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

Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 153 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#141

Post by laserlight »

jensneuse wrote: post #107
laserlight wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should they let you go just because you have a side project you'd like to work on? Probably not. I'm thinking out loud from an employer's perspective: Will this employee leave for his side project, if we not let him work on it? Probably not. Will they leave if this side project succeeds? Probably yes. Will they be less interested and more distracted in our job? Probably yes. So, why risk it.

Very good food for thought. Developers usually never succeed with side projects. They have no clue how to create a business. They love to code. They love to tinker. Let them tinker around. Will they be distracted? Yes! But who cares if your employees browse Hackernews and reddit or build side projects? Will they leave if it succeeds? Maybe. If it's the case for one of my employees, I will help them, be their Angel, i…

This is very much how I would reason about the case. My take on how an employer would approach the problem was cynical on purpose, because that's how “business professionals” think. Unfortunately, the corporate world is riddled with such “professionals” who have no clue about how knowledge work works. And, again unfortunately, laws favor corporations in expense of individual liberty.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#142

Post by AlchemistCamp »

kavalg wrote: post #130
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly everyone I know doing side projects from YT channels to ebooks to WP plugins to mobile apps to games has started without being incorporated. None of them use Paddle or ever encountered problem that required them to. Paypal has supported personal accounts since the 90s. Stripe supports personal accounts. Google/Apple/Amazon/MS/Steam/Gumroad and others will all work individuals as well as businesses.

Depending on the jurisdiction (EU), you may be asked by the tax authorities to open a company after certain transaction volume.

Interesting. I wonder what the motivation for doing that is. It seems like it would be less of an accounting burden to just treat the revenues as personal income (which it is).

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#143

Post by michalf6 »

kavalg wrote: post #130
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly everyone I know doing side projects from YT channels to ebooks to WP plugins to mobile apps to games has started without being incorporated. None of them use Paddle or ever encountered problem that required them to. Paypal has supported personal accounts since the 90s. Stripe supports personal accounts. Google/Apple/Amazon/MS/Steam/Gumroad and others will all work individuals as well as businesses.

Depending on the jurisdiction (EU), you may be asked by the tax authorities to open a company after certain transaction volume.

In some jurisdictions you won't even be asked, but fined. It's seems wild how much simpler is it for Americans to try out a business idea when you read comments like this - just start selling, and pay your income tax (unless I'm getting the wrong impression).

Where I'm from, you're required to incorporate upfront and deal with the legal, accounting, VAT and social security hassle before selling anything to anyone - few days to a week of stress added.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#144

Post by cercatrova »

michalf6 wrote: post #143
kavalg wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the jurisdiction (EU), you may be asked by the tax authorities to open a company after certain transaction volume.

In some jurisdictions you won't even be asked, but fined. It's seems wild how much simpler is it for Americans to try out a business idea when you read comments like this - just start selling, and pay your income tax (unless I'm getting the wrong impression). Where I'm from, you're required to incorporate upfront and deal with the legal, accounting, VAT and social security hassle before selling anything to anyone - f…

> It's seems wild how much simpler is it for Americans to try out a business idea when you read comments like this - just start selling, and pay your income tax (unless I'm getting the wrong impression).

This is likely by design and is both a prerequisite and consequence of America's lax attitude towards businesses. It is likely one of the pivotal reasons why America has many more businesspeople (even just counting Silicon Valley companies) than Europe.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#145

Post by AlchemistCamp »

cercatrova wrote: post #144
michalf6 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some jurisdictions you won't even be asked, but fined. It's seems wild how much simpler is it for Americans to try out a business idea when you read comments like this - just start selling, and pay your income tax (unless I'm getting the wrong impression). Where I'm from, you're required to incorporate upfront and deal with the legal, accounting, VAT and social security hassle before selling anything to anyone - f…

> It's seems wild how much simpler is it for Americans to try out a business idea when you read comments like this - just start selling, and pay your income tax (unless I'm getting the wrong impression). This is likely by design and is both a prerequisite and consequence of America's lax attitude towards businesses. It is likely one of the pivotal reasons why America has many more businesspeople (even just counting S…

FWIW almost all entrepreneurial efforts I’ve started were while living in east Asia.

I did start a house painting business in America when I was 19, though. Due to liability concerns and the fact that I franchised through a chain, I did have to form a company for that. It cost about $150 in fees and took a week.

It was a bit of a pain but ultimately not that hard compared to getting a loan, buying a truck, buying ladders, getting volume deals on paint, marketing and selling to customers, etc.

Online businesses are definitely quicker and simpler to start, but I’ve never felt that big of a difference in terms of jurisdiction-induced hassle. Maybe Europe is an exceptionally difficult place, but I can’t speak to that. I’ve never done business from there.

Another thing to keep in mind is than many, many non-US residents open US LLCs for online businesses. Most my friends in Taiwan starting international-facing tech-related businesses start under their own names and then either transition to US or Singapore-based entities. Mostly this is so they can use Stripe (which isn’t available to TW-based companies).

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#146

Post by cercatrova »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #145
cercatrova wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's seems wild how much simpler is it for Americans to try out a business idea when you read comments like this - just start selling, and pay your income tax (unless I'm getting the wrong impression). This is likely by design and is both a prerequisite and consequence of America's lax attitude towards businesses. It is likely one of the pivotal reasons why America has many more businesspeople (even just counting S…

FWIW almost all entrepreneurial efforts I’ve started were while living in east Asia. I did start a house painting business in America when I was 19, though. Due to liability concerns and the fact that I franchised through a chain, I did have to form a company for that. It cost about $150 in fees and took a week. It was a bit of a pain but ultimately not that hard compared to getting a loan, buying a truck, buying lad…

Unrelated but since you're big into Elixir, any thoughts on Gleam? Personally I like it because I like the concepts of Elixir but I can't do dynamic typing anymore after being burned too many times by it. And I'd much rather have a full statically typed language than something bolted on later like type hints in Ruby or Python.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#147

Post by psd1 »

unity1001 wrote: post #140
psd1 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIUI, that's an unfair conclusion. I'm happy to be corrected, of course. tl;dr: unfair outcomes are more caused by local implementations than by the legal structure. IMO the unfairness in the American legal system comes from the expense of civil litigation, and a criminal justice system with no upper bound on how long defendants can be remanded. Those are not inherent in the English legal system. It is extremely rare…

> tl;dr: unfair outcomes are more caused by local implementations than by the legal structure. Nope. In your defense, you went into intricate details to defend common law. Which is a blunt demonstration of how this framework shapes perspectives of people. That in some detail, something can be found to demonstrate some argument. That's common law. Even that type of thinking is something that is shaped by it because it…

Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#148

Post by eps »

rockemsockem wrote: post #16

A lot of times you can validate whether a market exists without writing any code. You can engage in communities that would use your potential product and see if there are problems there that exist for a decent number of people. Once you're convinced and ready to start building I think you just have to quit like you're saying. I did exactly that about 6 months ago because I had the exact same type of contract (despite…

Careful with this approach.

Some communities are too nice, so what they say will be biased and inaccurate. Especially the most vital question of whether they will be willing to pay for it.

The need might be real, your solution might be an excellent fit and it would clearly save the target audience a headache or two. And the audience would agree. They will like what you do, they will want to be supportive and encouraging. Up until the point they need to start using it. And then they all will ghost you. Whoops.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#149

Post by jackfruit2 »

huijzer wrote: post #44

Monish Pabrai talked about this exact topic recently, see https://open.spotify.com/episode/66DUjiw7nQK6hgk91qNXz9?si=f... or https://youtu.be/gE48QKFGEhI Monish Pabrai used to be a software engineer and launched a company while he was working. This company grew to a few million in annual revenue. He‘s also the author of two investing books and sat down for a lunch with Warren Buffet and regularly has dinner with Carl…

Thanks for the link as it was an awesome. Quite inspirational in fact.

Re: Ask HN: How to validate a startup idea whilst employed?

#150

Post by Shindi »

gcatalfamo wrote: post #120
zamfi wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely works in B2B. Why would it not? Nothing prevents you from talking to potential customers about an idea you have with a slide deck.

And when are you supposed to do it? During office hours when you should be working on your regular job, or after 6pm when no business will be open for your sales call?

Yeah, during the day. Work from home and sneak in an hour or two here.

Building a company requires an incredible amount of hustle, if you can't figure out how to sneak in a couple of hours here and there to talk to people/pitch, sorry but that indicates a total lack of hustle.

Post reply on HN