Decision-making Archives - Aidas Bendoraitis' Blog

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More than 5 years ago, I started a bootstrapped limited liability company (LLC) in Germany for my software-as-a-service (SaaS) project “1st things 1st” and non-profit donation platform “Make Impact dot org”. From an egoistic perspective, it was supposed to be the key to financial freedom for me and allow me to help my closest relatives. From a vocational perspective, it should have brought more self- and global awareness to people using the platforms. From a rational perspective, it should have built the legal grounding for the donation platform that I had been building. Unfortunately, internal motivation didn’t match the external circumstances, and this article is my short overview of the lessons learned.

I founded the company as a UG, which by law should have transitioned to a GmbH as soon as it became profitable enough. As someone who didn’t speak German professionally, I got help from firma.de, who provided me with all the necessary information to get started, helped me with a company bank account, and organized an English-speaking notary appointment. A UG officially requires only 1 EUR as initial capital, whereas a GmbH requires 25,000 EUR. Practically, you need a few thousand euros to start with to cover the costs of the initial months.

Over time, I’ve read several business books and always preferred the motivational ones, such as Rework, over the frightening ones, such as The Hard Thing About Hard Things. One thing that I learned from Rework was to reuse and sell by-products of the main project. For example, while building subscription-based software projects, I was also selling reusable modules used in those software projects. The same could be done with writing books or creating an online course based on the expertise you gain from doing your main stuff. Financially, it turned out that the by-products brought me more money than the SaaS subscriptions, but in theory, monthly SaaS subscriptions should have been more predictable, while module sales were almost random.

From a software development perspective, SaaS development is very attractive because you always iterate on the existing code and make it better and better while adding tests, creating automations, improving search engine optimization (SEO), adapting to AI innovations, etc. From a marketing perspective, you can also always test and improve landing pages and copy, do A/B testing, build a blog for content marketing, etc. However, from a political and legal perspective, there are constantly new laws being published that require you to adapt to new limitations, such as cookie consent banners, GDPR and SOC 2 compliance, the No-Spam Act, the AI Act, and whatever comes in the future. These adaptations always require time to react instead of focusing on building or marketing.

An LLC in Germany has some costs and legal limitations that don’t apply to freelancing or operating as an individual. There are some taxes to pay even if you don’t make any profit, which accumulate to over 1,500 EUR per year, mandatory accounting fees of around 2,500 EUR or more per year, and 1,800 EUR for a virtual office for a legal company address, unless you are OK with registering your company at your home address. Also, don’t forget the usual expenses, like notary fees, IT-related stuff, and office supplies. Even closing a company requires around 3,500 EUR at best for different legal purposes and 1 year of shutting down time, which was a bummer to me. And if you don’t have a rich family or another stable source of income, the journey is harsh.

Over the course of those years, I have built several subscription-based projects, several modules to sell, and other digital goods to use as lead magnets. I have tried launches on product directory websites like Product Hunt, paid ads, blog content marketing, search engine optimization, advanced copywriting techniques, textual and visual social media posts, cold emailing, cold direct messages, funnels with special landing pages, guerrilla marketing, flyers, mentioning my product in books, mentioning my products in entrepreneurial meetings, guest blogging, adapting the websites for LLMs, press releases, and a few more marketing channels. I even did some woo-woo magic, like removing my money-related limiting beliefs or listening to sound frequencies that should have attracted financial abundance. The paradox was that the more effort I put in and the more I perfected what I built, the fewer new users I gained. The other important part was that no matter how much value I believed I brought, that didn’t mean that people were ready to pay for it.

I always tried to keep it ethical: no paid followers, no fake reviews, no fake testimonials, no lies in the copy, no fake employees. Interestingly, there are lots of service providers who contacted me offering Product Hunt upvotes, positive Trustpilot reviews, fabricated Reddit engagement about my brands, leads (contact info of people) from any industry, paid articles in questionable business magazines, and business award nominations to boost my ego and status. Extra money to spend and turning a blind eye to ethics would have helped the business for business’s sake — but that’s not my style.

I was also contacted by probably 50 companies offering outsourced IT services from countries with lower wages than Germany, as well as by many individual IT specialists looking for jobs. So having a company creates some kind of illusory reputation even if it’s a one-man show.

Lastly, having a company means that you have to be very careful and discerning about cold emails, as there are lots of fraudsters sending fake invoices to your accountant, webcam blackmail scams, and fake domain renewal notices. If you share your phone number online, you often also get fake calls from random countries.

What I surely learned from this was resilience and stronger self-confidence, focusing on the bright side no matter what, taking action on my ideas more proactively, and optimizing my time and energy.

What I would suggest to anyone starting a SaaS entrepreneurship journey today is to develop oral communication skills even if your business is totally online and text-based, and get a business background that goes a little beyond supply and demand and assets vs. liabilities. For the product you build, don’t reinvent the wheel — use the tech stack that you already know from the past, where you can iterate quickly on demand. The latest technological hype is not worth it. And even if you are the best IT specialist of your kind and have a very smart or useful product, that doesn’t automatically mean that you will be able to distribute it enough to sustain your company.

Even though it seems that the Internet is an open ocean with unlimited possibilities, I would still suggest starting with a local or online community in which you participate, noticing a problem they have that can be solved with IT, asking if they would be willing to pay, creating a tool without monetization for them. Only when there are real people who would buy the service the tool provides should you start a company. Don’t start an LLC in Germany, but rather stick with operating as an individual or even freelancing. You can’t build a sustainable business and pay the required taxes based only on ambition and motivation.

They say that only 10% of businesses succeed, and the others go bankrupt. Somehow, all those who start believe that they belong to the 10%. I thought about SaaS as a source of passive income. It turned out to be a lottery ticket that cost me notary fees, a bank account, virtual office, domains, servers, email, company taxes, bookkeeping, and lots of time. Was it worth it? I gained lots of experience. Otherwise, I see too many bureaucratic restrictions. So I am closing my company and will continue to implement my ideas as an individual under different legal forms.

Cover picture by Lloyd James

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Once in a while we come to a crossroad with two or more choices. The decision might be tough to make, and we don’t want to make any mistakes about it. We turn left — it’s a path of progress and prosperity; we turn right — it’s a beautiful garden with chirping birds, buzzing bees, and butterflies. Which path is right for us, we contemplate. Is studying and building a career while thinking about the long-term future the right way to go? Or is travelling around the world as a social media influencer and building lifetime memories the path we should take? Should we believe in science and the newest futuristic discoveries? Or should we focus on ancient wisdom, religions, and rituals? Should we master typing prompts on a computer keyboard or learn to weave piano melodies beneath our fingertips? Should we think long-term with 10-year plans, or should we take a leap of faith and go with the flow and synchronicities?

Two weeks ago, a couple of masked urban climbers dressed in black got onto the tower of the Empire State Building in New York and put up a black flag with white uppercase letters reading, “WHEN THE POWER OF LOVE OVERCOMES THE LOVE OF POWER, THE WORLD WILL KNOW PEACE.” Then the man knelt down on the tower’s landing and proposed. The whole act was filmed from a helicopter by national news in real time, with the reporter commenting that the couple had no climbing harnesses for safety, and questioning how they could have gotten past security in broad daylight. Afterwards, the couple climbed down, and when arrested, they walked with their heads held high.

People on Instagram were amazed by the bravery and the hope it inspired — that ordinary people aren’t so caged by rules and regulations, and that the spark of freedom to express what you feel outside the norms is still alive. Others made funny videos mocking the unrealistically high standards now set for expressions of love. Yet others revealed that the couple was already married, and that the stunt was a guerrilla marketing campaign for their new Netflix documentary, “Skywalkers: A Love Story” — and likely a chance at six-figure brand deals with companies like Red Bull.

For me, the act was elegant, no matter the intentions. And I’d like to believe in what the flag said, though at this point it feels like humanity still has decades to go before reaching that kind of peace.

So at our crossroads, we have two seemingly opposing options to choose from. After making a decision, we go there. And for sure, it will be a journey of learning and discovery, ups and downs, and we’ll get into the details of the path we chose, deeper and deeper. As a rule, we’ll also meet people criticizing the other path we didn’t choose. Maybe we’ll be glad about the meaning of our path. Maybe we’ll find something adverse and wish we’d chosen differently. We all get our lessons. However, there might be a less-travelled path in the middle, one slightly visible, that combines the best parts of both directions. It could be a harder path, since it needs to bridge the opposites. But I believe it’s the more peaceful path in the end, because it lets us understand both sides — their pros and cons — and create something new.

As self-awareness rises, more and more people are talking about ascension and escaping the matrix — often meaning leaving the cities and living in the countryside or near water. Others prefer stability, predictability, rules, and regulations. Traditional industrial or corporate thinking is often referred to as “3D,” whereas the original thought of creation based on love and higher vibrations is referred to as “5D” consciousness — and spiritual people predict a split between those two states of consciousness, rather than everyone rising together.

In my opinion, if you live consciously in a city, you can’t really escape what you rely on from the matrix: all its facilities, services, and infrastructure. But you can contribute to a more conscious world by embodying the values you wish to see, influencing those closest to you — your kids, friends, neighbours, and communities. Mini retreats, yoga classes, recreational parks, and dance and movement practices could be ways to cultivate human connection, spirituality, and healing. Book clubs and meetups can raise intellect and consciousness. In this way, the whole collective can be uplifted together.

On the other hand, if you want to live in a remote community based on love, empathy, and support, and be independent from the grid — without simply going back to the basics of hundreds of years ago — you’ll probably still draw on the knowledge and resources of existing systems to build your own infrastructure in your village. Leadership, project planning, architecture, engineering, and fundraising will all be necessary to build a village with fresh drinking water and solar panels or wind turbines for renewable energy.

In the end, there will always be a need to bridge the gap between these opposites and explain each side to the other in a vocabulary both can understand. Just as we don’t have to choose logic over heart, or heart over logic, we can also choose to balance both.