Hunger in the eyes of a 24-year-old: the diary of my entrepreneurial journey

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• I have been blocked on the calculation of the affinity score between a user resume and a job description that is the most important feature that my MVP should contains, otherwise there is any value added more compared to the competition.
• Today I discovered and learn the basics of a AWS tool that will solve my problem and will make everything easier, my current workflow too.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• Migrate my current workflow to AWS Step Functions and be able to calculate the affinity score in batch.

 

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[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• Fixed a lot of bugs in the data pipeline.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• Migrate my current workflow to AWS Step Functions and be able to calculate the affinity score in batch.

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• Most of the data pipeline is done! I've fixed bugs and improved the workflow.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• Implement the affinity score calculation.
• Fix responsive design on mobile.
• Send email notifications for new jobs with higher affinity score.

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• Implement the affinity score calculation.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• Fix Job preferences page update is not working fine.
  
• Fix responsive design on mobile.

Hope to finish the beta in a month! It is more difficult than I thought but that's the process!

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• Adjusted some component of the UI and improved the affinity score.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• Working on the automatic generation of resumes and cover letters for each users for whose jobs that have an affinity score > 50%.

Never give up, I'm improving step by step

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• I wrote the code to automatically generate a tailored resume and cover letter for each user and job description.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• I need to adapt the code above that works locally to run on the cloud. Once I've this, I can put it into a pipeline and automatically generate the pdf files of the cover and of the resume once a new job is found for each user.

Next week I'm on vacation, but the next steps are to migrate the code on the cloud, show the pdf to the end user in the frontend and lunch the MVP.

 

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[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• Last week, despite being on holiday, I successfully conducted local tests on the critical code responsible for the automatic generation of resumes and cover letters for users.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• This week, my goal is to deploy the resume and cover letter generation service into a continuous pipeline running 24/7 on AWS.

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• Write a part of the code that fetch user resume's data and job description from AWS and generate the resume.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• Further tests what I've done so far since it seems like it's not generating the number of resumes and cover letters it should.
• This week, my goal is to deploy the resume and cover letter generation service into a continuous pipeline running 24/7 on AWS.

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• I've made a lot of progresses and the pipeline is ready almost. As always, new unexpected errors and problems to salve have raise, slowing down the process.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• Test the pipeline and check that everything run smoothly.
• Improve the frontend and start getting more feedback.

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished
Side business:

• The pipeline is ready, I've improved the code and now I'm able to automatically generate resume and cover letter for each user.

Goals for the Next Week
Side business:

• I'm testing the code that send an email notification to the user when new jobs are avaible and the pdf of the resume is ready. The goal is to fix it.
• There is a service on AWS that I'm paying a lot and I need to make it cheaper.

Guys, build a SaaS is very difficult, especially when you've a full time job. But it's part of the game, my full time job allows me to earn a lot of money, create connections with smart people and learn new things. It's the price to pay.

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished Side business

• MVP of the backend done!
• I made the infrastructure cheaper.

Goals for the Next Week Side business:

• Build the sketch of the frontend and the authentication system. I made the mistake of using a no-code app that is costly and not customizable, even though I have the knowledge to build it using as many pre-made components as possible.

Lesson learned: Next time, focus on building a skeleton for my SaaS in order to speed up development and avoid using no-code platforms for complex SaaS projects, especially if I want to have control over everything.

 

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[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished Side business

• Completed 90% of the frontend skeleton, leveraging LLM assistance despite not being a frontend developer.
• Addressed and resolved various bugs throughout the system.

Goals for the Next Week Side business:

• Connect the developed API to the frontend (e.g: resume upload, update user job search preferences, etc.).
• Onboard and gather feedback from 10 beta users.
• Continue "building in public" by posting daily updates on X about the SaaS development process, engaging with interested followers.

The attached image showcases the interface for the "Matches" section. Key features include:

1. A carousel displaying top job matches based on the user's search preferences, education, and work experience.
2. Functionality to download resumes and cover letters optimized for specific job listings.
3. A sharing option for job postings, designed to encourage organic growth.
   

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished

• Connected the API for the resume upload

Goals for the Next Week Side business:

• Fix various bugs
• Finish to connect frontend and backend

Unfortunately the last week I didn't have time to work on my SaaS since I had some urgent tasks to finish at work.

I hope that this was just something that will happen rarely, otherwise I've to change job.

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished

• Finished to add another API to handle the customer's job search preferences

Goals for the Next Week Side business:

• I'm on holidays next week, but I've already planned the problems to tackle one by one (not in one week off course). They are listed in the pic below.

Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to work on it, again. There is one person less in the team and I'm working for both. Let's see how the situation goes, my feelings are that I need to find another job that will give me more free time OR I need to use a huge chunk of my salary to pay for an external developer.

 

[Bounce Back]

Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to work on it, again. There is one person less in the team and I'm working for both. Let's see how the situation goes, my feelings are that I need to find another job that will give me more free time OR I need to use a huge chunk of my salary to pay for an external developer.

So in my SaaS thread I talk briefly about this same realization (I think it’s in there) and yes I’m still needing to loosen the reigns and hire out more myself but the first go at it was good and I thought surprisingly effective cash wise. Some devs I found on upwork looked good and in the $10-$20/hr range (after heavy screening) of course reality is if they were really good they’d be booked up nonstop at that rate. I figure 1/20 had to be good so if you could interview like you would at work with coding exercises and the like maybe you get to 1/10. Then give small first tasks one by one and review until you find the good fit.

Time consuming sure but seems possible in mind. If you could say in the middle at $15/hr and have them work 20 hours a week (any more and with your day job could be hard to review their MRs) that is $300/week. Which is not an overbearing portion of a typical USA devs salary. Especially if it’s just for say a couple months to push through while busy.

Truth be told I wrote this out for both you and I! Don’t get discouraged this is tedious but you and I just have to keep pushing to make it happen.

 

[BlackLands]

So in my SaaS thread I talk briefly about this same realization (I think it’s in there) and yes I’m still needing to loosen the reigns and hire out more myself but the first go at it was good and I thought surprisingly effective cash wise. Some devs I found on upwork looked good and in the $10-$20/hr range (after heavy screening) of course reality is if they were really good they’d be booked up nonstop at that rate. I figure 1/20 had to be good so if you could interview like you would at work with coding exercises and the like maybe you get to 1/10. Then give small first tasks one by one and review until you find the good fit.

Time consuming sure but seems possible in mind. If you could say in the middle at $15/hr and have them work 20 hours a week (any more and with your day job could be hard to review their MRs) that is $300/week. Which is not an overbearing portion of a typical USA devs salary. Especially if it’s just for say a couple months to push through while busy.

Truth be told I wrote this out for both you and I! Don’t get discouraged this is tedious but you and I just have to keep pushing to make it happen.

Thanks for your message, it's really encouraging! I think I should start learning a new skill: how to hire good people.

From tomorrow, I'm gonna start planning what to delegate and how to select people to hire. Do you have any recommendations on how to setup the hiring process? Making them doing leetcode thingy sounds useless. I currently need someone that is able to use Next.js and AWS (DynamoDB, etc.) and already built some sort of SaaS.

 

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[Bounce Back]

Thanks for your message, it's really encouraging! I think I should start learning a new skill: how to hire good people.

From tomorrow, I'm gonna start planning what to delegate and how to select people to hire. Do you have any recommendations on how to setup the hiring process? Making them doing leetcode thingy sounds useless. I currently need someone that is able to use Next.js and AWS (DynamoDB, etc.) and already built some sort of SaaS.

So honestly the leetcode thing is to weed out people in mass (async to your time) who are either a) honest but not skilled enough to do what you need without a lot of supervision or b) people who are not up for playing ball in being screened at all. When I hire devs at work this is basically why we do it not because we actually trust that it reflects their abilities.

I’m still experimenting here myself for freelancers but what I did for some architecture work was put up and upwork job flat rate (small) and be very descriptive of exactly what they needed to do and what they wouldn’t be asked to do (good folks can get overwhelmed reading something that is vague and think you as the person hiring are going to be annoying to work with and then they don’t apply). Then it let me search for folks by keywords/skills and I selected only the ones who had volume of dollars earned and ratings in the highest percentile and used all my job “invites” or whatever inviting them to apply and told them why by hand I was interested in them weighing in. Then I waited and a few days and rejected all the overly expensive or profiles that looked bad/not a fit. Everyone else got a copy and paste of like 3 probing questions asking them to explain what they’ve done with x,y,z concept or tech in three or four sentences.

From there half never replied and and half of the ones that did seemed like duds which will leave you with only a few. Those I hopped on a call with to feel out their personalities. Hired the one that seemed the best and he did a great job.

When I go to hire for a coder that I want to be around a longer time I would probably throw the automated code screen or code sandbox test or whatever just before the video call step as that’s the part that’s more 1:1 of your time.

 

[BlackLands]

So honestly the leetcode thing is to weed out people in mass (async to your time) who are either a) honest but not skilled enough to do what you need without a lot of supervision or b) people who are not up for playing ball in being screened at all. When I hire devs at work this is basically why we do it not because we actually trust that it reflects their abilities.

I’m still experimenting here myself for freelancers but what I did for some architecture work was put up and upwork job flat rate (small) and be very descriptive of exactly what they needed to do and what they wouldn’t be asked to do (good folks can get overwhelmed reading something that is vague and think you as the person hiring are going to be annoying to work with and then they don’t apply). Then it let me search for folks by keywords/skills and I selected only the ones who had volume of dollars earned and ratings in the highest percentile and used all my job “invites” or whatever inviting them to apply and told them why by hand I was interested in them weighing in. Then I waited and a few days and rejected all the overly expensive or profiles that looked bad/not a fit. Everyone else got a copy and paste of like 3 probing questions asking them to explain what they’ve done with x,y,z concept or tech in three or four sentences.

From there half never replied and and half of the ones that did seemed like duds which will leave you with only a few. Those I hopped on a call with to feel out their personalities. Hired the one that seemed the best and he did a great job.

When I go to hire for a coder that I want to be around a longer time I would probably throw the automated code screen or code sandbox test or whatever just before the video call step as that’s the part that’s more 1:1 of your time.

Hey Bounce, thanks for your message! In the last few days, I created a profile on Upwork and posted my job listing. I started receiving many requests, so I recorded a video using Loom and asked applicants to watch it. In this video, I explained who I am, what I'm working on, the tech stack I'm currently using, and the type of tasks the freelancer should expect to work on. This way, I don't have to repeat myself.

My hiring process is as follows (for now):

1. Tell applicants to watch the video and ask questions (it's a bad sign if they have no questions).
2. Ask them to show me their projects, describe the main challenges they faced, and explain how they solved them.
3. Give them a home task in which I ask them to build a small project (less than 1 hour) using my tech stack.

I'll keep you posted on the results I get. It's the first time I hire someone and I think it would be a great experience.
Thanks for encouraging me doing that!

 

[BlackLands]

Hello everyone, sorry for the delay but I was on holiday.

I spent some money on the holiday (everything within the budget), but because of it I can't pay a person to help me. I learned the lesson in the hard way, I don't care about holidays, I care about freedom. I'll decrease the annual budget for my holidays, say NO more often and invest the money saved into my business.

GOAL FOR NEXT WEEK:
- Implement the authentication system

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished

• I started implementing the auth system but I haven't made a lot of progresses yet. I'm using an AWS service I've never used before, plus my full time jobs is leaving me with little time to invest in my side project (I don't call it side business since I don't have any profits yet).
• Start studying the book How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know (read below why).

Goals for the Next Week Side business:

• Implement the auth system.
• Read 50% of the book.

Next month I have a meeting with the VP of Marketing of my company after receiving an invitation from him to join this new initiative. He is a very smart person, and in this meeting we are going to discuss what we have learned from reading the book "How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know" and how we can apply these lessons to our company. The company I work for has $1 billion in revenues and more than 50% market share in all the markets it operates in, so I have a lot to learn from the leadership, and most of what I learn will surely be useful in the future.

 

[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished

• The auth system has been integrated! Now users can login and sign up.
• I didn't reach the 50% of the book since I was fully focused on the MVP.

Goals for the Next Week Side business:

• Add the CI/CD pipeline to test the critical part of the platform.

 

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[BlackLands]

What I Accomplished

• CI/CD added, now I'm able to test the critical parts of the app before adding a new features.

Goals for the Next Week Side business:

• Bugs bugs bugs to solve, the goal it's to publish the MVP before the end of the year

I knew that it would have been hard, but now I understand how hard is to become an entrepreneur. I cannot and I don't want to give up. I'm becoming a better version of myself each day that pass

 

[Jerma]

You might want to take a look into SaaS boilerplates. It wasn't a thing when I made my SaaS, but they are pretty common now.

 

[BlackLands]

Hey Jerma, thanks a lot but I already have my codebase and I'm trying to make a SaaS Factory from it. I tried different boilerplates, but they containing too many useless things and I don't want to pay for one.

I built my codebase from scratch, off course this has required more time but it allows me to learn a ton of things and to know exactly everything about my code.

In summary: my codebase has been written in a way to be used as base for other SaaS. I'm working and improving it still and at the beginning the investment in terms of time it's huge, but then you start to save time after.

 

[Jerma]

Hey Jerma, thanks a lot but I already have my codebase and I'm trying to make a SaaS Factory from it. I tried different boilerplates, but they containing too many useless things and I don't want to pay for one.

I built my codebase from scratch, off course this has required more time but it allows me to learn a ton of things and to know exactly everything about my code.

In summary: my codebase has been written in a way to be used as base for other SaaS. I'm working and improving it still and at the beginning the investment in terms of time it's huge, but then you start to save time after.

I understand. I had the same idea. But that's solving a problem you don't really have yet? You only need one SaaS to go fastlane, you don't really need a factory. It's easier to remove useless stuff than build new things from scratch.

I used to deploy my docker containers to google cloud via my gitlab ci/cd pipeline when I had no revenue.. but now I just deploy with a bash script to my 80$/month VPS and I make 5 figures a month, and I sleep much better at night because I know I won't get a random insane cloud hosting bill. It's easier as a solo dev if you keep things simple in my experience. Good luck.

 

[NervesOfSteel]

Hello everyone, I will use this thread as a diary of my entrepreneurial journey. This is the main information about me:

• I am 24 years old and born in southern Italy, a place where the highest ambition for a young person is to work in an office for life or enlist in the armed forces.
• I have a bachelor's degree in computer science, a master's degree in Data Science and several experiences abroad. I studied in Stockholm and worked in a big tech in Luxembourg, plus I ran a startup podcast where I got to interview several experts in the field of artificial intelligence and improved my ability to ask the right questions. Since January I am moving to Spain to work full-time as a Data Scientist.
• I have a small YouTube channel where I talk about speeding up learning and I run a small podcast where I interview experts in different fields. Although it does not have much of a following partly because I never invested too much time in it, it has given me the opportunity to meet millionaires and investors and more generally to expand my network.

Why I want to become an entrepreneur:

• I have always been a creative person and the idea of creating something of my own doesn't let me sleep at night. Also, when I get messages from people thanking me after watching one of my YouTube videos, I realized that giving value is what I enjoy most.
• My mother died when I was 18, I want to start a foundation in her name and financially help as many boys and girls as possible to continue their schooling.
• I want to be free and no longer have the need to work. If one day I want to read Russian literature all day, I want to be able to do that.
• My escape number is about 8 million euros, this amount will allow me to live the life of my dreams without having the need to work. I aim to reach this figure in 10 years. It's not possible to earn this amount of money being and employee.

For 2023 my goals are:

• Develop a SaaS platform and have at least one paying customer.
• 25,000€ euros in the bank of liquidity.

What am I doing as of today?

• In October I graduated from college and so now I have time to focus on my entrepreneurial career. I started thinking seriously about it 2 weeks ago.
• I created a landing page for a SaaS service that I want to develop. I have created a small team of freelancers who are creating me the video introducing the platform and the background voice explaining what problem I am going to solve.
• The landing page is ready, now I have to test the market response and improve the presentation based on feedback. My target audience is mainly students so I am going to talk to my brother's friends and the mayor of my country in such a way as to publicize my idea in schools. In addition to that, the video inside the landing page will be publicized on social and we will see how many people will enter their email inside the form.
• I have not developed anything yet, if the response is positive will develop a prototype using no-code platforms.

I will update this thread every Sunday.
I don't know whether I will eventually succeed or not, I just tell you that I have seen the people I loved die and I in the first place risked my life. I don't give a damn about doing what needs to be done, I have no mental limitations.

I am always open to feedback, so feel free to comment.
I wish you a good life and a death with no regrets.

You should write those kind of thoughts in one of these things

View attachment 57014

Am sorry, couldn't help the sarcasm! LOLz

 

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[BlackLands]

@Jerma thanks for the feedback, I got your point! Do you have any recommendation in terms of boilerplates? I write code in python mainly

 

[Jerma]

@Jerma thanks for the feedback, I got your point! Do you have any recommendation in terms of boilerplates? I write code in python mainly

I also use python . I found this list GitHub - smirnov-am/awesome-saas-boilerplates

 

[BlackLands]

@Jer

I also use python . I found this list GitHub - smirnov-am/awesome-saas-boilerplates

Thanks 😀 I know this list and I tried this one (LINK) but at that time, the codebase was really hard to understand and not so well documented and I spent 3 weeks only to make it run in dev mode.

Do you have any boilerplate that you used to recommend? Previously you said that you have a SaaS, did you use a boilerplate to develop it? If so, which one?

 

[Jerma]

SaaS boilerplate were not really a thing before 2020, so no, I did not use one myself. My friend used gravity (node), and it did the job (he shipped), but it did require some "renovation" to bring it up to standards... I wouldn't necessarily recommend it specifically. If it's your first big project, a fixer-upper is way easier than a full build. Whatever you choose, it's going to be somewhat painful. You just need to pick your pain.

Personally, I attribute the surge of SaaS boilerplates to people trying to catch the SaaS gold rush and failing and then trying to pivot with the code they already have. The billing logic, the authentication logic, the CI/CD pipeline, the i18n, etc etc. That's not the valuable part of your product. Those are commodities now. I think that it kinda sucks to hear that as a dev.. but it's true.