dyeje

I was the technical cofounder of a logtech startup. Logistics has a lot deep problems that need to be well integrated for a smooth UX. I think this is why you tend to see people eventually try to pivot into building a TMS (and why it takes so long to build one). They start solving a specific problem. They realize it’s not worth much without the whole picture and nobody wants to let other players integrate.

If your specific problem is well contained enough, it could be a good fit for in house. You mention that you’re filling the gaps with a low code platform. You could perhaps experiment with moving that piece in house as a trial run. You also say that your existing platform is stagnant, perhaps you could acquire them or the specific IP you utilize. You might learn some valuable insights about what you’d need to do in house even if you don’t end up seriously engaging in an acquisition or if it ends up falling through.

I wouldn’t be concerned about attracting talent, plenty of engineers in logistics already and it’s a hirer’s market right now.

Anyway, the devil’s in the details as you mentioned, my contact info is in my profile if you’d like to chat, happy to give what perspective I can.

What’s stopping you from releasing it as is right now?

There are a couple, but the ecosystem is so fragmented that nothing gains a majority of mindshare.

You were forecasting 50k MRR before your waitlist hit 100 signups?

I had the displeasure of working with a Flow codebase that typed every string and int uniquely like this. I could see the benefit if you’re working on something mission critical where correctness is paramount, but in your average web app I think it just creates a lot of friction and busy work with no real benefit.

If you’re okay with sticking it out in your current position, why not keep interviewing and hold out for a role you’re excited about?

I do fullstack, I got the Nielsen Norman Group UX Certification a few years ago and it has been brought up in interviews exactly 0 times, but I don’t go for design-y roles so YMMV. I think having a small portfolio makes a lot of sense.

Things are always changing, new gaps forming. Is a lot of the low hanging fruit gone? Yea, but still a lot of opportunity out there.

Good feedback is worthless. If they’re willing to pay for it right now, that’s maybe worth something (they need to actually use it too). I recommend reading The Mom Test, it’s a great book about how to navigate this early validation stage from a non-sales perspective.

Focus on the product that’s making money with minimal effort. You will learn a lot in the process (it may make sense to bring in some contractors to help you along in certain areas). Maybe you find you really don’t want to take that any further, at least you’ll have a much stronger understanding of the product, market, etc which will help you sell it off for a higher price and fund focus on the next thing.

The question for me is, what are you going to use the capital for? Hire devs to accelerate progress? Marketing? If it’s strictly to pay yourself, I’d probably just keep plugging away or move over to contract work to supplement.

It sounds like reading is your hobby. Maybe join some book clubs, participate in online communities, etc.

Who does the categorizing? Sounds like unnecessary complication, Reddit already handles this niche.

I couldn’t help but read the title to the tune of Where Have All the Cowboys Gone by Paula Cole.

Does the initial prototype have to be made of metal? Can you work out the initial kinks with something 3D printed before moving to a expensive and laborious material?

I wouldn’t worry about it, most people won’t bat at an eye as long as you stayed a year and don’t have a streak of short positions.

Put a year in for the name brand on your resume, it’ll pay dividends. Then about 2 months before that anniversary start interviewing for something you might like better and be very discerning.

This is pretty cool! I wonder if you could make one with an adjustable mounting system for the long tail of weirdos like me with a new iPhone SE and other models.

I remember you launching this, that’s awesome that you’re seeing traction without any marketing. Great signal.

It depends on what you want. If you don’t have any prospects you’re excited about, can make the MVP yourself, and acquire customers on your own then it might make sense to do so. Once you have traction, it becomes easier to hire and you can give up less equity.

I thought about offering a product like this but the market seems tough given:

1. Most people don’t care about the privacy aspect

2. People who already got a test from 23andme, Ancestry, etc are unaddressable

There’s a new crop of PaaS products that aim to provide a layer of sanity on top of cloud providers (e.g. Aptible). Might be a good fit for you.

Funny, I assumed it’s a disaster because all of the great economists.

Yea I call bullshit, not making time to build interpersonal relationships in your team is penny wise and pound foolish.

The intense support for Altman and negativity towards the person who, uh, actually made the technology says a lot about the direction this community has taken.

Here’s a few ideas:

- Try scheduling explicit hangout time, either 1:1 or group (have a happy hour, play some games, just chat).

- Ask if any of your coworkers would be interested in coworking in person. Doesn’t have to be a whole company thing, fly to one coworker or maybe a few people live in one spot. Most major cities have coworking spaces with reasonable day pass rates or you can use a coffee shop if budget is tight.

- There’s a lot of virtual office products out there (e.g. Gather, Remotion), see if there’s any interest in trying one out.

It’s a lot of work to set something up for being a sustainable, usable OSS project. It certainly doesn’t make sense to invest time in it upfront when your goal is to sell access to it. Afterwards, founders have usually poured everything they have into trying to make the business survive and the work is just unappealing.

It depends on the product. Most of my experience is in B2B, for that I recommend building a clickable prototype in Figma or another tool. If you can get 3 customers to sign contracts based on that, the idea has potential.

As someone who has made a modest business around helping people find technical cofounders, let me share some things that tend to make it EASY to find one.

1. You're an expert in the domain.

2. You've done significant work to prove out the idea already. This can be a variety of things. You've already made mock ups or a prototype. You've interviewed a bunch of potential customers and organized your thoughts. Best possible thing is you've already acquired customers ready to pay.

3. You have a clear, grounded vision of what the product needs to be now and a grand, compelling vision of what the product could be in the future.

4. You can articulate what type of project this is clearly (venture backed biz? lifestyle biz? funky idea that has no intention of making money?) and what sort of working relationship or culture you'd like as it grows.

As someone who has founded before and spent time on YC cofounder matching, most people have vague ideas in domains they don't understand with no prospective customers and put no effort into validating the idea. So they try to offload the cost of validating the idea onto some engineer by building it (building, btw, being the most inefficient method of validating).

You want to outsource so you can focus on building your product instead of integrations which are costly to build and maintain. Also it’s not easy to come up with these universal mappings, why reinvent the wheel? It’s unlikely that your integrations are differentiating but it is likely they enable you to close deals.

I don’t think you can really blame Netflix for the change in content over time. In the beginning nobody understood how big streaming would be so Netflix could license whatever for cheap. They were successful and everybody said “oh shit we need to build our own streaming service” so now we have this nightmare land of needing a bunch of different services to watch what you want.