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Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
111–119 of 119 posts
Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
#112Solving a problem in my area and timing is my experience. My sideline is 18 years old and paid for a lot of my family life.
Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
#113[dead]
Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
#114I relate to this so much. I work in accounting and got so fed up with constantly juggling full screen spreadsheets that I ended up building a Mac utility just to force a picture in picture mode for any window.
The coding phase was actually the easy part because it felt productive. But now that the app is done and I am literally launching it today, I am hitting that exact same wall. The build it and they will come mindset is a total trap.
My unfair advantage was knowing the exact pain point of my own workflow but my massive blind spot is distribution. Reading this thread is a harsh reminder that building the thing is only 10 percent of the battle. The other 90 percent is the brutal grind of getting people to actually see it.
Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
#115[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
#116I think distribution and reach are the hardest part. I've really been struggling with that. How do I spread the word to the right audience.
Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
#117I can help you fix this, it seems like there are so many steps you are missing, things dont manifest without a chain of permissions. "build it and they will come" yea not in todays time, attentions span is too short. If you want to talk about this further i'll be glad to give you some advice >> james.exec@proton.me
Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
#118It's possible, but "solo" is a lie told to keep you motivated. Shipped a B2B vertical platform in 12 months alone (paying customers now). What actually made it possible was: three prior jobs where I learned the boring parts (auth, payments, ops, CI), domain expertise I happened to have from family (HVAC engineering, which is what the product vertical turned out to be), plus forums and OSS libraries that are effective…
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Re: Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Morality aside: To be fair, having ran many legitimate businesses and knowing few people that did the opposite, I must admit that the difficulty level in running "elaborated grey activity" is actually quite complex, people have this belief that it's actually "easier" but I doubt it's the case, many many more guardrails (accounts, anonymity, money where it goes, how can it be sustained...)
That's right. That shit is hard. But it's the only possible niche for someone who's an outsider and doesn't have a Valley network: do something legit companies can't do for regulatory reasons. Otherwise, well-funded companies with deeply networked founders where both funding and actual sales are done between people who knew each other from school or are relatives, they will just eat your market and will never even no…
Or the better formula: Find a small niche you're passionate about, thats too small for the large companies but perfectly reasonable for you and small/mid size team.