I recently read a useful post by the founder of Zigpoll, an e-Commerce contextual survey tool. In it, Jason shares his insights about being a solo entrepreneur. They really resonate with my own experience. My faves:
I was convinced that if you build it, the people will come. I assure you, no matter what you are building, they will not.
I find that building a great product is predictable. A solo-developer generally knows that putting in X effort will predictably lead to a Y outcome (a functioning product). Sales and Marketing are unpredictable. Most solo-founders underestimate how chaotic customer acquisition is… and they often deal with it by ignoring the risk. I highly recommend Eric Ries’ Lean Startup book for anyone who wants to de-risk customer acquisition before investing energy into fully building a product.
I also want to link to Lenny Rachitsky’s post with the “1 growth engine” that various big businesses use to acquire customers. There’s often just one, and a business milks it for all it’s got:
