Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder?

Always brings me back to Henry Ford:

- "If I'd ask people what they want, they'd have said faster horses."

- "The customer can have their car painted any color, as long as it's black."

And there was of course similar mentality from many contemporary entrepreneurs, probably most famously with Steve Jobs. The rise of design by focus group is likely why things like independent video games have been able to do as phenomenally well as they have. One guy makes Minecraft in his spare time, makes billions. Massive AAA corporation with ostensibly elite business leadership and development personnel produce uninspired shooter/stabber #7,843,235 and barely break even after covering their 9 figure marketing and development budgets. Then they blame mobile, or piracy. I love it!

You can have the best infrastructure, best pipelines, devops, security, frameworks, styleguides, libraries, etc. etc. Sadly none of that means you're building something anybody wants.

You can spend years building something undoubtedly technically amazing. Yet if you didn't make sure there was a market first you face the very real prospect that people will go "That's nice, why do I care?"

Your advice is great for a personal project that you don't intend to directly make money with. Still would be excellent on a resumé however.

1. Build something that you're an expert on, and know how to build it. You can't do it all, but knowing how to do most of it goes a long ways. Hire out for the rest.

2. Be intimately aware of what the product should be from the users standpoint. What does it do that no one else's does?

3. Prepare yourself for supporting the business and support issues. You can't "back out" or dodge anything, and you've got to be ready to be in the hot seat alongside your uses. I've been told a "volunteer" type mentality is what this is called.

4. Be emotionally ready for an absolute roller coaster. One day you can be on HN, and that same day you'll lose your #2 account. It, by all means, is an absolute emotional washing machine. Try and distance yourself from the product if you can.

5. If your boot-strapping yourself then your limitation/runway can be time. Time does have a value aspect to it, and if you're an engineer you can grossly underestimate how long something will take to build which it's effectively money lost.

There's so much that goes into it, and every business is so different that it's hard to capture what to do. You really have to _just do it_ because getting started and out is the hardest part. Everything else seems to fall into place after, assuming you don't close it or abandon it.

Good luck!