The Six Phases of Bootstrapping A One-Man Startup
Published in 2009, this chronicle by @donniefitz2 details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
I believe OP has hope. Sounds like he has tons of local businesses who need what he has to offer but don't realize it. Therein lies his problem. I may be a little naive, but after reading his post, I still don't know what he has and why anyone would need it. I know what a blog is, but I'm not really sure what a CMS-Content Management System is. Why would a local small business need a "CMS"? Why would they want to blog? If I'm not clear, you can bet his local prospects aren't, either.
This has the makings of an excellent local lifestyle business which would be 90% product and 10% service. OP's ace in the hole is himself. I know that small businesses who would use his product would still like to see his smiling face once a month and be able to call him as needed. This is a huge plus!
My advice to OP would be to temporarily forget about the software, the technology, and the jargon. Instead, become a trusted sympathetic advisor to his prospects. Learn about their situations and understand the pain they have but don't even realize. Meet them on their turf and speak their language. And most of all, solve their problems and help their profitability. Nothing else matters.
What I have just described is all the sales and marketing you need to know. You had passion for the product when you had to, now is the time to have passion for your customers.
Donnie,
If you can't do it on your own, you need to outsource the sales my man. Sign up with an affiliate network and let the pyramid schemers take care of it. Offer them something like 50% on all sign ups; you can afford to pay a big finder's fee because a CMS is something that people don't give up quickly once they start using it.
I would strongly urge you NOT to give it up and focus on the sales side of things, you're done coding for now.
After stage one there is one necessary step that the author has missed: to calculate whether this idea will bring any money (or at least cover the costs). It is painful to invest 8 months of one's life into something that wouldn't have produced any returns in the first place.
If I were told to write an article with that headline, the first sale would have marked the end of Phase #1. I'm not sure that I can fit everything else you need to do into only 5 phases left, but relabeling the first sale stage 0 is just cheesy.
8 months initial dev cycle seems long - what is the prevailing idea about how long this should be once you commit to building?
Thank you all for you posts. I want to make it clear that I'm not making any absolute statement about anything. I just wanted to share my experience.
I know that I did a poor job of market research from the onset and that there's a long list of things I should have/should not have done to make this work. I do appreciate your opinions.