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Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

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201–210 of 239 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#201

You're gonna get a lot of positive responses here, but frankly only do it if you think you can make meaningful money within a month or two. Everything is going off the rails this year. You only have to use Claude Code for 10 minutes to realize every job involving a computer is going to get flipped upside down within a year.

Claude Code is useless for anything that requires advanced knowledge.

Claude helped me to built an app I could have never built without it - I was learning the advanced knowledge during exploration of that field.

(though, I have 25+ years of tech/software experience, so I didnt start from scratch)

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody really likes Teams, but it does seem to have more features than Slack in terms of integration with the rest of Microsoft's office software ecosystem. It's nice to be able to open up and edit Word/PowerPoint/Excel documents directly, view the Outlook calendar directly, etc. It is also integrated with SharePoint and OneDrive for file storage. Teams had video calls before Slack as well IIRC. Teams, Slack and Disc…

the thing is: TEAMS just works, even for all office drones who cant use a computer without accidents

I can't get it to work. I have to use an incognito window or it just craps itself. Terrible software for mediocre companies.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) THe only problem with Jira is that its soooo slow :-) b) give Linear.App a chance - its great

Or you can just vibe code Rectilinear app.

No, i meant this app: https://linear.app/ as replacement for JIRA :-)

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing is: TEAMS just works, even for all office drones who cant use a computer without accidents

I can't get it to work. I have to use an incognito window or it just craps itself. Terrible software for mediocre companies.

Well, since you are on HN you are quite above the maximum level of experience allowed to use TEAMS without hassle :-D

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Successful people also tend to overestimate what portion of that success was down to timing/luck. Zuck had a lot of early-mover advantage in the social media space (especially in the university demographic Facebook started out in). A lot of his later ventures have been trying to break into markets that are already crowded by more established players, and that's just a lot harder to execute on.

Did you mean "underestimate"?

Yes, yes I did

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#206

Short answer: yes, but the “moat” has changed. A lot of people still think moats are about features. They’re not anymore. Features are cheap now. Execution and distribution are the real bottlenecks. Big companies can copy your product, but they usually won’t copy: – your speed early on – your willingness to serve a tiny, unsexy niche – your ability to change direction without internal politics In practice, most start…

Zero to one makes this crystal clear. Most startups die because they didnt manage to sell not because they didnt manage to build the product. Secondly there was never a code moat. Code was always cheap. But architecture, distribution, quality control, integration once landed, this is where money is mostly made. Most indie or small companies die because they just pick shitty problems. eg nobody cares about a goddamn notes app, the one on Mac works fine and most people write garbage in their notes like utter trash. So obviously a notes app has little value because the asset it manages has very little value. Not so much if you are building something like document storage for regulated industries. Or compliance software. In these cases, its the business domain expertise which counts. Even when applying for jobs without domain expertise code monkeys never get paid past a threshold. People / entities that command a premium are the ones with domain knowledge.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#207
If big companies could align themselves quickly they could copy your software since 10years ago. The issue is unwillingness. Why would Meta bother with copying a SaaS ? They are making money head over fist with their ads business. Keep in mind how much money big tech makes. Mark Zuckerberg personally is worth 100B dollars, most startups will be lucky to hit that number in their lifetime. Point is, its bot worth their time to pursue new ideas but rather buy out existing ones. Which is good news.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#208
post #4

In my experience (enterprise software), customers buy our products not because we have a moat or some hard-to-achieve technical advantage but because they can speak to us in their words, they know we care, and we try solve their problems quickly. Just yesterday I was speaking with the COO of a $200M/yr revenue company in the supply chain space. He'd learned Claude Code and built a couple apps to solve internal proble…

I mean its a matter of RoI, isnt it ? Investing in your existing partnership means that specific business can come to you for their problems rather than work up so much expertise bloat. I suppose there a point after which more expertise hurts a business.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being an enterprise dev in a tier 2 city. Tangential to the question, but this is me and one of my top three regrets in life is not having been a founding engineer. For people without generational wealth or a safety net it takes a particular combination of executive function and youthful ignorance of the opportunity cost (a steady paycheck and obvious career trajectory) to be a founder. As soon as I grew enough of…

I can’t think of any reason for someone statistically to start a company unless they had an “unfair advantage” post 2012 instead of working toward getting a job at BigTech and easily make 1 million+ over 4 years as a mid level developer who should get promoted to a senior by year 3

Same here - did the grind for a few years then went straight to big tech. I got offers from the full set of FAANG. I still have a disdain for code monkey work as a job (I really think its practically unskilled labour). I had studied ML to a fairly high level, so landing gigs was easy. Not to mention the money is so much better.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it though?

Their revenue last year was 400 billion dollars... you tell us.

They are still milking the product they launched 20 years ago, doing slight periodic updates to match innovations of others with few years delay. They are about as good at making new products as Google and Facebook.
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