Day 928 - Criteria for small bets - https://golifelog.com/posts/criteria-for-small-bets-1689559534344
An old tweet from [@dvassallo](https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1582380596395143169) about his criteria for small bets. A timely reminder as I'm thinking through and filtering out ideas for new products:
> My selection criteria for new business:
> - Can I bring this to market in under a month?
> - Can I bring this to market on my own?
> - Is this something people are already accustomed to buying?
> - Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost?
> Must be a Yes on all points.
To test if it's helpful, it's interesting to just run through my current projects and think from the initial days:
### Outsprint
- Can I bring this to market in under a month? Yes, service businesses are easy to start. Low upfront capital. Just a business registration and a paying customer and you're off. You don't even need a website or logo!
- Can I bring this to market on my own? I 100% did. Even though it's a consultancy agency service, I scoped out a business model that works solo.
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying? Yes, gov folks were already commissioning many such projects. And there's an opportunity for a lower cost, smaller scoped model.
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost? Not including effort for some marketing, it's zero cost to upkeep. Services don't cost money maintain. Marketing is mainly face-to-face networking, word of mouth, and via LinkedIn.
- Conclusion: This checks off all the boxes and that's why this business is how I started and remains the only income stream feeding the family.
### Lifelog
- Can I bring this to market in under a month? Nope I didn't. This was a big coding project. First time ever making a SaaS and a paid one. No experience whatsoever with Nuxt.js and Heroku. I learned everything on the job.
- Can I bring this to market on my own? Yes I did but just barely. Couldn't have done this without a lot of help from friends who are devs.
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying? On hindsight, not really. I thought there's a opportunity because there's a sizeable community in the prior 200 words a day platform. But it shut down because not enough paying customers. That should have been a red flag. But I would have done it in a heartbeat again even with benefit of this hindsight, because I needed and *wanted* a community and platform to write daily. What I would have done differently would be to have lower expectations and not overfocus on it, certainly not for 2 years.
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost? The cost is non-zero but affordable. Amongst my different projects, this projects costs the most to upkeep. But okay it's not expensive – at around $30/month is manageable.
- Conclusion: Saying no to 2 out of the 4 criteria is a red flag already. Could be why I continue to struggle with growth for Lifelog. But I'm happy with it's current status now as a passion project, as a weekend side project.
### Plugins for Carrd
- Can I bring this to market in under a month? Yes I did. I didn't even have a website when I started. I simply posted a free plugin which I finished in a day on Carrd communities and started from there.
- Can I bring this to market on my own? Yes. Many Carrd communities found on social media platforms like Reddit and Facebook. I started by posting on Indie Hackers.
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying? There was no market for paid plugins yet at the time I started, but I validated there was some demand through my early free plugins, and interacting with customers who asked if I had plugins for some key features like a mobile navbar. What I didn't and **couldn't** have known is the size of the market and price sensitivity of customers, which I'm only just learning after 9 months of going hard on growing it.
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost? Minimal cost. Other than a Pro subscription on Carrd which was $19 per ***year***, it was just the effort for marketing and creating new plugins.
- Conclusion: It checks off all the boxes at the start, thus that could explain why it succeeded in the initial days. But I feel I'm hitting the upper limit of its potential now. So I'd say the criteria still holds except I might need a different/new set of criteria for assessing sustainability and long term growth? 🤔
### Sheet2Bio
- Can I bring this to market in under a month? Yes I did. I re-used old code from a F&B project I did. I didn't have sign up flows or payments integrated for the MVP. Even the landing page was raw HTML! (Which on hindsight was a risky bet – first impression matter)
- Can I bring this to market on my own? Yes I did. It's a relatively simple SaaS idea at the core.
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying? Not really. Linktree was free. Most link-in-bio tools are free. Having to pay upfront for access didn't gel with the anchor bias from the incumbent apps. The differentiating features like charts could have been too niche for indie hackers.
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost? Yes no infrastructure costs. Hosting on Netlify was free. But might not be true in long term.
- Conclusion: I think the 3rd factor was the dealbreaker here. And as it should. Without paying customers, it's not a business. Funny thing is, the other 3 factors are a yes. So not all factors are created equal.
So how I'd tweak the criteria for myself:
- Can I bring this to market in under 1-2 months?
- Can I bring this to market on my own skills, networks, resources?
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying?
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost?
- Am I interested in this problem? Do I love hanging out with the community?
- (To assess after MVP stage, maybe 6 months) What's the market size for it, over long term?
I changed the timebox to 1-2 months because as an indie parent and with my consulting projects, I can't ship that fast. Having some interest in the problem/community is important factor for myself as an indie. I can't just build just for money. I don't need it to be my calling though, but some degree of interest has to be there. And the last factor is what I learned from my plugins project regarding market size.
*What other criteria do you consider for making your small bets?*
> My selection criteria for new business:
> - Can I bring this to market in under a month?
> - Can I bring this to market on my own?
> - Is this something people are already accustomed to buying?
> - Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost?
> Must be a Yes on all points.
To test if it's helpful, it's interesting to just run through my current projects and think from the initial days:
### Outsprint
- Can I bring this to market in under a month? Yes, service businesses are easy to start. Low upfront capital. Just a business registration and a paying customer and you're off. You don't even need a website or logo!
- Can I bring this to market on my own? I 100% did. Even though it's a consultancy agency service, I scoped out a business model that works solo.
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying? Yes, gov folks were already commissioning many such projects. And there's an opportunity for a lower cost, smaller scoped model.
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost? Not including effort for some marketing, it's zero cost to upkeep. Services don't cost money maintain. Marketing is mainly face-to-face networking, word of mouth, and via LinkedIn.
- Conclusion: This checks off all the boxes and that's why this business is how I started and remains the only income stream feeding the family.
### Lifelog
- Can I bring this to market in under a month? Nope I didn't. This was a big coding project. First time ever making a SaaS and a paid one. No experience whatsoever with Nuxt.js and Heroku. I learned everything on the job.
- Can I bring this to market on my own? Yes I did but just barely. Couldn't have done this without a lot of help from friends who are devs.
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying? On hindsight, not really. I thought there's a opportunity because there's a sizeable community in the prior 200 words a day platform. But it shut down because not enough paying customers. That should have been a red flag. But I would have done it in a heartbeat again even with benefit of this hindsight, because I needed and *wanted* a community and platform to write daily. What I would have done differently would be to have lower expectations and not overfocus on it, certainly not for 2 years.
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost? The cost is non-zero but affordable. Amongst my different projects, this projects costs the most to upkeep. But okay it's not expensive – at around $30/month is manageable.
- Conclusion: Saying no to 2 out of the 4 criteria is a red flag already. Could be why I continue to struggle with growth for Lifelog. But I'm happy with it's current status now as a passion project, as a weekend side project.
### Plugins for Carrd
- Can I bring this to market in under a month? Yes I did. I didn't even have a website when I started. I simply posted a free plugin which I finished in a day on Carrd communities and started from there.
- Can I bring this to market on my own? Yes. Many Carrd communities found on social media platforms like Reddit and Facebook. I started by posting on Indie Hackers.
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying? There was no market for paid plugins yet at the time I started, but I validated there was some demand through my early free plugins, and interacting with customers who asked if I had plugins for some key features like a mobile navbar. What I didn't and **couldn't** have known is the size of the market and price sensitivity of customers, which I'm only just learning after 9 months of going hard on growing it.
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost? Minimal cost. Other than a Pro subscription on Carrd which was $19 per ***year***, it was just the effort for marketing and creating new plugins.
- Conclusion: It checks off all the boxes at the start, thus that could explain why it succeeded in the initial days. But I feel I'm hitting the upper limit of its potential now. So I'd say the criteria still holds except I might need a different/new set of criteria for assessing sustainability and long term growth? 🤔
### Sheet2Bio
- Can I bring this to market in under a month? Yes I did. I re-used old code from a F&B project I did. I didn't have sign up flows or payments integrated for the MVP. Even the landing page was raw HTML! (Which on hindsight was a risky bet – first impression matter)
- Can I bring this to market on my own? Yes I did. It's a relatively simple SaaS idea at the core.
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying? Not really. Linktree was free. Most link-in-bio tools are free. Having to pay upfront for access didn't gel with the anchor bias from the incumbent apps. The differentiating features like charts could have been too niche for indie hackers.
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost? Yes no infrastructure costs. Hosting on Netlify was free. But might not be true in long term.
- Conclusion: I think the 3rd factor was the dealbreaker here. And as it should. Without paying customers, it's not a business. Funny thing is, the other 3 factors are a yes. So not all factors are created equal.
So how I'd tweak the criteria for myself:
- Can I bring this to market in under 1-2 months?
- Can I bring this to market on my own skills, networks, resources?
- Is this something people are already accustomed to buying?
- Can I keep this on the market at almost no cost?
- Am I interested in this problem? Do I love hanging out with the community?
- (To assess after MVP stage, maybe 6 months) What's the market size for it, over long term?
I changed the timebox to 1-2 months because as an indie parent and with my consulting projects, I can't ship that fast. Having some interest in the problem/community is important factor for myself as an indie. I can't just build just for money. I don't need it to be my calling though, but some degree of interest has to be there. And the last factor is what I learned from my plugins project regarding market size.
*What other criteria do you consider for making your small bets?*