"Start small, Stay small": book review

Recently, I finished reading the book "Start Small, Stay Small," and even though this book is a little old, published in 2010, the content continues to be valuable for developers who want to start developing, marketing, and making money as solo entrepreneurs.

I got my digital version on Amazon using the money received from my microsass 🥳

• Book link

• My microsaas

My highlights

The book is old, and some links and ideas, like marketing all in email, are really outdated nowadays. However, I generally liked all the content and learned a lot. The author is experienced, and the content came at a perfect time for me as I'm exploring this path to entrepreneurship as a solo developer building my platform convide.online. Here are some comments and notes that I would like to highlight:

Marketing > Product

The key factor in an entrepreneur’s success is their ability to market their product.

Marketing is more important than your product.

One thing that I'm really learning is that marketing can't be ignored from day one.

Niche and SEO competition

This highlight is really important. A more specific niche can be cheaper to market on Google Ads, for example, and is sometimes really good for your business as a solo entrepreneur.

Having a $2000/month niche to yourself is much better than having a 20% market share of a $10,000/month niche. No competition means lower ad rates, less SEO competition, and as the market grows your income will automatically increase since you own the entire market.

Freedom to Choose Your Path

I liked this idea: don't waste a lot of time on one idea if you are an Indie Hacker and solo entrepreneur.

If an idea doesn’t work out, scrap it and start another one.

Ads

I learned this year that if you put energy into tweaking your campaign on Google Ads (or other platforms) and it is giving results, the best news is you can keep running it for years without too much effort.

I have campaigns that have been running with minor tweaks for more than two years. The time investment was in the first 2-3 months testing ads and finding the keywords that converted.