Ask HN: At what point does your side project become your job?
I run www.propertywizard.io and also work full-time. I launched in December and I am at £544 monthly recurring revenue. The cost to run is roughly £1k a year, so I'm profitable if you don't take into account my time.
I have a child and a mortgage to upkeep so I cannot leave my job until it is making significantly more, however, I know it needs my full attention to reach that stage.
What would you do?
I'm wondering if I should seek investment to cover my living costs. I'm not sure investors would be happy knowing their money is literally buying my time?
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Congrats on developing a SaaS with revenue . . . keep bootstrapping . . . you don't need investment.
Polish up your app and code . . . there are some rendering issues on initial load and validation on the login form. Test, improve, polish provide the best UX you can to keep existing customers.
Start a blog with articles on how realtors can use social media, publish often and collect emails/build a list, email that list valuable information and details on PropertyWizard.
Invest some of your revenue in contacting realtors, test out some ideas and see what your ROI is. Try calling realtors in person make a goal of 1, 5 or 10 per day, approach an office with 50 realtors and offer them a group package, test mailing out 100 postcards, track the realtor/office names/provide a unique URL and track signups. Find out what's working to generate signups and focus your efforts there.
Add a signup process on the site (checkout stripe), test three subscription levels, offer a annual discount sign up for 12 months (price of 10). Add an Office package up to XX realtors, email us for custom plans/more realtors. I think focusing on real estate offices with multiple agents might be a good way to grow your subscribers.
Add a favicon, minor but I always notice when they are missing from a site.
Don't sell a piece of your pie at this point, keep growing it.
Good luck, update us on how it's going.
I'm not sure investors would be happy knowing their money is literally buying my time
Isn't that what most investments do in the beginning? Pay for the time for the idea to become a reality and give the founder(s) the ability to realise it?
I would try to invest your current revenue in someone who can help you make your product more visible.
I should mention the reason I haven't made an 'Apply HN' post is the money available ($20k) wouldn't be enough for me to cover my expenses and quit my job.