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

Failed for the past 12 years as an tech entrepreneur

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–167 of 167 posts

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

#161

Post by iLoveOncall »

jmstfv wrote: post #158
iLoveOncall wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have to ask anyone for permission to go for a walk or have a 3-hour long lunch if I want to. Me neither and I work at a FAANG. I think a lot of those serial entrepreneurs that have never worked in companies have a very skewed idea of what it actually looks like once you're in a decent company.

Most companies aren't decent, far from it. And I doubt most people have a fair chance of landing one of those decent jobs. Even putting all that aside, working for someone entails doing what you're told even if you don't want or agree with it. That's not how I want to spend my waking hours.

So you're telling me that if your customer wants the button in blue and you want it in yellow, you won't put it in blue?

Being your own boss is a construction of the mind. If someone else is giving you money, they are your boss.

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

#162

Post by chainbear »

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…

Do you have suggestions on how to best observe in the age of covid?

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

#163

Post by jmstfv »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #161
jmstfv wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies aren't decent, far from it. And I doubt most people have a fair chance of landing one of those decent jobs. Even putting all that aside, working for someone entails doing what you're told even if you don't want or agree with it. That's not how I want to spend my waking hours.

So you're telling me that if your customer wants the button in blue and you want it in yellow, you won't put it in blue? Being your own boss is a construction of the mind. If someone else is giving you money, they are your boss.

> So you're telling me that if your customer wants the button in blue and you want it in yellow, you won't put it in blue?

If I don't feel like making the button blue, I won't. If they don't agree with my decision, they are free to take their business elsewhere.

> If someone else is giving you money, they are your boss.

It is true in some respect, but when you're employed, you only have a single or handful of bosses. When you run a business, you have tens, hundreds, or even thousands of customers. You can say NO to any one of them when the push comes to shove.

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

#164

Post by midnchan »

You don't have to monetize anything or have customers to be successful. If all the things you built brought you joy as you built them, then you've done amazing.

We don't need web traffic or money streams to be happy. You've done more than anyone else really could on average. Most people are slogging away for a company, afraid to step out of line or build anything. When they are gone, the company will leave their name on nothing.

You've built amazing tools that will always have your name on them. That legacy is one to be proud of.

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

#165

Post by donadbough »

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…

Saying you're a bad entrepreneur because OP isn't listening to the market is too harsh. Yes, OP does need to build products that already have a demand.

But, that's more of a lesson than a sign they're doomed as a "bad Entr" and should give up.

Having the energy to build something instead of just talking about it shows potential. Just start building with the market in mind first.

OP, I'd recommend some books from bootstrapped entrs to avoid making common mistakes in the future, since this is a pretty common one. Makebook.io and Zero to Sold are great, good luck on your journey. I believe you can do it!

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

#166

Post by scandox »

cillian64 wrote: post #160
scandox wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A link shortener is a simple way for malicious or spammy email senders to cloak their malicious or spammy link in something which is not yet on a block list. So what we find is that as new ones come into the market they are eagerly adopted and we start to see evil links. From our point of view the earlier we put in place a wholesale block the better, because otherwise they may become "too big to block" like bit.ly et…

If security software can read email enough to observe the shortened URL, couldn’t it just see what it expands to and then judge the target URL? Link shorteners don’t seem to have any obvious CAPTCHAs.

We have about 500ms to make our assessment so we wouldn't follow a link in realtime and depend on it resolving and redirecting etc.

Instead we expand them later and visit and scan them after the fact. But at that point the email is often already delivered.

But bottom line url shorteners are so abused as to be a de facto sign of spam.

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

#167

Post by _hcuq »

gb2d wrote: post #111
_hcuq wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I have had a bit of entrepreneurial success. I started off contracting, but looked at the needs of my contracting customers and also their customers. After a while there were too many decent ideas to execute. I could choose the ones that appealed, get a purchase order that paid for development and then sell the developed product to other customers.

How did you go about getting purchase orders for products? My contracting work has always been on a time and materials basis. Have always felt it felt rude / awkward to offer the building of a product on different terms to the rest of the work I was doing, but it is something I'd like to try.

Good question!

I would just quote a fixed price to each prospect. Then they may come back with an hourly rate proposal….

But of course any company that sees your work as a part of their intellectual property will not be interested. So I could never do this if I was working on a product that the customer was going to sell.

Where I was able to charge a fixed price and own the IP was instrumentation software for Biotech companies. They were not interested in IP for obscure instruments. Also I found that small engineering companies who were struggling with their software capability would be very interested in a fixed price + royalty deal. Because they struggled to hire software talent.

So the key is to find customers with “non core” needs. Eg if they need a time tracking program they are unlikely to care who owns the IP. But if you are working on a search algorithm for a search engine company they will only employ you on a time and materials basis.

Post reply on HN