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Ask HN: What stops you from starting today?

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51–60 of 88 posts

Re: Ask HN: What stops you from starting today?

#52
post #33

Turns out? Nothing. I halfway participated in a hackathon recently, and since then, I've found myself... motivated. Usually when the urge strikes, my day job starts taking up too much time, or life happens, or I realize my idea is stupid. This time, however, I'm just going to go for it. I don't care that the product I'm building is in a VERY crowded space. I don't care that there's no 'killer feature' to draw the cro…

This is fantastic. The reality is you have no idea how good the idea really is until you have finished anyway. So what the hell, may as well give it a shot. My only advice is make the produce a slightly better version of everything else out there. Good luck.

It's debatable as to whether or not I'll be able to honestly, there are some good (and a LOT of bad) products in the space. Effectively, it's issue tracking, and while I have some ideas that scratch my own itch which HOPEFULLY will appeal to others, my goal is to make something that services the small-to-medium sized business moreso than the enterprise apps currently do, and with more refinement than the open source apps do.

That said, I don't honestly know how much better mine will be than something like osTicket, except to say that the workflow will be dramatically different.

Thanks for the well-wishing. I'm sure I'll make an equally tentative post when I release.

Re: Ask HN: What stops you from starting today?

#53
post #51

Just need a good corporation and domain name. Been spinning my wheels for weeks on this.

Having over-focussed on so many details in the past, let me offer some simple advice -- move past it.

Start working on the product. The product that I'm building right now was named "something maybe" for weeks until the right name struck (that had an available domain name).

Historically, I've moved forward in leaps and bounds until either a problem presented itself or I'd get bogged down in something so trivial as a product name. Really, it doesn't matter.

In retrospect (and I have no idea whether or not this applies to you), I was stalling because I didn't know what to do after that. If you're stuck on a company name, simply substitute "working title" until you get moving, and the name will come.

Re: Ask HN: What stops you from starting today?

#54
post #46

I suffer depression. Mostly it's not that bad but it does mean that I never sustain the passion/effort required for a startup (or even modest personal projects). hmmmm, I think everything else is either fall out from the depression or an excuse to avoid facing fear. Fear of personal failure, fear that I'm not elite, fear that I don't "have what it takes", etc. I'm also "old", 40yr, and I hate to say it but I feel les…

Ok let me say this again. Its 100% fine not to be a founder and work for somebody. It is NOT a shame! You can leave full and happy life without it! Many do that! It might be that you read way too much HN - This resource pushes towards starting company. Its not the only way to go for hacker! Relax and enjoy your life! PS I was super surprised to see that so many replied about being stressed about not starting a compan…

Sorry, but you will probably never have true security, or become truly wealthy, working for someone else.

If some deep part of you wants to try starting a company, it's not healthy to suppress that, and if you do, my guess is you'll eventually regret it.

Re: Ask HN: What stops you from starting today?

#55
I live in a kind of dead area, and haven't met people that I respect enough to want to do something with, who wants to do something, and who feel able to committing to do something.. I also don't care much for doing something completely alone, because I don't feel that I learn nearly as much when I'm solo as when I can have people questioning my work.

I'm working on trying to get a hold of work in the US so that I can start the journey back to permanent residency (moved away and am 'back to square zero,') hopefully that can net me some fun people to work with.. But you know, years off, even if I manage to get a hold of a job. I've had a fair amount of smaller companies who have been interested, but not capable of bringing me over, and my (rather few) attempts at getting into larger companies have been stopped thus far by my lousy résumé writing skills.. Have a couple in the works that I still have hope for, but we'll see.

So now I got that off my chest, congratulations on your launch btw! :)

Re: Ask HN: What stops you from starting today?

#57
post #53
post #51

Just need a good corporation and domain name. Been spinning my wheels for weeks on this.

Having over-focussed on so many details in the past, let me offer some simple advice -- move past it. Start working on the product. The product that I'm building right now was named "something maybe" for weeks until the right name struck (that had an available domain name). Historically, I've moved forward in leaps and bounds until either a problem presented itself or I'd get bogged down in something so trivial as a…

Yeah, I'm not worried too much about the product name, but I do need to do the company named and incorporated (this is actually holding up funding at this point.)

My last company had (IMO) a great name, so I'm struggling to measure up.

Re: Ask HN: What stops you from starting today?

#58
post #57
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having over-focussed on so many details in the past, let me offer some simple advice -- move past it. Start working on the product. The product that I'm building right now was named "something maybe" for weeks until the right name struck (that had an available domain name). Historically, I've moved forward in leaps and bounds until either a problem presented itself or I'd get bogged down in something so trivial as a…

Yeah, I'm not worried too much about the product name, but I do need to do the company named and incorporated (this is actually holding up funding at this point.) My last company had (IMO) a great name, so I'm struggling to measure up.

Why does the company name matter? Twitter was owned by Obvious Corp. In the early days.

Re: Ask HN: What stops you from starting today?

#60
I am starting today. Last 4 months creating, manipulating, and validating an idea until we get enough people to say they would buy it. Another month getting partnerships we need with other companies. The last two weeks up until 2am every morning putting together an MVP for beta users.

And the first user with a problem 3 hours ago.

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