>What did you make?
Built a dozen Web Products for clients. I thought I could sustain developing Products for others. But unfortunately, payment was the biggest factor. If I charged someone $10,000 totally for a finished product, I would have been paid something like just $2-3k. Of course, I could revoke the license to my product or disable the product itself, but that didn't work out. Simply because my clients were confused. They would let the product stay alive for a couple of weeks, without marketing it, expect it to convert well and become rich overnight. And when that didn't happen, they would kill it. They would stop paying for the AWS boxes and Linodes. There went all my hardwork down the drain. And since it didn't work well, I would be paid just a fraction of the project's total cost. It was unfair, but it was a very valuable lesson. Right now, I charge 50% upfront and then proceed working on the project with well-defined milestones.
>What was your Plan?
My plan was only one thing. (Not joking). I wanted to buy a BMW 320d after building a dozen profitable web apps. The problem was, there were a lot of weak spots in my plan. (read below)
>What failed?
Working space - I live in an apartment. I assumed I could save couple of hundred dollars by working from my apartment instead of a posh office. I learnt that this is the last place where you should work. There is no motivation within an apartment. You eventually become lazy because everything is easily available to you - TV, BED, Dining, etc. So you lose focus much easily. When I was working in a company before, I was much productive. I would come home very late and still make some significant progress w.r.t to my Web apps (the ones I build for myself, not for clients). When I quit work, I thought I could use all this time for myself. I was wrong. My productivity went down. Drastically.
Team - I am a very fair person. I never like to live my life abusing someone else's hardwork. Because that's why MNC's exist (most of them). I hired some interns, they were really talented, but in the end, I didn't want them to work with me because I didn't want them to develop a web app in return for a couple of hundred dollars. Because that would be unfair. I tried seeking co-founders too, but the problem was I didn't like the idea of getting close to someone with a pre-determined self-benefit in mind. Because that would be a 'fake' relationship. Of course I did have some valuable friends who could have become great co-founders. Unfortunately, I figured out that they wouldn't be able to add value to my company (because I can code and design myself; I'm primarily a designer) and I shouldn't add anyone into the company for fuck's sake.
Burning the cash - I invested a LOT of money into buying domains. The problem with me is that I come up with some really really good ideas (and names) for startups. I would evaluate the idea's potential and quickly buy a domain name for it(simply because it would be available at that point). I invested over $1000-2000 in just domains. I didn't feel the pinch when I invested the first year. But the next year, especially when I was bootstrapping, it became a burden when these domains auto-renewed. If you are seeking for a great start-up name or a domain for it, please, please let me know!
Investors - Initially, I wanted to seek funding. I even applied to YC (and got rejected) as a single founder. But later, I was able to conclude that some (many) ideas don't require funding and can be monetized from day one. Hence I avoided a lot of investor meet-ups, camps, etc. and sat home working on my product (which is what I'm doing currently too). Because of this attitude, I'm forced to bootstrap. Bootstrapping teaches a lot of valuable lessons, but, you will feel much restricted without some 'cushion' cash with you. For example, if you thought a particular stockphoto would make your web app beautiful, but it costs $100, you would have to wait till you get a new client (which means you need to work on his product first, which will take more time to complete yours).
I wasted a lot of time arguing myself going with Play/Scala instead of ROR simply because it would scale well. Heck, I even learnt Scala simply for this reason and in the end, I realized it wasn't worth it, simply because ROR helps me (in my case) getting my idea up and running in no time (which is VERY important) rather than learning something complex and building my product with half-baked code. I realized I'd rather do it in ROR and have it re-written when I need to scale, because I would have the money to do it by then, obviously.
I also invested a lot in software at a very early stage. For example, I bought the Adobe Creative Production Premium 5.5 suite just for photoshop and After effects. While it's a really good bargain, I found myself short of cash in the following months. Of course I feel proud to own a legit copy of these softwares, but the compromise was painful in the sense that I had to work a lot to take back the money I invested in these softwares.
>Did you after a few months decide to go back to work for someone again?
Once you taste this kind of freedom, I think it's difficult to go back. I got offers from very prominent people, investors, MNC's to work on their ideas/products. But I simply refused because of my current lifestyle. In life, one thing I realized is that you should be the negotiator for your own life and not someone else. You should decide what you should do and how you should do to achieve what you want, and not someone else.
Despite these people giving me good offers (monetary-wise too) I decided not to work with them simply because they had their own rules. When I build something, I want to be a decision maker - I don't want to be following orders, simply because I'm getting paid. Currently, I'm working on my own product and also I am a freelance consultant for several start-ups helping them develop their MVP's and helping them choose what works best. I still have a couple of debts (=credit card), but I'm confident I'll clear them in no time. It's never about the money, it's always about the happiness.
I would like to remind everyone here of a beautiful quote -
'If you don't build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.'