
The Single Founder Handbook - 3stripe
http://www.singlefounderhandbook.com/
======
duncanawoods
If this was on Amazon at a sensible price I'd use look-inside and probably buy
it.

Instead the sales pitch with bundles and special offers at $200 is very off-
putting. It makes me feel like I'm trapped in an airport convention centre
being given a hard sell by an American self-help guru with a head mike telling
me "you too can be a success if you just sign up to my ...".

I've read "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a
Startup" on the same topic which Taber edited. I'd be concerned about
repetitious content.

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vinceguidry
I bought the e-book on the sheer strength of the title. Everything I've read
so far is largely concerned with people who want to control huge amounts of
money, hire employees, own a market segment, rather than work slowly,
cautiously, incrementally, and happily towards a better future. I'm sixteen
pages in, and it has yet to disappoint.

I read _Anything You Want_ by Derek Sivers, it's my current favorite business
book in this space. I hope this book manages to supplant it with an actual
followable and iterable plan for action.

~~~
rfrey
I'm a bit confused by your comment - do you mean everything you've read so far
in _this book_ is about Eating The World, etc? Or everything you've read
_prior_ to this book?

~~~
vinceguidry
Prior, books like _The Founder 's Dilemma_ and _The Lean Startup_ are geared
towards people who want to build the stereotypical startup. I have no desire
to take on those kinds of risk, even for the possibility of the outsized
rewards promised. I just want control of my time, where I spend it, what I do
with it. This book, more than any other book I've read since _The Four-Hour
Workweek_ promises to deliver on that wish.

The problem with _The Four-Hour Workweek_ is that Tim Ferriss is a
productivity monster and his muse method only really works for people like
him. Four hours a week after months / years of 80 hour weeks.

~~~
JacobJans
When I read the Four Hour Workweek, I quickly shifted to a literal Four Hour
Workweek. And it most definitely was NOT because of being a productivity
monster. I've never, ever, ever worked 80 hours in a week. I've rarely ever
worked more than 40 hours in a week.

If you want to have a "muse", it's all about building a system that amplifies
the work you do -- and ideally makes you you an unnecessary component in the
business.

It is most definitely NOT about working tons of hours.

~~~
vinceguidry
I'd be interested in a treatment of the specifics concerning radically
restricting the hours you're working to four actual hours. I do about four
real hours of work a week here, but I'm still chained to my desk for 35 or so
of them. I could push for a more WFH arrangement, but honestly that's not the
needle I really want to move here.

A muse is a very specific type of lifestyle business. It works with certain
kinds of products and a certain kind of mindset. If what you want to bring to
the world doesn't fit that kind of product and that mindset, then a muse isn't
really going to be all that much different than any other business you build
that's not a good fit for you. Because you'll end up having to learn all kinds
of things you don't really want to learn and work the way you don't really
want to work. Of course in the end you'll be able to take yourself out of the
equation, but what if you don't want to? It's not really workable for someone
not interested in going through life the way Tim has.

Certainly some of the ideas Tim brought to the table re: Internet businesses
are really good, but he has yet to really tie it all together. I actually went
to the back of Tim's book and read all four of the books he recommended. They
were all really good reads, but mostly orthogonal to what I wanted to do.

~~~
graeme
I built a business following the 4HWW. I happily spend more than four hours on
it.

But the book gave me something very important: a systemization mindset and a
wariness of administrative overhead.

Most of the stuff I've built runs pretty automatically. I spend my time
building new stuff to add to it. Once that's built, it runs automatically too.

So I _could_ take two months off if I wanted to and still earn most of my
money. And I have done similar things. That's the freedom I really want.

So I've taken myself out of parts of it, but I'm still in it. Working on your
business, not in your business, as the e myth revisited puts it.

Send me an email and link to this thread if you'd like more details. Emails in
profile.

------
roneesh
On one hand, I really like that developers and other smart people can put out
work like this to supplant their income. Also it's a way for us to get boots
on the ground knowledge, without the filter of a publisher.

On the other hand, I agree with most of the sentiment here, these are starting
to feel like ads and pitches, and I have a feeling the single founder that
will benefit the most here is the author.

~~~
davidw
Is there anything wrong with him benefiting from it? Mike is a real guy, with
a real bootstrapped company, who gives out tons of advice at his podcast (link
in another comment here).

I bought his MicroConf/Podcast partner Rob's book a while back, and it was
well worth the money I spent on it, and I continue to advocate it for people
interested in doing bootstrapped startups. I haven't read Mike's book yet, but
from looking at the ToC, it looks to be of similar high quality.

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stevenmays
Mike Taber was a contractor at my old job for a few weeks before I became a
programmer professionally. He coded us a reliable solution within very
difficult time constraints and dealing with management who could not make up
their minds. I've been following him ever since on social media. He really
knows his craft, and I have no doubt this is a solid product.

With that said I really don't support advertisements on HN. I don't think this
belongs here. If there were some free content and an upsell I could get behind
it, but alas there is not.

When there is a physical copy offering I will most likely purchase.

~~~
arcatek
Isn't the physical copy already available?

"You'll receive the book in both digital and audio formats, as well as a
paperback book that will be shipped to you free, anywhere in the world."

~~~
mtaber
It's available for the second and third tiers but not the bottom one. I
mentioned this in another comment, but the shipping costs were brutal for
international fulfillment during the private launch so I had to make some
changes for the public launch.

~~~
josephjrobison
Love the Startups for the Rest of us Podcast, which is why I just bought the
book. Look forward to getting some good stuff out of it.

------
jayro
Here's a podcast interview with Mike Taber about his new book:
[http://techzinglive.com/page/1541/280-tz-interview-mike-
tabe...](http://techzinglive.com/page/1541/280-tz-interview-mike-taber-the-
single-founder-handbook)

------
edw519
Multiple time single founder who bought the book anyway.

Excellent book. Not so much for the content, much of which I've seen
elsewhere, but for the curation and the voice, which spoke directly to me. I
got a lot of value out of things you wouldn't expect, but are real issues for
solo workers, especially planning and time management.

A ton of work must have gone into this. Even at a dollar per good idea, it's a
great deal for people like me.

------
hluska
This is the most interesting thing I have ever agreed to in order to download
something:

 _As an added bonus, I 'll also send you a few follow up emails to help you
along on your entrepreneurial journey and you can ask any questions you like
about the book. I hate spammers, so feel free to opt out at any time._

I've always argued that entrepreneurs should be clear and give readers the
ability to opt out in advance. But, I'd assume that this kind of statement has
been a/b tested. Interesting...

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meesterdude
while I think the topic looks interesting - i'm certainly among the target
audience - its a bit too heavy in sales pitch.

First, i'm not giving you my email address just so I can get the table of
contents and a free chapter. I know that "converts" better but I think given
the target audience, its tasteless.

Second, there's really no "content" in this page that gives me any kind of
inclination that this book is going to be good. They vouch for the author and
the sources, but not for what the book contains. Maybe their advice is run of
the mill and can be found anywhere? or maybe its so unique and interesting
they're afraid to give any of it away? I couldn't say which.

Ultimately, this feels more like a get rich scheme than someone having
something legitimate to offer. Maybe this could all change with a revision to
the website. I'd be more compelled to take a look at this if this was simply
up on amazon with tons of great reviews.

------
matthewrhoden1
I didn't understand what he meant by you get 9 hours of interviews
transcribed. Does it mean you're interviewing with the person via Skype and
then you get a copy of what was said or you're watching a video of someone
else's interview with what they said?

~~~
robotresearcher
You get access to pre-recorded videos, and text transcriptions of them
(because reading is fast).

------
richardbrevig
Nothing against the quality of the book. But I would have considered this at a
$9 price point, not above, for ebook. That's how much I paid for "Running
Lean" and I doubt to gain more value, personally, from this than that book.

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tomashertus
I just want to buy the physical book, not e-book. There is no option like
that:(

~~~
mtaber
I tried to offer a physical book with every order during the pre-launch
several weeks ago, but international shipping was brutal. It was nearly $900
for shipping alone, plus the cost of the books themselves. The book is 327
pages long and since it's print on demand, it's a bit more expensive than the
run of the mill printed book.

I'd like to find a solution to this long term, but in the short term I don't
have one yet.

~~~
tomashertus
Great that you are trying! I understand that the international shipping is
pain. Just wanted to take it to my vacation next week, but I will wait!

Thanks for the response. I hope you will get good reviews and feedback!

~~~
mtaber
I appreciate the understanding. The book is 1 lb, 4oz and a bit over 3/4"
thick. USPS has a tiered pricing structure that puts the book into another
tier. Shipping costs jumped from under $5 to nearly $20 to virtually all
international locations. I thought shipping was going to be straightforward
but it really wasn't at all.

~~~
homarp
Looks like there is a need for a "print on demand + shipping" geographically
distributed network.

~~~
josephpmay
Amazon does exactly that. (I'm guessing selling on Amazon doesn't fit into the
author's sales model)

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moubarak
i wish they spent more money on designing a better cover. i do judge books
(and products in general) by their cover.

------
idlewords
Worst dating book ever.

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frugalmail
Why so many upvotes for Spam?!

------
jroseattle
The title seems odd to me -- the Single Founder? Maybe I'm missing content
somewhere, but I was looking for something related to you, as an individual
entrepreneur, going it alone.

This would do just as well for me as "The Entrepreneur's Handbook."

~~~
mtaber
Very meta here, but I don't understand your confusion. That's exactly what it
is. It's "Single Founder" as in solo entrepreneur/solopreneur. Does that
clarify it?

I do include a discussion of taking on a cofounder in the book. Personally, I
don't think that having a cofounder is bad per se, but having a bad cofounder
is significantly worse than having no cofounder at all. The downside to taking
on a cofounder is that your ambitions for what to build need to increase
proportionately because now it has to support 2 people, not just one. It's no
longer just a matter of getting 2x the work done. Basically everything
doubles.

~~~
jroseattle
Thanks for the reply, Mike. I was referring to the bullet-point list of "How
will this help you?" on the webpage. I haven't read the book, so my feedback
is entirely based on the website content.

I've been both the single entrepreneur as well as a co-founder. I found that
list to be entirely applicable to both scenarios. (Good list, BTW!)

Anyway, just offering some feedback that I thought there would be a greater
emphasis on the unique challenges for a solo founder vs. a team.

Indeed, I'm not sure there's a more concrete example of "judging a book by
it's cover." :-)

~~~
mtaber
You're absolutely right about the fact that the list applies to both. Then
again, it was easy to come up with since it came mostly from the table of
contents and that was based on what people emailed me about during the
development of the book.

If you look around at that "traditional" startups covered by news or accepted
by YC, they don't talk about single founder startups. In my circles
(MicroConf, Micropreneur Academy, etc) it's virtually nothing except single
founder companies. So there's a misconception that single founder startups
aren't possible or don't work.

For VC's and huge scale startups, that may be true. But I know of hundreds of
small scale software companies that are doing just fine that would beg to
differ. It's a matter of what your goals are and what you want out of life.

The title is meant more to draw attention to the fact that if you're a single
founder, this book is for you. That doesn't change the fact that it's useful
to small teams or to any software startup. But when you have two people
working on something, the discussions tend to be different than the ones you
have in your head.

I wrote the book in such a way so as to be that other voice saying the things
you would have needed to hear from a cofounder. It's not necessarily about the
message itself in many cases, so much as the subtle nuances of how that
message is communicated that will make them more understandable and resonate
better with a single founder.

In some ways, the title is a marketing strategy too.

~~~
jroseattle
Very good points, and thank you for adding that context. By all accounts,
sounds like a wise book.

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waterlesscloud
I'd prefer not to have content-free ads on the HN front page, regardless of
who is involved in the product. I'd feel differently if there was at least
some useful content on the site.

~~~
rfrey
I totally understand why you have that preference, but I have the opposite
view. I'm unlikely to discover stuff like this _except_ through the curation
of this community, and I really appreciate it when it happens. At least at
present it seems like the signal-to-noise is pretty good.

Maybe it's better if it's all grouped under the "Show HN" titles so folks who
don't like it can mentally filter it quicker. But I'd be sorry if these posts
disappeared.

That said, I think the author should take your point about providing useful
content to heart - I think it'd be better for the visitors, but also better
marketing.

~~~
suyash
Yes, this should have been prefixed with Show HN, it's a total product
advertisement that has been pushed up the rankings.

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acconrad
UGH, these kinds of bundles annoy me. I don't want the physical or audio book,
I just want the e-book and the supplemental materials - I will never want/need
the audio or physical book, and yet it increases the markup a ton. Actually, I
don't even care for the interviews, but I'd like to know what this
"supplemental" material is before I'd ever consider that complete package.

