Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur • Hacker News Board

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#131

Post by rhtgrg » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

danr4 wrote: post #94

Too much "I built", not enough "I asked". You didn't build things people want, you built things you thought people want. I hope you find success but really after 12 years I'd suggest you get coaching/mentoring/YC startup school, because while you definitely gained experience from your failures, it looks to me that you haven't learned the right lessons from your mistakes. Even if your current startup is making some re…

I'll add on to this, though I don't really want to — my entrepreneurship experience pales in comparison to OP.

However, I think I have a key insight.

What OP thinks is marketing is not marketing. Marketing is all about finding out what problems your customers are facing and making them aware of how your solution can help them solve said problems (ideally, you do this truthfully and your product is actually helpful, and it's even better if your product is the best solution available). Marketing is not simply throwing your product "out there" and hoping that customers will buy it, even if you slap a big label on it that says "this solves problem X."

Talk to customers. If the only two things you ever do is learn about people's problems and build things to solve them, you have a better chance of success versus someone with a billion dollar budget who does not do both of these two things.

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#132

Post by binarysolo » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #109

honkycat wrote: post #86

I've never understood the drive to own my own business. My parents were both entrepreneurs and it always felt so tenuous and stressful compared to other jobs. What percentage of small businesses actually end up making you more money than a traditional job? If my parents had worked at Walmart with their business degrees, they would probably be making way more $$ at a much more stable company than if they had run busin…

Some of us just hate having bosses. Being subject to someone's whims is such a repulsive feeling for me that I will go to great lengths to avoid it. I actually even hate having dominant customers. My ideal model of business is a ton of smaller customers, with none of them having more than 10 per cent share of the total revenue. Also, finding more ways to grow your business is rewarding - both psychologically and fina…

Spoiler alert: as a small business owner, you're EVERYONE'S b_tch. Your customers, your employees, your critics... Being mindful of what everyone cares and distilling the actual value delivered is both skill and constant practice.

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#133

Post by spfzero » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

bidivia wrote: post #89

I know extremely successful people and all of them made huge mistakes in their lives. But I don't believe you are using a good strategy here and find your advice is bad: 1. You should quit as soon as possible is you are getting nowhere. We don't need more miserable entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is probably not for you if you fail consistently. Don't waste your live doing something you are miserable at. 2. Each fail…

> I see customers as friends and that helped me a lot. I give them way more value that what I extract to support my business, and that is the secret. People are not stupid, in the same way children "sense" who really loves them fast, customers could sense very fast the value you give them. You also develop over time a good intuition on the value you are creating...

I see it this way as well. I serve a small niche, and some specific problems therein. I really want the people with these issues to have my solution. It sounds lame but that is more of a motivation to me than the money. Broken thing turns into fixed thing that resumes generating value for the customer. That endpoint is my goal.

I won't devalue my efforts by underpricing, people should pay a fair price. But the money is not the primary driver. If either profit or passion were not there I would probably just do something else.

My equation seems to be that if I get at least a few customers, enough to cover my out-of-pocket costs, then I'll take a risk on my time getting eventually paid for.

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#134

Post by spfzero » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

I wonder if you considered leaving the previous project(s) running while adding new ones? Of course if you realized there was a reason they would never succeed, then terminate, but if you were unsure why they were not succeeding, maybe let them continue. An unused app is not a lot of work to keep running, right?

You might collect a few users and one of those might give you a great idea. Customers can make great design partners, and the feedback on one app can lead to an improvement on another.

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#135

Post by inglor_cz » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

binarysolo wrote: post #132

inglor_cz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us just hate having bosses. Being subject to someone's whims is such a repulsive feeling for me that I will go to great lengths to avoid it. I actually even hate having dominant customers. My ideal model of business is a ton of smaller customers, with none of them having more than 10 per cent share of the total revenue. Also, finding more ways to grow your business is rewarding - both psychologically and fina…

Spoiler alert: as a small business owner, you're EVERYONE'S b_tch. Your customers, your employees, your critics... Being mindful of what everyone cares and distilling the actual value delivered is both skill and constant practice.

It probably depends on the business. I don't feel like everyone's you-know-what, pretty much the opposite. It gave me lot of freedom to send somebody to hell if they start behaving obnoxiously.

Not that it happens much. Even customers are more respectful if they feel that you aren't too dependent on them.

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#136

Post by GDC7 » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

cultofmetatron wrote: post #130

GDC7 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like you have the dating app or the mail app on your phone. The west is the money making and business app. Strictly business, don't even call or seek people for reasons which aren't business or money making. Social relationships and genral life outside work app is Africa and South East Asia. Unlike the west they have loads and loads of people who are not spoiled by abundance vis-a-vis the west which has very few…

latin america too is great from a cultural perspective. Dating prospects being much better as well.

they don't have an abundance of people like the other 2 tho

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#137

Post by tcgv » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

start123 wrote: post #76

orasis wrote: post #59

I’m sincerely not trying to be mean, but it’s possible you were previously simply bad at entrepreneurship. There is this dominant narrative that entrepreneurship is primarily about raw willpower and persistence despite the odds. As a 20+ year entrepreneur I do not believe this to be the case. I believe the primary skill is observation. Yes, we need to try different ideas, but what really makes a product work is liste…

I guess so. Besides tech, I did not have any other skills to market my product. Since then, I have learnt a bit of Sales, cold out reach, marketing channels, distribution and a lot more. In my 20s my primary focus was to look and do something cool than think about selling the product.

Kudos for knowing how to take a feedback man, this is extremely important for entrepreneurs!

I'm in the hustle as well and one thing I noticed is that it's not uncommon for entrepreneurs to incorrectly evaluate the potential of an idea. I wouldn't have bet in a few of your projects in which you're were trying to jump on the bandwagon making something that already existed in the hopes that your implementation would be better than established ones.

I personally believe you've got to innovate to succeed, you've got to have an edge over your competitors, make something different, address a market need, solve a costumer pain. And most important of all, validate an idea before compromising to it, to make sure you don't end up a victim of wishful thinking.

For what it's worth your latest project seems innovative to me, a tool which I had never heard before, targeted at a niche market. Wish all the best and luck.

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#138

Post by robocat » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

zerbin wrote: post #116

hardwaregeek wrote: post #41

I'm not an entrepreneur, so by all means you know far more than me. But it does puzzle me that a lot of your ventures seem very...generic. Like you made a tech blog in 2008. Great, but why is your blog special? That's like making a Twitter account now. There are some people who receive massive success from Twitter, but they're very rare. Then you created a note taking app. I don't know if note taking apps were that h…

It's undoubtedly got to be hard for the "entrepreneur" without novel ideas or an ability to notice market shortcomings and imagine patches to them. Like you, I read this post with a bit of incredulity - sure, you might want to "be your own boss" and "launch a successful product" but in order to actually do that... you kinda have to do something novel. I don't want to crap on OP's dreams, but I don't see the link mana…

> but I don't see the link manager thing turning into a billion dollar unicorn.

I suspect for every $1000M unicorn, there are 1000x $1M businesses.

1. Many of those 1000 $1M businesses can be very derivative, but with some focus that is just too specific for competition (vertical, market, # of clients, feature focus, whatever). That link manager could easily be a yummy small business.

2. I suspect one can make as much money *adjusted-for-risk* with a $1M businesss as one can trying to make a $1000M business (cap-table and yearly profits are also often ignored, and one might make little especially if one is not the founder of a unicorn).

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#139

Post by GabeIsko » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

Msw242 wrote: post #54

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an underrated path, IMO. Consulting is an excellent way to hone the non-coding skills necessary for bootstrapping a company: Scoping projects, timeline estimation, choosing tradeoffs, finishing things, selling things, presenting products to others. It's also helpful to be able to get out and talk to other businesses and people on a regular basis. Bootstrapping can be extremely lonely in a way that is hard to…

VCs actively dissuade founders from doing professional services.

There is kind of a conflict of interest here, no? Providing professional services can raise capital very quickly. Connects you to potential buyers. Provides guidance. Sounds like the same thing a VC gives you, but you retain all the ownership of your company.

Re: Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

#140

Post by robocat » Mon, Dec 20, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

nhance wrote: post #21

I'm 16 years in and have followed a similar path. I graduated college in 2004, started my business in 2005 and never took a job. Consulting has gotten me here and I've had up to 4 direct hires with me, but my dream has always been to run a product business. I must have attempted 3 dozen different ideas by this point. But on Friday last week, we reached our 100th subscriber. Combined with other free products, we now h…

I really believe in consulting if you are bootstrapping a business - the income gives you runway.

However, take care to not let the consulting income misdirect your incentives (founder or business). A common trap is to chase good consulting income, and ignore the recurring SaaS income that creates a stellar business.

Consulting income: 1. leads to highly variable income, 2. is often dependent on you or a few star employees, 3. creates tiny businesses that get sold for small amounts, 4. misdirects the product direction, 5. strongly misdirects the sales team if they get a commission on consulting fees.

SaaS income requires discipline to chase, but often creates a business with far more long term value (yearly dividends, and market value, hopefully plus a $$$ growth rate bonus).