Earlier quoted context omitted.
You forgot the sex tape.
I'm pretty sure that's covered by his (2).
No, I think it's moved on from ridiculous and just become a mandatory step at this point.
Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
41–50 of 147 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#42I'm going to go and replace 3 years with a "short time frame". Some things to focus on: - Market opportunity- a million dollars isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Even if you put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as founders in a new venture with a total market size of 10 million, there is no way they could become too wealthy without completely…
An economist once said something to the effect of "the task of the entrepreneurs is to see holes in other entrepreneurs' plan". In other words, being a "master of information", as you said.
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Love this post, but I'm going to argue against one of your points: If it's a "trend", it's too late I disagree. In fact, if something is a trend, it's a guarantee that a market (of some kind) exists and it can save you a lot of time and research. Most big markets have large numbers of high value competitors and they're not all pioneers. Indeed, most companies with significant turnover were not pioneers in their field…
That point could really be a post all by itself and it certainly varies situation to situation. Semantics + defining "what's a trend" also play into it. There's mass market everybody knows about it trends and then there's emerging trends. The mass market trends ones are the ones to avoid like you said. The good thing is what you said: market exists. There's money there, just make sure it isn't all taken up already.
My problem so far has very much been that all of my ideas and efforts have been towards big, pie in the sky, breaking new ground type things. And of course, they usually don't get finished.
I've been trying to get far more disciplined in looking for the more practical, boring problem/solutions that follow market trends etc.
I just find it so hard to do because it doesn't excite me as much, even though I know there is so much opportunity out there.
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#44One way is not by working for someone else ... unless you get very very lucky and the company is the next Google and IPOs.
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#45Don't make something people want. Instead take away a problem that people don't want to deal with. The uglier and stinkier the problem, the better. Then price very high and look for markets where people have more money.
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
That point could really be a post all by itself and it certainly varies situation to situation. Semantics + defining "what's a trend" also play into it. There's mass market everybody knows about it trends and then there's emerging trends. The mass market trends ones are the ones to avoid like you said. The good thing is what you said: market exists. There's money there, just make sure it isn't all taken up already.
My problem so far has very much been that all of my ideas and efforts have been towards big, pie in the sky, breaking new ground type things. And of course, they usually don't get finished. I've been trying to get far more disciplined in looking for the more practical, boring problem/solutions that follow market trends etc. I just find it so hard to do because it doesn't excite me as much, even though I know there is…
Pick a really small subset of the problem and focus on that.
It may seem boring at first, but let the chase of winning excite you, along with the money. Odds are you get bored because you're not interacting with customers and/or making money from it. I've fallen into this trap before. Seeing money come into your bank account or have customers contact you will get you insanely pumped. It's not about the money in a greed sense, but in the "i've done something people find valuable sense".
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#47My advice: forget the deadline. Imposing a deadline on a result that is largely beyond your control will serve no constructive purpose. You should only set deadlines on things that are within your power to control, e.g. I will finish X by time Y. But putting a deadline on the market to respond is just silly. If you want to be a millionaire, here's the procedure: 1. Pick an activity that you think will make you a mill…
Yes, but picking a deadline means that you put a time limit on the effort, and have a good guide on when you should just give up. If it is not working for you, you should give up and try something new, but when you are involved heavily in something, it can seem like the payout is just around the corner.
You have way more information on whether the effort is likely to succeed when the deadline rolls around than when you initially set the deadline. If the payout really is just around the corner, it's silly to give up on it just because an arbitrary deadline rolled around.
I found it's much better to establish firm hypotheses when I begin a project, and then as I plan out the project, make sure that the hypotheses will either be validated or falsified along the way. If the premises under which I began the project have been proven false, then it's time to quit and do something else. But if all the premises hold yet it just takes twice as long to do everything as expected (which is fairly typical), it's worth sticking with it until the end.
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#48Don't make something people want. Instead take away a problem that people don't want to deal with. The uglier and stinkier the problem, the better. Then price very high and look for markets where people have more money.
Can you name some ugly, stinky problem that we haven't already farmed out to the third world?
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#49Why three years? IMHO, you're focussing on the wrong part of it all.
Good question. But why not 3 years? As we all know, let's say if we are given an assignment for college to do and we are given a week to complete it, almost always, I will start the assignment about 3/4 days into the week and then as the deadline looms closer, the real work happens! So in answer to your question, if I said 10 years, I would be focused on 10 years :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law
I've found this doesn't apply if you remove the deadline entirely. If given a task and a week to complete it, I will start the task on the night of the 6th day. However, if just given a task, I'll start the task immediately - or at the very least, as soon as I finish what I'm currently working on. Whether I complete it within the week depends on whether it's a week's worth of work, but I can be fairly sure that I'll end up putting in more work than if I had the original deadline, and I'll probably have something equivalent in quality to the deadline-work after about a day or two.
Re: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years?
#50Make enough money so you can save $333,333.34 each year.
Saving is highly underrated, so that actually will help...