Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

toomas.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 158 posts

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#11

Post by collyw »

noxToken wrote: post #3

I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…

Maybe they followed the advice given by those that did succeed. Would be interesting to see.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#12

Post by collyw »

ihaveajob wrote: post #4
noxToken wrote: post #3

I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…

Virtually all of them ran out of money because they didn't have enough customers to cover their expenses. It seems silly but if you put it in basic terms, this usually maps to something very concrete in your domain.

I guess thats similar to saying all deaths occur by hypoxia. What caused that to happen it is usually the part we are interested in.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#13

Post by noxToken »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #7
noxToken wrote: post #3

I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…

> TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Beware survivor bias. They may not have succeeded due to what they did (or say they did).

Which is exactly why I posted this! We know what the survivors did. We get their interviews all of the time. Did the failures follow the same path and fail? Did they fail to follow some golden rule? How much of startup culture can be distilled down to follow some given advice versus some dumb luck?

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#14

Post by taneq »

noxToken wrote: post #3

I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…

Kind of like that old story about the war planes needing armour in the places where returning planes hadn't been shot.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#15

Post by owebmaster »

taneq wrote: post #14
noxToken wrote: post #3

I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…

Kind of like that old story about the war planes needing armour in the places where returning planes hadn't been shot.

This is genius. Where does this old story come from? Never heard it.

EDIT: thanks for the answers! This analogy is pretty good for simple cases (improvement on planes' armor). But if you optimize only this variable, your war plane will be heavier and you'll have a lot of other problems and fail, too.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#16

Post by owebmaster »

noxToken wrote: post #3

I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…

Things you do to achieve success are limited, but to fail aren't.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#17

Post by shubhamjain »

noxToken wrote: post #3

I've always wondered what the advice would look like if you compiled a list of what not to do from failed companies. TFA is a list of the successful ones who got it right, so we know what they did to make it. Yet I'm sure many people follow this advice and still fail. You can find wildly varying statistics, but somewhere between 50% and 90% of startups will fail within 2 years. What did those companies do (or failed…

Startup success is Anna Karenina Principle[1] flipped. I wrote about it some time back[2]. Every startup dies either because it failed to build something that people would want to pay for, or failed to create a profitable business around it (or, maybe the founders just got burned out). Successful businesses, on the other hand, find their own path to make it to the top. That doesn't mean you can't learn from articles and books, but it takes plenty of learnings and failures of your own to 'get' it. That's why it's important to keep shipping and trying.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle

[2]: https://shubhamjain.co/2017/05/12/contradictory-startup-advi...

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#18

Post by fhood »

owebmaster wrote: post #15
taneq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like that old story about the war planes needing armour in the places where returning planes hadn't been shot.

This is genius. Where does this old story come from? Never heard it. EDIT: thanks for the answers! This analogy is pretty good for simple cases (improvement on planes' armor). But if you optimize only this variable, your war plane will be heavier and you'll have a lot of other problems and fail, too.

World War II I think?

Found it, the guys name was Abraham Wald.

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#19

Post by noxToken »

owebmaster wrote: post #15
taneq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like that old story about the war planes needing armour in the places where returning planes hadn't been shot.

This is genius. Where does this old story come from? Never heard it. EDIT: thanks for the answers! This analogy is pretty good for simple cases (improvement on planes' armor). But if you optimize only this variable, your war plane will be heavier and you'll have a lot of other problems and fail, too.

Fourth paragraph in the entry about Wald[0]. 7th paragraph in the entry about Ops Research[1]. I'm sure that there are more in-depth stories about this on the web.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Wald#Life_and_career

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research#Second_Wor...

Re: Things I’ve Learned from Reading IndieHackers

#20

Post by zapperdapper »

All good advice, but I'm going to propose something that may be a bit contrary to current wisdom: if you really want a decent lifestyle/work-life balance don't start a business!

So what's the alternative?

Go contracting. Reduce your expenses to the bone, and limit the contracts you do. I now only take 3 month contracts and I do one a year. I make about £24K from that - I know many developers making double my rate. That £24K is more than double my expenses though. If there's a 6 month contract I really like the look of I will do it (especially if it's remote working) - but then I'll take at least a year off.

The great thing about a contract is you go in, do your thing, get out. Job done. No stress. No worry. No customers giving you grief and wanting their money back. No infrastructure going down with admin alerts at 3.00am. No hassle. I don't even have my own limited company. I use an umbrella company and while not as tax efficient I have no dealing with accountants, HMRC, tax returns and all that nonsense.

I think there are many good reasons to start a 'lifestyle' business. I'm just not convinced it's the way to go if work-life balance is what you are looking for.

Post reply on HN