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Ask HN: How did you start your business?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#51

Post by 21savageaf »

fecak wrote: post #38
gwbas1c wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruiting and resume writing is what entrepreneurs call a "tie shop business." The product is already well-defined, the customers are already well-known, and how to operate the business is already well-known. Even a software consulting firm is a "tie shop business." Developing new technology is the polar opposite of a "tie shop business." The product is new, the customers are unknown, and how to sell the product is…

I expect most users of hacker news aren't creating any businesses at all ("tie shops" or otherwise) but are here for interesting stories and dialogue with others. YC's portfolio and team may be creating new tech, but HN is a bit of a bigger umbrella from what I've seen, and in my several years commenting here your comment is the closest thing to a "you don't belong here" or "stay in your lane" signal that I think I'v…

Agreed, I enjoyed reading your story and since OP left the question pretty open I thought it fit perfectly.

Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#52

Post by ibz »

sreyaNotfilc wrote: post #22
jasonlfunk wrote: post #16

The best thing that I was able to do is to reduce my fulltime job hours to part time, initially 3 days/week, and used the other time to grow my own business. This may or may not be applicable in every situation, but if you are a positive contributer in your working environment, it's unlikely that your boss would rather just replace you (and retrain a new person) instead of just having you work less. This eases the st…

You know what, I've never thought about that possibility at all. Usually, when you hear about starting a business while working, you're just working extra hours on top of your 9-5. Maybe I can try that with the leave I have saved up and then ease my way into a part-time gig. Well, after I start making money on the side business. Thanks for the insight.

1st step, going from 5 days / week to 4 days / week is pretty much a no brainer. You get 50% more free time for 20% less money. I did that 2 years ago and never looked back. Sometimes I switch to 3 days / week, then back to 4 days, depending on how I feel. But I would never consider a "full time job" more than 4 days / week. But sure, I am getting shit done, so I don't have a problem asking for that.

Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#53

Post by Radim »

abrichr wrote: post #40
Radim wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quit in 2009, age 28. It was not that hard financially -- I moved to southern Thailand, worked on the PhD and Gensim there. Thailand is a pretty cheap country to live actually.

How did you negotiate doing a PhD remotely?

I feel like I'm not helping you guys much, because my circumstances may have been unique, but the honest answer is:

Not much negotiation needed. My uni had what I'd call an "old school AI department", grounded in linguistics / semantic web and RDFs / expert systems, that type of research. I was more into statistics, Bayesian inference and vectors. The mutual impact was lukewarm, and completing my thesis remotely not an issue.

Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#54

Post by cooervo »

spodek wrote: post #36

1. My nation elected a president more interested in plundering the environment than protecting it. 2. Nearly everyone feels "I want to act but if no one else does then my actions won't matter so I'll keep doing what I'm doing." 3. When I've gotten over that feeling, my changes improved my life. My podcast, Leadership and the Environment http://joshuaspodek.com/podcast , emerged to help provide the leadership for cult…

are you eating meat? avoiding meat & diary products is the best way to help the environment. Sensitive issue because not many people will do the change.

Watch Cowspiracy to learn more.

Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#55

Post by jallardice »

A colleague and I left a large UK company and started orangejellyfish (https://orangejellyfish.com), a software consultancy with a focus on the web and JavaScript. The real push to start it came when we realised that much of what we both wanted to achieve in terms of craftsmanship, maintainable code and training in new technologies for engineering teams not yet exposed to them, was not going to be possible. We knew that many businesses do have a desire to improve those aspects of their engineering teams, and when we came to an agreement with a company that would become our first major client we decided that the time was right to both commit ourselves full-time.

We've doubled in size from our initial 2 in the last couple of months and with many more prospects on the horizon we're hoping to add a few more to that over the course of the next year!

Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#57

Post by cabinguy »

I started buying broken laptops on eBay, fixing them, and reselling them with my best friend. We started with $600 each on credit cards. That turned into a large refurbished computer sales business. So large that I started shopping for a vacation home (lake home).

Well, the process of buying a vacation home was frustrating. This was back in 2002 and most real estate brokerages did not have websites, and if they did, they were static and outdated. This led to a conversation with my business partner...and we ended up buying a really good domain related to my vacation home search and launched a website for realtors. We called it our side project.

When the used laptop market turned into the used VCR market, we shifted all of our eggs to our side project basket.

Today we own a real estate brokerage with 20 offices and are pretty much considered the leaders in the lake home sales market in the Midwest. We're on track to hit a $Billion in annual sales in the next couple of years (did about $300M last year). Neither of us were Realtors (I'm still not). It's been an interesting ride so far.

Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#58

Post by jeffreyrogers »

Slaul wrote: post #34

I have a question about starting businesses...I'm getting ready to launch an MVP and it never occurred to me to research opening a specific bank account for it, whether or not I need to get a sole proprietorship (I'm in Canada, afaik this is our version of LLC more or less), etc. Anybody have any good resources for this stage of the process?

In the US a sole proprietorship is different than an LLC. It's basically just an alias that an individual uses to operate as a business. I think this is the same in Canada. An LLC limits your liability in the case that the business goes bankrupt or someone sues you or something like that so that your personal assets can't be taken.

I'm hesitant to give legal advice, especially to someone in another country whose laws I don't know, but in the US sole proprietorship are very common for small businesses and you can always switch to an LLC (or its Canadian equivalent) later.

Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#59

Post by dalacv »

lettergram wrote: post #29

I was and still am working full-time, but I try to put a new side mvp project out every roughly every 6 months which can (hopefully) generate revenue. Ive been doing this for about 2 years, and am launching hopefully my third "successful" project in April. My most recent project ( https://projectpiglet.com/ ) is an AI financial predictor - I started with scripts in 2013 - 2014, I then rewrote it recently to launch as…

Just an observation: On project piglet, the red price slashing gives me a perception of "desperation". My opinion is get rid of it and just make them nice simple numbers (whatever those prices end up being) without the drastic price slash.

Re: Ask HN: How did you start your business?

#60

Post by kypro »

jallardice wrote: post #55

A colleague and I left a large UK company and started orangejellyfish ( https://orangejellyfish.com ), a software consultancy with a focus on the web and JavaScript. The real push to start it came when we realised that much of what we both wanted to achieve in terms of craftsmanship, maintainable code and training in new technologies for engineering teams not yet exposed to them, was not going to be possible. We knew…

How do you typically find your clients?
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