Some people are just not good for entrepreneurship, even if they do want it very hard. Desire alone is not enough. Success is a multiplication of factors, not a sum, and if you are bad at just one aspect you fail. I think you should find a companion or two and take a couple of shots on short-term projects with them. Not a big-deal-out-of-garage, just a project to check things out. The idea is to complement each other's drawbacks and form a team that is good at everything.
Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
121–130 of 152 posts
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, basically "real" entrepreneurs are salesmen?
you're asking this question in a thread about Mark Cuban... yes, 100% salespeople
That’s depressing. So Nikola Tesla was a loser poser but your local slimey used car salesman is the ideal entrepreneur?
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#123I have met a few people who are determined to be entrepreneurs and don't seem all that picky about the content of their entrepreneurship. It doesn't seem like all that great a path. IMO it's a bit of a cliche, but you should find an idea that you're passionate about (that's also a plausible business plan, naturally :-) ) and follow it. Deciding you want to be an entrepreneur first, then casting around for ideas, seem…
Naah, I can totally see that happen. Ideas are the proverbial dime a dozen, getting them to a profitable stage involves a lot of effort that has very little to do with the core idea and a lot to do with attracting an audience, establishing cash flow, marketing, ... basically, running a business.
Someone who's intrinsically motivated to run a business only needs an idea. Someone who's intrinsically motivated by the idea only needs to run a business.
Neither is easy. Which is why plenty of businesses fail.
Of course, folks who have neither business sense nor killer ideas but still want to start a business face a very uphill challenge.
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve always resonated more with a slightly modified version in a much more powerful way. “make and sell something people want” It’s not a business unless money is getting transferred!
I think PG was very careful and very precise about the advice he gave there. If you look at the context he specifically addresses and discards the idea of trying to make money from it straight away: About a month after we started Y Combinator we came up with the phrase that became our motto: Make something people want. We've learned a lot since then, but if I were choosing now that's still the one I'd pick. Another t…
I believe apart from being in Silicon Valley, raising capital in other parts of the world is significantly much much harder.
In SV, you can go “I’ll worry about funding problem later, if I have good growth and retention, raising money will be a breeze and I’m fairly confident of it as there are tons of VCs in this economy blowing cash”
In other parts of the world: “It could mean the death of my company if I can’t raise money and using up the little I have. Bootstrapping and being profitable is a much more saner route”
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#125Just my 5 cents on making linux-commands-examples.com into an actual business: 1. Do a Google Trends research on the Linux commands people search for (and get trouble with/get confused with). Pick ~5 most popular ones. 2. Find 2-5 pages on the Internet for each command where people asked for help and didn't get a 100% satisfying reply. 3. Write a description page (or article) for each of those commands, explaining th…
> Once you get >1000 visitors/day That is a big once. >you can start monetizing it How? Ads from an ad bank?
Adsense is a good start.
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#126Get domain expertise in something other than programming and make things to solve real business problems for people that aren't technical. Alternatively, partner with people who aren't technical. There are a million developers working on programming tools / knowledge aggregators and very few are ever successful because the community wants everything to be FOSS and they won't pay you. Far fewer people are working on a…
I think this is great advice. How do you get expertise in these other domains though? Finding a job in the other field could work, but it's a huge time investment (especially if you ultimately don't end up finding any viable problems in that domain).
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a great process for becoming a nice-cashflow side project, but I doubt there's enough people searching for linux commands for this to ever be huge. Not saying this isn't a great idea, just saying that it's wise to hedge expectations and not expect this to be a get rich quick scheme. I think if you wanted to turn it into a larger business, the next step would be to determine an adjacent niche that your readers…
A friend of a friend owns and runs google ads on linux.die.net (linux manpages). It pays his mortgage.
I never realized there were ads on this website. Always though it was someone doing it for the love of it.
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
you're asking this question in a thread about Mark Cuban... yes, 100% salespeople
That’s depressing. So Nikola Tesla was a loser poser but your local slimey used car salesman is the ideal entrepreneur?
Not all salesmen are slimey used car salesmen.
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#129Get domain expertise in something other than programming and make things to solve real business problems for people that aren't technical. Alternatively, partner with people who aren't technical. There are a million developers working on programming tools / knowledge aggregators and very few are ever successful because the community wants everything to be FOSS and they won't pay you. Far fewer people are working on a…
This is the best advice I found in the whole thread. Yes, devs don't generally buy from devs, but other fields have a lot of things that need fixing.
Seconded.
Re: Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
you're asking this question in a thread about Mark Cuban... yes, 100% salespeople
That’s depressing. So Nikola Tesla was a loser poser but your local slimey used car salesman is the ideal entrepreneur?
I mean... how does history not already tell you this? Nearly every person we remember as a historical figure was able to "sell" something to get there. The typical exception to this is the person who did something interesting, but someone else sold it for them after they died.
In the eyes of their lifetimes and most of history, Edison won the Tesla v Edison battle nearly 100%. Edison was a vastly better salesperson.
If you ask the average person who Nikola Tesla was today, they'd probably say something about the car company. Elon Musk sells the name Tesla better than Tesla himself ever did.
If your idea of success is obtaining money or changing hearts and minds, you better learn how to sell (or I guess you could devise a spectacularly dangerous weapon).