Introducing, Braintrust, my bootstrapped lean startup
Published in 2010, this chronicle by @Tawheed details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE 34 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 23 comments
I think you've basically created a simple version of Quora but you dont have the experts who can actually answer interesting questions.
Most people just email their friends if they want to figure something out. Braintrust = gmail conversation thread. Plus that is completely private.
I think you need to pivot.
You need to find some type of job which answers questions. And create a way to allow the "answerer" to bill clients per conversation thread or per time or something. There are other solutions to this problem but its just an idea ...
Eg: Lawyers,
Best of luck with it!
You said that people kept asking for project management features, but your vision was to focus on conversation management. Do you think you will ever add in the project management aspect?
I can imagine that after using this service, people will eventually have to stop talking and actually do something! For example, we use Jira at work, and I find it lacking in the discussion dept. I would love to have your app's conversation tracking about specific revisions of code, QA cycles, production pushes, etc.
I like your idea - sort of wave-esque. The way you addressed the encapsulation of topics in an uncluttered interface is definitely important. You might want to put some thought into a logo redesign since it looks so much like Ubuntu's. Aside from that, congratulations on the launch! I'll be taking it for a spin later this weekend.
I've been casually using this for the last couple weeks. It's really slick for what it does (multiple simultaneous conversations with the same group of people) and has some neat touches like upgrading comments to standalone discussions when people start to discuss them.
Congrats on the launch.
My criticism:
- You don't have a "try here" or "demo" button. Like many people I won't spend the time creating a free account. And I am not interested in watching a video.
- no other criticism (as I haven't tried it).