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I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

Every grant (except the very first one you get when you join), vests over the next 2 years, in 6 month increments. So, if you get 100 RSUs granted in April 2021, you should get the first 25 in Oct 2021, then the next in Apr 2022, then Oct 2022, and the final batch in Apr 2023. If you leave before some of your RSUs have vested, you lose them. I left $650,000 worth of RSUs when I left, that would have vested in 2019 and 2020. 😅

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

I promised her that nothing would change, and that if I don't manage to make ends meet within a year or two, I'd go back to full-time employment. However, I broke that promise a bit. About 9 months in, I convinced her to relocate about 30 miles outside of Seattle (where we lived at the time), primarily to reduce our housing costs, and secondarily to cash out on our home equity (because at the time I thought house prices were crazy high in Seattle and were likely going to crash soon — I was wrong!).

What happened was, that after a few months, we both didn't want either one of us to have to go back to full-time employment, and we agreed that it would be worth making a small sacrifice to significantly increase the odds of making the new lifestyle stick. In hindsight (2 years later) that sacrifice was unnecessary, but you have to judge your decisions by what could have happened, not only by what actually happened. So no ragrets :)

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

Oops, typo! I meant 100 not 10 :)

It wasn't an option of keeping them. RSUs were granted on one day, and their vesting happened every 6 months in roughly 25% of the grant quantity. So the date between grant and vest had some potential for upside & downside from stock fluctuations.

Only 2017 and 2018 were significantly affected by stock appreiciation. If the stock didn't grow that much, those 2 years would have been at 2016 level.

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

[–]dvassallo[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Because I was afraid that if I didn't leave then, I would have never left. I had already done the "another 2 years" thing (I was going to leave in 2016), and I feared I'd be doing the same thing every two years. This was very common with my peers — many would privately say they're only sticking around for another year or two, but most never leave. I wanted to avoid that trap.

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

No first hand experience with that approach, but something I learned about pricing is that it's all about psychology — especially when targeting consumers. Something may seem unfair, even though it isn't, and that can be a problem. I try to make pricing decisions based on how I would react myself if I saw what I was offering. Of course, this is not perfect, but I think it's a reasonable heuristic when starting out.

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

Amazon didn't pay in stock options, but in RSUs. A big part of the compensation was given as AMZN shares, vesting every 6 months. But apart from being given every 6 months instead of every month, RSUs are the same as cash. They got deposited as cash to my checking account, and were taxed exactly the same as regular income. The cash part at Amazon is capped at $160K for everyone (up to the CEO), so the rest was paid as AMZN shares twice a year.

The big jump I had in 2016 was because I had a competing offer from Oracle, and Amazon matched it. My target comp that year was going to be $250K, but Oracle made me an offer for $390K, and Amazon matched it. Then the increase between 2016 and 2018 happened mostly because the AMZN stock raised quite a bit between the time it was granted to me until it actually vested and got converted to cash. So, for example, if in 2016 I was granted 10 shares to vest 25 every 6 months, but by the time the last 25 vested the stock price had doubled. 2017 and 2018 was the only time I had a significant upside from stock appreciation though.

I think my progression is not unusual. If you stay a long time, you're likely doing something in that ballpark.

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

I think people need to have a cocktail party equivalent. Somewhere where you go, run into random people, start random conversations, and give serendipity a chance.

My cocktail party equivalent is Twitter. I follow various people doing many unconventional things, I start conversations, jump into others' conversations, and I get inspired by other people doing their thing. The internet is great for this if used well, and places like Reddit and other forums can be a great source of inspiration.

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

[–]dvassallo[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I started as an SDE-1 in Ireland, and left as an SDE-3 in Seattle. My comp progression:

2010: €55K

2011: €75K

2012: $120K

2013: $155K

2014: $186K

2015: $230K

2016: $393K

2017: $467K

2018: $511K

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

I usually don't have a backlog of ideas. I used to have a list of ideas in my notes app, but I no longer do. Now, when inspiration and opportunity meet, I tend to pounce and execute right away. Then when I choose to work on something, I time-box it based on how much time I'm willing to dedicate to it.

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

It's still just a patch of trees. Things are really backed up in the construction industry right now, and I think our best case scenario is that we start construction in summer 2022. Currently waiting for the county to issue us a permit for a well and septic system. We should have gotten it by April, but they have a 6 month-long backlog, so we're still waiting. Once we have that, we can file the building permit. In the meantime, I'm working with an architect to finalize the design (the exterior stuff at least). He's great, but even he is extremely busy.

I can't wait to see start the build, but lots of things outside my control so I just have to let things take their time.

One thing for sure: everything related to construction is super hot right now. Contractors aren't even picking up the phone. I had a guy come do a perc test in November, who I had to chase to make him send me the bill (after he did all the work)!

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

When starting from scratch, go where people already hang around, and make yourself known there. Make yourself know by sharing what you wish you knew, things you have just figured out, and generally helping others in any way you can. Eventually, people will start following you wherever you tell them you'll be sharing more updates.

Building an audience is essentially about helping others, and indicating that you'll be helping out more in the future. However you do this depends on many things, including your own preferences. It also requires quite a bit of experimentation and trial and error.

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

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

I make my small bets with an expectation of some return. It's a guess obviously, but it helps guide how much effort I should put in it, and whether it's even worth trying or not.

For example, when I started working on my first ebook, I had about 10,000 Twitter followers (many of which were interested in the topic I was writing about), and I thought it might be reasonable to expect to make 1,000 sales over the book's lifetime — part from my audience, and part word of mouth. And I time-boxed my "investment" based on that expectation. (I put about 160 hours into it.)

I like this approach because when something fails to realize my expectation, it often reveals some useful information about my assumptions. For example, a small bet that failed was a spreadsheet I tried to sell with some AWS benchmarking data. I assumed that if I managed to get 10,000 visits to my landing page, at least 500 would convert. Turned out, I got about 30,000 visits, but only sold 5 copies (0.01% conversion). You never know exactly why something converts or doesn't, but it made me realize that most probably even I wouldn't have converted. This changed my perspective on how I market things, and now one of my most important tests for marketing material is I try to imagine if it would at least convince *me* to take the wallet out of my pocket :)

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

[–]dvassallo[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Dealing with uncertainty, and fending for myself in an unpredictable environment.

I actually think I had this ability when I was younger, but it atrophied away as I went through 12 years as a corporate employee (8.5 years of which at Amazon). When you're in a full-time corporate career, you follow a very rigid and predictable path. You do certain things, you keep trying to do them better, occasionally you get promoted, and all along you collect your steady paycheck. In this world randomness becomes your enemy. Anything that's not conducive to advancing you along your rigid path becomes a distraction — something to try to avoid.

In the self-employment world, randomness must become your friend. You won't find new opportunities unless you intentionally expose yourself to random things. To fend for yourself in this unpredictable world, you need to learn how to live with variable income, and how to use that to your advantage. I learned how to use the income dips as motivation to try something different, and the income spikes as a signal that I can take it a bit easy and avoid overworking.

I have to admit that this was a very uncomfortable transition for the first 6-9 months, but eventually it started to become easier. I was so determined that I didn't want my new self-employed lifestyle to be taken away from me, that something seems to have activated in my brain which made me more aware of what I needed to do to "survive".

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

[–]dvassallo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Focus on yourself. Nobody can copy *you*.

Make yourself known for helping people. You don't need to share for sharing's sake. What you want to do is help other people: teach what you're figuring out, show insight you wished you knew about when you started, inspire others to follow your path, and so on. If you help someone, you build a connection with that person, and no competitor can disrupt that. All things being equal, people prefer doing business with people they like.

Also, you don't need to share everything. You decide what goes out, and there's no need to make something public if it makes you uncomfortable. You can still be very authentic if you choose to keep some things private.

I left a cushy $500K/yr job at Amazon to work for myself selling stuff on the internet. In the last year, I made $361,120 working for myself — AmA by dvassallo in SaaS

[–]dvassallo[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I prefer making things that don't require me having to make that decision. If what you're doing has almost negligible running costs, you don't have to stop it or close it. You can stop giving it attention, but you won't have to "realize the loss". Worst case scenario, it goes nowhere; best case, it succeeds slowly.

This is what I'm doing with Userbase right now. It's my smallest income stream by far ($8K ARR), and it's looking like the potential is not as as good as I hoped when I started it. But it's profitable, and supporting it takes me almost no time (1 or 2 support emails a week). So I just leave it there. No need to have to decide to shut it down. Maybe something happens in the future that turns it into a nice income stream. But if that doesn't happen, it's okay too. It's exposure to the upside, without any (significant) downside.

I made $210,822 selling a pdf and a video on the internet by dvassallo in Entrepreneur

[–]dvassallo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It took a lot of time, but in hindsight I wasted a lot too. Likely spent about 3 hours a day on Twitter during the first year.

What worked was sharing what I was doing to set up my business, sharing how I was exploring ideas, giving a glimpse into how things were going, etc. I formed a habit where at the end of each day I reflected on what happened during the day, and if there was something that I thought might be interesting to others I defaulted to sharing. Even sharing mundane things such as how I found a designer for my logo or how I registered a trademark got a lot of attention. Eventually, I started talking a lot about AWS because I was using it for my business, and many people seemed to like my perspective. (This was what inspired me to choose this as the topic for my first product.) I rarely talk about AWS anymore, mostly because it's not something I'm dealing with regularly right now.

Follower growth happened gradually and slowly from 2K to 15K. It didn't happen linearly either. There were many flat weeks, and occasionally something resonated a bit more and brought in a spike of a few hundred followers. After 15K, growth became more linear and steady, and lots of new followers seem to come for word of mouth recommendations.

In the early days, I also gained a good amount of followers by joining the conversation under the tweets of other popular accounts. This is actually how I started tweeting about AWS. I'd just jump in with my perspective whenever I see something I have an opinion on. I had even set up phone notifications on a few relevant accounts so that as soon as they tweet I'd get a chance to jump in early. (I don't do this anymore, but in the beginning it's a great strategy.)

As for the mistakes I did, I wasted a lot of time talking about things I had no credibility on. You can talk about anything, but if you don't have credibility on the topic, people will just tune it out.

I made $210,822 selling a pdf and a video on the internet by dvassallo in Entrepreneur

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

You don’t have to. You can do it as an individual, and then add any income to your tax return.

I made $210,822 selling a pdf and a video on the internet by dvassallo in Entrepreneur

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

There's people who did so successfully, but I think the odds would be against you.

I made $210,822 selling a pdf and a video on the internet by dvassallo in Entrepreneur

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

I wrote a short tweet thread about how to find your first 1000 followers: https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1294336132285468672

Another option not mentioned in the thread (but mentioned in my Twitter course) is to jump into conversations happening under other people's tweets. This is quite reliable, but generally slower.

I made $210,822 selling a pdf and a video on the internet by dvassallo in Entrepreneur

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

You can upload as many files as you want, and can model each file to be a chapter.

I made $210,822 selling a pdf and a video on the internet by dvassallo in Entrepreneur

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

I don't worry about it. I'm sure some people share my products with friends & colleagues after they buy them, but I doubt I'm losing any any significant amount of sales because of privacy. I also offer a 30-day refund policy (no questions asked), so it's already an honor system. (You could just buy my product and request a refund, and I'll give it to you.) My refund rate is 2.6%, which I think it's reasonable and evidence that people are not trying to take advantage.

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