Ask HN: Building a solo business is impossible?

I, like many engineers, dream about turning my love to programming into a side business. Nothing crazy, but enough to replace an average SWE income. And I, like many engineers, fell into the "build, and they will come" trap.

I tried to build, calibrate, engage in SEO, talk to customers, but I can't seem to find traction. On one hand, people say that you need to build to solve a problem. You find a problem in a niche, say accounting for plumbers, and build for that, then you just go and market to these people. On the other hand, I see people who advocate for "I just built something that I needed, and it got traction". There are multiple examples for both camps, but the problem is that they contradict each other.

This leads me to believe that most people either get lucky and then apply a framework in retrospect to justify their luck, or they simply don't tell the whole truth.

I want to escape a salaried coder job, more so with the "push" of vibe coding across the board. But I have no idea how to approach a business. I refuse to believe that everyone who succeeded with a side project and replaced their job - is a liar, but maybe the truth is that it does not take 7 months, but 7 years?

Anyone got something helpful to share in that regard?

The problem with such advice is that it requires me to go back in time and fix my life. I am not an expert, I started this career when I was barely an adult, and did it for fun because I liked it and the money was good. I wasn't thinking about "building a professional circle" or staying in touch with past colleagues.

So advice like "use your network to find freelance / contracting" is not helpful to me. So there are two options for me: either find a way to make it work now, or accept the fact that I fucked up my life and I just need to wait for the inevitable replacement by AI. I doubt that every successful entrepreneur started to build a professional circle at the age of 21. But I might be wrong.

I know one guy who actually succeeded. He ran a hard-mode outsourcing shop for like, 15 years, for many years making 100-150K/month net in his pocket, but with AI, it went to zero by about end of 2024, so he was left with no income and lost all his (rather large) team. He started experimenting with products and after about 3-4 failed tries, landed a successful one which nearly replicates his old income, it is a mixed (live women and AI) porn webcam app. Took more than $2M sunk into dev and marketing costs before he hit PMF. He still spends almost everything he makes on research into new niches - fintech, trading, various scam niches, and more porn, but so far nothing else sticks.

Yet, he is delighted to not have to run outsourcing shop anymore, and make same income with much smaller team and much more ethical line of business than outsourcing.

Hang in there. It does take longer than you think and it's a marathon with a lot of peaks and valleys.

You do need a market, not just a product. You also need to network to get input, partners, and build a BD pipeline. You don't necessarily need revenue at first, you need to prove external interest, whether that's a beta, pilot, or collaboration/partnership. All these things will add to your momentum.

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