Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

Is “software startup” the right term? I understand that you might want to “use software” in the startup but surely, in the most successful startups, the thing that makes them successful is that they solve a real problem, that real people/businesses have, and are prepared to “pay” [1] you to solve for them.

If the startup is just “software for the sake of software” then I think that’s a different thing entirely. And to be fair, sometimes software for the sake of it is more like art or fun. And it’s true, sometimes something wonderful comes out of that. Sometimes. :)

[1]: Obviously “pay” can mean _very_ different things in different contexts.

> Considering there is very little moat left in software and big companies can copy your product in no time?

Whenever you have doubts about your ability to do something enough to ask for advice from random people you don’t know, and if that thing is unnecessary and will be significantly difficult, like a startup that is just some option for you to work on, the answer is probably no.

You have to feel the true desire to make something happen because you must. Anything other than that is probably a bad idea.

Oculus was shipping hardware/software before the Facebook acquisition, and proceeded to slowly bleed out post-acquisition. We shipped a few decent VR headsets in the middle there (Quest 1, 2 and 2s/3), but most of the other initiatives within Meta's reality labs withered on the corporate vine...

The proof is really in the pudding, isn't it? I don't see a wave of successful vibe-coded startups in the market yet. That's kind of the benchmark for whether this stuff actually does in practice what the AI-hypemen claim it can.

This seems like a very jaded comment, and if it’s because you got burned in a startup, then you have my sympathy and I’m sorry for debating. Just know that not everyone is running on nothing but greed. You might be confusing VCs with startup founders a bit. VCs are definitely profit motivated, by design. It’s going too far, and incorrect IMO, to suggest even VCs, or anyone involved, doesn’t care about building solutions or care about customers. All founders I’ve ever met care about what they make, and most VCs care about it somewhat but also care that the founders care strongly; they don’t often fund founders who don’t care.

So can you source any of your claims of “most”? I just looked it up, and the majority of software startups are self-funded or angel/seed-funded, not VC funded. Founders that don’t care about product or customers enough tend to fail. Founders that only care about the payoff don’t tend to self-fund their startup.

That said, everyone and all companies have financial incentives. There’s nothing unique or new about software startup founders there. The entire economy runs on profit motive. And I’ve seen a lot more people who don’t care about customers or product working in large companies making a nice easy salary working 9 to 5 (or less)!

My personal sampling of founders vs company workers is that founders are, by far, the ones who care more deeply about building something new and delighting customers and growing a sustainable business, care enough to start working nights and weekends, go years with crappy pay or no pay, to do every job in the company from engineering to design to marketing to support to filing taxes. Some people certainly are at least partially motivated to accept these sacrifices for the chance at a payoff, but lots of founders would prefer a lifestyle company where they get to keep building and don’t have the insane pressures and politics of a unicorn company.

Pivots are a thing because good product ideas often are not good business ideas. Startups that fail to pivot are the ones that die, and if your startup dies you don’t get to care about what you’re building or about customers at all. If you want companies to care about product and customers and not profit, then you should embrace sustainable economics, and that means making things people will pay for, and when they’re not paying, making something else.