Ask HN: Did you get "never have to work again rich" through software?

Alas, there's no way to "follow" on HN.

I don't love that term, but people know what it means. You can make a business that doesn't depend on traction and scale.

Find a prosaic need, and serve it. Could start with consulting, or products. Start small, stay small by Rob Walling is an excellent primer, as is the four hour workweek. The latter glosses over how much effort is actually required to make a "muse", but the mindset is spot on.

I'm currently doing this. I'll never get a $10 million payout, but I've built good revenue streams and have complete freedom of time.

And I did it without knowing programming. You've basically got a superpower in the internet world. You can program AND you have a baseline of entrepreneurial knowledge.

Just shift out of startup mode. As long as you've got enough money or time that you can work on something new without starving, it's not THAT hard to make a business that gives you freedom.

(No guaranteed success, but the odds are significantly better than in a startup. This talk by DHH is a good overview)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

1. Small business - Bakery, barber shop, golf store 2. Lifestyle startup - Unique product, smallish market, little chance of liquidity event 3. Venture - Startups with the potential for massive, fast growth

Every time I think about starting #1, I dismiss it immediately. I see it as merely the illusion of freedom.

A girl from my hometown opened a Pure Barre. Sure, she doesn't have a "boss", per se, but she's still working like a dog to send most of her money to the .1% -- the rent she pays in the shopping center, the utility bills, the franchise fees, the Gatorade she sells from the fridge, the fridge itself, etc... and probably makes There are exceptions, but generally I think the same thing is true of restaurants, bars, computer repair shops and franchisees of all stripes.

Having experienced #2, first-hand, I can tell you that it's much harder to do than it sounds. I think the universe wants growth or death in all things. Hanging out -- safely -- in equilibrium between them is a rare feat.

If you aim at a market that's a bit too large, you're going to get crushed by the big boys. In fact, there are myriad examples of large corporations butting into small markets first discovered by startups because, heck, why not? The big corporation has the resources to inject itself into the small market on the off chance that there's actually something there. It's like buying insurance.

If you aim at a market that's too small, then you don't make any money and you're on your own to pull it off because no (worthwhile) investor should want to get into a small market with MAYBE a $5m buyout years down the road. Ditto good co-founders and employees. If you're able to get investors and rock-star help, you're probably in "venture" territory, not "lifestyle".

What happens with a lifestyle biz is you end up turning a small profit and living on the edge, fearing that something doesn't go horribly wrong. One lawsuit... one legislative change... you, the lifeblood of the company, have a medical emergency... and it all goes poof.

Worst of all, you're stuck. Because it's a middling market, it's difficult to find anybody who could run it in your stead (they're at Google, etc), so it's always and forever on you.

Again, there are many exceptions. Like the guy who runs The Chive or the guy who runs Fark. It's possible, just harder than it sounds. If you're going to take all the risk and invest your time, why would you knowingly aim small like that?

No, for my money, #3, swinging for the fences, is the only way to go. Anything short of that is setting yourself up for years of anxiety and frustration with little chance of making real money. I'd rather put my money on red or black and see how it turns out quickly.

This is very much part of my frustration. I put my pseudo-resume on CFL and got blasted with dozens of requests, so many that I had to put assholish "don't contact me unless" prerequisites on my profile. But here's the thing I've realized (and maybe you did, more painfully): I know not to get involved with a stranger or even an acquaintance that I haven't known for years. Finding someone who can produce at an obsessive, passionate level like you (hopefully) will is extremely difficult and riddled with risk. Heck, just finding someone who is a net positive is hard enough.

If you co-found with a non-bestie, not only are you taking all that risk on yourself, but investors are going to look the other way. They know it better than anyone: startup teams are like marriages. It can get ugly really, really quickly, completely obliterating the business in the process.

I have an unhealthy envy of some cofounding teams that just were, no work involved at all. It's like they took the undisputed hardest part of starting a company and just sidestepped it. Digital Ocean is a team of brothers, for example. Many big startups were formed out of happenstance high school or college buddies. But guess what? When you grow up in a tiny town in flyover country where entrepreneurship is unheard of, those people don't exist. I did go to a top-10 university, but it wasn't particularly entrepreneurial like Stanford or Berkeley. Everyone I knew there is now a banker, lawyer, doctor, etc. My only engineering buddy from college has been at Microsoft for 12 years and has two kids, and even still, I've made several unsuccessful runs at him (and others).

I'm allowing myself to be a little whinier than I would under a real account, so sorry if it sounds ultra-negative.

Meh, in for a penny...

Dear God I hate the concept of marriage. It has stolen all my friends and all my potential co-founders. I secretly celebrate divorce.

I co-founded a company with my best friend in high school. He screwed me 6 months into the biz. As an individual, the fires of entrepreneurship completely changed him.