Thanks for sharing this! @vishnumohandas
I wish I could've seen more posts like this when I started out ~3 years ago.
This is my 35th month as a sole founder. A few things I did to fight "loneliness" as a sole founder:
1, Invested in productivity. Life is not easy, so you should treat yourself well :) I spent time building scripts to make dev & ops easy. I rented a WeWork desk (first 6 months), then upgraded to a private office (2 years), then moved out wework (recent 6 months, due to covid-19). I bought SaaS products from other companies - I like spending money to save time.
2, Make it easy for others to contact myself. I put my contact on every page of my website [1]. The happiest moment of my day is always the time when I talk to inbound emails from some strangers. Yes, there will be trolls, but most people are nice & with good intention. Nowadays, I spend at least 1/3 of my time reply emails everyday.
3, Share progress on the Internet. I write a monthly email newsletter to report my progress [2] and some blogs to share my experience & thoughts [3], which help me make some friends on the Internet :)
4, Meet people offline. Quite a few of my former coworkers are doing startups now. We hanged out a lot pre-COVID-19.
5, Unfollow some people on social media (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook…) and avoid seeing news from TechCrunch and other unhealthy VC-focused online media. Avoid status game.
This is my 35th month as a sole founder. A few things I did to fight "loneliness" as a sole founder:
1, Invested in productivity. Life is not easy, so you should treat yourself well :) I spent time building scripts to make dev & ops easy. I rented a WeWork desk (first 6 months), then upgraded to a private office (2 years), then moved out wework (recent 6 months, due to covid-19). I bought SaaS products from other companies - I like spending money to save time.
2, Make it easy for others to contact myself. I put my contact on every page of my website [1]. The happiest moment of my day is always the time when I talk to inbound emails from some strangers. Yes, there will be trolls, but most people are nice & with good intention. Nowadays, I spend at least 1/3 of my time reply emails everyday.
3, Share progress on the Internet. I write a monthly email newsletter to report my progress [2] and some blogs to share my experience & thoughts [3], which help me make some friends on the Internet :)
4, Meet people offline. Quite a few of my former coworkers are doing startups now. We hanged out a lot pre-COVID-19.
5, Unfollow some people on social media (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook…) and avoid seeing news from TechCrunch and other unhealthy VC-focused online media. Avoid status game.
[1] https://www.listennotes.com/
[2] http://listennotes.substack.com/
[3] https://www.listennotes.com/blog/