.

 

[rutrika]

Hi Art-

I'm so happy to never have bothered with real estate as my companies grew.
I could never imagine investing my time in something everyone else had access to... all to earn earn 10%? a year.
Yeah, I'm glad I never figured out why people were obsessed with REI.
But, that's just me.


For you, question:

Would you really use all your savings now and give up the ability to start future businesses, in exchange for $5-6k in cash flow in 15 years?

That doesn't seem like good ROI for an entrepreneur to me.
*shrug*


For the rest, you seem to have the skills and experience to solve a problem with software, which is rad:

1) So, is that what you're doing? Is it solving a BIG problem that someone has?
Or, is it a cool app/software that just interests you?

2) If 1 is solving a problem... iterative decision making can probably have you get pretty far down the path, for, almost nothing. Why not try it?
Worst that happens is it fails after a year of hard work... and, you lost some time, gained a ton of experience, networked, learned new ways of thinking, motivated yourself to do what others don't, took a risk, lived your life and .... oh yeah, you could always invest in RE at age 33 if you still had the itch.


My guess is once you figure out business for yourself, you'll be a lot happier you did than if you bought an apartment building and tied your life to that path at such a young age.

Thank you for your response, @WestCoast
Sorry, I didn't provide enough details. I was thinking to take a mortgage (invest 20-30% of price) in order to grow networh (i think ROI should be around 20% and shouldn't require a lot of time if prop management will be managing it).

I don't want money to be get eaten with inflation. Business can take 1-5 years to grow. I agree much more important to invest in business/education (but all information, courses are available on the internet; software business doesn't require a lot of investment)

 

[Onakosa]

Hello guys,
Can I ask you to share some of your thoughts - would highly appreciate it. Also, let me know if I can help you according to my living situation & experience that describe below,
1) I’m 32 years old, originally from Russia, a QE/Software engineer in test (working in internet technology - 6 figure FT job in Bay Area without overload that allows working from home for 5-6 hours per day and spend other time on development/business). I do understand web development code to some degree (mostly backend, but don’t have real-life experience with creating a web app).
I have some experience with businesses (Amazon FBA, recruiting software) that I can't say that they suceed, but I definitely learned something and got experience from it
A) I have some ideas for SaaS that need to be tested (soft/hard proofed) from blogs.
I'm not sure if it is better to buy and grow a business or build from scratch. In this case, I'll see 3 options:
- hire contractors to build software (then learn codebase to maintain). Do you know many people who have good experience with growing/maintaining a SaaS by using contractors
- find a technical co-founder (risk of dependence in the future, I don't have good friends who are interested in this opportunity)
- learn web development and build by myself (more time consuming).
I know that majority of bootstrappers/indie hackers are software engineers with 5 and more years of real experience. What are your thoughts on that - is it doable?
B) Another option I see is to buy (invest up to 40k) and grow business.

2) I have savings (60-70k) and was thinking to borrow from my relatives (up to 100k), take a mortgage and invest/rent out (with property management) multi-family or multi-complex units outside of CA. I was planning to invest 280-300k (20% payment) in real estate to have $2 mln net worth in 12-13 years, and pay out a mortgage with my business later (the worst case if the business won't suceed I'll have 5-6 k passive income when I'll be 44-45 years old)
Would you think it would be risky to recommend to build a business first and accelerate the growth of business with that money?

Thank you
Art

Hello guys,
Can I ask you to share some of your thoughts - would highly appreciate it. Also, let me know if I can help you according to my living situation & experience that describe below,
1) I’m 32 years old, originally from Russia, a QE/Software engineer in test (working in internet technology - 6 figure FT job in Bay Area without overload that allows working from home for 5-6 hours per day and spend other time on development/business). I do understand web development code to some degree (mostly backend, but don’t have real-life experience with creating a web app).
I have some experience with businesses (Amazon FBA, recruiting software) that I can't say that they suceed, but I definitely learned something and got experience from it
A) I have some ideas for SaaS that need to be tested (soft/hard proofed) from blogs.
I'm not sure if it is better to buy and grow a business or build from scratch. In this case, I'll see 3 options:
- hire contractors to build software (then learn codebase to maintain). Do you know many people who have good experience with growing/maintaining a SaaS by using contractors
- find a technical co-founder (risk of dependence in the future, I don't have good friends who are interested in this opportunity)
- learn web development and build by myself (more time consuming).
I know that majority of bootstrappers/indie hackers are software engineers with 5 and more years of real experience. What are your thoughts on that - is it doable?
B) Another option I see is to buy (invest up to 40k) and grow business.

2) I have savings (60-70k) and was thinking to borrow from my relatives (up to 100k), take a mortgage and invest/rent out (with property management) multi-family or multi-complex units outside of CA. I was planning to invest 280-300k (20% payment) in real estate to have $2 mln net worth in 12-13 years, and pay out a mortgage with my business later (the worst case if the business won't suceed I'll have 5-6 k passive income when I'll be 44-45 years old)
Would you think it would be risky to recommend to build a business first and accelerate the growth of business with that money?

Thank you
Art

Buying property to rent out was almost like a religion here in the UK a few years ago. I never bothered because, in no particular order:

• The transaction costs of buying and ultimately selling the thing are very high (may be different in the US).
• You are tying up all of your money. You can't just flip a bedroom if you need cash.
• You need to find good long term tenants. Believe me, this is HARD.
• Trying to get rid of bad tenants is very difficult (again, may be different in the US).
• There's a lot of red tape around health and safety that you need to adhere to and the penalties for ignoring it are high. Not saying this a bad thing btw, just pointing out that it's another thing to spend money on and stress over.
• Ultimately, you don't really have a lot of control over the external factors e.g. you buy your property and someone opens a late night topless bowling alley next door/decides to build a motorway outside your front door/awful awful neighbours move in who put off good tenants.

In summary, it's always seemed like a lot of stress and hard work. I think there are easier ways to make money. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

 

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