Question
Specifically, this company sells WordPress plugins on a monthly subscription with continued updates, new plugins, and feature additions / ground-level feedback. As the only member and developer, my time over the past 2 years of it's existence has been re-building it's infrastructure & products over and over.
We have 15-20 active customers who've continued using & enjoy the products, but growth has ceased and work piling up. I'm not great at sales, nor finding leads to begin with. My strengths are all tech-related; of the 2 marketing partners in the past, both bailed to do their own things.
Can someone with experience in creating a software startup from $100-500/mo to hiring several employees with unlimited technical potential as the sole human asset share a blueprint, or the faintest hint at where to go from here? My passion to see it succeed has keep it alive (if $300~/mo counts) thus far, but it's killing me seeing it stagnate - especially when the product-providing muscle is free'ish.
If you've got experience with this & solid advice to share, we can do a call(s) to get more detailed about it. Thanks!
Answer
I don't have specific advice about your specific question but do have some thoughts on deciding when to quit / scale or try something new (i.e. Opportunity Cost)
Most individuals make these decisions daily, but don't truly understand how to evaluate.
Here's my framework.
What's the potential upside? (Ex: $100K / year) x probability (20%) = 20K in potential.
If you think about that framework apied to other ideas like a new startup or getting a job, then you can better assess the opportunity cost.
For many people, making $40K/yr vs potential of $200K at 50% chance is actually more sensible then staying where they are at - but they decide to stay.
I always look at the opportunity cost of both new ideas + risk of distracting me from executing on existing tasks/projects - hence why I say "no" more now then ever (2 new babies + growing Startup)
Hope that helps.
