@dvassallo tweeted something which nicely summed up my approach to self-employment as a maker:

Forms of self-employment income for developers:

 - SaaS: Takes a long time for meaningful returns.

 - Info Products: High volatility, unpredictable, potential for extremely high ROI.

 - Freelancing: Predictable, stable, choose your own hours.

Mix together for maximum effect!

So which should we go for first? It depends, on time and money.

“Depends a lot on the situation. If I had no savings, I’d do freelancing. If I had a very short runway, I would do info products. And with a long runway, I’d go with SaaS. Mixing them seems ideal in every situation though, at least in the beginning.”

Indeed. Everything that he shared had perfectly summed up my journey as a maker so far. Fresh into self-employment, I actually had ambitions to want to make my own software products, but I didn’t know how to code, nor knew what it takes to run my own solo business. So as fate would have it, I fell into freelancing and consulting almost unintentionally, set up Outsprint (a consulting service for design and government), and got paid on my time. And indeed, in pre-COVID, that income stream was relatively stable. 

That went on for a few years, until I got restless and started to make info products using nocode. This started with my #1mvp1month challenge, creating listings products like Public Design Vault and later on Keto List Singapore. But as @dvassallo rightly observed, info products are unpredictable. You might score a hit, or you might not. Many of the products I made under #1mvp1month didn’t go anyway. One or two made the Product Hunt page for one day. One product even scored the elusive #1 product of the day. That goes to show the volatility of info products. But all that hype didn’t last past the week. The products made some spare change, but nothing that would make a real dent on ramen profitability. During these periods, I would swing between both income stream - make products during low season, and fall back to freelancing to survive. But all along I kept thinking back at my original aspiration, to make software products. I dabbled in learning a bit of coding here and there, but never fully committing.

And now? I’m diving into Vue and Rails, all while trying my hand in making a SaaS, which “takes a long time for meaningful returns.” That’s so true… unfortunately for me. Just making the thing as a noob coder takes months probably. Building up the brand, market presence? Even longer. But this time, things got a lot tougher as freelance gigs had all but disappeared. It’s pushing me into a corner now, forcing me to work harder and want more out of my info products and SaaS. But these are notoriously volatile and long-term games. And I need short-term, low hanging fruits, for now at least. Moreover, my impatience often gets to me, because I’m so into that future where I make a living off my SaaS, and any thought of retuning to freelancing feels like taking steps backwards. What then?

Push out more info products and hope to get a hit? 

Or push harder to find freelance gigs?

Or set a short deadline and push out a minimum version of a SaaS and see what happens?

Tough choices.