I'm not sure why I'm responding to someone who didn't seem to actually read the post, but...
It's not a question of whether customers will pay (and that's not what the post is about). It's a question of how many customers will pay and how quickly they sign up.
No one would argue (I hope) that Basecamp doesn't solve a real problem... But it took them 12 months before they could afford to focus on it full-time.
SpanningSync looks cool and quite successful. So does PlentyOfFish, but that doesn't mean that you're any likelier to build an overnight AdSense money machine.
Most bootstrappers I meet think that SpanningSync stories are the norm. They aren't.
I work for a bootstrapped company. Back in 1999 the guy had to borrow $50,000 from his mom because his credit card debt was too much. He was getting about $5000 a month from the sale of a small travel company he sold to the co-founder.
Once he figured out what would work (and that took awhile after a few missed tries) he had his market and intial funding based upon a really bad working demo I created (that would break when more then 1 person was using it at a time and I would have to reboot the server after about 5 minutes or so). The intial funding came from the customers who were going to use it. There were 40 and each paid $3,000. That was enough money to hire some very inexpensive "programmers" from a local trade school and we were able to upgrade the demo into a full product.
The company is doing just fine, has 4000 monthly subscribers, I am making him a new product and I believe he will double the number of subscribers.
I did just read the article :) But I am familiar with bootstrapping. On my own I am about to release "OfficeZilla Pro" and pray that there is enough take up to at least pay the $500 a month hosting bill. I am working on versions for vertical markets and one day will see it to profitability.
Successful stories (bootstrapped or not) aren't the norm. Period.
Most (if not all) bootstrappers are optimistic (and thus willing to risk steady paying job) about their product(s). As are result, they think SS stories are the norm. This will sound strange but if you don't think that way, you will already have lost half the battle.
It's not a question of whether customers will pay (and that's not what the post is about). It's a question of how many customers will pay and how quickly they sign up.
No one would argue (I hope) that Basecamp doesn't solve a real problem... But it took them 12 months before they could afford to focus on it full-time.
SpanningSync looks cool and quite successful. So does PlentyOfFish, but that doesn't mean that you're any likelier to build an overnight AdSense money machine.
Most bootstrappers I meet think that SpanningSync stories are the norm. They aren't.