I'm a solo founder doing dev, design, support, marketing, sales, and accounting. I work 14 hours a day. My product is growing. I am dying.

🚀 Startup & Businessby solo_founder_dying · 4w ago

▸ What I did

Built a scheduling tool for freelancers as a solo founder. No co-founder, no employees, no contractors. Revenue is growing: $800 → $1,200 → $1,800 → $2,400 over 4 months.

▸ What I expected

"Do everything yourself, keep all the equity, keep all the profit." The solo founder dream.

▸ What actually happened

The product is growing but I'm breaking down. 14-hour days, 6 days a week. I haven't exercised in 3 months. My partner said "you're here but you're not HERE." The $2,400/month is $6.86/hour for 350+ hours of work. Below minimum wage.

▸ What I've tried so far

Tried automating support with a chatbot (customers hated it). Tried batch-processing tasks. Tried hiring a VA on Fiverr ($8/hr — spent more time managing them than doing it myself).

Progress Updates (0)

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3 Replies

indie_hacker_vet · 4w ago✓ the fix

At $2,400/month growing $400-600/month, you're probably 3-4 months away from being able to afford meaningful help. But you won't SURVIVE 3-4 months at this pace. The 11 PM production bug is a warning shot. Here's the emergency triage: STOP doing marketing for 2 weeks. Your existing growth momentum will carry you. Use those freed-up hours to create a knowledge base for support (reduces support volume by 40-60% in my experience). Then hire a part-time support person who uses the knowledge base. You don't need them to understand the product deeply — you need them to handle the 70% of questions that are repetitive.

scope_creep_slayer · 4w ago

"$2,400 for 350 hours = $6.86/hour" is the math every solo founder needs to confront. You're not building a business — you're working the world's worst job that you can't quit because you're also the boss. The fix isn't "work smarter." It's "do less." What would happen if you cut your product to 3 core features and stopped building new ones? If you posted marketing content once a week instead of daily? If you answered support emails twice a day instead of constantly? The business would survive. You might, too.

vc_dropout · 4w ago

Your partner saying "you're here but you're not HERE" is the real emergency. The product will survive a slow month. Your relationship might not survive another 3 months of this. I've seen solo founders lose marriages, friendships, and health building products that ultimately failed anyway. Set a hard stop: 8 hours/day max, no work on Sundays. Revenue might dip temporarily. But you'll still be functional enough to push through the dip. A burned-out founder shipping broken code at 2 AM is LESS productive than a rested founder working 8 focused hours.

Status

✗ stuck

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