Business Lessons Learned from Sifter

It's been almost 10 full months since leaving the day job to strike out for fun and blissfully self-employed adventure. As we start to sneak up on our launch date, I wanted to share some of the experience of making it happen.

Save. Cut costs. Save some more.

For the whole year before going out on my own, I was saving, paying down debt, and trying to cut costs so that when the opportunity presented itself, I'd be ready. I didn't know when or why I would finally go out on my own, but I did know it would happen sometime. The sooner you start preparing, the sooner you'll be ready to make it happen.

Share your passion and idea.

The quality of your ideas goes up dramatically as it's exposed to more people. If I hadn't written any blog posts about Sifter or given any presentations about the design process, I never would have had the courage or support to bet a year of my life on creating a new product in an already crowded market.

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If it's a good idea, you'll have to cram it down their throat. - Unknown

Take a pay cut. Work more.

While there are ways to start a business without taking a pay cut, those methods aren't for everybody. To give a sense of perspective, this year I'll make about 50% of what I made last year, and I've been working a hell of a lot more hours. Next year will likely be about the same. That's a significant amount of opportunity cost.

Solicit feedback.

Everyone is busy. Very busy. That means that they don't have much time for providing feedback, even if they told you they would have time. It's imperative that you make it incredibly efficient and obvious for them to provide feedback. While a small handful of people will take the time to provide feedback, you're going to need more. A lot more. With only a few people, you run the risk of encountering the vocal minority and being tempted to make changes that only one person cares about. Even with an easy feedback process, it's likely you'll have to proactively solicit feedback in order to get enough feedback to see the big picture

Don't count on your list.

As of this morning, we've sent out about 300 invites to people who specifically asked for one. That includes friends, colleagues, and even some strangers. The most interesting statistic is that only about 50% of those people have created accounts. That means that 150 people who asked for invites have not bothered to spend 1 minute to create a free account.

Summary

Nothing worth doing is easy, and following a dream to build software won't be much different. It's a constant struggle for attention and a balancing act between paying the bills and launching. It's exhausting, stressful, and even a little depressing, but when you do find those people who love what you've built, it's worth it. It's like finding a needle in a haystack, but, thanks to the internet, we've got a pretty big haystack with plenty of needles.