hai2ashwin

Fantastic idea. I haven't, first-hand, felt this pain. But I will research further. Appreciate it!

Thank you!

I would not do any business that will not have a healthy gross profit margin when bootstrapped. I am looking at ideas where the volume will make up for the free cash that per-sale generates.

There are a lot of 'lifestyle' plugin makers that do this.

PS: I do value the input and the time you took to answer. Thanks!

I will be the genie who will grant that wish, the moment I have the F you money.

Thanks, Marcelo! One idea I have is to build an email open tracker that does not sell data to third party. Doesn't take time to build and can be priced at a dollar a month. I am looking for tools like these that are not that hard to build if your ambition is not to scale.

Danielle (if you read this), I was rooting for you to succeed (as a fellow entrepreneur in the same space). I hope you would write soon on what worked and what didn't.

Data business is hard for a few reasons:

1. Data is a commodity until it is not. People's contact information is a 'done to death' problem but not solved yet (and probably not solvable completely)

2. Data is capital intensive

3. Data businesses (and the modern ones at that) are more annuity businesses and less like SaaS. Monthly recurring patterns take time to emerge and you need investors that understand this dynamic. They will if you prove that your core hypothesis works and customers are buying more (if not following a strict monthly pattern).

4. You need to have enough money and execution speed to prove your hypothesis. Unlike software where customer development and execution discipline can help you launch a good product, in the data business you need to stitch partnerships early on with data sources. That's not easy.

You tried. Again, I'd love to read your reflections on what you could've done differently.