Yes, definitely. It's something you do just have to get used to, though, if you want to work on something solo for a long period of time.
Bouncing ideas off others and getting excited by someone seeing my work and seeing someone else create something is something I miss a lot. Being in meetings and having to deal with policy and bureaucracy I don't miss at all. You kind of have to lean into the pros of working alone (having agency, being able to pivot and move quickly) and remember what you're avoiding (bureaucracy, corporate culture) to fuel yourself beyond the product itself.
Be sure to get out of the house regularly during the work week. Being inside all day and not interacting with others can make you a little nuts even if you don't notice it. I know that there are days I'm not productive and it's usually because all I've been doing is working alone and I'm hitting my mental limits. Even going for a walk makes a difference to wake me up a bit.
Honest question... would you rather not have the "peace and quiet" and go at it all on your own not having to go through the motions of a "real job" ?
You bounce your ideas off someone clever enough only to see that idea being implemented before you had the chance to do it only after hearing that the idea was not good enough.
Your ideas, your solutions, your mistakes, your challenges, your problems, your ideas...
No manager one-on-ones, no a$$h0l3 back-biting coworkers, no one-pagers before meetings, no competing down-levels trying to find mistakes in your ideas, no lofty mentors making recommendations on how to improve your visibility.
If you have paying customers and are financially independent, just enjoy it.
Yeah I can relate big time. Makes it hard to finish projects. I’ll spend days figuring out how to work around some problem, finally figure it out, and then have nobody to tell about it.
My girlfriend is gracious and pretends to be interested. But building stuff is less fun and more work when you don’t have somebody to be excited with.
Silly question. That is literally every solopreneur's experience. Does it suck? Heck yes, it does. But there is nothing you can do about it. Road to success is lonesome and there is nobody waiting for you at the top of the success mountain either, if you make it. Maybe read about stoicism a bit, it might help you deal with it in some ways.
How do you manage your time outside of working hours? I find this only affected me during COVID when social life was also crap. Otherwise, as long as I stay healthy and active I can manage work being less about people and more about work
I'm also building solo, applied to YC winter batch as solo, and I've been building solo for quite a while now.
My solo projects were on HN news multiple times getting hundreds and even 1000+ points (submitted by other folks tho). I am still building.
I didn't realize there is so many folks from HN building solo, so I literally 2 mins ago created a discord for all of us so we won't get lost after this post goes down: https://discord.gg/GaCz3qMK
I ask myself what am I going to do to compensate once I am done building the current project.
And when am I going to be finished, or at least hit a worthwhile milestone?
There really should be some celebration due, and it most likely is going to be with people who have no understanding of what you are doing so often on your own.
It's not the manstream but it is actually normal if you're an individual craftsman.
At one time some of the most high-tech were called "watchmakers" :)
That’s a great reflection. Celebrating milestones solo can feel hollow, but it’s part of the craftsperson’s journey. The watchmaker analogy fits perfectly - building intricate, meaningful things that most people never fully see or understand.
Whereas yours is a redundant reflection of a reflection. As LLM-composed text often tends to be. Is there even a human behind this post or is it all autonomous already?
It's disappointing to see their responses. All obviously LLM. I'm assuming there's a real person behind the original post as that doesn't feel like LLM and maybe they're just not sure how to respond.
For the OP, if you're truly asking the question, respond using your own words. The LLM responses are devoid of any value.
Not selling anything, but I am trying to figure out what to do to help support solo and micro entrepreneurs, very small businesses (2-3 people) and very small nonprofits.
I feel like there are a lot more people in this position now (me included), but I don't want to do things for the sake of doing them... I want to find out what solo folks really benefit from and help make sure you get more support.
Last "job" was a startup with two other people and it was so great having others to bounce ideas off of and share the ups and downs. Building something together is a fundamental human joy IMO. We sold that and I've been working solo for the last 4 years.
It's lonely, and these have helped me.
- Making a point to physically get out of the house and ideally meet up with someone for a coffee or lunch or something.
- Being part of an active group chat.
- Podcasts
- Working out of a library or bustling cafe, just physically being around other people.
- Working out and maintaining a good wake/sleep cycle.
I also have some great hobbies (flying, scuba, rock climbing) with great communities that keep me socialized.
For anyone about to quit their job and try the solo dev thing, I always say mental well being has to be a "remembered priority". You're never going to have work/life balance like you did at an office job and the first few years are incredibly tough, so you need to plan for that. Marathon, not a race etc etc.
Fair point - feedback from actual customers keeps you grounded in reality. Cofounders can motivate you, but customers validate you. The “cool-aid” risk is real when everyone around you shares the same bias.
Coworking spaces can be great if you find the right vibe. The energy of being around other builders or creatives really helps with momentum - though it’s easy to end up socializing more than working if you’re not careful. Balance is key.
Where do you live? I live in North Carolina and there are tons of tech events. Basically everyone who goes to those almost definitely feels the exact same way as you, I'd recommend putting a few on the calendar!
If you're looking for feedback and ideas you can just ask ChatGPT. Or maybe you just crave human interaction and doing something together with other human?
i feel ya. I started working on AI agents and because the whole thing was kinda new to me (had lots of experience on generative image side of things with finetuning etc..) I felt that there was a mountain of stuff to learn and no one to bounce ideas off. But then as i gained a lot of insight and knowledge on the topic I started to find that the velocity of progress was speeding up and felt that collaborating with anyone else would just slow things down. So on one side I would love someone to talk to regularly about this stuff especially if that's their things as well, but on another side I know that would slow down my velocity. But more so I am now approaching a situation where it feels like I am becoming an expert on some of this stuff and running in to lots of misinformation on the subject matter online so it feels like talking to anyone about this will turn to a teaching lesson which i don't want to waste time on either. Also I am doing this for knowledge and experience not money, and that alone is also making it difficult to discuss stuff with people as there are just way too many people interested in side hustle or money related matters versus the tech itself.
100%. I got laid off from my big tech job earlier this year and decided to use the opportunity to go full-time on my side project. After six months or so, it’s going amazingly well in terms of revenue growth, and I’m on track to support my family in NYC within the next six months. I really couldn’t be happier about how it’s going.
However, it’s also been much harder emotionally than I thought. Part of it is the pressure (I also have another kid on the way!), but it’s also just the loneliness. No one to really collaborate with, share wins and losses with, talk me down when things aren’t going well, etc. I applied to an incubator more for the social / cohort aspects than the funding, but I ultimately turned it down because some of the terms just felt too expensive.
I ended up starting a mastermind with some friends, AND joining a paid community for B2B saas founders. It’s OK so far, only been a couple weeks, but I’ve got to do something. I didn’t realize how hard this part would be!
“Solo, together” - I really like that framing. It captures the best of both worlds: independence without isolation. It’s almost like the modern-day version of guilds — individual creators building side by side.
Is this a real question and you are using AI just for the comments or even the post was AI-generated? Are you a bot or someone that used AI to "proofread"?
If you are feeling lonely, using AI in place of genuinely engaging with people won't help.
It’s super hard to find someone who can put the same time, energy and effort in as me on any project where it’s not an employer-employee relationship and I’m paying them
Since gpt 2 came out I’ve been way happier doing hobby or side projects with it than I have ever been working with other people, and it’s not even close
My setup is basically myself, my environment and then a chorus of cgpt, claude and Gemini acting as a large GAN.
I’ll give an exceptionally specific prompt with a proposed architecture then it’s just iterating, testing, debug etc…
In addition to "no one to bounce ideas off" - no one to really share the pain and responsibility with when there are problems. It's all on you.
Thankfully, my users are very generous with their feedback, so when I do in fact do a "nice job" - I'm told so :)
For how long have you been building solo?
After 20 years, for me, I can tell you this - what helps me the most is exercising regularly (ideally on all weekdays) AND having kids.
Because of the kids, I rarely have the time to feel lonely and the regular physical exercises keep me in a (fairly) good mental state.
It felt the worst in my first years of solo dev, when all I did was work and hardly spent any time to socialize and take care of myself.
I'm sure it'll get better for you too as your project evolves and your life along with it.
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