As a new solo founder, who also gave up running a consultancy to build a project management product (https://planscope.io), this post REALLY resonates with me. A lot.
I'm bootstrapped, and don't ever plan on outsourcing anything - except for maybe writing blog posts. But the feeling of needing to be close to a phone or Internet connection at all times in case of the inevitable really concerned me.
But then I sat back and breathed - downtime happens. It's not the end of the world, my customers will survive. I've recruited a close sysadmin friend of mine to be on call should anything ever happen, who I'll pay per incident. But that's it, life is too short to worry constantly and be glued to your phone while with your family or loved ones.
I would say that deciding not to outsource anything is a mistake. We regularly turn to great people to help with some JavaScript features or systems administration. We've even had some folks help with Rails work a couple of times.
Thus far, without being able to hire full-time, outsourcing that stuff was the best decision that I've made yet. It enabled us to launch some features that might have otherwise taken me forever to get around to building.
I'm bootstrapped, and don't ever plan on outsourcing anything - except for maybe writing blog posts. But the feeling of needing to be close to a phone or Internet connection at all times in case of the inevitable really concerned me.
But then I sat back and breathed - downtime happens. It's not the end of the world, my customers will survive. I've recruited a close sysadmin friend of mine to be on call should anything ever happen, who I'll pay per incident. But that's it, life is too short to worry constantly and be glued to your phone while with your family or loved ones.