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Comment by itengelhardt | Hacker News Reader

I don't know whether HN is the right place to ask this question. The crowd for this frequents either http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm or http://academy.micropreneur.com

There's also a number of podcasts (notably "Startups for the Rest of Us" and "Bootstrapped With Kids")

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Hi Christoph! I came here to post the bootstrapped.fm link too, but I think HN is a fine place to post this discussion too. I think the small, bootstrapped company is where it's at for many of us who don't want to or can't do the VC thing in SV. That's probably a large majority even on a site like this.

Rob's book is an obbligatory reference in this space too:

http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching-...

My own thing is not 'successful' in that it's not my main source of income just yet, but it's not too far off, either: http://www.liberwriter.com

One of the key things I've learned from it is to go do something that matters to 'ordinary people', rather than something that's "cool" from a computer guy point of view.

Hi David! Great to hear that you are doing well with LiberWriter. That definitely is a pain point for people.

I like that you kept the layout simple using only bootstrap. that's a lot faster & cheaper than doing a full blown design.

Our customers could not care less about the design stuff as long as it looks decent, so it is not something I have bothered with even now that I have some money I could spend on it.

Interesting, considering that you actually DESIGN their products. :)

eBooks don't actually allow for a lot of fancy design if you want them to work well on a variety of platforms.

I image cross-platform compatibility is a PITA. But I find it interesting that people who pay for ebook design, don't care about website design. Mind you: That's no criticism of you OR your work. I just love the fact that people are more interested in the value than in the website design, even if they get value out of design work.

Hope that makes things clearer. Again: You're doing a great job!

eBooks are mostly about stripping out people's "design" stuff and replacing it with some fairly standard components that actually work, and adding in some various bits and pieces in XML, a hyperlinked table of contents, and stuff like that.

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