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Ask HN: Is it possible for a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS business alone?

76 points by robwilliams88 10y ago

delabisolz 10y ago
Zuckeberg did it right? Atleast till it was viable? JUST DO IT.
- t3soro 10y ago
  Zuckerberg was a programmer.
  - throwaway2016a 10y ago
    Also Facebook is not SaaS (at least not the way most people think of it).
jdoliner 10y ago
I think it's theoretically possible, if you have enough money or are persuasive enough, to bootstrap a SaaS company using some combination of contractors, friends, cofounders and employees. However it's really them that's bootstrapping the company, not you. However, the more likely outcome, and hopefully the one that the author is headed for, is that by building your company you cease to be a non-programmer and become a programmer. The author already seems far enough down that path that I think he's kind of shortchanging himself with the moniker. There's really no hidden secret here, just build if you don't know how learn. It's the best way to learn and the only way to build. No one knows how to build something before they do it.
akanet 10y ago
While possible, it doesn't seem advisable. If you could bootstrap a successful SaaS as a solo nonprogrammer, you probably didn't need to.
senior_james 10y ago
I'm a developer and have helped bootstrap a couple of SaaS. The problem is that in most partnerships like this, the other person can usually only offer ideas or something very minimal with regards to the success of the business. I usually end up just doing everything myself. Unless you offer something besides just the idea (money, contacts, industry experience). The partnership will not work. I've had to quit a few startups over the years myself because my co-founder ended up only offering some ideas. This starts to become a perceived manager->employee relationship (since as the developer, you are doing the majority of the work) and because the idea is their only contribution, it's a problem when it needs to be changed. This also smacks of someone that loves the romanticized idea of running a startup, but isn't willing to actually put the work into it. Now, I will only go into business with other people that have at least a couple of years of business experience.
- bananaboy 10y ago
  Yeah in a startup or small business I think every founder needs to do work. You can't have people who only essentially generate work for others. There are so many things that need doing when you're small that aren't directly related to development but still need to be done: applying for grants, tax concessions, marketing, building communities, competitive analysis, market research, payroll, accounting.
  - kaspm 10y ago
    But this is the fundamental point of the article. It's very difficult to do marketing, communities, competitive analysis market research payroll and accounting when you have no money and no product. So what can non-technical co-founder bring to bootstrapping a SaaS platform with just ideas? May not be possible.
    - rublev 10y ago
      >But this is the fundamental point of the article. It's very difficult to do marketing, communities, competitive analysis market research payroll and accounting when you have no money and no product. So what can non-technical co-founder bring to bootstrapping a SaaS platform with just ideas? May not be possible. You hustle? You sit there and think what is the literal next step, then you try that thing, reevaluate, and repeat. Then keep doing it until you're rich, broke, or dead. There is always something you can be doing.
nunez 10y ago
Sure if you have enough money to pay people to do the work. Architects don't build houses by themselves most of the time :) This is optimal if your goal is to focus entirely on sales and raising, as this effectively lets you sell while building the product, which is really hard to do when bootstrapping everything yourself. Good luck!
andrewstuart 10y ago
Just learn to program, every minute that you spend futzing around trying to find developers who'll do it for free or little money is one minute further away from you have the development skills to write your own product.
- joe563323 10y ago
  The truth is not every one can write code, i am not being arrogant but it is true.
- edblarney 10y ago
  Learning all of the skills necessary, even at a minimum level of competency, would take quite a long time, and I also don't think everyone is suited to development. To boot - in a 'small scale op' devs usually do a lot of the product, interface design, aesthetic design etc. - which is definitely a competency that too many people write off as 'not a thing'. It's definitely a thing. :)
wtvanhest 10y ago
Sure its possible, but coworking spaces are full of people trying it and I cannot think of a single example where it has worked.
tomwhita 10y ago
F those people that tell you it's not possible. I barely knew how to code and I started a SaaS business. I worked my ass off to become an adequate coder and sell the product to customers. It's been three hard years and now it's starting to pay off. If you have a solution to a problem, one that people will pay for. You have a business. Keep pushing. You can do anything if you're willing to work hard for it. Take help when you can get it. Learn everything you can. Enjoy the journey.
- marvy 10y ago
  You're saying it's possible, but isn't your anecdote saying the opposite? That is, you may have started out as a non-programmer, but by the time things are going well, you have become one. In your own words: you've "become an adequate coder". It seems to me that the author of the post is hoping to avoid that: he wants to succeed and remain a weak coder. Or am I misreading what he wrote?
- mod 10y ago
  Since you became a programmer, you haven't proven that "it" is possible. "It" being "a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS." If you're trying to motivate the OP to learn programming, then that's another thing.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  > I barely knew how to code So you started out already knowing some programmer and thus were not a non-programmer at any point in your SAAS, so you didn't do it either. > I worked my ass off to become an adequate coder Then you agree, it's not possible without being a coder.
hluska 10y ago
It is freakishly hard to build a successful SAAS if you have funding and a solid team. Doing it alone as a solo non-programmer has got to feel like trying to drink the ocean. I've never been able to figure out how non-programmers can sift through mounds of freelancers to find a good developer. And, even if they find good developers, I have no idea how they manage to motivate and retain them. I'd love to read some stories from successful solo non-programmers. If anyone has some links, please share...
- intrasight 10y ago
  I don't have a link - but I have my story. I assisted a colleague and friend to launch his SaaS last year. It looks to be very successful. I helped him by providing technical architecture (I did no programming) and by finding a contractor (offshore) to do the development. We used Firebase. He had a designer do the mockups in UXpin. This is hard yes but impossible no. Things have changed for the (much) better in the last two years.
- trustfundbaby 10y ago
  Here's one https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit ... follow the link to their blog about the "Web app Saas challenge" and they outline the entire process they took. Wildly successful too ... $600k MRR in just a few years https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/ https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/
- flukus 10y ago
  > I've never been able to figure out how non-programmers can sift through mounds of freelancers to find a good developer. I'm not convinced programmers can either, they can just find the ones that think like they do and weed out the worst of the worst.
- ilaksh 10y ago
  If they find a good developer who helps them build a product, they are not solo anymore. If they keep pretending they are, then they are just assholes taking advantage of people.
t3soro 10y ago
No, that's idiotic. You will hardly understand what you're selling. Learn what you're doing.
throwawaysbdi 10y ago
It's not possible unless you have enough money to pay a good developer salary. I've been a part of one once, and the only reason I dealt with the clueless founders was because they paid me better than a regular coding job. So yeah, it's possible, if you're rich or can get funding before you've got a product. I've also been approached by countless guys asking me to work on their startup for free or something like 10% equity. Bitch please. I've been a consultant and run all sides of a business, what could you possibly bring to the table besides a nebulous and nearly worthless idea? To those guys I've started asking for 60% equity and they usually walk away as if it was an insult. Let me be clear about it. You can run a business with engineers alone and write software. Even one single engineer can run his own software business. If was running a start-up that makes software with two founders do I want one of them to make 0% of the product?
- joe563323 10y ago
  > To those guys I've started asking for 60% equity and they usually walk away as if it was an insult. Do you advice the developer to accept the offer for 60% equity ?.
  - throwawaysbdi 10y ago
    Sure, if you think the idea is worth it
nickthemagicman 10y ago
Anything is possible if you just dollow your freams!
mythrwy 10y ago
Absolutely. I contracted for a person who built a small but very profitable SaaS app using contractors. There are some caveats though. The person has a smattering of technical knowledge which prevented him from being completely taken advantage of by contractors. And he was an effective manager (a rarity to be sure). And he knew exactly what he wanted and stayed on top of details of how it was implemented. Although not a necessarily a "programmer" he also knew enough about using Git to review/merge changes. And perhaps most importantly he had the financial backing to complete the project. I've also worked for other people who didn't have these qualities but figured they'd just hire some people to build some stuff without keeping on top of it or in many cases having a clear vision of what they wanted. Predictably these projects didn't turn out well for them. But yes, it is possible. I've seen it.
- kaspm 10y ago
  The key here is that he had the financial backing to complete the project. Unclear whether the original poster has enough of a cash runway to keep even a team of 1 at a fulltime salary.
  - mythrwy 10y ago
    You don't need a full time team or person (the guy I worked for doesn't have that) as long as you can deploy and manage the hosting and have someone you can call if there is an issue. But no way to get building/operating capital? In general forget about it. Most likely not going to fly. I'm convinced lots of people do this because I've personally seen at least two. But even more try and spend a bunch of money and fail (seen a lot more than 2 of those). The ones who succeed generally don't hang around HN posting startup related buzzwords though so it's understandable they are presumed not to exist.
- joe563323 10y ago
  > But yes, it is possible. I've seen it. Citation required. Please post links to the products.
amorphid 10y ago
I (developer) chatted with a water quality consultant during a plane flight. Consultant mentioned the CRM for his niche business sucked. He asked if I'd be interested in building a CRM for no money upfront, instead making money later (a percentage of his business I could sell, a license fee, profit sharing, whatever). I realized in that moment once the app was built, I wouldn't need him at all, and that I could sell it (let's assume it'd be a valuable product) to all of his competitors. Either he wins, or I win, but there wasn't a scenario I could imagine where we both won. I explained that to him, and he was no longer interested in having me build the software for him.
- swalsh 10y ago
  Why do you assume that water quality consultants would buy a software product from you alone? Selling is hard, and a big part of it is knowing your customer, and gaining their trust. This guy would have a much better chance at accomplishing that. He had a lot of value, you just failed to see it. He made the right choice by finding someone else.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    There's a lot of value available by building apps for strangers for free? All I can see is risk. If you can find a way to de-risk that business model, then you'll have your value. Perhaps you meant potential. But then there's potential in most everything. Every manuscript in a slush pile has a certain amount of potential.
    - swalsh 10y ago
      No, I meant Value. He's an expert in the industry, he has connections to potential customers, he presumably has their trust. That's crazy valuable. That takes years to develop, and there's no "hack" to get around it. I encourage you to try and build those intangible pieces yourself. You'll quickly find it's not trivial in any way.
      - vinceguidry 10y ago
swalsh 10y ago
I'm in the process of bootstrapping a SaaS. I'll say it's absolutely possible, or more precisely, it has equal chance as the programmer going it alone has. The simple reason being that the product is only a tiny piece of the puzzle. I find the opposite question equally as valid. Why is it assumed that a programmer can bootstrap a successful SaaS alone? To build an application, you need someone who can identify an opportunity (product market fit.... and that's harder than most would assume). Of course even if you have something customers want, you still often need to help them want it... so you need a marketing/sales guy. Implementation is the last piece of the puzzle. I think these are completely different skill sets, and a successful company 90% of the time needs 2 or more people to pull it off.
- flukus 10y ago
  The product is still the most important piece that you can't do with out. You might be able to get by without a marketer/sales guy, but without a product you're selling vaporware. All the other jobs can be done (poorly) by the programmer, but the reverse isn't true. Just look at all those scams on kickstarter, the one thing they're missing is a viable product that an engineer can tell them is impossible.
- joe563323 10y ago
  What's your product ? . Please post updates. Your story would be a nice use case to watch.
- joe563323 10y ago
  Only extremely lucky people will get Steve Woz. Not every one is lucky.
stanislavb 10y ago
No
codeclown 10y ago
Hey Rob, it is certainly possible for you to bootstrap a successful SaaS. Without money to pay a developer, though, your best bet would be to learn to code yourself enough to put out a product to test the waters. Once that gains some traction, partnerships and funding would be easier to come by. That path would probably eat up 3-9 months given the bulk of your spare time and energy. Why do you think you want to build a SaaS product though? It seems to me like you're already putting out content pretty regularly. I would recommend moving it off medium to a domain you control and start getting some emails for your list. You can still publish there, but link back to your own site. With an email list, your readers can turn into your customers. As a designer, you can then start building products like books, courses, podcasts, guides you name it which will let you take advantage of the skills you have already. Check out Design for Hackers, for example. Why not use the edge you built up instead of starting at a disadvantage?
bikamonki 10y ago
It depends entirely on the SAAS. A non-programmer friend of mine paid peanuts to an off-shore programmer to build an über simple slack-clone with Firebase + Angular + Phonegap. He has two paying customers so far. Will this scale? Probably not but if he reaches 20 customers he'll have the money for the rockstars. This friend is a sales ninja, the tech is not an obstacle for him.
- ilaksh 10y ago
  First of all, a Slack clone with Firebase/Angular/Phonegap is not simple in terms of the engineering effort. If he found someone to implement a working system like that for peanuts, then he did not bootstap his startup alone, he did it by taking advantage of the other guy, and the fact that he does not acknowledge the other guy did 90% percent of it and describes it as a 'solo' effort just means that he is an asshole.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    Are you willing to pay for my education to become a software engineer, so I can code my own products? If not, then you're the asshole.
scardine 10y ago
Of course it is. If you know the problem space very well and are able to conceive and sell a good solution, the code behind it matters very little.
gnicholas 10y ago
Perhaps by possible, but probably not advisable. Consider the obvious alternatives: (1) having a technical cofounder, or (2) raising money instead of bootstrapping. Either of these alternatives will take time — to find the cofounder or the funders — but this is nothing compared with how much slower you'll move if you're bootstrapping and don't have a pot of cash to fund development with. And the better your idea is, the easier it will be to find suitable cofounders or funders. So if you find these two tasks to be difficult, this tends to indicate that the underlying idea is not as strong. My background: I am a non-technical founder of a software startup that has been mostly bootstrapped and mostly solo. My path was made possible/easier by the fact that I have savings from having been a corporate lawyer, and by my wife's stable/good job. Without both of these things, launching a startup would have been even harder.
trustfundbaby 10y ago
This is a timely topic, because I'm currently studying the process the founder of ConvertKit (designer) took to get his SaaS off the ground with just his own $5k. https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit ... follow the link to his blog about the "Web app challenge" and he blogs about the entire process as it happened Wildly successful too ... $600k MRR in just a few years https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/ https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/
known 10y ago
Analogy; Can a non-programmer manage programmers?
- joe563323 10y ago
  Are you kidding. All the people who can not program become managers. Its the truth. Exceptional are the Big-4 companies.
rebelidealist 10y ago
As a founder of 6 figure MRR SaaS, it is possible if you can hire good developers overseas for less. That said it is really useful if you know a little code or have someone who can vet good coders for you. Take your time with hiring.
- Main_ 10y ago
  I'm someone who is a non-coder, can you please recommend some books/blogs on how to build a successful SaaS business?
ilaksh 10y ago
If the guy has to 'hire freelancers' to implement the actual product, then 99 out of a 100 cases of this, he is not actually doing it alone. He is just discounting the contributions of core members of his team that are being poorly compensated. If it were the case that this was normally a group of freelancers making a killing, charging high consulting rates, it would be different. But almost in all cases they are using 'freelance developers' because they cannot afford to pay market rates in the US and can't afford benefits. Even in those other countries, there is a global economy. Those developers might be doing OK, but they are not getting wealthy. If you try to do it as if the developers are separate and not a core part of the team, that can't work either. Either you acknowledge how critical they are to your business or you just take advantage of them and hope they don't find something better and your business doesn't fall apart.
davidivadavid 10y ago
I think Nathan Barry (ConvertKit founder) is originally a designer? He might still know how to code. I'm not sure. But his business seems successful enough. There are probably dozens of less well-known examples. Edit: recent article by GrooveHQ (non-technical) founder that may be relevant: https://www.groovehq.com/blog/non-technical-founder https://www.groovehq.com/blog/non-technical-founder
- davidivadavid 10y ago
  Erm, let's say I saw it recently.
oliwarner 10y ago
Developers are more than code monkeys to order around, they can tell you how feasible your ideas are. If you hire efficiently, they also come with market-relevant experience. So while you probably could do this in your bedroom, alone-alone, chances are you'll end up with an insecure, unstable, broken hacky mutant that costs too much to run and includes things people don't actually want. But I would say that. I'm the guy you should hire :)
JamesBarney 10y ago
I always tell non-tech people that if you have an idea, and expect a developer to code it for equity, you NEED to bring purchase orders to the table first. [0] Obviously there are exceptions for instance if you have deep industry experience and contacts(with buying authority) but these people usually also have the money to pay a developer to implement their idea.
cgrusden 9y ago
After reading the comments, no one asked about "which"SaaS business model. Yes it is extremely possible to bootstrap a SaaS business alone depending on which model. Example: help a reporter out that peter shankman grew into a Monster of a SaaS business. Another example? GroupOn. Was a email newsletter first. I've seen a group of guys go sign up for Wordpress and were generating $2,000/month themselves for a kickstarter-like concept by using plugins. Not all SaaS businesses require a programmer, especially these days. Will certain models require a programmer at some point? Maybe. Maybe someone just wants to build 10 SaaS newsletter sites that all generate $1,000/month each... $10kMRR in total with no need to hire a programmer.

76 points by robwilliams88 10y ago

delabisolz 10y ago

Zuckeberg did it right? Atleast till it was viable? JUST DO IT.

t3soro 10y ago
Zuckerberg was a programmer.
- throwaway2016a 10y ago
  Also Facebook is not SaaS (at least not the way most people think of it).

jdoliner 10y ago

I think it's theoretically possible, if you have enough money or are persuasive enough, to bootstrap a SaaS company using some combination of contractors, friends, cofounders and employees. However it's really them that's bootstrapping the company, not you. However, the more likely outcome, and hopefully the one that the author is headed for, is that by building your company you cease to be a non-programmer and become a programmer. The author already seems far enough down that path that I think he's kind of shortchanging himself with the moniker. There's really no hidden secret here, just build if you don't know how learn. It's the best way to learn and the only way to build. No one knows how to build something before they do it.

akanet 10y ago

While possible, it doesn't seem advisable. If you could bootstrap a successful SaaS as a solo nonprogrammer, you probably didn't need to.

senior_james 10y ago

I'm a developer and have helped bootstrap a couple of SaaS. The problem is that in most partnerships like this, the other person can usually only offer ideas or something very minimal with regards to the success of the business. I usually end up just doing everything myself. Unless you offer something besides just the idea (money, contacts, industry experience). The partnership will not work. I've had to quit a few startups over the years myself because my co-founder ended up only offering some ideas. This starts to become a perceived manager->employee relationship (since as the developer, you are doing the majority of the work) and because the idea is their only contribution, it's a problem when it needs to be changed. This also smacks of someone that loves the romanticized idea of running a startup, but isn't willing to actually put the work into it. Now, I will only go into business with other people that have at least a couple of years of business experience.

bananaboy 10y ago
Yeah in a startup or small business I think every founder needs to do work. You can't have people who only essentially generate work for others. There are so many things that need doing when you're small that aren't directly related to development but still need to be done: applying for grants, tax concessions, marketing, building communities, competitive analysis, market research, payroll, accounting.
- kaspm 10y ago
  But this is the fundamental point of the article. It's very difficult to do marketing, communities, competitive analysis market research payroll and accounting when you have no money and no product. So what can non-technical co-founder bring to bootstrapping a SaaS platform with just ideas? May not be possible.
  - rublev 10y ago
    >But this is the fundamental point of the article. It's very difficult to do marketing, communities, competitive analysis market research payroll and accounting when you have no money and no product. So what can non-technical co-founder bring to bootstrapping a SaaS platform with just ideas? May not be possible. You hustle? You sit there and think what is the literal next step, then you try that thing, reevaluate, and repeat. Then keep doing it until you're rich, broke, or dead. There is always something you can be doing.

nunez 10y ago

Sure if you have enough money to pay people to do the work. Architects don't build houses by themselves most of the time :) This is optimal if your goal is to focus entirely on sales and raising, as this effectively lets you sell while building the product, which is really hard to do when bootstrapping everything yourself. Good luck!

andrewstuart 10y ago

Just learn to program, every minute that you spend futzing around trying to find developers who'll do it for free or little money is one minute further away from you have the development skills to write your own product.

joe563323 10y ago
The truth is not every one can write code, i am not being arrogant but it is true.
edblarney 10y ago
Learning all of the skills necessary, even at a minimum level of competency, would take quite a long time, and I also don't think everyone is suited to development. To boot - in a 'small scale op' devs usually do a lot of the product, interface design, aesthetic design etc. - which is definitely a competency that too many people write off as 'not a thing'. It's definitely a thing. :)

wtvanhest 10y ago

Sure its possible, but coworking spaces are full of people trying it and I cannot think of a single example where it has worked.

tomwhita 10y ago

F those people that tell you it's not possible. I barely knew how to code and I started a SaaS business. I worked my ass off to become an adequate coder and sell the product to customers. It's been three hard years and now it's starting to pay off. If you have a solution to a problem, one that people will pay for. You have a business. Keep pushing. You can do anything if you're willing to work hard for it. Take help when you can get it. Learn everything you can. Enjoy the journey.

marvy 10y ago
You're saying it's possible, but isn't your anecdote saying the opposite? That is, you may have started out as a non-programmer, but by the time things are going well, you have become one. In your own words: you've "become an adequate coder". It seems to me that the author of the post is hoping to avoid that: he wants to succeed and remain a weak coder. Or am I misreading what he wrote?
mod 10y ago
Since you became a programmer, you haven't proven that "it" is possible. "It" being "a non-programmer to bootstrap a SaaS." If you're trying to motivate the OP to learn programming, then that's another thing.
gnaritas 10y ago
> I barely knew how to code So you started out already knowing some programmer and thus were not a non-programmer at any point in your SAAS, so you didn't do it either. > I worked my ass off to become an adequate coder Then you agree, it's not possible without being a coder.

hluska 10y ago

It is freakishly hard to build a successful SAAS if you have funding and a solid team. Doing it alone as a solo non-programmer has got to feel like trying to drink the ocean. I've never been able to figure out how non-programmers can sift through mounds of freelancers to find a good developer. And, even if they find good developers, I have no idea how they manage to motivate and retain them. I'd love to read some stories from successful solo non-programmers. If anyone has some links, please share...

intrasight 10y ago
I don't have a link - but I have my story. I assisted a colleague and friend to launch his SaaS last year. It looks to be very successful. I helped him by providing technical architecture (I did no programming) and by finding a contractor (offshore) to do the development. We used Firebase. He had a designer do the mockups in UXpin. This is hard yes but impossible no. Things have changed for the (much) better in the last two years.
trustfundbaby 10y ago
Here's one https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit ... follow the link to their blog about the "Web app Saas challenge" and they outline the entire process they took. Wildly successful too ... $600k MRR in just a few years https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/ https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/
flukus 10y ago
> I've never been able to figure out how non-programmers can sift through mounds of freelancers to find a good developer. I'm not convinced programmers can either, they can just find the ones that think like they do and weed out the worst of the worst.
ilaksh 10y ago
If they find a good developer who helps them build a product, they are not solo anymore. If they keep pretending they are, then they are just assholes taking advantage of people.

t3soro 10y ago

No, that's idiotic. You will hardly understand what you're selling. Learn what you're doing.

throwawaysbdi 10y ago

It's not possible unless you have enough money to pay a good developer salary. I've been a part of one once, and the only reason I dealt with the clueless founders was because they paid me better than a regular coding job. So yeah, it's possible, if you're rich or can get funding before you've got a product. I've also been approached by countless guys asking me to work on their startup for free or something like 10% equity. Bitch please. I've been a consultant and run all sides of a business, what could you possibly bring to the table besides a nebulous and nearly worthless idea? To those guys I've started asking for 60% equity and they usually walk away as if it was an insult. Let me be clear about it. You can run a business with engineers alone and write software. Even one single engineer can run his own software business. If was running a start-up that makes software with two founders do I want one of them to make 0% of the product?

joe563323 10y ago
> To those guys I've started asking for 60% equity and they usually walk away as if it was an insult. Do you advice the developer to accept the offer for 60% equity ?.
- throwawaysbdi 10y ago
  Sure, if you think the idea is worth it

nickthemagicman 10y ago

Anything is possible if you just dollow your freams!

mythrwy 10y ago

Absolutely. I contracted for a person who built a small but very profitable SaaS app using contractors. There are some caveats though. The person has a smattering of technical knowledge which prevented him from being completely taken advantage of by contractors. And he was an effective manager (a rarity to be sure). And he knew exactly what he wanted and stayed on top of details of how it was implemented. Although not a necessarily a "programmer" he also knew enough about using Git to review/merge changes. And perhaps most importantly he had the financial backing to complete the project. I've also worked for other people who didn't have these qualities but figured they'd just hire some people to build some stuff without keeping on top of it or in many cases having a clear vision of what they wanted. Predictably these projects didn't turn out well for them. But yes, it is possible. I've seen it.

kaspm 10y ago
The key here is that he had the financial backing to complete the project. Unclear whether the original poster has enough of a cash runway to keep even a team of 1 at a fulltime salary.
- mythrwy 10y ago
  You don't need a full time team or person (the guy I worked for doesn't have that) as long as you can deploy and manage the hosting and have someone you can call if there is an issue. But no way to get building/operating capital? In general forget about it. Most likely not going to fly. I'm convinced lots of people do this because I've personally seen at least two. But even more try and spend a bunch of money and fail (seen a lot more than 2 of those). The ones who succeed generally don't hang around HN posting startup related buzzwords though so it's understandable they are presumed not to exist.
joe563323 10y ago
> But yes, it is possible. I've seen it. Citation required. Please post links to the products.

amorphid 10y ago

I (developer) chatted with a water quality consultant during a plane flight. Consultant mentioned the CRM for his niche business sucked. He asked if I'd be interested in building a CRM for no money upfront, instead making money later (a percentage of his business I could sell, a license fee, profit sharing, whatever). I realized in that moment once the app was built, I wouldn't need him at all, and that I could sell it (let's assume it'd be a valuable product) to all of his competitors. Either he wins, or I win, but there wasn't a scenario I could imagine where we both won. I explained that to him, and he was no longer interested in having me build the software for him.

swalsh 10y ago
Why do you assume that water quality consultants would buy a software product from you alone? Selling is hard, and a big part of it is knowing your customer, and gaining their trust. This guy would have a much better chance at accomplishing that. He had a lot of value, you just failed to see it. He made the right choice by finding someone else.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  There's a lot of value available by building apps for strangers for free? All I can see is risk. If you can find a way to de-risk that business model, then you'll have your value. Perhaps you meant potential. But then there's potential in most everything. Every manuscript in a slush pile has a certain amount of potential.
  - swalsh 10y ago
    No, I meant Value. He's an expert in the industry, he has connections to potential customers, he presumably has their trust. That's crazy valuable. That takes years to develop, and there's no "hack" to get around it. I encourage you to try and build those intangible pieces yourself. You'll quickly find it's not trivial in any way.
    - vinceguidry 10y ago

swalsh 10y ago

I'm in the process of bootstrapping a SaaS. I'll say it's absolutely possible, or more precisely, it has equal chance as the programmer going it alone has. The simple reason being that the product is only a tiny piece of the puzzle. I find the opposite question equally as valid. Why is it assumed that a programmer can bootstrap a successful SaaS alone? To build an application, you need someone who can identify an opportunity (product market fit.... and that's harder than most would assume). Of course even if you have something customers want, you still often need to help them want it... so you need a marketing/sales guy. Implementation is the last piece of the puzzle. I think these are completely different skill sets, and a successful company 90% of the time needs 2 or more people to pull it off.

flukus 10y ago
The product is still the most important piece that you can't do with out. You might be able to get by without a marketer/sales guy, but without a product you're selling vaporware. All the other jobs can be done (poorly) by the programmer, but the reverse isn't true. Just look at all those scams on kickstarter, the one thing they're missing is a viable product that an engineer can tell them is impossible.
joe563323 10y ago
What's your product ? . Please post updates. Your story would be a nice use case to watch.
joe563323 10y ago
Only extremely lucky people will get Steve Woz. Not every one is lucky.

stanislavb 10y ago

codeclown 10y ago

Hey Rob, it is certainly possible for you to bootstrap a successful SaaS. Without money to pay a developer, though, your best bet would be to learn to code yourself enough to put out a product to test the waters. Once that gains some traction, partnerships and funding would be easier to come by. That path would probably eat up 3-9 months given the bulk of your spare time and energy. Why do you think you want to build a SaaS product though? It seems to me like you're already putting out content pretty regularly. I would recommend moving it off medium to a domain you control and start getting some emails for your list. You can still publish there, but link back to your own site. With an email list, your readers can turn into your customers. As a designer, you can then start building products like books, courses, podcasts, guides you name it which will let you take advantage of the skills you have already. Check out Design for Hackers, for example. Why not use the edge you built up instead of starting at a disadvantage?

bikamonki 10y ago

It depends entirely on the SAAS. A non-programmer friend of mine paid peanuts to an off-shore programmer to build an über simple slack-clone with Firebase + Angular + Phonegap. He has two paying customers so far. Will this scale? Probably not but if he reaches 20 customers he'll have the money for the rockstars. This friend is a sales ninja, the tech is not an obstacle for him.

ilaksh 10y ago
First of all, a Slack clone with Firebase/Angular/Phonegap is not simple in terms of the engineering effort. If he found someone to implement a working system like that for peanuts, then he did not bootstap his startup alone, he did it by taking advantage of the other guy, and the fact that he does not acknowledge the other guy did 90% percent of it and describes it as a 'solo' effort just means that he is an asshole.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  Are you willing to pay for my education to become a software engineer, so I can code my own products? If not, then you're the asshole.

scardine 10y ago

Of course it is. If you know the problem space very well and are able to conceive and sell a good solution, the code behind it matters very little.

gnicholas 10y ago

Perhaps by possible, but probably not advisable. Consider the obvious alternatives: (1) having a technical cofounder, or (2) raising money instead of bootstrapping. Either of these alternatives will take time — to find the cofounder or the funders — but this is nothing compared with how much slower you'll move if you're bootstrapping and don't have a pot of cash to fund development with. And the better your idea is, the easier it will be to find suitable cofounders or funders. So if you find these two tasks to be difficult, this tends to indicate that the underlying idea is not as strong. My background: I am a non-technical founder of a software startup that has been mostly bootstrapped and mostly solo. My path was made possible/easier by the fact that I have savings from having been a corporate lawyer, and by my wife's stable/good job. Without both of these things, launching a startup would have been even harder.

trustfundbaby 10y ago

This is a timely topic, because I'm currently studying the process the founder of ConvertKit (designer) took to get his SaaS off the ground with just his own $5k. https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/convertkit ... follow the link to his blog about the "Web app challenge" and he blogs about the entire process as it happened Wildly successful too ... $600k MRR in just a few years https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/ https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/

known 10y ago

Analogy; Can a non-programmer manage programmers?

joe563323 10y ago
Are you kidding. All the people who can not program become managers. Its the truth. Exceptional are the Big-4 companies.

rebelidealist 10y ago

As a founder of 6 figure MRR SaaS, it is possible if you can hire good developers overseas for less. That said it is really useful if you know a little code or have someone who can vet good coders for you. Take your time with hiring.

Main_ 10y ago
I'm someone who is a non-coder, can you please recommend some books/blogs on how to build a successful SaaS business?

ilaksh 10y ago

If the guy has to 'hire freelancers' to implement the actual product, then 99 out of a 100 cases of this, he is not actually doing it alone. He is just discounting the contributions of core members of his team that are being poorly compensated. If it were the case that this was normally a group of freelancers making a killing, charging high consulting rates, it would be different. But almost in all cases they are using 'freelance developers' because they cannot afford to pay market rates in the US and can't afford benefits. Even in those other countries, there is a global economy. Those developers might be doing OK, but they are not getting wealthy. If you try to do it as if the developers are separate and not a core part of the team, that can't work either. Either you acknowledge how critical they are to your business or you just take advantage of them and hope they don't find something better and your business doesn't fall apart.

davidivadavid 10y ago

I think Nathan Barry (ConvertKit founder) is originally a designer? He might still know how to code. I'm not sure. But his business seems successful enough. There are probably dozens of less well-known examples. Edit: recent article by GrooveHQ (non-technical) founder that may be relevant: https://www.groovehq.com/blog/non-technical-founder https://www.groovehq.com/blog/non-technical-founder

davidivadavid 10y ago
Erm, let's say I saw it recently.

oliwarner 10y ago

Developers are more than code monkeys to order around, they can tell you how feasible your ideas are. If you hire efficiently, they also come with market-relevant experience. So while you probably could do this in your bedroom, alone-alone, chances are you'll end up with an insecure, unstable, broken hacky mutant that costs too much to run and includes things people don't actually want. But I would say that. I'm the guy you should hire :)

JamesBarney 10y ago

I always tell non-tech people that if you have an idea, and expect a developer to code it for equity, you NEED to bring purchase orders to the table first. [0] Obviously there are exceptions for instance if you have deep industry experience and contacts(with buying authority) but these people usually also have the money to pay a developer to implement their idea.

cgrusden 9y ago

After reading the comments, no one asked about "which"SaaS business model. Yes it is extremely possible to bootstrap a SaaS business alone depending on which model. Example: help a reporter out that peter shankman grew into a Monster of a SaaS business. Another example? GroupOn. Was a email newsletter first. I've seen a group of guys go sign up for Wordpress and were generating $2,000/month themselves for a kickstarter-like concept by using plugins. Not all SaaS businesses require a programmer, especially these days. Will certain models require a programmer at some point? Maybe. Maybe someone just wants to build 10 SaaS newsletter sites that all generate $1,000/month each... $10kMRR in total with no need to hire a programmer.