Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why don't freelance hackers and development companies create startups?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–39 of 39 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why don't freelance hackers and development companies create startups?

#31

Post by dalke »

alinajaf wrote: post #23
dalke wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me. I started working for myself in 2000. Certainly I've had ideas for a product, and a few that I've prototyped, but nothing more than you might expect from someone trying out a few things at home, away from their actual job. (Strictly speaking that's not quite correct. I have released a few open source "products", but I charge no money for them. My revenue for the last 12 years is from consulting and training.)

That qualifies as "in some capacity" as far as I'm concerned.

Which, the release of open source projects, or the two weeks of work over 10 years which never went anywhere?

It feels like any number of employees who read HN are in the same category as freelancers who read HN in having any of a number of, say, github projects and ideas for products which never go anywhere.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't freelance hackers and development companies create startups?

#32

Post by calciphus »

I think as many folks have said, building real products and startups is a risk - the kind of risk that most freelancers tend to avoid. Freelancing and not knowing where your paycheck for the next 6 months is coming from is risk enough.

That said, any development company who wants their revenues to outpace their ability to hire new employees is going to be investing some measure of their talent, resources, and insight into new products. Pivotal, 37signals, etc, etc, etc.

I work for a company called ELC (http://elctech.com). Over the years we've been in business have started RightCart (bought by Buy.com), RightSignature (online doc signing) and RightScale (cloud management company). All of these began as internal tools or projets and were spun off into fully functional companies, taking some of our developers with them.

For us, spinning off these companies makes for a great investment and when they succeed, a big feather in our cap. But the fact is, the internal structure of a startup (at least any successful one) is worlds different from a professional services group, and spinning them off is necessary for their success. Times we've tried to do the startup entirely within our organization has been considerably less successful.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't freelance hackers and development companies create startups?

#34

Post by phamilton »

As a freelance developer you don't have to build things that are profitable. You just need to build something for someone with money that they think will be profitable. I don't know how many stupid products I've built that I don't personally find to be profitable.

It's easy to find many products that are wanted by only one person. Therefore, consulting is easy. Building a startup is about finding one product that many people want, which is much more difficult.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't freelance hackers and development companies create startups?

#35

Post by geoffw8 »

alinajaf wrote: post #10
geoffw8 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really short-sighted view, there are literally thousands (if not more) of freelancers and development companies who have no wish to work on their own products. It just isn't in some peoples mindsets. They literally just don't care. Just because in our dimension every development agency, or freelancer writes a blog doesn't mean they're the only guys who exist.

> there are literally thousands (if not more) Like who?

Frankly I'm surprised you need examples. A few companies I've worked with didn't create products, they literally created CMS based websites, and when home-time came they clocked off. I'd rather not link to them (unwanted attention). But you and I are both from London, if your view finishes with the people you meet at meetups, read about on blogs - then your seeing 2% of the actual space.

For these people its business as usual, they would I guess as you and I might say, be running on business 1.0. They haven't heard of Github, probably haven't heard of Ycombinator/HN either, or Techcrunch. And thats how they like it.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't freelance hackers and development companies create startups?

#37

Post by chris_dcosta »

My guess is that some freelance hackers do indeed create startups, just not the majority of them.

Regarding development companies, well you'd have to ask yourself why the owner who has already spent time going through the pains of starting up, want to throw away a working business in favour of one that may or may not work.

The owner could encourage side projects if so minded, but it's more likely once their business is running, that they have too much to worry about running one business to have time to think about creating another.

Either that or they have lost interest once the dough starts coming in!

Re: Ask HN: Why don't freelance hackers and development companies create startups?

#39

Post by Nikkki »

What a coincidence. I had a discussion with the head of a software development house for start-ups on this weekend. He strictly said no to such a proposal because they have had a only failures trying to build products. I think it takes a lot of commitment and full focus to really build a successful product than just moonlightining on an idea.
Post reply on HN