Ask HN: Am I just a wantrepreneur?

You can only control your efforts, not the outcome. A writer writes, a singer sings, a creator creates.

So long as you’re actually putting businesses out into the universe you’re a full fledged entrepreneur.

I can’t tell you why you haven’t been as successful as you want to be. That kind of advice is all over the place. Perhaps the comments here are right: figure out what the customer wants first and make a minimal first product. Perhaps they’re wrong and you should incubate them for longer or perhaps some third thing (partner with someone else? It’s not bad to be the drummer in the Beatles).

But I think self-doubt is a natural part of creativity and maybe even a sign you’re on the right track.

> "Ideas are actually the easiest thing, execution is the hardest."

This. I've seen many people with "good" startup ideas, but doing always > talking.

Just 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 the stuff people struggle with. Publish link on pages found at #2. Unless you write something cheesy there, people will actually be helpful and won't ban you.

4. Install Google Analytics. Set yourself a proxy goal of 1000 users per day. Start analyzing: how many views per day do you get from a Linux command with score of X in Google Trends with Y links on it from other forums? Back-propagate your goal to actionable items: write N more pages on topics A,B and C, M links for each.

5. Once you get >1000 visitors/day, you can start monetizing it. A very rough ballpark estimate is $1 per 1000 views (give or take, more like 0.1$-10$ depending on a plethora of factors).

6. Once you get a flow of at least $1/day, do your back-propagation again and make a system for yourself when you can look at a topic in Google Trends, quickly search relevant forums, and know exactly how many $/month would an article on this topic bring you. Then compare this income with your effort to write and promote an article and decide whether this is a business you want to do.

P.S. You can also get traffic on writing articles like "did you know those rare time-saving features of commands X, Y or Z" and publishing them on Reddit, HN and other similar sites. Once you figure out the right style to do it so that people will consider it helpful advice and not spam, you can get decent traffic.

Disclaimer: I use those techniques to advertise my paid tool for developers. It may not pay off for a purely ad-monetized content site.

Same. I started a multi-user calculator (now dead) hoping to get users and eventually offer paid plans. It never got more than 5 monthly users. Started a blog (now dead). Not much traffic. Made some contract work for people, but the projects are too damn boring so I'd rather focus on university. I think I am happier when I code free side projects without any capitalist aspiration. Still, the desire to stop having a boss is strong. But then, the clients become the boss, which can be as bad.

Thank you for such an amazing advice, that sounds like a plan I'm going to follow with my future projects as well!

Do you mind sharing your app? I'm really curious.