Try to build your project, get full focus and become an excellent empiric, lots of resources these days for this, in your way 1. You can fail. 2. You can get traction and profit but always, 3. you will find a job, eventually, since you became expert in the field you have been working and exploring with your own spirit. This is my experience, 2 failures, both after the apps got traction but competition had more money to run operations at scale the most of the cases. Now my HV looks good because of them and my actual job is thanks to a reference who pointed me for a similar mission of my 2 failures but in different industry, I am developer and never applied to what represent my actual incomes, just do it before having kids and get some mentorship with someone senior, you will need to be confronted with reality or receive guidance on how to do things quicker or easier. Respect for taking the first and most important step.
Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
21–30 of 125 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#22Work part time to pay the bills and spend the rest of your time working on your projects. The $60,000 of yours will disappear faster than you think. You'll eventually spend money on the business I assume.
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#23I highly advise u choose safe routine, while spend your spare time on side projects. You can always find sparks on HN or Indiehackers websites, or some Internet Marketing related forums.
Do you know PHP and wordpress? I personally have a very big project idea, but only need a very very high level technique involving design a wordpress plugin using PHP, if this can be done, it would be a very good side project and passive. (no need big investment, the plugin is the main goal)
good luck to u and your family.
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't entirely agree with this. I think it's useful to build a proof of concept even without any follow-up plans or objectives. Besides the fact that it'll be easier to visualize and present the idea to people, the act of building a proof of concept or a real MVP would be learning experiences themselves. In fact thinking about what's to be included as part of the MVP and prioritizing to fit within a pre-set deadlin…
Let's be honest here too, it's FUN to build a proof of concept. This is a very, very common failure mode of new entrepreneurs. As long as you don't have any customers, any promises, or any deadlines, you can focus on the best part of being a programmer: programming. Thus people often end up postponing the customer acquisition farther and farther into the future, until they run out of savings, or just abandon the proj…
Everything you've said is true but I think we don't agree on what a proof of concept is.
I think of it as something that does the main purpose that looks entirely real (so has a domain and is responsive for example) but doesn't actually function. This can definitely be done in a similar amount of time as the XD sketch. Perhaps slightly longer but it'd look more real and therefore would be taken more seriously.
In fact its most important purpose is to save you from building something that does actually function.
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't entirely agree with this. I think it's useful to build a proof of concept even without any follow-up plans or objectives. Besides the fact that it'll be easier to visualize and present the idea to people, the act of building a proof of concept or a real MVP would be learning experiences themselves. In fact thinking about what's to be included as part of the MVP and prioritizing to fit within a pre-set deadlin…
Building a proof of concept is an incredibly expensive way to figure out what clients want. And many times you find out you're so far off that none of the project is reusable. Also plenty of clients will take meeting without an proof of concept. And this is especially true when you have a really good idea.
I've found the opposite to be true -- easier to get a meeting if you have something to show even with a mediocre idea.
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#26Before you write a line of code for #2, have a clear strategy for app distribution, user acquisition, free to paid conversion. It won’t just happen because you have a great product. Just remember to make a million a year, you need 10,000 people paying you $10 a month.
Or one person paying you 1 million...
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#27Work part time to pay the bills and spend the rest of your time working on your projects. The $60,000 of yours will disappear faster than you think. You'll eventually spend money on the business I assume.
Do you have recommendations on where I can find part-time work?
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#28re: #2 > [...] I feel like I could make these ideas work, but it's also super risky. I don't want to spend 1-2 years working on these ideas only to look up and realized I wasted my time and money. If you can't get comfortable with that risk, you're going to have a very hard time being an entrepreneur. There's always people who luck into an amazing business and business model, but realistically, you're going to have t…
I totally agree with the risk comment. Also, my idea is to onboard small businesses slowly. Maybe, adopting and building out features/tools for one business at a time. Until the project is more completed and I can focus on scaling the onboarding.
The problem isn't onboarding. The problem is that without a pool of users, the site is worthless to businesses. The fundamental question you have to answer is -- assume you can friends and family a couple businesses, fine -- why does business 7 pay you money, or even do anything at all for you? Or business 8, or 9, or 10...
Small businesses are barraged with calls from vendors like you.
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#29If you're bootstrapping, be wary of the NYC burn rate: your expense base will explode and you're going to get taxed up the wazoo on your early revenue. Worst business environment I've ever had to operate in.
If you're selling primarily to a NYC audience or industry, then move there of course - get close to the customer. Otherwise you've got a lot more runway in the South....
Re: Ask HN: Should I find a job or try to build a profitable project?
#30I think "runway" (i.e. your personal savings) is a terrible idea that should be debunked and dropped by the entrepreneurial community.
You don't have runway - you have the savings to buy a house, or form the foundation for the next stage of your life.
If you build your business whilst you have a source of income then you have infinite runway - you can keep trying until your dying day or you give up.
It's only after you've tried to build your social network for dogs and failed that you look back and say "wow, that $120,000 was actually ALOT of money - it's going to take me years to make that again". AND now you don't have money to build your next great idea - Uber for petwalking.
Using your savings as "runway" is just gambling with unlikely odds.
Any "runway" that can keep you going for a year in a modern western city is ALOT of money - you're really undervaluing that money if you use it just to live whilst creating a business. And you're also assuming that you're going to be able to make that same amount of money just as easily another time - that may or may not be true at all.