162: Michele Hansen — Moving from Side Project to Full Time
The Bootstrapped Founder
11/09/22
•66m
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I am talking to Michele Hansen, the co-founder of Geocodio, an indie SaaS business in the world of mapping and geolocation. I've been a fan of her work, both as a founder and as an active member of the Indie Hacker community for years now.
I followed her journey with the business just as much as her foray into writing her first book, Deploy Empathy. Michelle really gets the founder community, and she's a respected teacher of all things customer development.
In this episode, we chat about finding the right time to commit to a business, learning when to say no, finding your niche, and learning languages. Enjoy!
You can find Michele on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mjwhansen/. Also, check out her book Deploy Empathy.
Here is a short summary of the topics discussed in this episode:
How do you set boundaries with a podcast? 3:08
How do you judge what you say against what someone else would perceive as useful for themselves? 9:23
How do you make sure you serve the right customers? 13:06
Focus on what you already have instead of where you can go. 19:47
Work in progress vs. goals. 23:13
The journey is the interesting part, not the destination. 28:54
The challenge of self-actualization after a big transition. 31:58
What was the sign that it was time to go full-time? 39:14
The financial hurdle of being an entrepreneur in the US. 42:35
Where the fear of losing everything comes from. 48:09
The mean voice in your head speaking. 51:43
Being able to recognize your own growth is a big part of entrepreneurship. 57:38
Low expectations allow you to surprise yourself, which leads to a better result. 1:00:47
This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire.
Here's the blog post for this episode.
You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.
Previous Episode
161: Calm Business Misconceptions
November 4, 2022
•12m
In a world where everyone talks about disruption and hustling, the concept of a calm business can seem out of place or even naive. How can you compete with people who spend 80 hours a week working in their businesses —publicly boasting about their so-called "grindset"— when you treat your fledgling business as a side project that you only work on in the evenings?
For many entrepreneurs, calmness is a pipe dream—a nice fantasy but impossible to accomplish.
As you can probably imagine, I beg to differ. Running a calm business is definitely possible, and the perception of it being a flawed concept
often lies in a few myths and wrongful assumptions that I want to debunk today.
- Calm Business Misconceptions
- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course
- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurship
This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire.
Next Episode
163: When Should You Go from Side-Project to Full-Time?
November 11, 2022
•13m
Earlier this week, I talked to Michele Hansen of Geocodio on The Bootstrapped Founder Podcast. Michele co-founded the business with her husband and ran it as a side project for several years. Now, that's a long time to wait before you commit full-time to a project. We also learned during our conversation that there are many ways of determining when the right time is to make that leap: for me, it was reaching a specific revenue figure, and for Michele, it was something else entirely.
So let's explore this critical step today. When should you go from side-project to full-time? What are the significant catalysts that speed up this process?
- When Should You Go from Side-Project to Full-Time?
- Find your Following, my Twitter course — now with Find your Following Essentials, the 7-day Twitter crash course
- Zero to Sold & The Embedded Entrepreneur, my books on entrepreneurship
This episode is sponsored by MicroAcquire.
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