Ask HN: Anyone here built successful SaaS/startup just for money? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone here built successful SaaS/startup just for money?

224 pointsaristofun146 comments

Is something wrong with me that recently I stopped being excited about tech, products, disruptive ideas, making world better etc.

And just want to make money, as much as possible, don’t care how (as long as it’s legal).

Is it a good start for starting new project in tech world?

Because creating software products is the only thing i can do very well.

But except few small exceptions all my life I’ve been working for companies, exchanging my time for money, building software.

Anyone created profitable and lasting IT business being motivated only by money?

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You are half-way through a change. Your old motivations have lost their appeal. But you don't understand the new ones yet. You'll need to. My suspicion here is that you are experiencing some sort of crisis that has made your thinking pretty short term. That's mostly a good crisis response, as it helps us get through a problem alive. But it has issues.

The problem with "make money" is that it's mostly a short-term, proximate motivation. As others suggest, you need to figure out what you want the money for. Starting a business is a long-term proposition, so you'll need to find your deeper motivations.

And note that motivation isn't a static thing; it's a thing you nourish over time. So whatever business you pick, it should feed your motivations. E.g., I know somebody who has run a bookstore for 20+ years. He could do things that make more money, but he loves interacting with customers and talking about books on a daily basis.

One exercise you could do is to write your own obituary. Start by going to Legacy.com. Read a few of the famous-people ones on the front page. Next search for your first name and read a number of those. Leave the good ones open in tabs. Then open up a blank document and start typing yours. Refer back to others as needed, borrowing freely. What in others' obituaries resonates for you? What do you want your life to have been?

> You are half-way through a change. Your old motivations have lost their appeal.

I think I'm in the same boat as the OP, and this comment resonated with me. When I started programming nearly a decade ago, I had an abundance of intrinsic motivation. I was so excited to learn about software, how to build websites, phone applications, server applications etc. That drive was a genuine passion and love for computers and software and it carried me nearly a decade in this industry through some amazing challenges. I've grown more than I could have imagined.

Yet now in my mid 30s... that passion has really dwindled. When I wake up on a Saturday, I'm not rushing to get to my computer to code. I'm more interested in relaxing, getting outside, or just doing something else. Yet in the back of my mind is a constant pressure, a constant reminder, that I should be productive.

There's always more to learn, and didn't I struggle to write that regex the other day? Didn't I want to finally dig deep into Tensor Flow? Wasn't I going to bust out the breadboard and get into some hardware design?

Why don't I feel like doing any of that now? Why is the only motivation, money?

Like the OP, the only thing that seems like it could light a fire under my ass would be some big monetary opportunity. I could get excited to build a new app, or a new server project, or website, if I knew I stood a good chance of really changing my life for the better.

I think that as the novelty of programming wore off, the only thing left was money. Initially I was motivated by wanting to understand everything. I truly didn't know how to make a phone application, and now I've made many. I didn't understand how to build and deploy a website, and now I've done that many times.

What's left? Where do I go from here? I really have more questions than answers. With another 25-30 years of "work" to do, I'm really confused about what I will do.

I totally get it. You might want to read Kohn's Punished By Rewards. Extrinsic motivation, like money, can sap intrinsic motivation. It was helpful to me in understanding where my joy in the work sometimes went.

For me, that feeling of struggling to care can be an early symptom of burnout. My sustained interest in building comes from a cycle of small successes. Getting each little thing working can be a little victory. Putting it in the hands of people and seeing it benefit them, even more so. Each little victory is banking a bit of positive association for later.

But if I force myself to do the work past the point where I enjoy it, I start drawing down that positive association. That can be fine if it pays off in a larger victory later, or if I otherwise keep the balance positive. If not, eventually the work becomes joyless and then will-sapping.

I'm sure some will scoff at trying to maintain joy in the work rather than toughing it out. But I don't think toughness is enough to sustain a career in software. At this point I've changed my primary language 5 times, and I'm sure I'll do it once or twice more. And who knows how many frameworks and libraries I've had to learn over the years. To sustain that level of learning, I think we have to learn to preserve the curiosity that got us into the work in the first place.

A "mid life crisis" (which can happen at any time) is the moment when primary motivation switches from success to significance.

In our early working years we strive to become successful (for some definition of success) and this drives us to work hard, learn, experiment and so on.

Typically around age 40 you will have mastered the skills, and you will be "successful". So now you need a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

A very lucky few are already in significant jobs, and this motivation switch happens naturally and without fuss.

For the rest of us it's common to see if "playing with new toys" will satisfy. Like a motor cycle, sports car or boat. Sometimes this works, but often does not.

The happiest people I personally know seem to have found significance in seeing "others" rather than themselves. Family, community, young, are all candidates for our significance. It doesn't have to change the world, but changing the world of 1 person is deeply satisfying.

Financial freedom (earning more money in less time spent) allows more freedom in chasing this significance, and more means to do so.

Starting a business can deliver financial rewards (although mostly does not) but can also be deeply satisfying in other ways. When you look at the office carpark, and realise how many staff, and families, are being provided for because of your business, well, that's a good day.

I’ve had the last 6 months off and will be taking at least another few more off. I’ve been investing in myself in going through lots of therapy to get over emotional trauma of my past, and now am just turning to looking forward. I haven’t coded in a while - and I’m finding that’s okay, it’s still a thing I can do if I want. Toys aren’t gonna do it. A house that I have to spend tons of time keeping up also isn’t gonna do it. It’s not even about legacy or anything death related for me, its more about how to feel a bit more content with myself and maintain or generate a playful disposition to the universe.

Good for you! Extended time off has been the best thing for my long-term mental health. It let me recover from issues and reset patterns. Good luck with rest of your break!

Another perspective from the other replies: lean into that motivation. I’ve found that there are few projects more rewarding than ones done for money - not necessarily because of the money itself - but because to convince people to part with their money you have to make something they really want. You’re solving a problem for them, making them happier, making their life easier. You get feedback about how much they appreciate it. You meet with others who are doing the same thing and want to work with you. You get noticed as being a helpful and competent person.

The money is just a proxy for how much value you make for people and that feels good and challenges you in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Thank you so much for deep comment and great advice. Will definitely do the excercise.

>> what you want the money for

Do you think “have decent quality of living for my family״ can be a reliable source of motivation?

Yes, that's a great motivation. And I think "decent" is a great framing. Chasing maximum money can never be satisfied; it can easily lead to an unbalanced life. But "decent" and "quality of living" are goals that can be satisfied in many ways, and require you to look broadly at what you and your family really need to be happy.

Good luck in sorting it out!

This is an amazing comment

Yes, of course. Money is the goal of the business because the business isn't the goal of life.

I've always approached work as a way to maximize my free time, meaning I want to extract the maximum value from as little work as possible. The goal being to spend the rest of the time doing the fun stuff.

SaaS is a great way to deal with this because once the product is built you can ramp down your involvement in it to nearly zero. Other gigs I've had, when I stop doing work, they stop sending me money. SaaS doesn't have that problem. I can answer a few emails in the morning then if the sun is shining I can head off and do whatever I like with the day. Problem solved.

So yes, the business is all about extracting the most money for the least effort. Because I have more important things to do.

Well said. I’ll take this one step further: Anyone who starts a business without putting profitability as one of the top priorities is going to have a hard time.

In fact, it can be disappointing to some engineers to learn how much starting a business requires using off-the-shelf solutions instead of rolling your own implementation and even making compromises with “good enough” code to get things shipped. The entrepreneurs who want to design and code every part of the system by themselves and only ship it when it’s absolutely perfect are the ones who struggle to ever ship a product and get customers.

Social media, HN included, has perhaps skewed public perceptions about things like money, profit, capitalism, and nebulous concepts like “passion”. There’s nothing wrong with starting a business as a business and treating the code as business decisions. In fact, it’s what you want to do if your goal is to get customers and make profit, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

> as one of the top priorities

What if it’s the only priority? How would your answer change?

The goal of a business is not to make Money.

Money to a business is like oxygen to to a person. A business cannot survive without money, the body cannot survive without oxygen. So does that mean the goal of life is to breathe?

Make sure you are breathing and go out there and change the world

Make sure your business is financially healthy and focus on getting it to make a dent in the Universe.

Probably 99% of non-tech professionals start business to make money. Do you think your plumber started his business thinking of making the world a better place? Highly unlikely except for HIS own world.

Yes, do it for the money.. it’s OK.

> Do you think your plumber started his business thinking of making the world a better place?

For the tradespeople I have known, the answer is yes. They also like getting paid, of course. But they find satisfaction in making the world better one sink at a time. Otherwise spending 40 years as plumber would be an absolutely miserable experience.

Yes absolutely. They enjoy and take pride of their work. But did they start their business with the idea of "making the world a better place" and then went on to trade school? I'm not saying these two things are opposite of each other, but most people start businesses so they can make money to bring food on the table at the end of the day.

Ok but there is still a difference between someone who works as a plumber and someone who starts their own plumbing business.

Absolutely, making more money is a big motivator for entrepreneurs across the board, including plumbing entrepreneurs.

If that's the case, I expect a lot of entrepreneurs end up disappointed. Quite a lot of solo proprietors end up working more for less. But when I talk with people, it's generally not money that really motivates them. It's a sense of freedom or ownership.

You believe a person cannot find satisfaction in a job well done (and a solid paycheck), they have to "change a world" to feel accomplished?

I found the documentary "Jiro dreams of sushi" illustrative (in the opposite extreme). I believe most of us would fall somewhere in between (... aaaand, we get to Maslow again :)

That's the exact opposite of what I'm saying.

If by "change the world" you mean narcissistic grandiosity about being in the history books, yeah, that's generally ridiculous. But small things also change the world. Raising kids. Installing sinks. Fixing roofs. Serving a meal. All of these things make the world a little better.

This is distinct from what Graeber called "bullshit jobs". Making sure that you use the new cover sheet on the TPS report that nobody will read, for example. Some people are happy doing bullshit. But trades have the appeal of doing something undeniably real, undeniably beneficial.

So yes, as I said, I believe that somebody who started a solo plumbing business is absolutely thinking of making the world a better place. And I think they do it every day.

Their work is also immediately real and beneficial. A plumber friend told me a story the other day. Over the winter a woman's water inlet pipes had frozen. She was without water for two or three days and when they got her pipes flowing again she was so happy that she cried.

Most people will find a certain level of satisfaction in a job if it's well done. I don't think there are many people who perform reasonably at their job while not being satisfied with a job well done.

This applies to 99% of businesses started by tech professionals too. There is nothing nobler or kinder about tech businesses. All those "mission statements" are just pure fluff for PR purposes.

Just wanted to chime in from the supposed 1% as someone who isn’t running a business earn money but earn money in order to continue running the business. A business building something I’m passionate about, with the addition of an end goal I expect will make the world a better place.

> There is nothing nobler or kinder about tech businesses. All those "mission statements" are just pure fluff for PR purposes.

true, but would it be wrong to assume that the following ratio:

(the number of people who are passionate about xyz and curiosity and pure joy are major driving forces) / (total number of people working in xyz)

is probably much higher for cs than for plumbing?

Being 'passionate and curious' have nothing to do necessarily with 'making the world a better place'.

If anything it's kind of a personal issue.

Surely most scientific discovery comes along with passion and curiosity, so there's some overlap there, but most work doesn't get done out of either of those things. Most of the things that move the ball forward are a grind.

I only want to hire a plumber with passion, who is making the world a better place one clogged drain at a time. Haven’t been able to find one yet but I’m still looking.

Plumbing, building, electrics all require understanding the current state of the system (eg: house that 20 different cowboys have messed with over the years), and weighing up the different possible solutions - sure there is a measure of simple/straightforward work, but same can be said of software engineering.

We work in a different medium, but at a high level I think the process can look very similar, and there's satisfaction in a job well done

> I only want to hire a plumber with passion, who is making the world a better place one clogged drain at a time.

Don't know about the passion, but they really are making the world a better place, one clogged drain at a time.

It's probably the same. Some CS people like to work on side projects. So do a lot of plumbers by renovating their homes or tinkering with other stuff in their spare time.

I'd have guessed, most CS people would do OSS and only a fraction of them turns these projects into products.

I met too many business people who just wanted to run a startup no matter if it was software or physical products.

Doing plumbing for fun is like parsing old logs as a hobby. But plenty of people do woodwork,metalwork, bread-making, brewing, etc for fun.

It can be both. There is no mission without money.

Plumbers do make the world a better place though and unlike software engineers almost no plumbers make it a worse place.

You say that like it's a unique thing to software engineers.

In the cases you're probably thinking that should include, the marketers, sales people, operations staff, recruiters, and basically anyone else who keeps the business running.

You either think software engineers are so powerful as to effect the direction of these large businesses, in which case, you're wrong.

Or that somehow people earning a better living for themselves given the current climate which is almost uniformly stacked against the standard worker is wrong.

I think you should step back and look at the actual causes like their boards, investors and senior management as well as the government.

To note I say this with a clear conscience since I've never worked at any of the Big Co's at this point in time by choice.

That's nonsense. A bad plumber can make people's lives hell in a way a software engineer probably can't. Some software engineers may have more leverage than plumbers but in the end most of us just try to survive in a world that's shaped by a few powerful people.

If someone is bad or evil in any profession it might make the world a worse place.

It's a scale issue.

Plumbers don’t need to speculate that they might make the world a better place.

if your toilet is stuck? he fixes it. certainly the plumbers make the world a better place....

btw. think about a b2b business. think about an erp software. there is lots or room for specializing, just like the businesses you will make it for. i run an engineering an production company, and just because there was nothing there, we made our own. i am happy to share it, leave me a message if interested.

My point was that a plumber’s impact on making the world a better place is obvious.

No, But i'll bet you the plumber who does not absolutely love going under the sink each day has money and is miserable. The one who enjoys telling you the anatomy of your sink when you didn't ask (you know the type) those guys don't even care about the money, they just love what they do

In theory Yes. In fact, making money and more importantly: financial Freedom is one of the biggest motivations for starting your own business.

However, I personally am not sure if you can just do a business only for money. Because in practice, you would have to deal with customers, employees/contractors, product, sales, marketing, support tickets, servers going down and a lot of other things that comes as part of running a SAAS business. If you are not learning on a daily basis and investing in knowledge which requires some level of interest in things, you at some point would most likely crash and burn.

So my advice is to be very motivated by money. Nothing wrong with that. But be motivated with other things as well as building a successful business is a journey and a career and that requires a lot of other motivations. For example, building something that you really like. Solving problems that you can help your customers tremendously. Those things can add a lot more to your ability to make lot more money.

I run my own SAAS business and I am not just motivated by money even though it is probably the biggest factor for sure and I am not going to sugarcoat it. But if you look at it, I am running the business because other than financial freedom, I also wanted to create something of my own, put a few people together providing a good product to customers (it really excites me) and many other motivations. I don't know if I can wake up every day and just be excited that I am making money. At some point, you need other things to motivate you.

I'd say freedom is the biggest motivation. In terms of financial freedom it may even be lesser or less secure but many people would still go towards being their own boss for the sake of freedom. And in fact all my friends who got massive investments have barely any freedom now.

Agreed. I think if money is the primary goal, getting a job at a FAANG is a more certain path. Freedom or agency is my biggest motivation.

I decided to leave my job as a CEO of a midsized company to build my own business. Although I always wanted to create my own innovative product, I decided to swim with the wales - big software vendors - to add (and catch) some value there. The reason: quick profits. That plan worked out quite well. However, money is like pure water. You need it to be alive and if you're having none you want all of it. But if you're having a steady inflow that's big enough, one day you won't want to go the extra mile for another glass. You want Pepsi instead! Okay, just kidding, you want Coke most likely... However, you'll be better of working on something that fascinates you instead of just going for the money. Maybe you're good in starting things up but you hate to keep them going. Why not concentrate on the first part then? Build & sell. Maybe you hate customer development and just want to get a high income managing stuff and doing politics. Apply for a job at an enterprise then. Do it like a scientist: formulate a hypothesis about what really makes you happy and what system you have in place to realize that happiness. Collect evidence, optimize the system. Maybe read "Business Model You" and "Design The Life That You Love". At least I'm doing that now to figure out what the next years of my life should be about. Not just money I guess. Money often comes at the intersection of chance and excellence. And excellence often comes from something aligned to your talents & interests.

I'm fascinated by your comment. I'm making a few assumptions from the "CEO of midsized company" and "quick profits" plan that "worked out quite well" about you.

It's awesome to see that it worked for you but I think some of us (maybe the OP included) are still pursuing the "steady inflow that's big enough". For me is quite concrete, getting rid of student loans and mortgage. At that point my monthly expenses would be sub-$1k, which makes pursuing something that fascinates me a lot more feasible.

Thus I come out with a critique and a question... It seems to me that the advice to work on something that "fascinates you" would be a stage two since there could be circumstance that do require just going for the money.

The question then is, how did you made it swimming with the big whales? Was is knowledge that you had/acquired as a CEO? I've been looking more and more into "boring business" as in, not innovative or trying to change the world, but instead capture some of the profit that some huge vendors/industries are already moving, you know, where 5 or 6 figures is petty cash, but I'm not really sure where to look.

Again, props to you on getting to a place that I'm hoping to get myself :-)

Paul Graham said in an interview the reason he built his first startup was for money.

Honestly though, as someone who focused on money the first ten years of their career, your best bet is to grind leetcode and get into FAANG or become an excellent sales person. You’ll make more money in 90% of cases then starting your own business.

I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with focusing on money. I’m at the point in my life where I care more about time than money, but saving up 7 years worth of California adtech money then moving to a low cost of living country gave me a different perspective.

I've come to believe that making the world better and making a lot of money are in most cases mutually exclusive. Of course, many people go into business with the intention of making the world better, but there are numerous turning points in a business where you have to choose between making a positive change and a profitable change--and if you don't choose the profitable change, one of your competitors will.

Personally, I decided not to do it--I've made peace with the idea that I'll probably work to retirement age and never be very rich.

But I'm not making a moral judgment if you make a different choice--I can only make the choice I have because I'm in a position of privilege that allows me to make that choice. On the contrary, I have more respect for you if you go into this without illusions about what you're doing. The most poisonous thing about Hacker News is that it gives people who are doing reprehensible things an echo chamber of justifications for their behaviors. I'm sure some people will even respond to this comment with such.

+1. I think it's dangerous to try to tell yourself there's a win-win (make more money AND make the world better) when there isn't one. I really like the way Anand Giridharadas talks about this. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/the-win-wi...

I agree with you and the OP. Thank you for that link, looking forward to reading it.

I had thoughts like these, but i think as with any extreme - they too don’t fully reflect the truth

"Extreme" is just a subjective label people apply to ideas to dismiss them. If your only objection is that an idea is extreme, you don't have any actual objection.

No. Extreme here points just to certainty with which commenter did his qualitative statement

> making a lot of money are in most cases mutually exclusive

If good money and just not breaking the law are two requirements, then looking into certain niches might not be a bad idea.

Google calls these niches "sensitive" https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/3016445?hl=en.

Here's an example, an online poker statistics SaaS making $2.9M Gross/Yr https://feinternational.com/buy-a-website/50471-saas-recurri...

Pretty tangential, but since you mentioned poker I do wonder if the big players are using the data from their players as input to a machine learning model.

It seems like incredibly well labelled data since you know every action taken, and the outcome.

Might be worth stepping back and thinking about why you want to make money. Money is a store of opportunity but useless in itself. If you were to be shipwrecked with no hope of rescue would you rather be washed up with a cargo container of dollar bills or camping gear?

So what is it you really want? What are you hoping the money will buy you?

This is insightful at first glance, but throw out the shipwrecked part, and you cover a 99% coverage of scenarios where being in a cargo container full of money would provide tremendous value over a cargo container filled with camping gear.

Thus, having more money in itself will provide a tremendous hedge and perform as a greater value above and beyond other alternatives.

The original poster says, "I want to make money". OK, if they were handed $1B what would they do with it? What do they really want? Physical security? Financial security? Political influence? Love? Hedonism? Existential meaning?

The shipwreck analogy is a tool to help you understand that you want money for what you can do with it, not for itself.

Extra points if you make some discoveries about yourself when asking why you want these things.

At a point in my life I treated my income per month as game score for many years, I guess it will be category of hedonism ?

It seems like this and parent intriguing comments are both skirting(?) the importance of -context- in the debate over "money" vs "better world". People from all walks of life may choose one or the other based on their status,philosophy,etc. Overall though, I think the ability to choose "better world" comes from a more privileged place, which might make the "crate full of money" enable a more people to choose "better world" more frequently.

Ignoring the “no hope” clause and in the spirit of entertainment: some napkin math has a 40ft shipping container holding around $60m in dollar bills. People would look a lot harder for that than camping gear!

Does «provide decent quality of life for my family and freedom for me” sound good enough?

Yes. In particular because you’ll be more concerned with sales than engineering. And in the end all businesses are sales first.

Find your customers, then build whatever thing they want.

Also, this is sort of a contrived question. No one starts a business saying, “I don’t care about money, I just want to do X.” Because if that we’re true, just go be an employee. It’s much easier to do.

The reverse would be less common, not the question you’re asking.

For example someone had some exceptional product idea they really enjoyed working on, and they happened to stumble on the right people to fund it as a lifestyle business or something greater.

No one starts a business, files the paperwork, opens the bank accounts, purchases the insurance, finds the customers or clients, does the work, hires the laborers, and says, “I didn’t do this for the money.”

Anyone who says otherwise is trying to push “culture” or some other nonsense on you because they want to command your labor.

Twitter guy about building/buying SaaS businesses https://twitter.com/SaaScapo

Examples of profitable SaaS being sold https://flippa.com/search?filter%5Bmonetization_method%5D=su...

Technology is often simultaneously an art, science, and business.

Now, I’d imagine for any creator the art and science portions are the more interesting bits.

But what you’re talking about is technology as a means to some financial end (which likely ends in technological abandonment via sale the the highest bidder).

I personally believe the product should come first. All of the greatest products come from passion about building something; and then it takes partnerships with folks who have the business vision—after all, the art and science of business folks is turning something into a financial success.

If you enjoy tech but feel burnt out, I’d recommend playing with some retro computing. I find going back to the DOS era there was tons of passion. There’s plenty of books on Archive.org. Even though it’s lower level development the beauty is it’s just you and the machine (more or less) and none of these Python vs Ruby vs Go vs Rust vs Java vs Scala vs yadda-yadda. :)

And most likely there is limited way to make money selling DOS warez these days so it CANNOT be about money, just pure enjoyment, for the greater good.

> And just want to make money, as much as possible, don’t care how (as long as it’s legal).

I think you can start out by being an affiliate for a successful saas business.

A lot of companies have affiliate programs which pay you out 50% recurring commission on every sale. People make a lot of money doing this and you can get started almost instantly as compared to spending months making a product first.

Of course there are always pros and cons of everything but This way you can get a real taste for sales and marketing and what it takes to makes money very quickly

Interesting thought. Do you by any chance have any links on good quickstart materials about this scheme?

Sure. Not sure if this is the best resource as the site plugs it's own affiliate program over others but may help you get started:

https://woorise.com/best-affiliate-programs-in-the-saas-spac...

Thank you

Money is the end goal, but status[1], pleasure and upgrading my skills are necessary side goals. “From a million dollars, everything is your passion” (Joel on Software).

[1] Moderate status, I have humor telling everyone “I’m a CEO” (like Zuckerberg), given I only have 2 employees and had none for long.

I abhorre companies who pretend their IT will change humanity. Participating to the economy is already a great satisfaction for me, because the sum of our work built a civilization. In fact, I have ads in my office with the stupid phrases of competitors: “We advance humanity”, “Building the future since 125 years” etc.

I’ve built a product on the Atlassian Marketplace and it was a great place to innovate. Perhaps it still is, but Atlassian deprecates frameworks as soon as your stack is up, and their new Forge thingy is too locked down to build any smart app.

> “From a million dollars, everything is your passion” (Joel on Software).

That can certainly be true before you get million dollars. Is it still true afterwards?

> I abhorre companies who pretend their IT will change humanity

I mean technically they're right, in that their IT might change humanity by 0.000000000000000000002% (if it can be measured at all)...

Link to the Joel On Software article you're referencing?

The funny thing is when I googled that phrase I got another Hacker News thread from the same user quoting the same line. It might have been from an event or something.

To my shame, you are correct, the quote is nowhere to be found. It’s not either from Paul Graham. I thought it was a famous quote & concept among us entrepreneurs…

I vividly remember a blog from Joel saying things along Why are entrepreneurs passionate for things that seem very niche? / The truth is, once they succeed, they become passionate / So we have a bias of selection when assuming that all entrepreneurs are passionate about their product.

But this post is nowhere to be found. I thought the quote was the title of that blog post.

I have to make amend and recognize that I might be senile and spreading a false quote. Thank you for waking me up.

All good, the sentiment is very much shared amongst entrepreneurs and fortunately spreading after the whole “follow your passion” BS.

Lots of successful people nowadays now say “do what you’re good at” or “do the unsexy things, or the things no one else wants to do” and the passion will follow. That’s a much more pragmatic and realistic approach.

Personally I really enjoyed software and coding, but after doing the grind at SV companies and my own gig I’ve come to realize that on a risk-adjusted basis, the larger tech companies are a better way to make money.

There’s nothing wrong about that, but if you crunch the numbers - or look at the results of people who did - you’ll see that from a purely cashflow perspective, founding a startup is probably not a good idea compared to a traditional career in existing enterprises.

This is why I work multiple remote development jobs. If one traditional job is good, > 1 is better. It would take a quite a successful SaaS to pull down what I do annually.

Multiple full time jobs at the same time? Kudos for pulling that of... though, as a founder hiring remote people from time to time, this is also a bit terrifying.

If they get your work done, don't worry about it. If on they other hand you don't know what the work is you want done, and expect a developer to come in and do it all, don't worry. We moonlighting devs won't even apply for your job.

If you start something but are unlikely to make good money, and your only motivator is to make money, then it will be though. Start your sales/marketing at day one, eg. try to sell your SaaS before you start developing, have at least two customers at day one, don't have to be paying customers (unless you are more of a consult), but they should at least be committed to beta testing. I spent 3 years making a product, which turned out to be impossible to sell...

Something not in the comments yet - many people who are motivated by money build businesses around money, the finance sector.

It's a way to stick to what you're interested in, and makes it fairly easy to 'keep score' if your goals are measured in $€¥£. I get the impression too that being close to flows of money often gives good opportunities to make a cut.

Making a ton of money as an entrepreneur is much harder to do than learning how to efficiently spend the money you have. If you're skilled at tech, you can make ridiculously large amounts of money, thinking globally, 100 to 200k is a huge pile of money. If you're very lucky and skilled at tech, and you're the 1% of startups that make it, you can make millions, big if though.

But why? You could just follow efficient living principles and be totally set for life with just a decade of coding at SV salaries.

"Is something wrong with me that recently I stopped being excited about tech, products, disruptive ideas, making world better etc. And just want to make money, as much as possible, don’t care how (as long as it’s legal)."

I sort of feel the same, but would also require that I feel it is moral. I would like to make the world a better place, but I feel like most software doesn't really make an impact, and so I've disconnected this ideal from work. I hate my job and want more financial freedom.

Start with the end. That is, the exit. As in, exit strategy. That should be your motivator. Pretty much anything else is a means to that ends.

I've built several successful SaaS/DaaS startups since I quit my last job back in 2005; mostly just for freedom. (money too I guess)

I went to checkout your profile as I was interested in seeing what products you've made, and I saw on your website you've got a mailto link. I was thinking of adding the same thing to my site, but I'm worried about crawlers picking up my email and using it for spam. Has this happened to you at all - do you get much spam?

I suppose. I have a pretty good spam filter however.

Do you think this can be done as a solo dev/founder, or do you eventually need more than 1 person (and when does that "eventually" occur in your experience)?

Also do you have thoughts on bootstrapping your SaaS versus getting funding for additional hires?

I'm still single founder for most of my businesses - although it has drawbacks.

I've never looked for nor accepted funding. Freedom is my main motivation, and it is limited somehow when you accept money. And for complete freedom you must go it alone.

In my latest project however (poidata.xyz) I'm a co-founder.

I have a software idea that can change the world a little and I could use help. As for your question: I think building a company that makes a lot of money requires a vision. If you are very good at making software maybe employment at a wealthy company is easier. I hear pay is really nice there.

My thoughts on this after working with a lot of Founder‘s both in technical and more traditional businesses is that you definitely can but it’s rare and it’s important to get a team around you I will keep making progress and are also motivated I’m moving forward.

No matter what for sales and marketing you’re going to at least have to pretend that what you’ve created is valuable and meaningful Dash so if you can find someone who can help you communicate that maybe eventually you’ll be able to convince yourself it’s about more than money.

I also wouldn’t be down on yourself and think that the only thing you can do is building software Dash there are many other things that you can quickly learn to do and will benefit from the mindset and skills that you’ve learned as a software developer.

> there are many other things that you can quickly learn to do and will benefit from the mindset and skills that you’ve learned as a software developer

Can you give some examples of such things where engineering skills could bring value quickly without spending 5-10 years on building new career?

Most of the time if it work you are making something people want, thus money is a proxy for usefulness to someone.

I think that money is often a poor motivator past some point, it’s like food, once you are satiated food loose it’s interest. But making something useful stay and keep on growing.

It depends on your personality. Some people can live without a calling. I can’t.

What helps me a lot is to review the Ikigai attributed framework regularly and to think which of the dimensions is important for me and who I do currently along them:

1. What are you good at?

2. What do you enjoy doing?

3. What is paid money for?

4. What is good for the planet?

My focus is on 1-3.

"What is good for the planet" sounds related to eco-activism; but Ikigai asks "What does the world need?"

Yeah fair enough. What does the world need sounds similar to the money point in my opinion.

btw: Ikigai doesn’t say anything about that. The framework is made up and referenced to Ikigai by a western dude as far as I know.

It is an interesting distinction. Doing work that is valuable to other people is a key way to make sure you can keep working successfully. Fighting all the people to convince them to do something different to save themselves from bad long term problems is ethical but possibly less likely to lead to success, even in the non—monetary, people are happy you exist fashion. So making yourself useful to other people isn’t the same exactly as do what pays well, but it can lead to the sort of “not a passion but enables a good life” situations. People that seek to save us from ourselves are super necessary but also have a tendency to burn out. We all need to try to make our society a few percent better each year for the long term problems and then the zealots can relax a bit.

> btw: Ikigai doesn’t say anything about that

Sorry, I was misled by the Venn diagrams people make.

I’ve been in your shoes.

To me, it was disheartening to hear realtors making more money and I was working more hours.

I shifted to following the money backwards. What did people who were making money need done to automate niche parts of their job. I didn’t need to make a billion dollar business. I just have to make $400k a year to be in the top 1% of the USA.

I’m not yet at the top 1% and the realtors can still make more but if this year goes well I’ll be there.

Example: Law firms need to do discovery in litigation and often tend to hire third party firms to do the technology work collecting data. It’s called e-discovery. There are tons of little rabbit holes in that space I found to look at. Amongst other things.

Wish you best of luck with reaching your goals.

Would be happy to hear a bit more about how you made the transition.

https://zwischenzugs.com/2021/07/12/if-you-want-to-transform...

The accepted story is that involved in bringing something successful to market has to have vision (the idea for a better "mousetrap").

Do they also have to have something like passion? Plenty of organizations bring software to market based on rational analysis's of possible market share, cost of customer acquisition, life time expected value, etc, etc.

If you are a talented maker of software, you can hitch your cart to someone else's dream. The world is full of way more ideas than people who can bring them to life.

Find an idea you think has legs and place a bet on it. Place multiple bets, if you can. The "fractional CTO" is a thing now.

Money is definitely the main motivation for me. A benefit is that my competitors offer an awful service which is close to being a scam, so it also motivates me to provide a better service. But if it wasnt for the money, I wouldnt do it.

What is your product may i ask?

Hey! At the end of the day, almost everyone (save a few) are motivated by money but manage to shroud that motivation with a 'making the world a better place' story.

Having said that, building a business with the aim to make money is perfectly fine. One person's goal is no lesser than the other. And the ultimate goal of a Business? To make money anyway.

Here's the one thing you need to get right - no matter why you build a business.

- what is the problem that your target customers are facing, that's painful enough that they seek a solution, but their problem is not being solved well through existing options.

Find this, serve it, and you'll build a profitable business.

You were excited by the sugar rush now you're excited by greed.

The 'along as it's legal' bit is a slight red flag, because it's also out of self interest, you could say 'as long as it's moral' that would be nicer.

Both those things ate not so-so bad but both a bit low on the scale of personal development.

To start, about getting excited over doing something useful to others? And then taking a slice out of the pie that you made?

Some people make bread, some people keep the peace, some people clean homes - what's your contribution?

If you do something well enough, you'll get paid well and often the rewards are better, but the commitment required usually goes up as well.

In that case, you'll probably nudge the world forward a bit.

There are a ton of legal ways to make money that are extractive - i.e. they don't really help anyone, they just waste everyone's time or consume resources and end up being destructive.

Often those who just care about making money may end up in the later camp.

Also if you're just interested purely in the money it's likely you'll run out of steam early because it's not a very complete motivator.

And of course, why on earth would people want to help you if your goal is purely selfish and likely extractive?

It's like saying "How do I get rich and famous and take all the acclaim with no talent? Can you help me with that?"

Making the world a better place is not about 'New Innovation' or 'Shiny Tech' 99% of the time it's just doing basic word and grinding. Even the newer tech stuff is still mostly work and grinding.

Finally, all of the above is a completely separate question from whether you want to start your own company or not, which is a giant step. If you want to 'make money' you may just want to be a good software developer, or depending on your age go to Med School and you might just be making enough money to make you quite happy. There are a number of professions in which you can make quite decent money.

> And of course, why on earth would people want to help you if your goal is purely selfish and likely extractive?

Why wouldn’t they help me if we make money together working on profitable SaaS as a team?

> How do I get rich and famous and take all the acclaim with no talent?

Why did you assume i have no talent. Let’s assume i have - how would your answer change?

A good start up has a good business plan. Making money from your business can be a very interesting endeavor. But you have to at least be interested in the product in some way, or else you'll eventually give up.

Phil Knight started Blue Ribbon/Nike as reseller of Onitsuka Tiger shoes from Japan. He was clearly in it for the money. But he was also a track runner and believed in the product himself.

You also really don't need to change the world with a product. Just make something you want yourself, or something that adds value to people's lives. It doesn't need to be a billion dollar idea. Just something useful.

This resonates so much with me. Recently I talked with an EE that worked at a company that I admire. When I asked him what he did there, fully expecting something cool and highly skilled, he replied that he did sales. I think that my disappointment showed in my face because he laughed and said “I’m done with engineering, now I just pursue the money!”

That really hit me coming from and engineer in Silicon Valley but then I realized the same underlying reasons within me. I hadn’t changed jobs because the next one was more exciting/technically challenging/etc. but simply because of the money. Ever since then I’ve been taking a hard look at my career and actually lookin for an out of the tech industry. I’ll still be writing home brewed software and hacking my home appliances, but I’m now looking for “pursuing the money”.

Being self taught I naturally started exploring and learning other areas where I could make money in a way that I’m not exchanging time for money.

One of the options was day trading, specifically using technical analysis. Now, this is an interesting one and I personally know people that are “successful” in it (i.e. they are able to generate a huge amount of capital in shorter time that it would take with a high paying tech salary). But after reading experiences and books and trying it out I determined that it wasn’t for me. The market is essentially “neutral” in as much as, credentials/education/certifications/training… it all doesn’t matter, EVERYBODY loses money just the same. It’s also negatively biased since there are tons of fees and requires nerves of steel, even if for only 1 hour a day.

The other option I’ve been considering is Amazon FBA. It’s quite an attractive area since Amazon’s interest are aligned (partially) with sellers since they make money of commissions), thus the seller is proving with tons of tools and data to compete even with big and experienced seller, and if your product sells you keep getting ranked higher and getting promoted even if you are a small time seller.

Anyways, just wanted to share this because there are other options outside of software and the skills of a software engineer can be used to optimize workflows on other business models providing you with an advantage!

Good luck!

NO. You are fishing for confirmation and, sadly, a lot of people are giving you the answer you wanted.

Human motivation is a topic that has been researched very widely is psychology, neurology and so on. A quick search is enough to find [1].

Humans are not coin-operated robots. If you don't enjoy what you are doing, you risk running out of steam.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evidence-based-livin...

It’s actually what made me ask the question — contradiction between what i know about human motivation and what i don’t yet know about business.

Unlikely.

Of the base human motivations - money, ideology, conscience/coercion, ego, revenge, and sex - one of those is enough to get you out of bed (or keep you there depending) but you need at least two to keep you going during the hard times.

If nothing else, you will also need an ego big enough to be able to say "I/my team does X better than anyone else and it's my job to share that with people!" But then you need to keep your ego in check to understanding who can give useful feedback/advice and how to take it.

> Is it a good start for starting new project in tech world?

The answer is yes, You are skilled in a trade (software engineering) and want to sell what you make as a business, the motivation will always be money.

For example, A carpenter might be very passionate about woodworking but not necessarily about the TV cabinet that they are building. They build it anyway because there is a demand and they want to make a business out of what they know. Maybe you should start with small and manageable projects and see what clicks before going big.

You need to differentiate between making an income and making a profit.

SaaS is a resource sharing problem. If you can share the resources between different customers effectively it would be possible to make a profit once you scale up efficiently.

The technical problem is to build the software to be hyper efficient and scalable. The business problem is to acquire enough repeat customers.

Most startups are focused on speed to market or investor driven growth. Neither of which really helps the core problems

I figure most people that have done it and are doing it are doing it 'just for money'

Or 'mostly or primarily for money'

So all the folks on the indie hackers podcast, for instance

I am the opposite. I left a profitable business despite the money. I wanted to do something that for myself, developing my skills and satisfying.

What was the business about and why it didn’t let you develop skills etc?

Yes, I routinely ask/remind my cofounder that we’re in the money game

We are in the business of selling equity, credit, and consumer products

Making money is a good thing. Money can give you freedom and let you live the life you want to live. But to make the most money, you should focus not on the money itself, but rather on providing value. I highly recommend MJ DeMarco's book The Millionaire Fastlane for some insights on this.

I did, and it boosted my confidence 10x at my day job as a PM.

I still work full-time at another startup (again, I like making money) but now I have a good safety net to fall back on (if required) and I know my opinions can lead to successful outcomes.

I suspect most "profitable and lasting IT businesses" are motivated by money.

In fact, people who aren't afraid to get blood on their hands, and play dirty, are quite likely to succeed...monetarily (at least, in the US).

But there are costs. Despite the appearance, most people are not sociopaths, so how we make that money comes with a price (or a reward).

For myself, I built up a decent portfolio, over a long career; the old-fashioned way. I lived frugally, avoided debt like the plague, and saved as much as I possibly could, investing in relatively stable opportunities.

I'm not rich, but it allowed me to weather the very nasty response I got, when I searched for work, as an older developer.

These days, I'm working for free, on stuff that probably won't make any money, and I'm really enjoying it. This beats golf every day, like a lot of folks I know. In fact, I'm probably working harder than I ever have, in my life.

Personally, I believe that there's a lot to be said for living frugally, and avoiding personal debt; but this attitude seems to be heresy, these days.

I'd encourage you to noodle on your question through a more fundamental lens, might help you answer it:

A real* business is simply a system used to exchange value between parties.

*not a pyramid scheme-esq/etc/etc

...is there another reason to build a business?

I mean, sure, there's a lot of other axes to optimize on, but nobody builds a business that's completely divorced from a profit motive.

Now that we know what you want, what do you really want?

Now that you made me think, what is your _real_ point?

I wish there was an income estimation badge on HN )

To analyze correlation between it and comments’ attitudes about money/motivation.

Im sure it would be very insightful for everyone.

if you could cure disease just for the money I don't think anyone would hold it against you.

Actually, people hold that against companies all the time, most notably pharmaceutical companies.

The devil is in the details. People don't like when they feel like you are "milking" your cure "too much". And "too much" is relative.

good point

You’re on the right path. The thing about “making the world better” is that it isn’t getting better, no matter what we do. However, you can still make your own world better, and an important part of that is money. Not just for yourself, but for your descendants as well.

Yes, that is the main driver for making my side business.

Could you please elaborate about your side business - what is it about, how is it doing financially etc?

It’s just a small shopify app. It won’t make me rich but it pay the mortgage, car payment and then some.

This sounds awesome, to be honest (depending on the support & maintenance time it takes). What's the name of your app?

Money is a good motivator but can’t be the only one, in my opinion. Because you need something to keep you going even when there is no money coming in yet, or it stops flowing (e.g. you lose a large client).

Yo it's the fun aspect of starting and running companies why people do it. No job can come anywhere close to the satisfaction of being an entrepreneur. Think of it as a serious game. Talking about money and changing the world, only a very few people have that idea on their minds. Think of people like Elon Musk who are mad about their mission and bring out a revolutionary shift in the way things work. In the end, it's all about money. The only things that people do for free are charity drives.

1) Many comments say it's all about the money for everybody, not just OP

2) A few comments say that people have a true love for the craft

I think there is a third element missing:

3) People who want to be at the helm of a big, enormous organization but don't give a darn about money.

Kinda like building your own cruise ship and race to the North Pole against other people who built their own ships

Also kinda like a politician creating their own political party and gathering consensus bit by bit up until one day it has 3/4th of the seats and the founder is elected President/Prime Minister

Zuckerberg is exactly this profile, he turned down so much money for FB in the early days, and kept turning down money up until he turned down spectacularly 1 Billion in cash. There was no way Zuck was gonna hand the helm of the ship to somebody else and be helicoptered back to mainland. He was determined to remain at the helm and reach the North Pole, which in fact, he did.

Same for Bill Gates, he only gave up the helm when the US Govt. threatned to essentially bomb and blow up Microsoft's ship.

Related, the three categories you outlined above are described fairly well by the “Mountain Climber,” “Freedom Fighter” and “Craftsman” entrepreneurial types as defined by John Warrilow (and summarized well here: https://gallerosrobinson.com/insight-inside/what-is-your-ent...)

Don't you know that you must be motivated by ANYTHING except money? For some reason, money is the only thing that people say that you're not supposed to be motivated by. (being sarcastic)

Yes, you can be motivated solely by money. This is not to say that you can't be motivated by other things, too.

As a matter of fact, besides the elite in a society, most people are motivated solely by money. Example: You live in some crappy little town in the midwest. You have a high school diploma and that's it. There's only one decent employer within 200 miles that has decent jobs and wages. Somehow, you find yourself as a general manager and make $120,000 per year. You have a family with 5 children, in a 5 bedroom home with 5 acres, and you can't move because your wife's parents live nearby and have Alzheimers, so wife needs to stay in that town. You hate your job, can't stand it. But you stay there, at that job, because of the money. And, what are you going to do, move to the Bay Area and pay the $500K you sold your house for and buy a 1 bedroom condo that all 7 family members and the parents are going to live in?

And that's people who are doing well in a situation like that. There's all kinds of people working at McDonalds and Walmart solely for the money. Probably most of the USA.

Being happy in your job and motivated by it and fulfilled by it: first world problems of the elite in the first world.

So, yes, it is ok to be motivated only by money.

And I tell you what. If you work in a business that is fulfilling and you make $25K per year, but start selling cookware, which is, eh, average in your opinion, but start making $10 million per year, somehow, most people are going to start liking cookware a lot more and really get into it. For some mysterious reason.

And remember, you never want to be the CEO of a company. No you do not. You might have to start off that way, but eventually you should always hire a CEO or general manager if it is a smaller company. You want to be the Chair of the Board. Like Warren Buffet. He's not at Geico every day answering the phones or doing the actuarial tables. He just owns the stocks. I know a LOT of business owners that only come in for an hour or two each week, and let their GM do the grind.

We recently launched a SaaS book for beginners who want to learn how to build successful SaaS businesses online.

It explains the step-by-step process and helps you avoid making the common mistakes and thus saving months of time.

https://sunilkumarc.gumroad.com/l/kgtSS

My question to you….. did you START with passion drive enthusiasm and a sense of inherent drive? Has that now been replaced with the desire to succeed primarily for money?

If yes than that’s fine.

Maybe it’s even good, or better than your previous motivations.

Can you elaborate please?

Make something that solve a problem people are willing to pay for.

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