Thoughts, opinions, transcripts, etc.
I reconnected with a few college friends recently who I rarely see. They were overachievers — 3.95 GPAs at UC Berkeley (which is quite literally insane, especially in the poli sci and math departments they graduated from) — and went on to get great jobs and MBAs from Stanford and Harvard. They both have plenty of money, lots of… Continue reading Lifestyle over money
It’s been over a year since I left the comfort and security of a VC-backed paycheck. I haven’t missed it. It’s been a year of growth and development. I’ve struggled, I’ve succeeded, and in some aspects I’ve failed. But the ball has continued to move forward. For most of the past 18 months I haven’t… Continue reading Building out my little empire
An excerpt from The Parallel Entrepreneur If you can get your business up to $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), then that’s really good. Most entrepreneurs never get there. It’s good but not great. Jonathan Siegel gave me advice that I’ll never forget. I use this bit of wisdom to fire up my drive. He… Continue reading From good to great
The dream is 100 customers paying you $100 per month. That’s the software-as-a-service (SaaS) solopreneur’s mecca. A hundred customers paying $100 per month adds up to $120,000 per year of revenue. Since we’re building software, you’ll have about 85% gross margins, so your gross profit is at least $100,000. Your operating expenses are business-related assets… Continue reading Why SaaS is a solo founder’s dream come true
I’m not a “good” programmer but I am “good at” programming. What’s the difference? Let me explain. Good programmers write beautiful, optimized code. They write good tests and enjoy doing it. They know Javascript and Ruby and can quickly pick up other languages too. They don’t need to spend time Googling error messages because their… Continue reading Being good at computer programming
These days I don’t have a lot of structure between 9am and 4pm. I don’t go into an office anymore. I don’t report to anyone. I’m running a nice little business now with no partners and no investors. At any given point in that 9–4 window I can pretty much do whatever I want because… Continue reading My favorite question to ask