Lessons learned in SaaS startups: Chapter 1. Breathe.
I’m now in my 9th startup… I think.
The truth is I’ve lost count of how many startups I’ve launched.
I have had times where I have spent coding through the night and burning through coffee at weekends whilst getting a backache because I’ve been sitting at a chair in a lonely spare room building my next big app.
I’ve also had times where I have sat around an N64 with my employees, sipping on a cold beer and relaxing while we talk about the next sprint.
That’s where I’m at now actually. We’re about to go out for Happy Hour on a Friday afternoon because we spent the morning working hard setting up a local development server.
The key thing I’ve learnt, probably above all, is to just BREATHE.
It’s better to build a great app, and enjoy doing it, perhaps at the cost of it being launched a little later than your last startup, than to rush it out of the door ridden with bugs and with you feeling really stressed and unhappy.
I love building startups. I also love building great apps. I’ve built too many too quickly, and looking back at them now can see how poorly coded they are (not the ones currently in production, don’t worry!), and would just wish I had spent a bit longer thinking it through.
If I had thought it through with others with a beer buzz, it might have been really amazingly coded — surprisingly.
Some people say you have to sleep in your car, eat Ramen noodles, work every hour that God sends, sacrifice everything, and give up friendships and family so you can build a great product.
I say, “Relax”, and just enjoy the ride.
Do you realize that you have the opportunity and the skills to create something really beautiful and stunning? Best still, you can create something that other people will love and find useful in their lives.
Breathe.
