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Ask HN: Advice for turning my side project into a real business

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Re: Ask HN: Advice for turning my side project into a real business

#51

Post by DarrenDev »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #19

I was you about a decade ago... I can't stress enough that if you don't have serious money in the bank or rich friends, you need to keep your day job and bootstrap. One approach I've seen work well even though it may be slow and frustrating - use the proceeds from your day job to hire a developer to do the work. You create the work plan, let someone else fill in the gaps. You focus on marketing / customer interaction…

> use the proceeds from your day job to hire a developer to do the work

Interesting and timely. I'm close to doing this now - the time just isn't there to devote to the product and the day job, and the product needs an 8 hour a day developer for 6-12 months. Do you have any examples of where this worked to get something new off the ground.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for turning my side project into a real business

#52

Post by poulsbohemian »

DarrenDev wrote: post #51
poulsbohemian wrote: post #19

I was you about a decade ago... I can't stress enough that if you don't have serious money in the bank or rich friends, you need to keep your day job and bootstrap. One approach I've seen work well even though it may be slow and frustrating - use the proceeds from your day job to hire a developer to do the work. You create the work plan, let someone else fill in the gaps. You focus on marketing / customer interaction…

> use the proceeds from your day job to hire a developer to do the work Interesting and timely. I'm close to doing this now - the time just isn't there to devote to the product and the day job, and the product needs an 8 hour a day developer for 6-12 months. Do you have any examples of where this worked to get something new off the ground.

I've seen multiple people on HN espouse this idea over the years. Likewise, if you are in a place that has tech meetups / and entrepreneurial ecosystem, I guarantee you'll be able to find people who have followed this path. Think of what an entrepreneur without tech skills would do - they would have to find someone to build their product. You've just got a leg up by virtue of also understanding what that hired person or team is actually doing.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for turning my side project into a real business

#53

Post by replwoacause »

jmduke wrote: post #46
jacknews wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not meaning to be a hater, I'm sure the service itself is great, but what stack are you using to make the web page scroll so unresposive? And the source is just , is it flutter?

No offense taken, but that's odd to hear! There's nothing really fancy happening on the marketing pages: it's built in Next, but like you said it's all pretty much just divs with no scroll-jacking. Mind emailing me (justin@buttondown.email) details so I can try and repro?

Scrolls like butter over here: Arc on M1 Macbook Air.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for turning my side project into a real business

#57

Post by sheperd209 »

hurtuvac78 wrote: post #15

For any 20+ years-old readers here, if you ever think/dream about starting a business, you should learn from OP that cash and savings is paramount for freedom and creating a business later on. > product-focused dev with 10 years experience at a-list startups [...] I don’t have enough cash saved up for significant runway. I’m 35 with family and living in the US. The earlier you start, the more you accumulate, the more…

20+ year old reader

I guess as an engineer, building the product itself seems to be the easy part. How do you market it, find potential customers, or indeed KNOW at all that your product is a winning one?

Obviously uncertainty is a part of every entrepreneur, but I would love to get opinions from fellow engineers

Re: Ask HN: Advice for turning my side project into a real business

#58

Post by simne »

We all after 30 more or less in your position, if don't have some spare capital, like father's house (as in Ghost busters, btw, old good cinema).

Unfortunately, this is not good position, because from $600/mo to something considerable for family life in US, may be long path, and not cheap, and not predictable.

I don't think you consider moving away to some cheap place, so answer is simple - keep your day job.

America is country of freedom, so you could continue your side business, and continue grow slowly, but until it will grow much more (I think about 10x at least), it will not become attractive for much investments, and you should not consider it as your main priority - now your main priority family and day job.

BTW, $600/mo is considerable amount for 3rd world countries, and this could be real solution, but it could be not easy, to hire people abroad.

Sorry, life is hard. I believe, if you will see old good cinema, this could make things looking softer and warmer, to accept.

And tell me, if you want to talk more.

Thank you and good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Advice for turning my side project into a real business

#59

Post by apsurd »

sheperd209 wrote: post #57
hurtuvac78 wrote: post #15

For any 20+ years-old readers here, if you ever think/dream about starting a business, you should learn from OP that cash and savings is paramount for freedom and creating a business later on. > product-focused dev with 10 years experience at a-list startups [...] I don’t have enough cash saved up for significant runway. I’m 35 with family and living in the US. The earlier you start, the more you accumulate, the more…

20+ year old reader I guess as an engineer, building the product itself seems to be the easy part. How do you market it, find potential customers, or indeed KNOW at all that your product is a winning one? Obviously uncertainty is a part of every entrepreneur, but I would love to get opinions from fellow engineers

I found this message extremely humbling and important: https://www.pretotyping.org/
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