What I Missed Working Solo
Hugo
Building a product alone is hard.
Not exactly breaking news, I know. But I don't think everyone gets why it's actually hard.
- Some say it's the financial risk.
- Others think it's not having all the necessary skills—development, sales, marketing, etc.
- And some imagine it can't scale.
I have trouble taking these three obstacles seriously. Developing software doesn't cost much, at least for building a prototype and testing it with small audiences. Scaling is a false problem. There are plenty of examples of solopreneurs making substantial revenue without needing to copy Netflix or Google. And even if it became an issue one day, that's what I'd call a good problem to have. As for learning, with blogs, online videos, and AI, it's now possible to do a lot on your own.
But that last point hides another problem. The issue isn't so much not having all the necessary skills, but not having conversations.
Why I Know This
I started working as a freelancer in 2010. And even though I loved it, I quickly connected with a group of Parisian freelancers called "les zindeps." In 2011, I created a kind of freelance collective, an experimental company called Lateral-thoughts.
That led to another company I founded in early 2013: Malt.
Working with others, at least for me, has always been an accelerator. Every discussion within these different groups created opportunities, little sparks that each lit fires, ultimately leading me to build a company with over 600 people.
So, first thing: group work is an echo chamber that stimulates creativity.
Working in a group is also motivation to do more. Again, this is obviously personal, but being in a group can make the difference between procrastination and action. I'm sensitive to social pressure, plus constantly being stimulated by new ideas.
Finally, working in a group allows you to challenge yourself. You're rarely right on your own. I love those discussions that sometimes challenge certainties, change your mind, and find more inventive solutions.
But I became a solopreneur again a year ago.
Going Solo Again
Over the past year, I launched rssfeedpulse, which became blogtally, then hakanai.io. I'm happy with the result—the product is nice. But let's be honest, it's growing slowly. There are probably many reasons for that. One of them is that working alone, I deprived myself of some creativity, I set fewer constraints for myself, and I had no pushback—either to pivot the product or even kill it.
I'm not going to do that. I'm not killing hakanai.io.
On the contrary, I'd like to test other approaches around the same concepts.
Trying Something Different
Not long ago, I talked with Thomas Sanlis. He's a solopreneur who's now entered the very exclusive circle of successful solopreneurs with uneed.best, which is gradually becoming a solid alternative to Product Hunt. He also wanted to test other ideas and work with a partner for more stimulation.
So we talked and decided to try an experiment together on a new product.
I'll focus on what I love most: designing and building products. Thomas will bring his new skills in communication and marketing. Though obviously, given our respective backgrounds, there will be plenty of moments where we'll do a bit of everything.
That product is writizzy. It's a blogging platform, like Ghost or WordPress, but simpler, more modern, and more affordable. It obviously connects to the fact that I've been blogging for 20 years, created an open-source static blog generator called bloggrify, and hakanai was already aimed at becoming a toolkit for static blogs.
This conversation happened just two weeks ago, the product is already live, and in just two weeks I've already felt the benefits I was talking about—not working alone.
We'll see what happens next :)