
How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So - lj3
http://www.sizefivegames.com/2017/05/04/how-to-survive-as-a-solo-dev-for-like-a-decade-or-so/
======
raamdev
> I find it astonishing that startup indie devs pay out for an office, with
> all the extra bills that entails. Work from home, keep your overheads as
> close to zero as possible.

I've been a solo dev for nearly a decade (8 years) and I found that sometimes
it makes complete sense to pay for an office. Before my daughter was born, I
was able to work from almost anywhere: noisy cafes, at home, the library, etc.
But after she was born it was like my brain needed a space away from home
where I could close a door and have a room all to myself, a place where I
couldn't hear family sounds or be within walking distance of anyone I knew. I
tried cafes and libraries but, oddly, they no longer worked for me—the noise
and the people walking by suddenly became a huge distraction. I couldn't
focus. I decided to rent a tiny artist studio for $350/mo that I found on
CraigsList and it was the best $350 that I spent each month in terms of direct
impact on my ability to get work done.

~~~
hire_charts
$350/mo seems _extremely_ reasonable for a quiet studio. I don't think that's
the kind of office expense the poster was talking about. For instance, in NYC,
$350/month would barely get you a "hot desk" (i.e. chair at a table) in a
coworking space.

~~~
pjc50
Yes, but if you're self-funded every dollar is taken out of your "runway".

~~~
gwbas1c
Or out of your profit, assuming you're making money. :)

~~~
Arizhel
Partially. It's a business expense, so at least you get to deduct it from your
taxes.

------
karmajunkie
This would be more accurately titled, "I survived 10 years as a solo developer
and here are the choices I made". Here's my version:

1) Craftsmen pay good money for their tools. Invest in your office space,
whether its a dedicated space in your home or a coworking membership. But be
honest about what tools you need. You probably don't need a $1000 aeron chair.
But you do need one that's comfortable. You probably don't need that super-
cool triple-panel 17" laptop Razer pumped at CES for web development. You
probably do need something with enough RAM to run a few VMs sometimes.

2) Outsource everything that doesn't make you money or that you aren't good
at. Taxes and bookkeeping, for example. But know enough about it so you can
tell if you've hired good help there.

3) Invest in yourself. Learn some new technology at least once a year—whether
thats a framework, a language, or a skill like design. Go to at least one
regional conference, and at least one national conference if you can afford
it.

4) Work the shit out of your network. Set a limit on how many unpaid lunch
meetings you'll take to hear about other people's problems, and always try to
find a way to help them even if you don't wind up taking the job. And then try
to hit your limit most of the time. Farm favors like they're a cash crop.

5) Find a way to keep yourself accountable, whether that's a mentor, a coach,
or an accountability partner. We all need someone to keep us honest about our
motivations and rationalizations from time to time.

6) Try to exercise some self control over how many self-indulgent HN comments
you make in a given period of time. :)

~~~
ChemicalWarfare
>> You probably don't need a $1000 aeron chair...

my most productive setup is a self-made workshop desk and a $40 craftsman
workshop stool :)

~~~
throwanem
Not gonna lie, I'm in love with my Aeron at home. I've never had such a
comfortable chair. But I'm building a desk from scratch to go with it - just a
few more coats of polyurethane and a weekend spent getting it set up, and I'm
good to go.

Tips from the process:

\- The "get a solid core door and stick legs on it" process really works. You
don't need to get fancy unless you want to - legs can be as simple as chunks
of 4x4 cut to length and mounted with right-angle brackets and lag screws, and
you don't need to be remotely competent at carpentry to get a solid result.
(But if possible, get a door that isn't veneered, because that'll have a
microscopically thin layer of wood veneer over several layers of what's
basically cardboard, which is just terrible to try and work. $70 versus $300
isn't nothing, though, and you can work with a veneered door if you have to.)

\- Iron acetate stain really works, too, but you need to know what you're
doing, and you need to test on a scratch piece of the same wood first. I let
the steel wool soak about 18 hours and got a very handsome steel-gray result.
Then I stupidly put on a second coat without testing, and got a medium brown
that's still decent but not what I was going for.

\- If you don't have shop space, you can get away without it, but be prepared
to put in more effort as a consequence. I'm doing all the work, including
staining and sealing, in my ~600sf one-bedroom apartment's living room. A
circular saw is pretty much a non-starter, but that's okay; a miter saw will
go through 4x4s with enough effort, and you can hand-drill pilot holes for lag
screws. (A drill press stand is preferable, though.) A dropcloth or two
preserves the carpet from stain and sealer drips. The only hard part was
getting an eighty-pound door up three flights of stairs - I don't want to do
that again!

\- Iron acetate-stained wood will smell of rust to the touch forever, so you
really need to seal it. General Finishes water-based polyurethane is
effectively odorless; where the vinegar reek of the stain lingered for hours
even with the windows open, the sealant doesn't smell at all even while it's
being applied.

\- It's a really nice feeling to build a piece of really solid furniture out
of wood with your own two hands and have it exactly meet your needs. I highly
recommend it!

~~~
jdmichal
You can also get something like this:

[http://www.homedepot.com/p/Simpson-Strong-Tie-Workbench-
or-S...](http://www.homedepot.com/p/Simpson-Strong-Tie-Workbench-or-Shelving-
Hardware-Kit-WBSK/205177374)

Comes with brackets and screws for all the joints. You just buy the wood and
make the cuts. I got some thick MDF for the top and shelf instead of plywood,
which is something I definitely recommend if you're going to use it as a desk-
type surface instead of a working surface.

------
enraged_camel
>>> Don’t spend any money: Do as much as you can yourself. If you can’t afford
it, don’t pay someone to make assets that you could do yourself. What’s more,
do you really need to hire a full time coder? Or can you just hire a
freelancer for a month? If you don’t have money, make the sound effects
yourself.

Nah. As a solo dev you need to spend your time efficiently.

You can go to Fiverr and pay literally $5 for stuff like that. Sure, what you
get won't be amazing, but it will be passable and it is pretty much guaranteed
to be better than what you can create as a pure beginner.

That is far more preferable to spending hours or days (or maybe even weeks)
learning to do it yourself.

~~~
Alex3917
> That is far more preferable to spending hours or days (or maybe even weeks)
> learning to do it yourself.

It depends whether you're trying to maximize your income over the next year or
over the lifespan of your career. Investing in yourself by taking the time to
learn technical skills and also develop your aesthetic taste in different
areas of design is usually going to pay dividends in the longterm far beyond
whatever immediate benefit you'd get by outsourcing this.

Once you know how to do it yourself, then by all means find a consultant to do
it for you, but until then it's just a risky shortcut that's not likely to
work out.

~~~
fencepost
By all means enrich yourself and learn new things, but don't delay your game
for 5 years so you can teach yourself how to draw, use proper proportions on
figures, color, etc. (on your own because why pay a teacher?). Remember that
you're in business, and even if you're a solo dev it's not all about you and
your personal growth, it's about whether your business can deliver.

The good advice from a conference this past weekend: "if I was hiring, would I
hire myself to do this job?"

------
throw9966
The best advice that I got was don't quit your full time job. My desktop
sharewares dont sell that often nowadays, but its enough to pay my rent and
monthly expenses. The salary that I get from my full time job goes direct to
my bank untouched.

> "Working from a cafe"

100% agree. For me, no work gets done from a cafe. I wonder what work people
do by sitting at Starbucks. I cant write one line of code if I am being
constantly distracted. Does anyone feel different ?

~~~
p0nce
Doing this very often. Abstracting the background noise and conversation is a
skill that can be trained.

It's even better in public libraries, because the noise is 10x lower than the
typical open-space environment. You also make random encounters which usually
turns out great.

The only things that could be a blocker is music with vocals, for that I use
earbuds.

I tend to think of different places like psychological anchors, each one good
for a particular type of work.

Moving physically itself is a powerful reward for accomplished tasks.

~~~
badloginagain
+1 for libraries. Support your local library!

More importantly, if you can relegate the hustle and noise from a cafe into
white noise, you'll be doing yourself a favour if you end up working in a
crowded office. A loud office is the worst kind of problem, because it's
rarely a dealbreaker- meaning you have to endure it.

~~~
p0nce
It's harder in the office because it's a social group, the chatter may talk
about you, your project, etc.. So the expectation is that you listen to it.

------
hartator
> Sit down and do some fucking work. Don’t go for a coffee, that’s not work
> and you know that’s not work, no you’re not ‘working from the cafe’ stop
> lying to yourself. Get up, get on and do some fucking work.

I can relate so much to the coffee trap. Just went back from grabbing coffe.
Just another to delay working.

~~~
rydl
Yes, coffee and reading hn and the like. You could also say "don't
procrastinate". Sure, I'll start doing this right after I read this one last
post ;)

~~~
hartator
Same here! Will go back to work just after replying to you! :)

~~~
imglorp

        echo 127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com >> /etc/hosts

~~~
selimthegrim
The noprocrast setting also works well. Too well.

------
erikb
Now that I've experienced the start-up world twice I have to say: What's the
big deal about working full time in big corp? Not all of them have cubicles
and ask their devs to wear suits. T-Shirt, free coffee, huge desk, free
hardware, other smart people who are just like me, reliable income, some level
of attractiveness to the other gender due to stable life.

Honestly I don't know why I didn't do that from the start and worked on my
projects in my spare time.

~~~
zzzcpan
I don't think it's possible to work as a software engineer full time and have
enough mental energy to do meaningful work on your own projects in your spare
time.

~~~
Mikushi
Agreed, I just moved to Product Management as I want to have the mental energy
to work on my own stuff. While I was a full time Software Engineer I'd get
some done but would be way to fried to get any real progress going.

~~~
lacampbell
How did you transition from dev to product management? I'm keen to stay in
this industry, but I am thinking seriously about getting away from the coding
side of things. I'm part BA at the moment.

~~~
Mikushi
Managed to find a company where the product fitted my technical knowledge,
took a bit of a pay cut as well but well worth it.

It's been a few months and I do not miss coding full time one bit, hell even
no longer being involved deeply in tech is a breath of fresh air.

I've had previous management experience (CTO in small start up, Lead Dev ...)
so I managed to leverage that during my interview process, then it was mostly
showing I was really interested in growing a product and see it succeed.

------
slaunchwise
I was a solo for 10+ years. I rented an office when my kids were too little to
simultaneously grasp the ideas that 1) I liked them and wanted them near me
and 2) I could not actually have them near me right now. When they were old
enough to understand I moved back home. It didn't make much of a difference in
terms of productivity for me.

One thing that did help was a sense that my workspace was both mine and a
place for work. I needed to know that and no one had the right to interrupt or
try and shoo me away. Public spaces never worked for me because other people
had a right to them, too, and they could bring their kids or ask me questions
about the nearest chair or whatever. I could concentrate better knowing that
was true. It was worth money to me.

------
redwyvern
Not really well written, but some of the points on not wasting money and time
with BS activities and expenditures were important.

------
jacquesm
If you want to make it for much longer than just a decade plan for those once-
every-in-10-years dry spells and accidents and SAVE. Sock money away as if
your life and career depend on it, one day they will and if you don't have
savings you will end up in trouble. Save 20% of your gross at a minimum, then,
once you reach 100K or so of rolling reserve you can relax and start spending
a bit but really try to maintain that reserve.

------
vpresident
Being an indie developer for 10 years feels too much for me.

I mean, once you do 2-3 games and you have a little success, I think you
should use that notoriety to gather more talent and assemble a team. Forget
starting a startup, studio, being an entrepreneur. I say you should continue
doing what you do, but instead of doing all the development yourself and
outsourcing the graphics or the sound effects, just bring them in.

A team of 2-3 developers, 1-2 artists, and a composer should level up faster.
Watch Fullbright[1], they had amazing success together, while on their own
they were.. just ok.

There are any former solo devs here that could share their story? What was the
next step for them?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullbright_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullbright_\(company\))

~~~
tonyedgecombe
But then you are an employer rather than developer, not all of us want that.

------
jmspring
I've worked as part of a larger local remote team for a number of years. I'm
dealing with customers, group meetings, or hackfests on about a 3-5 day a
month basis. Outside of that, I'm fully remote.

I used to have a garage office, but the last several months the coffee table
is the remote office. Soma.fm queued up when I start working. I take breaks
for bike rides/lunch/exercise, if I feel the need to be "social", the local
brewery (more like park + brewery) has outside seating and friends are there.

Solo - just gauge how much interaction you need and when you need it.

------
gcb0
was the author abused by a 3d space shooting game? why pick on that genre as
the holy grail of a game that won't be finished? Iam almost sure I'm missing
some internal game dev joke.

~~~
gommm
It's a reference to Star Citizen which is well known for the repeated delays
and promises.... Or maybe a reference to No Man's Sky...

------
kristianp
> Say Game1 brings in £40,000: with rent and beer and socks that’s probably
> two years’ salary,

Be prepared to not make a huge amount of money, but you get to write games for
a living.

------
fapjacks
"Sit down and do some fucking work."

The other stuff is just optional.

~~~
hartator
and don't make 3d space game I guess. :)

~~~
douche
Unless you can fleece people out of tens of millions on Kickstarter...

~~~
sevensor
To fleece people out of tens of millions on Kickstarter, one must first
establish credibility by fleecing ordinary investors out of tens of millions.
It helps to have spent some of that on paying Mark Hamill to record cutscenes
for your previous space games.

------
ninjakeyboard
nice article and I almost bought your game but I don't play games on my pc :(
But if I did I would - looks mint - Nice trade on experience for advertising

~~~
erikb
Well huge suggestion there. Download games instead of handling
disks/cartridges all the time; Use your controller (XBox, PS, individual
versions all there) as you're used to; Be able to play games from indies like
these or from competitions like Ludum Dare; Damn, even be able to make your
own games!

~~~
ninjakeyboard
Not sure I understand. I don't have an xbox or anything. I play mobile games
sometimes! It's just my personal use. I'm starting a company so I'm glad I
don't but I guess I find some other distractions (such as hn)

------
return0
I find that the frequency of posts about solo entrepreneurs has increased. Are
there any startups working for this niche?

