Ask HN: At what point does your side project become your job?

9 points by iqonik 10 years ago | 10 comments

I run www.propertywizard.io and also work full-time. I launched in December and I am at £544 monthly recurring revenue. The cost to run is roughly £1k a year, so I'm profitable if you don't take into account my time.

I have a child and a mortgage to upkeep so I cannot leave my job until it is making significantly more, however, I know it needs my full attention to reach that stage.

What would you do?

I'm wondering if I should seek investment to cover my living costs. I'm not sure investors would be happy knowing their money is literally buying my time?

saluki 10 years ago |

Congrats on developing a SaaS with revenue . . . keep bootstrapping . . . you don't need investment.

Polish up your app and code . . . there are some rendering issues on initial load and validation on the login form. Test, improve, polish provide the best UX you can to keep existing customers.

Start a blog with articles on how realtors can use social media, publish often and collect emails/build a list, email that list valuable information and details on PropertyWizard.

Invest some of your revenue in contacting realtors, test out some ideas and see what your ROI is. Try calling realtors in person make a goal of 1, 5 or 10 per day, approach an office with 50 realtors and offer them a group package, test mailing out 100 postcards, track the realtor/office names/provide a unique URL and track signups. Find out what's working to generate signups and focus your efforts there.

Add a signup process on the site (checkout stripe), test three subscription levels, offer a annual discount sign up for 12 months (price of 10). Add an Office package up to XX realtors, email us for custom plans/more realtors. I think focusing on real estate offices with multiple agents might be a good way to grow your subscribers.

Add a favicon, minor but I always notice when they are missing from a site.

Don't sell a piece of your pie at this point, keep growing it.

Good luck, update us on how it's going.

siquick 10 years ago | |

Agreed with all this.

Definitely focus on your CTA on the site. It's not very clear that I can sign up for your service on the site.

I'd also offer a 30 day refund for unhappy users, this helps put new users minds at rest.

imdsm 10 years ago |

> I'm not sure investors would be happy knowing their money is literally buying my time

Isn't that what most investments do in the beginning? Pay for the time for the idea to become a reality and give the founder(s) the ability to realise it?

iqonik 10 years ago | |

I agree to some extent, but normally they would expect there money to be spent on marketing etc. rather than to cover my household bills?

brudgers 10 years ago | | |

In the context of a Hacker News discussion, there are really two types of investors worth distinguishing. The difference centers [or centres?] around the meaning of "startup".

In Silicon Valley, a startup is a company designed to grow fast and structured to take outside investment in exchange for equity [i.e. a Delaware C Corporation]. Everywhere else, to a first approximation, recent shifts in popular culture have made "startup" mostly synonymous with "new business": the local chamber of commerce will refer to new restaurants as startups and restaurant owners as founders. These "local" startups are organized to meet the needs of local investors and local investors focus on cash flow [in the US an S-corp or an LLC so as to avoid double taxation].

The difference in structure is reflected in a difference of investment management. Silicon Valley style investors achieve returns via capital gains. "Local" investors primarily try to achieve returns via dividends, profit distributions, etc.

To put it in perspective, the YC investment model [as a sub-type of the SV model] is exactly about covering living expenses to allow founders to do things that increase the value of the underlying equity. That includes activities such as raising additional funding to allow more of the same.

In contrast, a "local" investor may not want additional investment because growth increases the risk of failure or a drop in profitability.

Lastly, one of the advantages of a US C-Corp is the legal requirement that employees get paid a legal wage. It avoids situations like that mentioned.

iqonik 10 years ago |

I should mention the reason I haven't made an 'Apply HN' post is the money available ($20k) wouldn't be enough for me to cover my expenses and quit my job.

herbst 10 years ago |

I would try to invest your current revenue in someone who can help you make your product more visible.

siquick 10 years ago | |

Most definitely this.

For example. hire someone to call every single estate agent in your area, promoting your service. Just make sure they don't speak to the receptionist - aim for the decision maker.

There must be Linkedin groups on this subject that you can join. What about Estate Agent conferences? There are definitely offline magazines that you could think about advertising in.

If it's any like Australia then most estate agents are franchises who license out their software, so you could target a head office of a franchise and white label your software.

Google Ads don't seem like a great acquisition channel for you unless you can figure out exactly what decision makers at EA are searching for.

This could be worth a read for ideas on which channels could work for you.

https://medium.com/swlh/the-19-channels-you-can-use-to-get-t...

Most important: when you find the channel that works for you then put all your focus onto that channel until it's run dry.

iqonik 10 years ago | |

Any ideas on how? I have tried Facebook/Google/LinkedIn Ads' and didn't get much response, it's a high touch sales process that involves pointing out the problem they have, most are aware of social media, have created accounts but then do nothing with them.

herbst 10 years ago | | |

Thats why i thought about a third party. Not sure where you would find such a person/company but you are providing a solution for a very specific need which is most likely not easily advertised to. Basically i think you need a sales guy.