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Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

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Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#81

Post by artembugara »

We’re ~17k MRR right now. Being doing it for almost 2 years.

What made us take off is I and my cofounder running through our savings. I did it for ~15 months.

One thing I had to start doing earlier is not trying to get everyone buy our product (we sell news articles published online as a source of data for insight mining) [0]

I’ve lost so much time on people who’d never be able to use what we have unless we completely change our product.

And yeah, marketing is super important. And, it’s going to take some time.

[0] https://newscatcherapi.com

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#82

Post by mythz »

kcplate wrote: post #78
mythz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sells itself" means the product able to stand on its own and raise awareness without paying for advertising to do it. You of course need people to sign contracts & complete the purchase, that's irrelevant to how well the product is able to raise awareness without advertising, i.e. people interested in buying Tesla's didn't hear about it through any of their advertising.

I imagine Shannyn Sneed must sit around all day doing nothing then.

The only person I know that works for Tesla is Elon Musk, who's made a point to say they don't pay or advertising or endorsements https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1129924410339495937

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#83

Post by paradite »

k8sToGo wrote: post #76
awb wrote: post #25

Ran a web agency from ‘08-‘13, grew it to 20 FTEs fully remote then sold it. A few accelerants: 1) Hired talented engineers in low cost of living areas in the US. 2) Started replacing myself by hiring multiple managers, which helped when I sold the business as it was no longer just about me. 3) Converted long-term clients to pre-paid retainer billing with helped create predictable workloads and revenue streams.

I was wondering, how do you sell a company? It's not like there is an eBay or craigslist for companies, right?

Justin Kan (co-founder of Twitch) said he sold his startup on eBay: https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c2484200...

And there is also https://microacquire.com/

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#84

Post by rventure »

urthor wrote: post #60
throwaway1777 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First one doesn’t work anymore with remote being so common they demand the same wages as everywhere else.

It works. These days the secret is you have to hire the good South Americans. Exploit the fact corporate America hasn't caught on to routing contracts through Upwork et al. Then don't get greedy, keep the TCE delta below 20%, so they stay more than 9 months. You can take your pick of the finest FOSS contributors Guinea and Paraguay have to offer. -------------------------------------------------------- Startup engine…

TCE Delta?

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#85

Post by [deleted] »

k8sToGo wrote: post #76
awb wrote: post #25

Ran a web agency from ‘08-‘13, grew it to 20 FTEs fully remote then sold it. A few accelerants: 1) Hired talented engineers in low cost of living areas in the US. 2) Started replacing myself by hiring multiple managers, which helped when I sold the business as it was no longer just about me. 3) Converted long-term clients to pre-paid retainer billing with helped create predictable workloads and revenue streams.

I was wondering, how do you sell a company? It's not like there is an eBay or craigslist for companies, right?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#86

Post by wanderingjew »

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #47
buzzard1 wrote: post #6

Quoted post unavailable.

Were you specifically discriminating against minorities before you "decided" to hire them? That would be illegal in a lot of countries

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#87

Post by colordrops »

k8sToGo wrote: post #76
awb wrote: post #25

Ran a web agency from ‘08-‘13, grew it to 20 FTEs fully remote then sold it. A few accelerants: 1) Hired talented engineers in low cost of living areas in the US. 2) Started replacing myself by hiring multiple managers, which helped when I sold the business as it was no longer just about me. 3) Converted long-term clients to pre-paid retainer billing with helped create predictable workloads and revenue streams.

I was wondering, how do you sell a company? It's not like there is an eBay or craigslist for companies, right?

I think there is a website for selling small companies, "micro" something or another. Can't recall the site at the moment though.

edit: https://microacquire.com/

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#88

Post by [deleted] »

k8sToGo wrote: post #76
awb wrote: post #25

Ran a web agency from ‘08-‘13, grew it to 20 FTEs fully remote then sold it. A few accelerants: 1) Hired talented engineers in low cost of living areas in the US. 2) Started replacing myself by hiring multiple managers, which helped when I sold the business as it was no longer just about me. 3) Converted long-term clients to pre-paid retainer billing with helped create predictable workloads and revenue streams.

I was wondering, how do you sell a company? It's not like there is an eBay or craigslist for companies, right?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#89

Post by urthor »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #80
urthor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works. These days the secret is you have to hire the good South Americans. Exploit the fact corporate America hasn't caught on to routing contracts through Upwork et al. Then don't get greedy, keep the TCE delta below 20%, so they stay more than 9 months. You can take your pick of the finest FOSS contributors Guinea and Paraguay have to offer. -------------------------------------------------------- Startup engine…

> If you need more than two engineers + 2 assistants, you should have hired smarter engineers. Oh, I half thought you were serious until this point. I still don't get the joke though.

Well, I mean I don't want to judge all startups.

In fact if you take any of this offhand advice as gospel, well I wouldn't.

Maybe I should have scattered "probably" and "often" about the place.

1: ------------------------------------------------------------

When you read the book, ole Fred is not a fan of large engineering units. Forget two pizzas (Bezos is from New York, two pizzas for him is ~10 people).

Fred's view is actually:

1x captain/tech lead,

1x co-pilot,

1x ops guy equivalent,

1x business analyst equivalent who can be sent to meetings (he worked for IBM).

(And then two secretaries. And an copy editor for the documentation, because no internet.

No internet! The documentation must be written!

The lead developer needs to follow my favorite advice of all time:

Can't write? Imitate Hemingway.

And a full-time librarian for the punch cards. And a full-time employee just to maintain the minicomputer that was your debugger.

Because hey, the book was written in 1975.

The internet doesn't exist, email doesn't exist, the engineers almost certainly can't touch type. And anyone without an attractive female secretary was nobody.

The pimply faced youth's job as config wunderkid and unofficial court jester fills most of those roles these days)

2: ------------------------------------------------------------

If you think of all the amazing software that has been made by one person...

How many people do you need to make amazing software?

What are you even making?

Re: Ask HN: What made your business take off that you wish you'd done much earlier?

#90

Post by sfe22 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #31
kcplate wrote: post #10

I second this one… I can’t think of a single product in this world that truly sells itself.

> product in this world that truly sells itself Fiat currency.

Maybe people get it since “good” guys with big legal guns show up for it, and enslave or shoot you if you don’t come up with it, for your own good of course.
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