Is your self-worth tied to MRR?
At the end of 2020, in the height of the pandemic, I decided to leave my six-figure job and head out into the unknown as a solo indie founder.
My plan was simple.
I’d build SaaS products until something ‘sticks’ and rockets to the moon the way that so many other indie products have. 😆
Simple, right?
I’ve written previously about my motivations and why I decided to set out on this journey.
I’ve also written about my first product launch, Thread Creator, and how I set out to create something that I really wanted to see in the world.
What I haven’t written about, however, is what happened since and what I’ve learnt along the way.
So with that, I’d like to share some lessons and advice for aspiring founders or those who are just a little further behind the road than I am. I’d also humbly suggest that this post is both a cautionary tale and a motivator to get out there and create something. Here goes…
Lesson 1: SaaS is a long game
I launched Thread Creator on Product Hunt almost exactly a year ago. Since then, it’s kept me really busy. New users have signed up (over 4,000) and paid subscriptions have grown to over 140. Not bad right?
But, a year in and it’s only now starting to become ramen profitable — an entire year after launch! And I still have a long way to go before revenue catches up to my previous salary.
Friends... SaaS products can take a while. Ever heard of "the long, slow, SaaS ramp of death"? Now you have 😉
Lesson 2: Survivorship bias is a dangerous trap
When you set out to build something, you’re always going to be motivated by looking at others, and the successes that they have achieved.
Look at Pieter Levels with RemoteOK and Nomadlist or Jon Yongfook with Bannerbear. Or others that have reached $10k MRR or more. You’ll be thinking: “If they can do it, then I can too!”
And you know what? You’d be right. You can do it too!
But… and this is where you should lean in and listen carefully.
Overnight success DOES NOT EXIST. It may appear that way, but these folks have often spent years working on projects and building an audience, as well as experiencing numerous failures and false starts. Pieter Levels has built something like 100 projects and only found success with 3 or 4!!
We often only see the big successes and miss what’s gone on in the background.
Lesson 3: Don’t be afraid to move on
Since launching Thread Creator I’ve also built and launched one or two other products, and very quickly found that they weren’t working out.
That doesn’t mean that they were bad ideas, or that if I spent more time on them they wouldn’t be successful, but rather I had to decide very intentionally where to spend my time.
If something isn’t working out and I’m not feeling motivated to work on it, then it’s ok to stop, it’s totally fine to abandon the project and move on to the next thing. Don’t get stuck working on something that isn’t going anywhere.
Lesson 4: Set milestones and measure them
So how do you know if a project isn’t working out? My suggestion is to set out some core metrics or targets you’d like to hit before you start working on the project. These will differ depending on what your personal goals are and what the business is that you are trying to build.
Just make sure you know what success looks like in the early stages and if your gut is telling you that this isn’t working out, then be ruthless and move on to the next thing.
The reason you should be so ruthless is that for most folks, time is an extremely valuable resource. You only have so much time in the day and you can’t afford to spend it on something that won’t work out.
Learn all that you can from your failures and then take those learnings into the next idea you have.
Lesson 5: Don’t quit your job
I’ve written about this before, but I think it's important to highlight it again. I quit my job to become a full time indie founder, but I don’t recommend this approach for most people.
Creating a thriving business is harder than it looks and especially so if you have pressures around money. Make sure you are taking care of yourself and your family first.
If you have never created a business or a product before. Do one as a side project first before taking the leap. You’ll learn a ton and you’ll be so much better prepared if you do eventually decide to go full time.
Ideally, your side project starts generating an income that is at least able to pay your bills before you quit your job.
Again, I didn’t take this approach but I wrote about my reasoning around this, so feel free to take a look at my previous posts to learn more.
Lesson 6: Loneliness is the mind killer
One area that is less talked about by Indie Hackers and solo founders is the emotional and mental toll that this journey takes on you. It can be pretty lonely at times. Especially if you are going the solo route, and you have left your job.
I’d recommend you join communities like WIP, Makerlog, and others to make sure you are still engaging with and bouncing ideas off others.
Human interaction is so important, and the further you go on this journey, the more you will realize this.
Another suggestion… If you can, I’d recommend you work with a co-founder wherever possible. Two minds are usually better than one ;)
Lesson 7: Your self worth should not be linked to your MRR
I’ve watched my MRR increase slowly but steadily over the course of the year, but I’ve also experienced the crushing feeling of moving three steps forward and two steps back, when I see users churn in any given month.
I’ve noticed that the days where I feel a little down, or not quite myself, are usually the days when a user (or more than one) has churned. I find it definitely affects my morale and my motivation.
It’s on those days I have to remind myself…I am NOT my MRR.
Bonus lesson: Rome wasn’t built in a day
After being an Indie Hacker for more than a year, I’ve failed at building a multimillion dollar business, and I’m nowhere close to making the monthly recurring revenue that I’d hoped I would.
That being said, Rome wasn’t built in a day and this journey is one that is filled with ups and downs. I’m so happy to be a year further along in this journey.
Choosing this path is amazingly rewarding, heartbreakingly difficult and every so often, Everest summitingly inspiring.
Here’s to another year of Indie Hacking!
I hope these lessons will help inspire, motivate and educate you for own your journey. If there is anything I can do to help I’d be more than happy to.
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Good advice! And absolutely right on that slow ramp. Gotta keep going.
About “you are not your MRR”. A while ago I silenced all sales notifications and emails and decided to only look at my sales stats at the end of the workday, this has helped tremendously with keeping my mood more stable.
Before I would get a cancellation email or a new subscriber email or no emails at all and it would directly impact how cheerful I was / make me paranoid.
This is great advice, thanks for sharing!
Such a great advice, right now I am always waiting for a notification and that affects my mood. I will turn them off and check at the end of the day
Absolutely agree with every point here! 100% resonates!
Thanks for the feedback! Anything you would add to these lessons?
Not really but I'd definitely emphasize the importance of persistence and compound growth. The product doesn't have to be perfect (it never is), but if you persist and achieve small wins each day, these soon compound!
There's also the question of the quality of life you'd like.
You'd love to have 10,000 users, how about answering 100 support emails all day?
I'm currently at a decent pace that lets me both maintain independence and support the lifestyle and the small number of users who enable it
That's a great point, when you are self-funded scaling at a manageable pace is actual feature not a bug 👍
Loneliness is the mind-killer --- definitely agree. I've always wanted to build my own startup! But when I dropped out of Stanford to do so, IT WAS HORRIBLE!
Every day, I sat in my parents basement in Minnesota coding on my startup. I’d push out feature after feature, but when metrics continued going down, I felt powerless. Maybe it was me, so I tried finding co-founders who could help save my startup.
After 1 year, I had gone thru 7 cofounders. 😭😭 And nothing changed.
I remember crying a lot, overloading my GF with startup pains, mourning over the loss of my co-founders. Building a startup was supposed to be fun, but why I was I so anxious all the time?
Def recommend checking out other communities, but the one I joined is a paid community called https://founderscafe.io -- Lots of solo founders from Stanford, YC, and other cool backgrounds. We get to shoot the shit everyday together (all the support/help without the cofounder drama). Ended up getting to 6k MRR after a few months there!
Thanks for sharing!
This is great, thank you John! I really appreciate this reminder: “Overnight success DOES NOT EXIST. It may appear that way, but these folks have often spent years working on projects and building an audience, as well as experiencing numerous failures and false starts.“
I’ve totally beat myself up about not hitting my goals quickly or when I had hope to. Having self compassion is an important trait for indie hackers.
I'm glad to hear that this resonates with you! I think it's really tough when you are in the weeds trying to make your startup successful, and we need to hear more 'real' stories from founders who don't make it or struggle through the early stages to eventually succeed.
If anyone needs advice or some pointers, feel free to drop a comment and I'll do my best to help out 🙌
This is a great post John and exactly what I am looking for. The one thing I am struggling with right now is the decision to quit my day job before having any traction on my sideproject. I am finding it really challenging to create time and space for my sideproject due to the demands of my day job.
I am curious what encouraged you to quit your day job, even though you don't recommend it
great post
Inspiring! Thanks for sharing. I've just begun this journey my self, but decided to work half time instead of full time, to still have income during the first period.
I'm curious. You said somewhere you started because you "couldn't find something on the market that worked well for me". Since you launched, have you seen any competitors popping up? @johnjoubert
Thanks for sharing this @johnjoubert.
I'll soon be starting this journey (very similar background as yours) from big tech to indie and looking at someone's journey who's just a few steps ahead of you is extremely helpful and sobering at times.
Full time work consumed all my time and energy and by giving up my cushy tech job (i've a 2 year cash runway) i have no excuse but to find motivation to build.
The important thing i did realise is (1) avoiding financial ruin (2) and building skills that ensure i can find a job the day i decide to go back.
Given that we are yet to launch and we have $0 MRR I sure hope it isn't 😅 - That first sale is coming though, I can feel it.
Thanks for sharing @johnjoubert. Some really good, candid advice here. As someone who's been grinding away on a small SaaS app as a side project for coming up on 5 years now, its good to be reminded that lots of successful founders had to play the long game. My and others' time will come if we keep at it, keep listening, keep learning, and keep shipping!
Great post John, thanks for sharing some of your journey and hard earned lessons! I can really relate to identification with revenue and other business success metrics. I'm in a down turn right now that is due to both the natural ebb and flow of sales, and a pivot that I chose.
Reading your post was grounding, wishing you the best!
Great article! I've joined Indie Hackers exactly because of Lesson #6 and this article made me realize that this community is what I'm looking for.
Before leaving my job, I don't think I quite understood how lonely this path could be. Having a partner/co-founder helps, but still usually you have different & complementary profiles that can change your experience with entrepeneurship.
Still developing the mindset that I'm not my MRR!
Great great post!!! I guess I should really stop stalking my competitors haha!
This is great advice and highly motivating for someone like me who's just starting.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have learned so much from reading about your lessons.
You are most welcome! Glad it helped!
Thanks this is great advice ! Since I have never worked at a job, I am now a college student working on my first project , its classified ads app I am building for my country , me and my friend both doing software engineering we built an MVP and now our app is live on google play store , my family supports my decision to do my entrepreneurship , do you think despite the fact that I have no experience I can pull this one and make it success ? I read books mainly to get ideas and talk to some founders who running business too. By the way I am from somalia and 22 years old. Check out our website iweydii.com
Well done on starting! I can't say if it will be a success or not, but I can promise you will learn a ton about yourself and what it takes to create a business. Definitely great to be able to do this while at college too! I wish you all the best on your journey!
Solid counsel! Also totally right on that sluggish slope. Need to continue onward.
About "you are not your MRR". Some time back I hushed all business notices and messages and chose to just gander at my deals details toward the finish of the working day, this has helped massively with keeping my temperament more steady.
Before I would get an abrogation email or another supporter email or no messages by any stretch of the imagination and it would straightforwardly affect how happy I was/make me distrustful.
Totally agree with this approach. Reducing noise and checking stats less often sounds like a good way to go! Thanks for sharing!
Sounds like great advice and good to be reminded on all counts.
On your point about not quitting your job straight up - do you think growth would have been slower if you were still working a 'day job'? I like the idea of building on the side but I wonder if that comes at a time, focus or motivation cost? Interested to hear others' opinions!
Hey there, that's a great question and you are totally right. To be honest I don't think I would have been able to build Thread Creator if I didn't quit my job. I wrote about my motivations here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/why-i-left-a-six-figure-salary-at-github-to-go-solo-f714cd80e2
And yes, focus and time were a big issue for me.
My point in this post was that I don't recommend it for most people, especially if you don't have a significant amount saved so that you can survive for a couple years without a salary. 👍
Building on the side definitely comes at a cost. Even after I dropped down to part-time contracting at 10 hours/wk it was still a major distraction to building my own software. A job of any sort will always get in the way.
I wish I had instead saved up enough to quit outright for a couple of years.
Awesome post, I 100% agree with lesson 5 Don’t quit your job . Yes, the side project will take much longer to build using secondary/spare time, but it's a less stressful approach, and you avoid getting into massive amounts of debt 👍
Yeah, everyone needs to assess their own situation and then decide what's best for them. I quit my job to focus full time on being a founder, but it's not a path I recommend for most.
Solid post John - thanks for sharing! Hang in there :)
Thanks Rob, appreciate the encouragement!
What a great milestone to celebrate, John. Congratulations! 🍾
I’m curious to what you’ve done to spin things around to reach the ramen profitable. I know it’s not 1 or 2 things, but feel free to mention anything that comes to mind.
I’m sure the best is yet to come, so good luck for what’s ahead!
Thanks for the kind words!
Firstly, I have definitely not 'succeeded' yet. I've got a long way to go still 😅
I think the most important thing was not giving up. It's tough to know when to quit and when to push through. To be honest I'm still in the 'pushing through' phase. Things aren't easy but I just take every day one step at a time.
Thanks for writing this John, I have a very similar journey to yours and I have to say that many of my own lessons were covered in your article. I am constantly worried about my MRR and I do feel that if it fails, I fail personally too. I was surprised at how much a mind game being a bootstrapper is... I totally agree that it is important for small entrepreneurs to surround themselves with like-minded people. I am actually working on an online coworking space for entrepreneurs, I call it WBE Space and we are more than 30 solopreneurs working together on our projects. Its been a huge help being able to share my journey with the other members...
Thanks for the feedback and good luck with your project!
Hey @johnjoubert great post. I've got a similar story - surely we're not alone here.
I like to joke that founders go through a 3 phase journey:
Phase 1) Shoot for the moon and ultimately fail
Phase 2) Aim WAY smaller and be happy to see even the slightest increase in MRR until you build up a decent company/product
Phase 3) Aim bigger this time, applying the lessons learned from phase 1 and 2
Do you use any software for tracking growth metrics?
To track financial growth I use ChartMogul.
On the product side I look at three things:
I don't use any other tools to track growth, but maybe I should?
Thank you for sharing this.
Currently working on something with my co-founder, which is a life long friend of mine. Thinking about lesson 6, it's the first time I've stuck with a side project (something outside of my day job) for more than a few months. Having him there helps hold me accountable and makes me want to continue to show up for someone besides myself.
Additionally, Lesson 4, has been huge for us. We just last month set a deadline to be Beta ready at the end of march. It really helped us narrow our focus to "what is important to work on and what can take a back seat". We both have full time jobs and families so the little time we do have needs to be maximized.
Nice one, keep going with your side project! And even if you fail, it's a wonderful opportunity to learn and take those lessons into the next thing you work on!
Man, this hit really close to home.
I know it's not right to do, but this is the game we are all playing and how can you not feel tied to MRR and tie your worth to it?! It's just hard not to do...
Also, as an Italian, can confirm Rome was not built in a day ahhahah
It's tough to not feel sad when things aren't working out. I think having a good support system in place is so important. Make time for friends and family, join communities and make sure you look after yourself!
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I think experience is often the greatest teacher. Many folks will read this post and nod along and agree with the content, but once they try to build something themselves, they will likely get a much deeper understanding of these challenges...