A pedantic correction not for its own sake -- Patrick's meaning wasn't in any doubt -- but because I think it's quite interesting.

Not "bellweather" but "bellwether". A wether is a male sheep. A bellwether is a male sheep at the head of a flock, around whose neck a bell is hung so that you can hear where the flock is even when you can't see it. (The rest of the flock will follow its leader like, um, sheep.)

So a bellwether is a single thing whose behaviour is a leading indicator of that of a larger-scale bunch of other related things.

I appreciate how open this post is. The cash crunch section struck a cord. For anyone considering starting something on their own: build a buffer. Build a bigger buffer than you think you'll need.

I started three years ago, out of school. I'm not a hacker, and didn't have an immediately monetizeable skill. I saw an opportunity to build recurring revenues (through e-book sales with a partner) and pursued it as fast as I could.

The strategy worked. Those recurring revenues are wind under my wings, and gave me the skills to expand my business into other areas.

But man, that was a tough couple years. I was constantly short on cash. Historically, when people guessed my age, they guessed [biological age - 3]. Once in this rough period, people guessed my biological age!

2013 was the year my business took off. In the final six months I earned enough to pay off my loans from school, my taxes for the year, and build a savings buffer. That was from being almost bankrupt in June.

What a difference. I feel relaxed. People now guess [biological age - 1 or 2], so the decrease in stress must be having an effect. I look more rejunvenated to myself in the mirror.

I can see and pursue opportunities much more effectively. And it's all because I have a relatively small amount of excess dollars in a bank account. That surplus allows you to raise your head and look around.

Build a buffer.

Some time ago a HN member posted about maxims he uses to guide his life, and he ended up making a daily maxim site. This one came up yesterday, it's quite relevant:

http://www.maxims.us/build-superreserves/

When I got very busy or stressed, one of my coping mechanisms was avoiding opening email, out of an irrational fear of finding more work or stress in my inbox.

Reading such a honest sentence triggers a lot of emotions at the same time. It helped me realise that I've really been guilty of this, and that it is now time for me to change.

I had no idea I would learn so much before I clicked this link. Great post.

Found an interesting comment from a guy called Fildo on patio11's blog:

Hmm,

that makes me wonder. 2013 was the first year I started selling my (desktop) software and I made a little more than you – without doing all the A/B testing and marketing dance. Makes me wonder if I should follow your path (originally I intended to do so) or if I should keep improving my product (adding more features).

The thing is that my software is not trivial and does some pretty complex things. Maybe that’s the difference? The retail price is about the same.

I’m pretty confused now.

I found it interesting that in one breath you lay out your plan to land enterprise sales and in the next speak of the poor quality of the underlying code base.

A good lesson for software developers, you don't need NASA hardened code to make money.

"MarkDev"? Assuming its the same thing, I've been calling this "dev-marketing", in the same vein as "dev-ops". Much better than calling it "growth hacking".

(In the future, everything will be prefixed with dev- because software is eating the world (TM), until eventually everything is software and we can drop the prefix again.)

patio11, no idea if this is applicable in Japan, but in certain conditions here in Italy (you work as an independent consultant), you have to pay into Social Security rather than the Italian equivalent. This saved me a bundle of money, but it's not a widely known fact, and I didn't realize it before I found an accountant that knows how to deal with financial stuff for US persons living in Italy. Worth looking into for other Americans living abroad. I found that H&R Block had an office near the US base in Vicenza with a guy that knows both systems pretty well. It was a very happy discovery for me, because I've always felt that the US-based guys were just kind of guessing about how things worked with my living abroad.

Thanks for the great write-up.

You state that your mailing list is far more beneficial for yourself and your readers than your blog, because it allows a more personal relationship. This bears the question: How would you start such a mailing list from scratch without a blog? Or do you think a blog is still the first step? I mean, somehow, you have to be known for your skills and there must be some sort of desire to sign up for it.

Your mailing list is not necessarily "advice on conversion optimization" but more "patio11's take on stuff". I, at least, am in your mailing list, because I'm interested in what this patio11 guy in particular (with your skills and your background) has to say about things.

Stormpulse seems interesting. Enterprisy but not the run-of-the-mill CRUD application, so probably more fun to make.

Patrick - have you considered selling BCC?

Excellent read! I always enjoy seeing these and am so appreciative that you put them out there. Was 2013 not the year where AR went crazy and called a bunch of people in the middle of the night? I remember reading about that and being impressed with how you handled that situation, but if that wasn't in 2013.... then, sigh, time flies.

Also, I'm almost positive "asterix" (vs asterisk) is used tongue-in-cheekly, right? Just making sure...

As always, thanks for a great writeup.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that I'm enormously appreciative of your writing, and the internet would be a whole lot duller without you around. More importantly, our wallets would be a whole lot lighter without you around as well. And I say this as someone who doesn't directly do dev-marketing.

Patrick, thank you for another enlightening writeup. Sometimes I feel the HN crowd take the honesty and transparency of these 'internet-famous' entrepreneurs for granted.

Posts like these have been a great source of inspiration for running my own startups and whilst each individual business is different, I have gained immeasurably from them. Thank you.

I've also learned from a few others who have written on this subject:

http://www.startupclarity.com/blog/bootstrappers-2013-year-r...

Having had a similar business to appointment reminder in the past and not getting the traction I was looking for, folded too quickly (after 6 months of operations) and I still regret the decision.

I applaud Patrick for keeping that business around for long enough to get paying customers and even trying to penetrate the enterprise world.

Patrick, besides the SEO ninja skills you applied to appointment reminder for inbound traffic, did you reach out to others via any outbound marketing?

A couple questions about the virtual agent if you're inclined to answer.

How did you choose that company? How much does it cost? Can she also do phone support or only email?

Great post! I enjoy reading these, thanks for making the info public. I have one question: Is it not very risky to angel invest in only 1-2 companies per year? I thought you needed to invest in around 5-10 in order to have a decent chance at finding the 'hit' business as most of the others will fail.

Thanks for taking the time to write this up, Patrick, it was worth the read. Hope your goal for looking after yourself better this year is achieved successfully! :)

I'm intrigued that you have a person named Sugar working for you.