
Help Me HN: I am getting overwhelmed - s_extra_s
I am 19, student and javascript developer, I am currently the only one working on a small developer tool that has become quite popular but I am getting overwhelmed and having hard time managing everything.
All the bug reports, support tickets, continuing my bachelors, managing sales and all has become a chore, I am currently not sure about solid business strategy and I am only earning around 4-5K per month so I can not hire anyone to work with me. Any advice would be helpful.<p>Sorry for my terrible english.
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madaxe_again
4-5k a month is more than enough to make a hire. Think of it this way:

What is your time worth to you?

Would you rather work your ass off and make 5k, or have a sane workload, make
2k for a while, which then rises as you have adequate internal infrastructure
to support growing sales and users?

It sounds like you have a good thing going, and I'd strongly recommend at
looking to get another pair of hands involved - or close it down.

~~~
VBprogrammer
As he apologised for his English (which as an aside is perfectly acceptable)
I'd assume that figure isn't in dollars or pound sterling. Possibly euros but
that again would seem to be enough to get someone else involved in the
project.

~~~
31reasons
As we know there not just 3 currencies in the world. It could be Yen, Rupee or
Ugandan shilling or any one of the 180 currencies.

~~~
madaxe_again
Sure, but why provide the information if it's in Triganic Pu - I think it's
fair to assume he meant USD, unless otherwise indicated, otherwise it's just
an utterly contextless number.

~~~
dholowiski
Why would that be safe to assume? Most of us don't use use usd, just a small,
vocal minority.

~~~
madaxe_again
Look, dickbrain, I don't use USD either, but this isn't a political argument,
it's just that when people give an amount without a currency they typically
mean USD.

The OP could clarify this but has chosen not to.

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traviswingo
I think you have a problem most people your age would love to have. That being
said, I get it. It's easy to get burnt out - especially when you're trying to
continue your education at the same time. If I were in your position, I would
definitely look to my fellow classmates or any friends I had that would be a
good fit. I'd probably bring on one more person (maybe two, depending on what
they could help me with) and split everything evenly between the two of us. If
the tool you've created is that popular, everyone working on it will be in a
great position down the road. You'll either be able to turn it into a full-
time business, or leverage the crap out of it when you go out looking for a
full-time position elsewhere (companies will love hearing about it). Either
way, you've been hit with a blessing - I wouldn't give up on it just because
it got too popular for you to handle. That's a great thing. Congrats!

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simplyluke
You have two effective options unless you can make school & the project
management more efficient.

1) Put the project on hold until you're done with school

2) Put school on hold until you're done with the project or can afford to hire
people to deal with it while you're in school.

Unfortunately, there's only so much time in a day and you need to sleep some.
Priorities suck.

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unknownzero
What a great problem to have.

I can't tell you much about managing the coding part, but I've got experience
getting solid support systems up and running for developer-type products. Feel
free to drop me an email if you'd like to bounce ideas back and forth on what
you're doing and what might help make the load more manageable. I may be able
to help with some of it too for cheap/free time permitting. Good luck either
way!

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jimt222
Have you talked to your school about what you are doing? They may be able to
1) give you credit for what you are doing and /or 2) assign other students to
help you for class credit.

Also count your blessings, there are a lot of people your age who would love
to have your problem.

~~~
protomyth
or, sadly, with some schools 3) decide they own the copyright on your work
while you are a student

best wish and good luck

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saluki
focus on getting your bachelors, continue that for sure.

If 4-5k per month is in dollars I would look in to hiring a part time person
to help out with bug reports/support tickets to free up some of your time.
Finding someone good might be tough, but look first in your circle of friends.
I expect a fellow student would be looking for some extra spending money. Test
out a few of your friends for the position.

Other than that it sounds like you've built a great tool that's making good
revenue.

[http://startupsfortherestofus.com](http://startupsfortherestofus.com) has
some great information that can help you I would start listening to those
especially the ones relating to the problems you're going through right now.

Last thought is maybe relaxing some, setup an autoresponder to bug reports and
tickets that you have received their bug/request and allow yourself some time
on the non-critical ones.

Good luck, sounds like you're on the right track.

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johndevor
Going to disagree with a lot of people, but drop out of school for a semester.
I did that and I don't regret it in the least. School was a large waste of
time and it took me a long time to see that. YMMV.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Most hiring managers I have worked with completely ignore schoolwork. It often
ends up being a poor predictor of actual working ability.

~~~
reboog711
I can't imagine why any hiring person would look at schoolwork. But, the value
of a college diploma is not to have schoolwork to show potential employers.

The value of a diploma is that it shows potential employers that that you can
put your mind to something and see it through to completion.

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BrianEatWorld
I agree with some of the other commenters that a hire sounds like the way to
go. Unless something is lost in translation, such as the currency, 4-5K is
plenty. If not a developer, then someone in sales, which can potentially be a
commission based system.

Also, think about switching to ramen for a few months. Thats the part of
startup life that you tend to not see in the movies and magazines. Pre-seed
tends to involve ramen. Lots and lots of ramen.

~~~
bdcravens
_think about switching to ramen_

Though it's temporary, and somewhat romanticized (I still eat ramen), that's a
terrible suggestion health-wise :-) I think dry beans + crock pot + rice is a
better, low cost diet.

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codingdave
Across the board, you need to prioritize.

Do you need to "manage sales", if your current userbase is already
overhwelming? Or can you find someone to to that work for you, and be paid on
commission only?

Can you outsource at least the intial response to support tickets, so you only
need to worry about 2nd tier responses?

Are you prioritizing new coding toward reducing support tickets?

Is there any automation that can be done to streamline your daily tasks,
either for school or for this work?

Frankly, can you slack off on your schoolwork a bit? Unless you plan on grad
school, your final GPA at college is not really all that important. (Within
reason -- drop from a 3.5 to a 3.0 is OK, but from a 3.5 to a 2.0 might be a
mistake.)

Can you reduce your monthly personal expenses, to help afford to hire someone?
Are these other ways to simplify your personal life?

In general, you need to performance tune your life. Fix all the small stuff
before worrying about major changes.

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late2part
Bring in a partner. If you find the right partner and give them 25-50% of the
business (or earn-in over time/vesting) then your pie can grow. I have free
time if it's valuable, a lot of other people would love to work 5-10
hours/week for 1-3k/month, especially if they knew it could grow!

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adventured
Recruit someone, on a contracting basis, for $15 / hour, to do support
responses. Pay that person 70 or 80 hours per month. Adjust the hourly as
desirable to get the kind of person you need.

Have that person also build a very comprehensive FAQ, if one does not exist.
They can also process any time consuming sales routines for you (refunds,
billing questions, whatever). If they're any good at basic sales, you can give
them a commission for selling which might get their income up to near full-
time after a while.

Begin slightly restricting what kind of support tickets you'll handle
(specifically begin to make it abundantly clear to users that if their
question is in the FAQ, all you're going to get is pointed to the FAQ; ratchet
that up to whatever degree is necessary).

~~~
victorantos
I usually charge £400-£450 per day but I could work for you at a lower rate
for a short time, £15-£20/hour for 2-3 weeks while I am waiting for my next
contract to start.

~~~
Timucin
So market is slow for everyone ha? =)

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Raphmedia
Could you find a friend that would be willing to split time with you? Not an
employee but a partner. Sure, you will lose half the profit (make sure you put
it in writing that the situation is temporary), but it is better than being
completely overwhelmed.

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jchung
Small add here, but if you do decide to recruit some help, I might consider
starting with your users. By "developer tool", I presume you mean a tool for
developers. That means that you have a talented user base. Might not be a bad
idea to post a message to your forum, or post a notification to your app, or
email your users. I wouldn't phrase it as "I'm overwhelmed", but saying
something like "This is a powerful tool supported by a single CS student, and
I'd love to bring in some help to advance development and/or respond to user
needs. Does anyone want to contribute to the project?"

Keep in mind that if this is your first time managing others, it will require
some up-front investment of time. Managing people is difficult, but not
impossible to become very good at. My advice for you at the outset is to be
really clear and consistent about your goals, and to be open and honest with
your community about the experiment you're undergoing. They'll give you a lot
of credit for doing this as a student, and I think you'll find they have more
patience than you think.

If stress becomes a problem, consider speaking with a professional about that
(e.g., through your University), or practicing meditation and mindfulness.
Good luck!

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AngeloAnolin
Have you ever considered providing someone a stake at your product / service?
That way, people whom you would get will have in their mind that the success
of your product / service will ultimately be good for their bottom line. Be
transparent that you would not be able to provide a decent salary. But be sure
that once the business model is thriving and growing, reward those people
who've helped you and stuck with you during the the trying times.

Good luck.

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brador
Take a year out of studying, work on business. If it goes well, great, if not,
go back to studies.

Ask yourself, why are you studying? what's it for? A good job?. Why do you
want a good job/career? for money? Well here you have an opportunity to skip
the qualification step and get straight to the end goal.

I say go for it. You'll learn more about yourself and your worth in one year
of business then you ever will studying.

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Joona
Do you have a forum for the users? The amount of help your users can provide
to each other is massive.

~~~
s_extra_s
Yes, I have a forum but can't reply often because I am busy working on coding
part.

~~~
Joona
Do you direct users there for troubleshooting etc?

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zamalek
What I would do is make an investment in future time by spending time now:
write the code to automate as much as possible. For example, why are you
actually managing sales?

Prioritize until things calm down. Are you accepting feature requests? Stop
doing that until you nail down a stable release.

Don't have a heart attack. Stress can seriously kill you. If it becomes too
much start considering exit strategies (yes, that means selling it). 4-5K a
month isn't much, but it's impressive as I'm guessing you aren't even
marketing it - you could make a nice bit of cash by making it someone else's
problem.

Your happiness and health comes first.

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davidw
4-5 K is more than enough to hire someone to help with support part-time, via
something like oDesk. As a bonus, you could probably hire someone who speaks
English as their native language.

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nextw33k
You need to clarify the 4-5K per month, its being assumed it's US Dollars.

If it were Rupees or Yen then I'd get your point and suggest you sell the
revenue source. But do it in a way that works as a double win. Find a
development shop that will take you on part time and buy the tool. You'll get
a lump sum and a steady job, they'll get a proven money maker and motivated
employee.

This is one of those nice problems to have.

In the mean time, get community member(s) to be a bug triager and forum voice.
Communicate through them.

~~~
s_extra_s
It's USD.

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jurihandl
4K is enough to hire someone. So you're a student and you're working on this
side project. There are many others like you who don't want to work full time
but have some time left while studying. Maybe you should get another student
or basically any person who fits your needs and wants to work 15-20h a week?
You you don't have to pay them as much and you get more time for the core
programming and studying.

By the way: What tool are you working on?

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bengali3
Can you hire a VA to handle your most basic support/ reply? bug capture,
reproducing, basic troubleshooting, email etc?

Episode 196- how to use a va in your startup
[http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-196](http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-196)

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sgricci
That's a solid position to be in. I can understand it can become overwhelming.
I don't think dropping school is a very good option, unless you think you've
learned as much as you can. I'd love to figure out how to help out. Contact me
(email is in my profile) and maybe I can help in some way.

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hotgoldminer
Gauge your level of passion in the product. If you really care about it and
find it rewarding, by all means leave school and hire a 2nd. If not, possibly
hire a second anyway and leave the day-to-day to them while you focus on
school or turn the project over to one of your users--sell it.

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GotAnyMegadeth
Not sure how the pricing of your service works, but try increasing the price.
If you do it carefully you might reduce the number of customers (and therefore
bug reports) and not change your take home.

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thepredestrian
OP, if you are serious about needing help, I'd love to offer my services for
free. I am the same age as you and would love to take this project on to
explore and develop myself in this aspect.

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s_extra_s
Thanks a lot everyone for your suggestions, I feel great being part of this
great community. I apologize of not disclosing the currency upfront (you know
my english ). It's USD. Thanks again.

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atmosx
Don't hire anyone, find a partner and share responsibilities. That's how
business grows. You should be happy, you have a very good income, especially
considering your age.

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ashraful
Why not list the name of the tool here. Maybe someone will offer to help you
out for free, or in exchange for equity if the product has the potential to
generate revenue.

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reybango
What's the tool/project? If it's popular and you're struggling, a lot of folks
may not know about it and may step up to help out.

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bonn1
1\. Put the studies on suspend for a while

2\. Try to get a developer who can support you, should not be to hard

3\. Try to scale your business

Where are you based?

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roflchoppa
im interested in assisting with a project like this, currently studying as a
CS major as well, I just also need an excuse to quit my job and focus on
studying/working on projects that interest me more. PM me if you are
interested!

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jkot
Hire remote assistent in India or Philipines, offer good pay. Quit school for
semester.

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readme
Figure out your schedule. Tons of students have full time jobs. Prioritize
your time.

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wildpeaks
You could get a fulltime dev from Europe at 2k/mo if the workload is too much.

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SMDM
Go to the thefoundation.com or hire a co-founder on assembly.com. Hope that
helps.

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mukesh2687
Hey, I can help on the communication part and managing the forum. Rest
assured, I won't charge anything. Let me know your email, I will get in touch.

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g8gggu89
What tool is this???

And your English is fine!

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drostie
Asking for help is a good way to start. HN can sometimes be very harsh or
critical, so I hope that you are happy with your responses.

If you are 19 then you are probably worried about disappointing users,
parents, and other people. You need to understand something important, which I
will give to you in a story. Think like you're a professional chef, and your
kitchen gets overwhelmed: I will tell you, your customers will wait an hour
for their food to come out, if that food is good. Obviously you don't want to
make them wait an hour, obviously they will be impatiently staring at their
watches, but all of that will be forgiven if what they're waiting for is good.
Similarly, a good product will be much easier to sell, when you have time for
it. So: if you start thinking of yourself as an adult and a professional, do
not be afraid of making your clients wait. You have professional courtesy:
they want your product, and they will wait, within reason.

If you want, universities make it very easy to take a year away from your
studies: it's called a "leave of absence" in English. You can thus spend a
year focusing on your tool without abandoning your studies, if you want.

If you really want to hire another developer, you may be able to borrow money,
especially since you've proven that you're making money. Check out what banks
will offer you in terms of loans.

You can do both at once, but you must be single-minded. If you want some
inspiration, read the Water Book of the Book of Five Rings by Musashi -- it's
freely available as public domain online. Pay attention to what he says about
_striking_ ( _cutting_ , in many translations): "When you wield your sword,
your intent must be to strike the enemy. As you strike him your grip must
remain, your hands must not flinch. Even if you parry the enemy's sword, only
change your thumb and forefinger a little. Most importantly, you must hold the
sword intent on striking the enemy. Your grip is the same in theory and
practice: grip the sword as if you want to kill a man... Striking and slashing
are two different things. However you strike, the act is decisive and resolute
in your heart. Slashing is just touching the enemy. Even when slashing with
vigor, even when the enemy dies, it is merely slashing. When you strike, your
heart is resolved: you must learn to appreciate the difference. If you do
slash the enemy's hands or legs, follow it up with a powerful strike. Slashing
at heart is no different from touching with a sword. One who understands
cannot tell the difference."

Similarly, if you want to make a dent in your work, you have to put your whole
heart into the strike. You have to have the intent to destroy some bug, to get
rid of some task, to finish some homework. It is very different from just
investigative coding and meandering: it is singleminded and heartfelt. It
comes with a certain joy/euphoria when it is over and you have made the change
-- and this is addictive.

If you approach both your studies and your tool with singleminded intensity,
you can do both at once. If you do not approach them this way, then work will
pile up on one of them until you are overwhelmed by numbers.

If you already _are_ overwhelmed by the amount of work, do not fear. Most
people, especially teenagers, underestimate how much power patience and
persistence have. A tiny river over time erodes a canyon; a sink will still
drain, no matter the water flowing into it, if you can free up whatever is
clogging it. Actually, this is the deep truth about how magic works: You say
"how could that magician have known I would randomly draw the four of clubs,"
not letting yourself think that he or she might have simply taken 50 decks of
cards, pulled out the four of clubs from all of them, and put them together
into one deck, so that you had no choice. If someone can't see your patient
actions, the results will be indistinguishable from magic.

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JCJoverTCP
have you considered hiring an intern?

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nsxwolf
Humblebrag, sorry.

