5 Years of Solopreneurship

Today marks 5 years since I quit my job in pursuit of financial freedom.

It’s not like I dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur, or solopreneur, indiehacker, whatever other name it may go by, I just thought my alternatives were unacceptable.

It feels quite odd, it feels like what I imagine it is to climb a big mountain. Starting on the ground looking up, the task looks daunting. But an hour or so in you find yourself climbing this route and all you’re thinking about is your next hold. Every now and then there’s nice spot to rest and reflect, and I guess that’s what I want to do today. Just a little reflecting on where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and where I’m going.

My apps reached $20k MRR about a month ago. My first 2 years I earned nothing, about 2 year later I reached ramen profitability, and the past year it’s scaled to what it is now. I’ve built 10 SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) products in this time for which 3 are still active and generating revenue. For the most part my strategy did not change, I just kept building stuff, and by the grace of the Shopify app store my apps found their way.

It’s pretty nice, having to work less yet make more than I ever did before. And with all this free time I’ve been able to embrace a healthier lifestyle and pursue other areas of development.

But it feels really odd.

It feels odd to reach some level of success and no longer be so driven by financial insecurity and fear. Sometimes it feels like I’ve lost my edge or am less productive, but I couldn’t care less.

I very much like going at my own pace, and I don’t miss the constant feeling of lack and need to do something about it.

I think it’s because I’ve tried my best doing that for years and found nothing of value, as if I believed there was a certain amount of unpleasantness I had to endure or money I had to make before it was enough, like some self-fulfilling prophecy of misery.

Shipping failure after failure for years takes its toll. Technically it was just a bunch of time spent pressing keys on a keyboard and ruminating over thoughts, but still, I made it so much harder than it needed to be. It was my stubbornness that was both the source of so much struggle and the reason I was able to persist long enough to catch a lucky break and follow through.

And now I just don’t know.

Financial freedom, what it meant to me was passive income — a good chunk of money coming in regularly and not having to think, let alone work for, it at all. And while I am making a good chunk of money now and working even less, it’s just not it. It’s a much appreciated improvement but it will never be the money printer I envisioned.

The truth is that businesses are in constant flux. Customers pay only when provided something of enough value, but the perception of that value changes over time. It could be because of new technology, it could be changing business needs, or most likely just competition providing more value for cheaper. And there’s always competition where there’s money to be made.

There’s nothing passive about making passive income this way because there will always be work trying to maintain or grow this equilibrium, else you risk losing it. It’s not like you can just build something awesome and have it run itself forever. Sure there are some better than others but ultimately it’s like this spectrum going from boring and stable to exciting and ever-changing. Both ways you lose because you either spend time building something you’re apathetic about or you spend time trying to keep up.

This is supposed to be about peace and stability, from a financial aspect, but nothing on that spectrum will give that in its entirety. It will always be some compromise and I think it’s futile to expect otherwise. There is no point in which you can say you’ve won and never have to think about money again, it’s just various points at which you are either winning or losing. It’s the wrong game to play. Or maybe I just haven’t won big enough yet, either way I’m tired.

I think money is but a small part of life and in my attempts to remove it completely I have inadvertently become obsessed with it.

Perhaps it was the wrong thing to focus on — a premature optimization of sorts.

The question on my mind now a days, probably the question I should have started with, is what do I want to do with my life?

And so far the best answer I’ve come up with is that I want to build stuff. Digital stuff specifically, it’s like one of the few things I enjoy doing while also being somewhat decent at.

Building stuff not for the sole purpose of financial security but because it is fun to build stuff. It’s fun to explore what could be and where that could take me.