“It’s super frustrating to see people that control hundreds of millions of dollars tweeting about the next e-gaming unicorn that they’re chasing, when you have millions of people who are being forced to migrate all because of a crisis that technology can solve."
Tired: "Software is eating the world."
Wired: "Climate change is destroying the world."
VCs: show me the money (you're investing climate change solutions).
You want to make a dent in the universe? Help us clean this shit up.
For transparency: my company, @TransistorFM, is a small, bootstrapped 3-person company.
I've been brainstorming how I would build a new indie startup if I had to do it again in 2023.
Here are 5 principles I’d use.
1. Build a product that people are already searching for.
It's 1000x easier to target folks already in motion.
The best opportunities are where customers realize they have a need and are doing something about it: searching Google, asking for recommendations, etc.
2. Get in motion by building side projects in public.
Good ideas almost always emerge while you're doing something else.
For example, @adamwathan was livestreaming while building a SaaS product. People started asking him about his CSS. @tailwindcss was born out of that.
More thoughts on why ChatGPT is not a traditional startup platform.
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Historically, bootstrapped startups have been built on top of open protocols (such as email, the web, and RSS), open platforms (like WordPress), and open-source tools (including Ruby on Rails, Laravel, Vue, and Tailwind CSS).
Indie founders used open protocols and open-source tools to level the playing field and give their ideas a chance to succeed.
MailChimp and ConvertKit, for example, harnessed the email protocol without paying a single cent to Gmail or Microsoft for API access or postage fees.
In my early 20s, I was running a skate shop where I was constantly stressed, working late nights, putting out fires, and leveraging multiple credit cards to keep everything afloat.
Over time, I began evaluating biz opportunities on their likelihood of “giving me a good life.”
So many of us business owners end up being a slave to our companies, and we forget why we started our businesses in the first place: to give us, our families, and our employees a better life!
If you want a business that gives you a better life, think about the market first!
Go after opportunities where:
- buyers are actively looking for solutions
- you have experience + insights
- you’re confident you can capture a significant % of buyer interest
- margins are good