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Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

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Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does one find business ideas that you can charge 300/customer? is it 300 per month or per year?

Any B2B idea should run 300/mo easily. Finding those businesses to sell to is the challenge. But perhaps it's easier selling 300/mo to X businesses than selling to 5/mo to 60X consumers? You decide.

They also require very different strengths & skillsets in founders. B2B products are usually sold, not bought. Sales skills in the founder are paramount, as well as a personality that can take rejection well and find win-wins and value-adds for the customer.

B2C products live and die by viral growth and word-of-mouth, because margins are not usually enough to support a consultative sales process or any sort of intensive advertising. That requires a founder that's really good at reading the zeitgeist and identifying needs that customers never knew they had, and that understands human psychology on an unconscious level. Often technical skills (on the founding team) matter more for B2C markets as well, because it's more critical to stand out from the competition.

Timing also matters more with B2C. There are some time periods (now, dot-com bust, or the late 80s & early 90s) where there are basically no viable B2C ideas available. There are also time periods (early 80s, dot-com boom, 2009-2013) where they are abundant. Unfortunately you often don't realize this until hindsight reveals all the people who kept working on their B2C ideas throughout the bust.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#172
post #57

- Setting 3 daily goals every morning. - Budget/money planning. - The power of writing things done to make them happen.

The power of writing things done to make them happen. Can you explain your process?

down probably. Just noting things in a list and having that list to base your actions of.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#173
post #125
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not op, but we've frozen pretty much all bread for years. You don't get the freshly baked feeling, but unless you live on top of a bakery you aren't going to get that anyway. Defrost either leave it out or microwave. Alternatively if making sandwiches for work, make them frozen and let it defrost during the morning.

Alternatively, slice it before freezing, and chuck it in the toaster to defrost.

This works really well, but with one caveat: you're not gonna store it for a really long time. Otherwise you get a lot of freezer burn between each slice, way more than on an uncut loaf.

But like a month or two in the chiller? All good. Had great results with homemade pain de mie that was sliced and frozen and eaten over 30 days.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#174

If you're interested in seeing financial returns for your time/work, don't work as a startup employee, ever.

Could you elaborate? Seems like this is heavily dependent on the success of the startup and at which stage you joined.

Which is essentially a crapshoot, since there is no way to truly predict which will turn into a unicorn and which one will take 5 years of your life and leave you with worthless options. Ye old game of High Risk vs High Reward.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#175
I wish I'd discovered writing ebooks earlier. I enjoy doing it and have completed one, but haven't carved out the time to do another. Earlier in life it would have been far easier to write a number of them, which would likely have led to more career opportunities, if not more "passive" income.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#176
Discovering Hn, about 4 years ago. Although I did not choose which cs subfield to master yet, I think Hn will affect my decision heavily. But I wish I had taken a year break after graduating high school to know better about myself, so I could have chosen cs instead of eee.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#177
post #110
post #72

Meditation. Download a free 20-minute guided meditation and do it every day. Maybe at some point read "The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh. I can provide a good guided breathing meditation on request. Meditation will help you be calm and focused. It will help you recognize and work through emotions with a minimum of harm to yourself or others. I'm definitely not advocating self-immolation, but the same tra…

I’d appreciate a link to a good guided breathing meditation

I’m not sure which type of phone you use, but I’ve been meditating off and on for years, and I’ve tried EVERYTHING. The absolute best guided meditations are from an app called “Stop Breathe & Think” - It gives you a 2 question survey and gives you a guided meditation based on what you need for the day. A lot of meditation apps feel very corporate and contrived, but not this one.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.stopbreath...

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stop-breathe-think/id778848692

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#178

Discovering Hn, about 4 years ago. Although I did not choose which cs subfield to master yet, I think Hn will affect my decision heavily. But I wish I had taken a year break after graduating high school to know better about myself, so I could have chosen cs instead of eee.

Unsolicited cents of advice, but IMHO, a year off after undergrad makes far more sense than a year off before undergrad. The enlarged skill set should hopefully allow you to try interesting projects in that time, which would typically be a far more useful experience than sitting around and introspecting. Also, there's no fixed you to find out about... You'll keep evolving and changing... So it doesn't make much sense to stop learning/doing for an extended period to analyze :-)

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#179

-Having a morning routine -Meditation -Reading consistently -Importance of sleep (fixed my sleeping issues with CBT-I [cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia]) -Value of joining a leadership/self development group like Toastmasters -Accepting you for who you are, and work with your strengths -Stop listening to what people say/advice about your life, most of the time they're wrong and you know better.

> -Stop listening to what people say/advice about your life, most of the time they're wrong and you know better.

Yes, it will also reduce your stress levels. But it's easier said then done.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#180
post #89

I've spent a ton of time as a developer trying to make money from various side projects and businesses. So most of my top "wish I'd discovered this earlier" list revolves around tech+business stuff: * Strategy #1: Charge more. patio11 has been shouting this from the rooftops for years, but it didn't sink in until after I started Indie Hackers[0]. If you charge something like $300/customer instead of $5/customer, you…

how does one find business ideas that you can charge 300/customer? is it 300 per month or per year?

I'd err closer to $300/month.

How do you find ideas in this category? Simple: Just look at what people are already paying lots of money for.

Off the top of my head, consumers spend lots of money on education (courses, seminars, books, classes, workshops), events and experiences, travel and vehicles, rent and housing, clothing and accessories, food, hobbies, etc. Businesses spend lots of money on recruiting and hiring, hosting, advertising, marketing tools, analytics tools, productivity, real estate, etc.

I know tons of indie hackers building businesses that help others learn to code, for example.

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