We're a Batch 1 company and I can attest to the quality of the program. The cash is nice, but the real value is in the community and extensive mentorship network! Stoked to see TinySeed becoming a compelling investment vehicle.

Great points here. It's very tricky to get accurate information from potential customers. The fact that there is demand for what you want to build is a necessary, but not sufficient quality -- you must dig deeper to make sure the pain is bad enough for someone to adopt your product / switch from whatever they are doing now. I have to remind myself of this constantly :).

Ouch. That's not at all what I'm trying to do. I have no shortage of passion, but passion alone does not make a viable business.

My hope is that my post will help others think about choosing an idea that fits with their goals, so that it will work out for the long haul.

Thank you! It happens to the best of us, I haven't been super consistent with writing regularly. Trying to change that!

Thank you!

You're welcome! There are some alternative funding sources for bootstrappers that could be interesting for you:

- TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/)

- Earnest Capital (https://earnestcapital.com/)

- Indie.vc (https://www.indie.vc/)

Each works a little differently. My friend Matt Wensing did a comparison of them: https://medium.com/swlh/alternative-funding-calculus-a-quant...

Hope this helps!

Thank you! I also added a redirect from the previous URL.

Thanks! Glad you are finding it helpful!

Totally! To clarify, by the "drop the ball" do you mean knowing when to call it quits if something is not working out? I recently wrote about my experience with that: https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-a...

My friend Justin Jackson also published a good article about this too: https://justinjackson.ca/giveup

Thanks to you, I finally read The Mom Test. It was extremely insightful alongside your written experience.

That's awesome!

Every company has a "first customer"