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Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

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Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#81

Post by philipov »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #64
accountyaccount wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get some of these, but "don't procrastinate" and "understand the entire market" are kind of ridiculous. You might as well throw "know everything" and "work hard" in there.

Also, make sure not to confuse understanding your customers with understanding how the industry works. Some of the craziest and successful startup ideas come from people who don't understand the industry at all and if they had they probably would have never tried to do what they did.

Survivorship bias. Some of the biggest flops also come from people who don't understand the industry at all, and if they had they probably would have never tried to do what they did.

You can't understand your customers if you don't understand their industry. Picking customers is like investing: if you pick a bunch of customers that are not going to win their industry, you won't thrive either.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#82

Post by latishsehgal »

* You get to be your own boss, but that’s not always a good thing. Because being your own boss does not mean that you are a good boss.

* Execution>Idea. Don't work on multiple projects till at least one is shipped.

* Pairing up with other like minded folks is better than going solo, but only if you can get along really well.

* The highs are higher, and the lows are lower.

* Develop good habits

* Make your first project a small one

* Failure (at least small ones) is not a problem. Failing to recover is.

* Sales and Marketing are very important. They need as much time as working on your products/ideas

* Start now, you'll never feel ready

This is the tl;dr version of a longer blog post I wrote about my personal experience http://www.dotnetsurfers.com/blog/2016/03/29/lessons-learned...

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#83

Post by screature2 »

19eightyfour wrote: post #30
jargnar wrote: post #20

It's a skill that can be learned like every other skill. You can take the "in 21 days" route or the MOOC / University course route, or constantly read business articles, Steve Jobs videos, etc. But some top tips stand out for me over time: * Talking to people, networking > Not talking to people * Bug free > Elegant code * UX > UI * Simple products that do one thing well > Complex products * Understanding entire marke…

This is great, thanks! Could you do a blog post or something. :)

https://bothsidesofthetable.com/most-startups-should-be-deer...

2009 post, but still one of my favorite distillations of the issues around b2b customer types. Particular impactful if you read it when you end up going above and beyond with support, feature development, and contract negotiations with both rabbits and whales and you're running out of money.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#84

Post by the_bear »

pavlov wrote: post #14

The best advice I've had (and seen applied in practice) is this: You need to get your company to 10k USD monthly product revenue within three months. If you can't, either the product, target market or team needs to be revised drastically. It's hard advice to follow, but it will save you a lot of time because you can't wait months and years doing unessential tweaks to the product and marketing, hoping that sales mirac…

This seems really aggressive, especially for bootstrapped companies. My startup took 31 months to hit $10k MRR, and now we're at ~$130k MRR. I'm really glad I didn't quit after three months. I barely even had the product built after three months.

I think that for most people, if they abandon anything that's not already a huge success three months in, they'll just end up bouncing from one thing to the next and never seeing anything through. It's virtually impossible to bootstrap that quickly, and I'd be surprised if many of the big VC-backed startups we've heard of hit that either (certainly not Google or Facebook who weren't even monetizing yet at that point).

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#85

Post by marcosdumay »

afshinmeh wrote: post #61
jargnar wrote: post #20

It's a skill that can be learned like every other skill. You can take the "in 21 days" route or the MOOC / University course route, or constantly read business articles, Steve Jobs videos, etc. But some top tips stand out for me over time: * Talking to people, networking > Not talking to people * Bug free > Elegant code * UX > UI * Simple products that do one thing well > Complex products * Understanding entire marke…

Nice, but I'm not entirely sure about this one: > * Sleep, exercise & healthy food > late night coding Looks like it's against other points. I have a full-time job and I'd like to create a brand, too. Thus. I have to do late night coding.

Running from the start as fast as you can will never help you win a marathon.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#86

Post by charlesdm »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #25
danieltillett wrote: post #22

That it takes industry longer than you expected for it to move on to the next new thing. I made this mistake in 2012 thinking that my product would no longer be wanted by 2016 and so didn't invest in expanding sales. 2017 has arrived and our sales are at an all time high and I have no idea when the market will start to decline. I lost a huge amount of money getting this wrong. In my defence eveyone else in our indust…

Industry loves a solution that works. If your grassroots customers are happy they'll tell people. Keep it cheap and keep it good.

You mean, keep it good. Keeping it cheap is almost never a good idea if you are able to sell it expensively.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#87

Post by educar »

segmondy wrote: post #75

If you build it, they will not come! Scream it in a loud voice, IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL NOT COME! You are going to have to build it, find them, plead with them, fight their refusals and shove it down their throat. There are many unknown "unicorns" that currently exist as code. The code is done, there's just no users, because the world doesn't even know it's a thing and those that do know have not being convinced t…

In my experience, finding customers without code works only for specific products. Best of luck trying to find customers for stripe or intercom without any code.

Better advice is to work on them in parallel.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#88

Post by benmorris »

I learned some lessons 5 years ago when my initial plan was to do software development on my own after I quit my job. I have concluded a much more fruitful way to go is to develop your own product in a niche and pursue that. Perhaps even multiple products. There are numerous pitfalls to developing on your own that don't have anything to do with software development. Things like getting paid, dealing with customers, scoping projects, conducting meetings/phone calls, providing dead end quotes, etc. When I quit my day job I also hedged my time by building my own products, as of a year or so ago I washed my hands of all freelance development and focus on my own products.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#89

Post by inopinatus »

philipov wrote: post #81
throwaway2016a wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, make sure not to confuse understanding your customers with understanding how the industry works. Some of the craziest and successful startup ideas come from people who don't understand the industry at all and if they had they probably would have never tried to do what they did.

Survivorship bias. Some of the biggest flops also come from people who don't understand the industry at all, and if they had they probably would have never tried to do what they did. You can't understand your customers if you don't understand their industry. Picking customers is like investing: if you pick a bunch of customers that are not going to win their industry, you won't thrive either.

That may be true, but it isn't a reason not to try. Heck in the process you may learn the industry, just too late for current venture. It is however a reason to be willing to recognise a flop and abandon it for something else.

Re: Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers

#90

Post by matrix »

the_bear wrote: post #84
pavlov wrote: post #14

The best advice I've had (and seen applied in practice) is this: You need to get your company to 10k USD monthly product revenue within three months. If you can't, either the product, target market or team needs to be revised drastically. It's hard advice to follow, but it will save you a lot of time because you can't wait months and years doing unessential tweaks to the product and marketing, hoping that sales mirac…

This seems really aggressive, especially for bootstrapped companies. My startup took 31 months to hit $10k MRR, and now we're at ~$130k MRR. I'm really glad I didn't quit after three months. I barely even had the product built after three months. I think that for most people, if they abandon anything that's not already a huge success three months in, they'll just end up bouncing from one thing to the next and never s…

I strongly agree. Let's do the math: With a brand new un-proven product with an unproven pricing model, how many customers does it take to get to $10K MRR? In three months, how many qualified leads can you find and reach, and what percentage of those will close? (with an unproven product in an unproven market, 2% is probably a realistic estimate).

Of course there are scenarios where $10K MRR is possible quickly, but there's no way that is what most successful software businesses look like in 3 months.

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