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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?

#91

Post by martiuk »

Started my own business with a friend 4 years ago to write funny sci-fi side scrollers, he was then promoted in his permanent job which meant he didn't have any intention of leaving it.

Straight after with a 3d artist co-worker at the job at the time created a relatively re-useable VR ArchViz Engine in UE4 and Oculus Rift, our first client (major Indian construction firm) expected us to give it away for free and subsequently they went radio silent.

I panicked and quickly pivoted to DevOps/SRE consulting and contracting through agencies, which I've happily been doing since then.

Now it's a decision on whether to go back to permanent work (at a relatively senior level) as I'm starting a family or to double down and start hiring.

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

#92

Post by wuliwong »

csallen wrote: post #3

I left my job. Or, more accurately, the startup I was doing contract work for went under, and I decided not to look for another contract afterwards. I worked on a few projects before starting my business, Indie Hackers, which I grew to just under $6k/mo in revenue (in 8 months) before joining Stripe. I've done interviews with close to 300 founders. Recently, I added a sortable, filterable directory that can help answ…

I've seen other attempts to build a community around this demographic before. One I really liked, I even found someone on there and we built a nice project together, though I forget the name.

Do you recall what you focused on when you started? What do you think led to your success and traction?

I find this stuff fascinating when there seems to be an idea that people want to happen but no has been able to get it right. Then finally someone (or some people) crack the code.

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

#93

Post by fecak »

jackgolding wrote: post #83
fecak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Want to add to side comments that I've read a few of your posts in Ask HN and generally enjoy them so hope you do feel valued here.

Thanks, and I absolutely do feel valued here. I was a bit surprised by this reply as it was a bit out of left field given what I wrote and the question asked. Identifying as a recruiter (now former recruiter) here was always interesting based on the reputation of the industry, but I haven't had any real issues with the audience.

Thanks, I appreciate your comment.

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

#95

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cabinguy wrote: post #71
mixmastamyk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the used laptop market turned into the used VCR market… Meaning, it died? How did you handle the payments in those days?

Yea, the margins went from out-of-this-world to terrible as the price of new laptops came down. We used paypal and a few other (way worse) credit card processors. We also accepted checks and money orders by mail. Edit: Another interesting tidbit. We were such a large paypal customer at the time that we were invited into their IPO. Bear Stearns (I think) called us 5 times trying to get us to buy in...but it was right…

It's a real shame tbf, the drop in laptop prices means a lot more stuff is just thrown out and turned to e-waste instead of repaired / refurbished and resold, with fixing electronics having reached such a low point that it's become a somewhat rebellious volunteer job now.

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

#96

Post by SamReidHughes »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #95
cabinguy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, the margins went from out-of-this-world to terrible as the price of new laptops came down. We used paypal and a few other (way worse) credit card processors. We also accepted checks and money orders by mail. Edit: Another interesting tidbit. We were such a large paypal customer at the time that we were invited into their IPO. Bear Stearns (I think) called us 5 times trying to get us to buy in...but it was right…

It's a real shame tbf, the drop in laptop prices means a lot more stuff is just thrown out and turned to e-waste instead of repaired / refurbished and resold, with fixing electronics having reached such a low point that it's become a somewhat rebellious volunteer job now.

Well, old laptops really suck, so it's not that bad.

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

#97

Post by motdiem »

Left my job to become a consultant (to my former company initially), did that for 5 years, then used the money I made and saved to bootstrap my current project. Still did some part time consulting on the side for a couple of years until we raised.

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

#98

Post by erohead »

I started working on a prototype smartwatch back in 2008 while I was doing undergrad at UWaterloo. iPhone didn't have a Bluetooth API then so I actually hacked together a small 30 pin dongle with an nrf radio. Quickly moved to Blackberry which had a semi working BT API.

I graduated in 2009 and decided to work on it full time. Funding in early days came from oversized novelty cheques from pitch competition wins, some interest free loans ($15k personal loan from Canadian government - CYBF) and personal savings from my coop work terms over previous 5 years.

Got $20k YC funding in 2011 which kicked company into higher gear before our Kickstarter campaign in 2012.

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

#99

Post by stevesearer »

Office Snapshots (https://officesnapshots.com) was started ~11 years ago as a side project while I was teaching middle and high school history. It got fairly popular immediately due to early viral sharing on Twitter and Digg.

I just kept going at posting to it for the next several years. Eventually I decided to stop teaching, and my wife and I moved to a new city, and decided to do something else for a career. Through the process of temping at various businesses (warehouse for a tooth whitening company, office manager at a cremation sales company), I decided that Office Snapshots should be my main pursuit.

There was still a lot of doing various projects for people to make money in the meantime while the business was growing such as web design work or hunting for working coupon codes for a friend's business.

All that said, Office Snapshots has been my sole work for the last 3 years and we recently launched a site dedicated to healthcare projects and one for educational architecture projects.

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

#100

Post by cl0wnshoes »

greysteil wrote: post #73
lmq10 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice, Love that you offer to free for open source, $50/month seems super cheap for enterprise through?

Yeah, this is going to sound mad, but I quite like only charging $50. I know some customers would be willing to pay more, but under the hood the product is the same and I personally feel good about giving people great value. The above would have to change if I started doing serious sales, in which case I’d need a higher number to justify the time involved.

Value is relative. That is how you justify charging open source $0, a bootstrapped business $15, and a multi-billion dollar corporation $5000. The larger the product/more revenue a product brings in the more value your service offers them.
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