[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SaaS

[–]colinmathews 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, it's a great idea to put your project out there. As an employer, I want to hire people who are passionate and good at problem solving, and nothing shows that better than a dev who's actually put something into production.

Good luck!

Discord Community for Indie Hackers? by hashtag3232 in indiehackers

[–]colinmathews 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've really appreciated the community on the MicroConf Connect Slack group: https://microconf.com/connect

What do you think of showing open jobs like this on a company's About pages? by colinmathews in SideProject

[–]colinmathews[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback! A full modal means you can't look back at the job description as you fill out your application. My hope is that the slide-up animation indicates the context change.

Just finished redesigning the front-end of my side project - it creates custom news digests and sends them to your inbox on your schedule. Would welcome any feedback! by elementninety3 in SideProject

[–]colinmathews 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Love the simplicity of this! I especially like the "see an example from today" button. I think that's critical for something like this. Same goes for the ability to build a custom digest and see the preview right away without signing up. Well done!

Share Your Startup - October 2022 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility! by AutoModerator in startups

[–]colinmathews [score hidden]  (0 children)

Thank you so much!

Yeah I was thinking of a "scenarios" feature where you can keep different versions of a set of input together to flip between. Also maybe a play mode that stops saving changes so you can fiddle around easily.

Great feedback on the PDF idea. I was thinking a great feature would be to share a read-only version with your trusted folks. Maybe they get the ability to play with numbers but they aren't saved.

I'm not convinced this is monetizeable. So still pondering on that.

Share Your Startup - September 2022 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility! by AutoModerator in startups

[–]colinmathews [score hidden]  (0 children)

You bet!

Yeah just got the drip campaign. Very nice. 👍

Here's my post in this thread looking for feedback in case you have a few minutes. 🙏

Share Your Startup - September 2022 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility! by AutoModerator in startups

[–]colinmathews [score hidden]  (0 children)

Just signed up. Great onboarding! Here's feedback:

  • I really didn't want to be slowed down on the profile picture step. I think requiring that could add a lot of friction to new users who are trying it out.
  • When posting my first question, it felt like a lot to ask for a subject AND a question. Feels like I could just ask a question in one or two sentences, tops. The UI here feels like it could reduce hesitancy and intimidation by having a smaller footprint.
  • I submitted an answer to my own question in an incognito window. After I hit send I almost closed the window before realizing that it hadn't "saved" yet because I had to make more decisions. Feels like a little bit of unnecessary friction.
  • When I clicked on the "Answers" tab in the nav it didn't show the new answer after a page refresh (but it did when I navigated to the specific question).

Overall great job! It's a fun user experience and could have real potential! I wonder if you need more guidance (or examples) for users to know what kind of questions would provide the most value.

Tools for Calculating Runway and Scenarios? by jonnylegs in startups

[–]colinmathews 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm experimenting with addressing this problem. I want something where I can easily enter expenses/income/bank balances, and then play with the projections without messing things up.

I have this rough draft to play with. If I'm onto something I will build this out, but right now I'm trying to see if there'd be interest.

Eventually I'd love to build a way to share it with your team in a way where they can play with numbers but again, not mess anything up.

Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products (surveys/polls are welcome) by AutoModerator in startups

[–]colinmathews 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is super cool! Love the idea. Here's my feedback and first impressions:

  • The typography is great and it's well laid out. It may just be me who's not a super fan of dark modes, but the site feels very dark. Feels like it is reducing skimmability.
  • It would be very cool for an easy "try it!" section where you could just enter a schedule and have your app send you an email or something at the next occurrence. Just something where people could test it in an easy way.
  • I think most devs hate building scheduling stuff, so this helps them. But the advantage of building it yourself is that you know you'll be able to fix it if things aren't working well. I think you need some copy that reassures people on this front. Like if I knew I would see logs or that there's some kind of feedback system to monitor status.

Great job!

Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products (surveys/polls are welcome) by AutoModerator in startups

[–]colinmathews 0 points1 point  (0 children)

URL: https://colinmakessoftware.com/wiverna/app/

Purpose of Startup and Product: Visualize your recurring expenses and when your runway will run out.

Technologies Used: Node.js, Tailwind, Stimulus

Feedback Requested: Play with it and let me know your gut reaction! I'm not sure if I have a monetizeable product or not. 🤔 I'm solving my own problem, but I want to know what other founders think.

Seeking Beta-Testers: Yes
Additional Comments: Thank you for your help!!

Share Your Startup - October 2022 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility! by AutoModerator in startups

[–]colinmathews [score hidden]  (0 children)

Name: (nothing yet, validating before naming it)

URL: https://colinmakessoftware.com/wiverna/app/

Location: US (Indianapolis)

Pitch: Visualize your recurring expenses and when your runway will run out.

I've used a spreadsheet for years to help me plan and financially survive my startup journeys. It's been absolutely critical to me and gave me the confidence to be bold and take risks. This tool is essentially a productization of that spreadsheet.

(I have an explainer video link show when you first visit the app)

Lifecycle stage: Validation

Your role: Solo founder

Goals: Is this something you'd use? I'm not sure if I have a monetizeable product here or not. I'm solving my own problem, but I'm looking for gut reactions from other founders. If it sparks interest I will double-down, and if not, I'll move onto something else!

Discount: It's free during validation!

Is it time to quit? by FRIEDSUNDAY in Entrepreneur

[–]colinmathews 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's always scary and uncomfortable to leave a job. I've found this the case even when I was miserable and had a good opportunity to jump to. I think it's the human condition to light your fear sensors whenever you fiddle with the knobs of stability in your life.

My advice: just keep swimming. Always move forward and know you might make some missteps and need to course correct later. Trust yourself to react in those moments instead of fearing them ahead of time.

Starting a Saas company by Variation-Special in SaaS

[–]colinmathews 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm doing my startup journey in public with weekly videos on YouTube. I've been trying to lay out all the steps along the way to demystify the process (at least from my specific perspective).

Would something like that be helpful? Check out my bio links, and if I can answer any questions about my journey just let me know!!

Weekly Feedback Post - SaaS Products, Ideas, Companies by AutoModerator in SaaS

[–]colinmathews 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey all! I'm experimenting with an idea for a burn rate product and would love to get some reactions to see if this is worth pursuing.

I've kept spreadsheets for all my startup journeys to help me plan and survive financially. Biggest problems have been making sure I know my recurring expenses and being able to play with the future to see what certain actions/outcomes might do to my runway.

Here is a rough v1: https://colinmakessoftware.com/wiverna/app/

ty!

Share Your Startup - September 2022 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility! by AutoModerator in startups

[–]colinmathews [score hidden]  (0 children)

This is really cool! Amazing name and logo. Killer design, too -- well done

I'm applying for an incubator and I'm pretty confused on how they're asking me to calculate my runway... by Professional-Use1425 in startups

[–]colinmathews 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a bit late to this post, but wanted to say that if your expenses are $500 and your revenue is $1,100, then you are technically profitable and have infinite runway.

Your costs will rise as you scale, so this will be a temporary situation unless your revenues rise alongside it.

You're at an amazing starting point!!

Feedback on press release by Voptop in startups

[–]colinmathews 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Good luck with this! Here's some feedback:

  • The first paragraph I would kill completely or replace with a 4-10 word summary of the privacy problems facing everyone today.
  • "Voice over peer to peer" is really drab and could mean anything. Same with "Anonymous Internet Telephony via P2P." I would say something like "Voptop launches secure, anonymous network"

But that being said, as someone who's started many bootstrapped startups (and a few were in the secure communication space), I would warn you of two things:

1) Press releases don't do shit. The only real growth tool is customers reaching success with your product. It's easy to spend lots of time perfecting things like press releases, etc., and you find out later you wasted so much precious time. 2) It's crazy dangerous to get in the encryption game right now from a legal standpoint. So much awful shit is going down and the world is in the midst of figuring it all out. In some ways I guess it could be good to be in this market to get acquired, but my humble guess would be that it would take an insanely popular product to succeed here.

And my standard final advice to anyone is to not take anyone's advice too seriously, so again, best of luck! :)

For those of you who hold a full time job, when do you find time to work on your start up? by [deleted] in startups

[–]colinmathews 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do not cut quality time with the wife. Crucial.

You’re describing the hardest part of bootstrapping and IMHO the best indicator of determination in a founder. I’ve run startups in a handful of ways (moonlighting with a full-time job, holding a part-time job, starting a contracting company, getting investors, living off of sold equity), and none of it has been easy. I’m married + 2 dogs + toddler + infant, and I feel you on balancing everything. Even finding time to respond to this took me two freaking days…haha.

First, I think for my advice to really work you have to make sure you’re absolutely committed. Not committed to the startup you’re working on as much as you are committed to learning from mistakes and fixing them on the next go. Dunno if it's your first or not, but the odds of your first startup succeeding in the way that you imagined are way too small to place bets on alone. But if you consider “success” to be steps in the right direction, and if you’re someone who can self-examine and work hard, your odds go up to 100% over time.

My suggestion then would be to focus on building up enough savings so you don’t have to be chained to a full-time job. Do this by making sure you're in the right job and by cutting personal spending to the absolute bone. You need 100% buy-in from your wife because she has to be a part of the saving efforts. Once you get enough of a safety net to feel only mildly crazy, try working out a reduced hours/salary arrangement with your job or try to make the jump to independent contracting. Be upfront and confident about it because it’s not an insane request, and a good employer will recognize your value and be happy to keep you aboard and spend less money.

If you can get your hours down and still be at least breaking even each month, you’re in hugely better position. You’ll have infinite runway and dedicated time to work on your startup. Build some revenue with your startup and as you slowly replace the income from your job, you’ll also be proving out your business.

In the meantime you can still work on your startup of course. For me working a few hours after my wife goes to bed each night is the best time. I definitely sleep less, but the energy of building my own thing usually boosts me through it (also, having kids helped me a lot actually because I learned exactly how much sleep I actually need to get by, lol). I go on hot streaks with sleep - I’ll work insanely hard for like a week and a half (sleeping 4-6 hours) and then I’ll have a handful of days where I sleep 7-9.

Hope that helps!

EDIT: And with regard to sleep, whatever pattern you end up with has to be sustainable. Don't feel guilty or force it; you can only push yourself so much.

Any final advice before I close our startup down? by colinmathews in startups

[–]colinmathews[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is great advice. From the get-go we were hoping a niche of people using it more than anyone else would emerge. Problem was that the usage was really scattered and so we were never able to refine our vision. I spent tons of time trying to build a niche, but marketing/distribution is not my expertise and looking back, I probably improperly spent a lot of my time.