Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

1) Figure out who you are selling to and what problem you're solving for them BEFORE you build something. It's very easy to fall into a routine of building the best software ever while forgetting you need someone to buy it.

2) Banks will loan you money when you don't need it and won't loan money when you do need it. Apply for a loan or line of credit when you're flush with cash in case of a rainy day.

3) Running a business is a different skill than developing software. Be prepared to learn a lot of new skills.

4) Don't hire too quickly. Payroll + benefits can eat through profits like crazy in a software business. The counter-point is that a good salesperson will bring in far more revenue than they cost in salary and commission.

5) Know your numbers. You should have good accounting records and know from week to week if you are on track or slipping.

6) Don't hire a 'marketing' firm. They will charge 10's of thousands of dollars to ask you questions like 'What do you think we should do?' and then feed it back to you. If the product is positioned well with customers, you know more than the marketing company ever will.

7) Don't let a single customer account for more than 10% of your revenue. If that customer leaves, you'll be in a painful situation. It's difficult to do this at first but it keeps you from chasing a big fish to the detriment of the rest of your business.

8) A good reputation and word-of-mouth is better than buying the #1 spot on Adwords.

9) Figure out how to sell again and again to the same customers. A one time sale makes means a high cost of customer acquisition. Once the customer likes your company you should see what complimentary products and services you can sell too.

10) Once you've had a taste of the freedom (and stress) of working for yourself, it will be very difficult to go back to a regular job and work for anyone else.

Being able to stand up in front of people and tell them something. And make them laugh.

Listen to people, figure out what 90% is bullshit or irrelevant and what 10% is interesting business opportunity.

Industry loves a solution that works. If your grassroots customers are happy they'll tell people.

Keep it cheap and keep it good.

- that it's all going to be worth it in the end (it would have been comforting during those 100-hour-weeks)

- Some of that quick & dirty temporary code would be used for the next 18-19 years.

- I might as well have used PHP instead of Perl. Same (bad, messy) code quality, but even faster development and much easier hiring.

- Costly hardware early on was a waste of money (we outgrew it so fast that a beefy desktop PC would have been a saner investment at that point).

- Managing people is the one thing that you can't "fix" permanently. It's always an uphill battle unless (presumably) you're naturally talented/charismatic/psychopathic.

- don't bother with marketing people, advisors, business consultants early on and don't create product dependencies (e.g. by building a specific version of your product for others). It's not worth it until your product is polished and proven.

- Don't hire people carelessly because you don't want to invest precious time. Don't hire friends/acquaintances unless you've seen them working. Firing people is one of the most difficult tasks.

- Bad things will happen. Don't spend too much time trying to prevent them, or worrying to much. Just make sure you know what your options are when you need to put out fires and manage basic info (don't go searching for your hosting provider's phone number when you need it).

The number one thing is understanding what customers want. Every business guru and product person in the valley will tell you to "talk to your customers". The major exclusion there is how you talk with customers. Simply asking people how you can improve your product or being more deliberate and saying "what do you want? If I could add any new feature, what would it be?" is wasted time. These questions feel normal and correct, but they'll lead you down the wrong path. What you instead want to figure out is the contextual situation which has lead your current customer or prospect to you. Figure out what that customer wants out of that product _for them_. That's how you start to build great products.