Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder?

Re:Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder? by satvikpendem on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:26PM (#18858703)

I'm creating an open source todo list + calendar webapp (https://getartemis.app, source at https://github.com/satvikpendem/artemis) made by just me, and I can tell you how I approached the problem.

The video you see on the front page does not exist in code, it is simply a prototype designed with Figma (https://figma.com) and animated with Principle (https://principleformac.com). I created the landing page and video, added a Mailchimp form, and I posted on Twitter, Reddit, and here on Hacker News, the communities in which it made sense. For me, it's a productivity / task management tool, so I would post on reddit.com/r/getdisciplined or reddit.com/r/productivity.

It's all about creating a minimum viable product, as you might well be aware, but what you may not know is that an MVP need not have code. Indeed, it could be a video as I did, and I think for software, a video works best as people can actually see what it looks and feels like, without you necessarily creating the product architecture (full frontend and backend plus devops etc). Now I have over 150 subscribers in only a month due to rapid creation of this type of MVP, and based on this feedback, I changed my designs, and only now I am beginning to really create the heart of the product.

Using non-code MVPs is the best way in my opinion to sell quickly before building.

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Re:Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder? by alangibson on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @03:59PM (#18859637)

Really good advice about non-code MVP. It reminded me of this seminal post: https://blog.bufferapp.com/idea-to-paying-customers-in-7-wee.... The heart of the idea is that an MVP isn't really a Product; it's something to validate against.

How specificlaly did you go about promoting your landing page? Just 'hey check this out posts', or did you focus on comments/answers to questions? And how much time do you have invested in this so far?

If you get some free time, you might want to also post this on indiehackers.com. Could help a lot of people out there.

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Re:Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder? by satvikpendem on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @04:08PM (#18859713)

I'm a somewhat frequent contributor on IndieHackers actually. To promote the page, I basically posted it everywhere I could (without getting banned) and started asking my friends to critique the site. When applicable, I would also answer questions on fora as I am now. In terms of time, I'm not really sure, it's an on and off commitment as I also have a job.

Anything other questions or anything you're working on as well?

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Re:Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder? by Papirola on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @04:53PM (#18860110)

I'd like to know more about the "not getting banned" part. Reddit communities are notorious for not wanting to be sold to. what's your approach? how do you articulate the post? maybe you could share a link to an actual post as an example?

thanks for the insight!

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Re:Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder? by satvikpendem on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @06:09PM (#18860690)

Many subreddits have rules on when you can do self promotion, such as a separate thread or a specific day for posting. That's when I do it. [See this post for example](https://old.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/a3oz48/meth...). As well, you can see in that post that I don't directly promote my app but instead I ask questions regarding the process by which people schedule their day.

Provide value without expecting value in return. If you look on [/r/entrepreneur](www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneur), you can see some posts where people use their blog posts as a reddit post, which provides value for those who don't read their specific blog. Then, you can link back to your own blog at the end of the post. In doing so, you provide value before you promote yourself, and so any products or services you then promote will be associated with quality to your readerbase.

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Re:Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder? by wuliwong on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @02:50PM (#18868153)

Thanks for posting this. I am at a very similar place with startups where I am attempting to stop just paying lip service to lean startup ideas. I'm going to look into the tools you mentioned.

BTW, the last startup I worked at we were building a really cool "timeline" interface using react. I see you are using Vue but we still might have some interesting discussions. I found some really fun/difficult product and technical problems with developing that type of interface.

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