

My Experience as a Single Founder - fotoblur

Thinking about being a single founder?  (Add generic disclaimer here) Well let me outline what my experience has been as a sole creator/manager of my own project.  The short of it is you'll do lots of different jobs.  Stuff you never thought you'd have to do or know about, you eventually will.  Its fun, don't get me wrong, but at times taxing, especially if you start to get some traction.<p>So here is the kind of things you'll need to do as a single founder.  For one, it helps to be a developer.  Why, because without a product/service/website what else do you have to do.  So first you develop.  You build new features, you analyze, you build some more, you get some feedback, the cycle continues.  People start signing up and using your product.<p>First, if you're lucky enough to have received some feedback from interested users pat yourself on the back for this one.  If you develop something and no one's interested you don't have much else to do anyway so you're done.  Next, as you develop some more you realize you need to start getting the word out about your service since everyone is giving you good feedback and they're telling their friends about you. But maybe you're not just getting the numbers you'd like to see yet.  You'll most likely buy into the notion (as I did) that growth = success (and maybe that is right).  You never know, your site could be the next best thing (you at least tell yourself this!).<p>So now empowered with users and interest you become a Marketer Guru.  You'll want to learn just about everything you can about SEO (takes about an hour), then do as much as humanly possible to revamp your entire site to make sure you rank well at Google.  You revamp alt tags, page descriptions, position keywords, create 'interesting' context....blah, blah, etc.  You try Google Ads for a while, maybe Facebook, send bloggers emails, try to get some press, maybe even do some hardcore banner advertising.  So now your traffic starts to grow even more, GREAT!  Now you can relax, right?  Well not so fast.  Now you realize that the VPS just can't handle the new load you ingeniously placed on it, so you move to a dedicated server (thumbs up).  You get that up and breathing, then you realize that you've got over 30Gigs of client files to transfer, a https cert to transfer, an SMTP server to configure, installing other useful tools, etc.  So you stay up all night to configure the new server and pray that you'll get all your files transferred intact.<p>Not to mention you've got support emails filling in your inbox, you're getting automated exceptions in your email telling you that you're site is having connection issues with your SQL server and your hosting company can't tell you why, you have to figure out why your HELO is being rejected (ahem email), insure DNS is correctly setup, find out why half of Europe can't access your site but the rest of the world can.  It goes on and on.  I'm sure I forgot the half of it already.  We have a product (magazine) as part of our site/service so optionally throw in creating a product.<p>So now we've got a few jobs for you: Senior Web Developer, Database Admin, Marketer, Publisher (in my case), System Admin, Help Desk ... and on and on and you start to get the picture.  Oh and by the way you might have a day job too!  So you'll be working just about every night from about 9-1am and probably half your weekends too.  Let me tell you that lack of sleep catches up with you after a while, but I'm still amazed by how durable the human body is!  And also, If you have a family, which I do, you'll need a very understanding wife.<p>This is more of a footnote but you could me suffering from a disease or mutation which allows your brain to solve lots of problems or generate a million ideas so you see opportunities everywhere which you'd love to start working on...but crap, you've got an inbox full support emails.<p>Good luck if you decide to go this route, but my opinion is get somebody to help you do something.  One person can't do it all forever.  Luckily I have a good support system which can also help.  Knowing a few people here and there with different expertise can be of great value.<p>If you're interested, I am the creator of fotoblur.com and Fotoblur Magazine.
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istvanp
I am a "single" founder myself who is still in the early stages of my web
publishing platform but this sounds already like what I am (and will be)
doing. I am a developer and a designer at heart so maybe, just maybe, I might
have a bit easier road than you =P

I don't have founder related questions but I do want to ask you about the
MagCloud platform (<http://www.magcloud.com/>) your are using for publishing
your magazine. I never heard about it before (and surprised HP does this but
thinking about it it's not the first publishing platform they do: there is
also <http://www.tabbloid.com/>).

1) How did you come up with the pricing? Do you break even? From the site I
see that MagCloud charges 20 cents per page and for 90 pages that's $18. If
you charge $19.50 your profit is $1.50. Is that enough to build a business
upon?

What I do know from working for a niche magazine publisher for over two years
is that there isn't revenue to be seen when you take into account printing
costs, distribution and returns of issues that were not sold. (Which is why it
ceased to exist.)

2) I see that some other publishers place ads within their magazine. Are you
doing that or have you considered doing that?

I could see a publisher charging much less for the magazine if they can offset
the printing cost (and salaries, if applicable) and even possibly turn a
profit with advertisement alone. However, I can't see this kind of platform
raking in as much readers (or circulation in publishing-speak) as regular off
the shelf magazines which basically means less advertisement money and harder
to get advertisement opportunities.

3) I see they are offering an iPad app which allows you to view complete
magazines. It's more akin to a closed-garden PDF reader (which might explain
the 1.5 star app rating) but that's besides the point I am getting at... At
the moment they only support publishers who wish to publish their magazine for
free -- which you don't seem to do since I can't find you in their iPad store.
Would you make your magazine available for free provided you can support
yourself with advertising only? If so, do you think you alienate any hard copy
purchase? At 20$/100 page + shipping (>=$3) it isn't really a steal for most
readers and even for the materialistic ones when they know they can get the
content for free (provided they have an iPad of course).

~~~
fotoblur
Yes good questions.

So MagCloud was introduced to me by the founder of JPGMag (Derek Powazek) and
I've been with them since they were beta. They've grown and have become a much
better service for the 1.5 years I've been with them. They now have perfect
binding and international shipping which they didn't have for quite a while. I
used to ship the copies international myself and act as sort of a middle man.
There quality is amazing, especially since we run a photograph magazine
quality is of the utmost importance. I would recommend them for sure. Lulu.com
is another option I considered, but I found them to be too complicated.
MagCloud was simple, one size, one size bleed, etc. Lulu provided too many
options which I didn't like, plus the MagCloud magazine dimensions are pretty
good.

So actually the price of the mag includes a $1.00 charge for perfect binding
so the profit is $0.50 which is more of a counter in how many magazines I've
sold. This obviously is a no profit situation. And really a loss when
considering all the effort put into it. But the magazine promotes fotoblur,
our online community. Our biggest part of the business is the community and
the interactions that happen there. We follow a freemium model and it is
through the site that we earn real revenue.

However, we are looking into making an offering digitally at a price, and we
offer our premium members a Digital Edition as part of their upgrade.

You're right about the advertising, the magazine distribution numbers are low
so advertisers aren't knocking on our door. MagCloud started an iPod app and
were were being downloaded 2-300 times a day. This in turn got us a spike in
web traffic, more members joining per day, and with 3% converting to Premium
numbers of registered members add up to eventual revenue.

For the magazine we don't want ads. I've designed it to be minimalistic and
focused on the artwork. The newstands photography magazines eventually have
turned into pimps for new camera equipment and top ten lists on how to take
the best photo ever. We are more grassroots and focused on the artwork. We
find that our target readers are the photographers themselves who then want to
join the community and become contributors themselves. The website offers lots
of ways to have fun like ratings, favorites, followers/friends (twitter-sh),
we have community run groups etc. The community aspects are fun and I do love
creating the magazine as its a nice break from writing code.

By the way, we did publish in the iPad app, but since I offered the digital
editions as a premium member only offering there was an obvious conflict. I've
since been researching other ways to distribute digitally since this is
obviously the future of the publishing industry. With future iPads getting
retinal display it will start to rival 300 dpi prints. So I feel that we
should be looking into digital distribution channels and not giving that away
to push the print.

Great reply, I'd love to know what you're working on and I may be able to
assist you or answer more questions. You can email me at fotoblur [@] gmail
.c0m

Cheers

~~~
kmfrk
How many international customers/subscribers do you have? MagCloud interested
me at first, but with $13.45 to ship a magazine - with no option to group
them, as I think I recall - it didn't work _at all_ for me as a non-American.

And what are your thoughts on the general international market for your
magazine?

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sabj
Great story! Impressive that you were able to pull it together all the same.

Two questions:

1) At what stage did you realize that you really wished you had some help?

2) Looking back, what capacity / role do you most wish someone else had been
able to fill? All of them, or maybe someone especially to do design for you,
or something else...?

Very cool project, followed on Twitter to track those beautiful photos.

~~~
fotoblur
Thanks! And great questions.

Well I remember when I moved from Texas to Cali (drove), I had a magazine to
finish, make sure the site was always up and running, did an interview
(written, not a big deal), and had to make sure I kept up with support issues.
I also had 10 days to find a house for my family when I got here since I was
starting a new job. But I made it!

I could probably have used the following in order of importance: Print
Designer, Business Strategist/Marketer, Developer.

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mansilla
Going solo can be tough, especially if you struggle with time management and
prioritization. Being sidetracked is a common problem because things often
appear to be very important or urgent simply because there's nobody else
around to handle the problems.

All teams (even "solo" ones) need good tools for time and project management,
CRM, and solid infrastructure, so that you're not constantly putting out fires
where there shouldn't be fires. I've tried adding "more people" to the mix
without good tools in place, and just found out that I had two more people to
manage rather than helpful human resources.

BTW, you have a wife -- so you're not flying solo. She can be one of the best
members of your team. She's probably the most trustworthy, reliable, honest,
biggest supporters you have. You should leverage her for her opinions and
advice, whether or not she is technically inclined.

I've been doing net startups since 1994, and one of the best pieces of advice
I can give is to think about marketing before you build anything. Hopefully,
you can build on top of a platform for which marketing directly to the
platform consumers is intrinsic. For instance, building apps/tools that can be
offered directly to consumers in a venue or manner that they're expecting it,
thus, increasing their trust in your product/service and meeting their
needs/interests immediately. So, it's no longer "if you build it, they will
come".. it's more like "if you build it, position it in the right place, they
will already be there waiting."

Best of luck. Fotoblur looks great, BTW.

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_exec
Great submission, thank you! May I ask, how did you hire the support team? Did
you outsource your helpdesk or did you hire the support team yourself? How do
you handle accounting? Finally, what resources helped you the most with SEO?

~~~
fotoblur
You're talking to the support team. I may have 5-10 support issues per day.
Much of it is automated at this point. I wouldn't think that outsourcing that
is worth loosing the chance to connect with members personally. Many of these
support issues led to ideas and features that helped build a better service.
I'd suggest in early stages or even further to keep your support system in-
house, its your lifeline to your customer.

Cheers

~~~
kmfrk
Mandy Brown from _A Working Library_ had a great blog post on this to
emphasize your point:
<http://aworkinglibrary.com/library/archives/on_audience/>.

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mkramlich
Being a solo founder sucks in some ways (everything on your shoulders) but
nice in others -- hyper-efficient communication and pivots, for example. I've
seen both, done both, and see advantages to both.

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sandeepshetty
Haven't got anything off the ground yet, but I've thought about this a lot,
since I've heard this story before from friends that tried going down the
single founder route.

The conclusion that I've come to, is that this is a business model problem. If
you are a single founder and want to stay that way, then starting a consumer
business whose success depends on getting a lot of customers doesn't seem like
the way to go. When I do take the plunge and start something of my own, it's
going to be something that caters to very few customers, who in turn sell
something to a lot of customers (e.g., a publishing platform for authors where
you make a cut of every book sold) or who I can charge a lot. Even better if
the billing is recurring.

P.S. The single founders I've spoken to consistently also mention that
something that got to them more than any of this, was a feeling of loneliness.
Guess HN sorta solves that problem for some.

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anonummyeahaa
Into any major investing yet? How is that going?

If not, how do you think you would approach the process should you seek some?

I keep hearing over and over again that investors love teams of founders. I
think YC's organizers also think the same?

Good luck!

~~~
fotoblur
When I moved here to California I met someone who knows Ronny Conway from the
VC firm Andreessen Horowitz who introduced us via email. I talked with him on
the phone about 2 months ago and told him about my project and got a pretty
mixed message. To be honest I really didn't know much about him or what to
expect and possibly was over my head during my phone conversation with him.
For one he mentioned that he only deals with companies who are looking to
gross $100 million / year. He also said the fact that I had no angel investors
meant I shouldn't be talking to him just yet. He also mentioned putting
together a business plan. I kind of felt a lack of interest on his part but
not really sure. The conversation ended flat and I kind of felt that I had
wasted both my and his time. I just kind of put the whole experience aside. At
least I had my first rejection.

About a months ago I had been contacted by a company called PurePhoto
(www.purephoto.com) which I had never heard of before. They talked to me about
doing some sort of collaboration and joining forces with them. I talked with
their VP and also the CEO and had mentioned my experience above and they had
similar experiences. The pretty much told me that big VCs don't really look
into investing in projects like mine, which is centered around art
photography.

I also talked to another acquaintance who seems to work somehow closely with
angel investors and he mentioned that sometimes you can find the right angel
investor who is specifically interested in the photography/art space.

So really this is unexplored territory for me. I'd be willing to take advice
here or simply have a discussion.

~~~
ewams
Do you need investors? I know it is always nice to have the money but it seems
like you may be better off without. Are you actively looking or just making
contacts, etc.?

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skowmunk
Very nice article, thanks for posting it. It helps that it comes from first
hand experience.

It gives a good picture of some of the challenges I may be facing in the
future. I guess I should get cracking on some planning for these issues.

Checked out fotoblur: many of the black and whites are plain dead gorgeous - I
am partial to black and whites :).

Its a great site, giving exposure to talented artists from around the world. I
hope you will keep taking it higher and higher.

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andrewacove
About a paragraph and a half of that, I'm hoping to avoid by using Heroku.

But I can see marketing/SEO on the horizon, and I could definitely use some
other hands on deck so that I can do new development in addition to improving
what's already built.

A question: would tighter control on your own growth (if feasible) have made
it easier? or did you need the growth to find out what to do next?

~~~
fotoblur
I think the one thing that was harder to deal with since we store photos was,
as we grew, the problems of file storage increased very quickly, so even with
slow, steady growth these issues would eventually crop up. As the site has
grown though its actually started to work better since many of the features
are based on user interactions (promotions, comments, etc). So as I saw how
users were using the site I started to see lots of potential for new features
and new ways to display data.

Cheers

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vaksel
Yes as a single founder you get to wear a lot of hats...but most of those
things tend to be one offs. The rest are routine, which are easy to manage by
making a to-do list the day before.

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bystac
Good post, may I add one tip, Always try to distribute you task to 3rd
providers. Emails: google emails, rackspace emails. Support: online issues
service. etc...

