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

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

#51

Post by hahahahhaah »

acrooks wrote: 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…

Obviously a COO shouldnt be prompting Claude Code but your competition is someone in their team doing the same. The person in their team is trusted and knows the business.

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

#52

Post by LastTrain »

hahahahhaah wrote: post #51
acrooks wrote: 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…

Obviously a COO shouldnt be prompting Claude Code but your competition is someone in their team doing the same. The person in their team is trusted and knows the business.

Or maybe COO was using it for leverage

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

#53

Post by pabe »

Yes! Coding is just one of the tasks you've got to do when building a software business. You also have to find a good value preposition, identify a good channel to your customers, manage your resources etc.

Channels are becoming even more important as software has become easy to copy. But copycats always existed. When it wasn't created by AI, it was created in low wage countries.

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

#55

Post by latexr »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #2

Yes! All startups are created to solve a problem, regardless of the tools used. Apps are simply tools to solve human problems. Because humans will always have challenges to address, software will remain a vital tool. While AI makes writing software much easier. It's likely to lead to an explosion of new apps. Only those that fill a genuine need will survive. Your job is to identify these new problems and determine wh…

> All startups are created to solve a problem

And most of the time that problem is “the founders don’t have as much money as they want”.

> Apps are simply tools to solve human problems. Because humans will always have challenges to address, software will remain a vital tool.

You make it sound like it’s something noble, but let’s not pretend most software companies these days don’t have “make me rich” as the top goal. Effectively everything VC backed (yes, including by Y Combinator) falls in that category. That’s why pivots are a thing. Most founders these days don’t give a shit about what they’re building or customers, they only care about the payoff.

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

#56

Post by spacecadet »

Got to get more creative and less funding dependent. People still seem caught up in the old process of ideation, static creation, pitch decks. Ack! Garbage now! I only ever took funding to scale to 3-5 heads, well I have 20 heads for nearly nothing now... Ive created more "startup" ideas in the last 3 years then the last 20 of my career. I just keep cranking out anything remotely interesting, launch, and if it don't "work", move on. I just launched another one this week, feels most promising, but we'll see... I didn't go quitting my day job just yet.

Also, GTFO! My ideas are not just slop from sitting around day dreaming. Every one is from observations made from talking or watching people struggle... cant replace that with AI yet.

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

#58

Post by cowboy_henk »

latexr wrote: post #55
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #2

Yes! All startups are created to solve a problem, regardless of the tools used. Apps are simply tools to solve human problems. Because humans will always have challenges to address, software will remain a vital tool. While AI makes writing software much easier. It's likely to lead to an explosion of new apps. Only those that fill a genuine need will survive. Your job is to identify these new problems and determine wh…

> All startups are created to solve a problem And most of the time that problem is “the founders don’t have as much money as they want”. > Apps are simply tools to solve human problems. Because humans will always have challenges to address, software will remain a vital tool. You make it sound like it’s something noble, but let’s not pretend most software companies these days don’t have “make me rich” as the top goal.…

That's a cynical take, but a more positive interpretation is that pivots are needed if your company isn't actually solving a problem. Otherwise people would pay for it, and the founders would be getting rich. So you need to pivot until you actually create a solution to a problem that people will pay for.

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

#59

Post by artyom »

> Big companies can copy your product in no time

Your advantage in this case, now or 10 years ago, is that this is simply not true.

If your business is "a flashlight app", yeah, eventually they'll copy it (as it happened). However they'll take an unusual long time to do that simple thing (as it also happened).

Why? Because everything at big companies is a political game, full of internal conflicts, multiple priorities, non-collaborative teams, self-interest, promotion games, and a bunch of other things not really related to build the thing in question. It very rarely has anything to do with how fast the code can be written.

If your business is good enough and becomes something more than "a piece of software", and solves a problem, becomes a brand, has great user feedback... that's not something you can "copy in no time".

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

#60

Post by elif »

Since the majority of our industry is still in a combination denial/disbelief and bureaucratic incompatibility with AI workflows, startups are increasingly well positioned to reap the rewards.

The way I think about it is, everyone is struggling to make AI tools work well, so if you can be in the top 50% of people trying, you're actually in the top 10% in terms of positioning for future growth.

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