Raw reality of being an online entrepreneur

Cutting through the hype

The not-so-hidden cost of an onsite corporate job:

Your lifestyle.

• Most people waste hours commuting.

• Some live in places they don’t even like.

• Many sacrifice time with the people who matter most.

• Your life ends up serving your employer.

There’s a different way.

It’s not easy, but it’s doable.

1. Take control over where, how, and when you work

2. Prioritize real, non-transactional relationships

3. Build a routine that actually makes you happy and productive

The goal is to focus on your work output without sacrificing your well-being.

Cause your employer shouldn’t own your lifestyle.

People I care about and places I enjoy being in (not a corporate office)

Is becoming a SaaS founder / online entrepreneur the key to escape the “corporate rat race”?

Many devs today are fascinated with the idea of shipping software as solo devs and becoming small entrepreneurs.

• Lifestyle freedom

• Unlimited scaling opportunities

• Transforming a passion for coding into a business

It sounds amazing.

On the surface, at least.

But, are you ready to:

• Create a competitive distribution channel?

• Spend less than 20% of your time on actually coding?

• Learn about marketing, sales, legal, taxes, product, and so on?

It's easier than ever to:\

• Ship software

• Build a following

• "Make money online"

AI is awesome and it can help you a lot.

But, as with any gold rush…

Beware of people "selling shovels"

I wouldn't trust someone selling me tools to build SaaS, to teach me about the challenges and risks of doing it.

"What are their incentives?"

You should ask yourself this question every time you see something online.

My experience as an online entrepreneur

I speak from experience when I talk about this, because in the past year, I managed to build, from scratch, an online business (saas + coaching) that kinda pays the bills.

Mind you: I make way less money now than I did with my last job. And I work more.

Most weekends, I spend more than 50% of the time working.

When I go on vacation (less than 20 days per year), I usually spend quite some time working.

I can't really remember the last time I spent more than 2/3 days in a row not working at all.

I'm not a productivity guru, and probably the way I go about it is not the most efficient.

Still...

The bar is high

I was able to grow this in a relatively short time because I’ve had a similar, work-oriented lifestyle for several years.

I gained a lot of experience and expertise around the things I talk about before starting with content.

Plus, I learned how to create content, how to build tech solo with most modern tools, I worked great jobs where I learned a lot, etc etc.

There's a cost to this “work-oriented lifestyle”:

• sometimes relationships

• sometimes health

• maybe hobbies or the luxury of being more in the present

I don’t think this is the most efficient way for people to get the freedom and the money the chase in online entrepreneurship.

In my opinion (I believe this firmly):

Most devs are better off with a GOOD dev job, than with a SaaS business.

Here's why:

1. More coding

Most devs like coding more than marketing, sales, business, recruiting, taxes and laws, etc.

There's WAY MORE coding (broadly speaking) working as a dev than as a founder.

Being a founder involves, for a very large part, all of the non-tech things mentioned above.

2. Better lifestyle

If you're a good dev and know how to navigate the market, you can get really great jobs.

Plenty of companies offer:

• Stability

• Great WLB

• Async cultures

• Fully remote jobs

• Great compensation

3. More money

If you think that, as a dev, your chances to make $100-200k+ fully-remotely are higher as a founder than as a dev, you might want to reconsider.

EuroTopTechJobs.com has literally thousands of remote dev jobs offering that sort of money.

As a dev, no one is stopping you from upping your game and landing such a job.

Realistically, with a couple of years of focused work, you could get there.

With relatively low risk, and while getting paid in your day job and building a CV.

4. Risk

• Building and progressing in a tech career is low risk.

• Building a business is high risk.

5. Timelines

The dumbest thing is trying to create a business with 0 money and 0 skills.

If you're a rich kid, obviously it doesn't matters.

But if you're not, I would try to avoid ending up as a broke 30 years old with no career to fall back to.

Much better to:

• Build skills + money

• As your financial security + skills + network grow, take more risks and prioritise fulfillment/passion/purpose

I need to write a new version of this article on CoastFIRE, but it’s worth a read if you’re curious about how to plan your career keeping money, risk and fulfillment in mind.

Why don’t I quit my business and get a good remote job?

After reading this, it could be a valid question.

Let me explain:

When I started this newsletter, honestly, I didn’t know much about high-paying remote jobs in Europe.

I was coming from the 2015-2020 “big tech wave”: my “dream job” was to get a cool big tech job in Zurich, and I did.

Then I stacked up some money, started getting bothered by having to be in Zurich all year, and looked around for things that attracted me.

Important: I’m not a “regular dev” (I don’t mean it in an offensive way towards dev: I don’t consider myself better than “regular devs”, I’m just trying to explain).

I’ve always had a passion for entrepreneurship, media, and always found “tech environments” a bit suboptimal (many reasons) - despite liking tech and coding itself.

I always knew/suspected that I would branch out eventually.

I started this content thing a bit randomly, although I knew that I had a lot of knowledge that could be useful for other devs in Europe.

Then I liked the content world, and I studied it, worked on it, iterated, etc.

I was very lucky to go from 1k to almost 50k on LinkedIn in one year (very outlier outcome).

I also got lucky (and worked hard for) both of my businesses:

• Coaching Program

• SaaS

I got some results in both:

• In the coaching program “students” are really killing it and finding tons of value (testimonials here, although needs to be updated with recent results in landing remote jobs, big tech jobs, etc)

• The job board is a long-term play and I have fun building it while also being already quite useful to people (check out this free page to get a taste)

Money-wise, I feel quite safe:

I don’t have to stress about going broke any time soon (I have years of runway in cash + the activities that I do already generate something), I don’t have kids, etc.

Very important: I think I perform better at this entrepreneurial thing, than as a pure dev

I am a generalist, and it’s easier for me to channel all my skills in a cool way in this current occupation, than in a dev job.

So I think it could be a wise career choice for me to continue with this.

Also, so far it’s been working. And it’s rare for a new business to work, so I almost feel the duty to keep going cause not everyone gets this opportunity.

And I enjoy it as well, of course!

I think a lot of the aforementioned variables don’t hold true for the majority of devs, and that’s why I think that for most devs it’s probably not even worth trying.

Heck, even myself… Sometimes when I help people land 150k+ remote jobs in my coaching program, and every week I look at hundreds of very cool jobs on https://eurotoptechjobs.com/, sometimes I think: I should really get such a job myself… xD

And who knows, maybe in the future I will.

For now I’ll keep riding this wave, and then we’ll see.

The goal of this article

Was to keep it 100%, because one thing that is really bad with the “online world” is that a lot of people would literally sell their mother to make a sale, and the amount of deception that it’s out there is alarming.

I think high-paid remote dev job right now is the GOATed move, especially if you prefer building tech over marketing/sales etc.

If you have built up enough financial safety, skills, and a good CV, are curious about entrepreneurship and want to try it out: by all means, do it!

Ship it fast, get feedback, iterate. Get your hands dirty: see how you like it and how it feels.

But don’t sleep on the top tech jobs that are out there, and the opportunities they provide to live a great life.

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