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I am done. I give up

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I am done. I give up

#541

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

serverholic wrote: post #509
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the likely financial outcome were the same between making music and writing software for banks or insurance companies, I sure as hell wouldn't go anywhere near a computer. Do you think people do Office Space style work out of the goodness of their own hearts? > That’s frankly ridiculous. The feeling is mutual.

Uh, have you heard of open source software? The world is full of software that people built because it’s interesting and/or useful. Linux for example was created as a hobby project during college. People love to create. Just because YOU wouldn’t touch software doesn’t mean it’s true for everyone.

Yeah, I've heard of it. I contribute to it. I pay people to write it. I run my business on it.

If you're so inclined to work on things for your own pleasure, please do give us a hand by solving some of these.

https://github.com/bitemyapp/esqueleto/issues

Re: I am done. I give up

#542

Post by logicalmonster »

Just a comment for wakana. First, I feel for you, and would say hang in there. Most startups even from very successful people, don't work out. It's up to you, but you could pursue something as a hobby in the background of your life that won't drive you batty or present too much risk if it fails. If you pursue anything next time, do something focused on fun and cheap that you love and won't harm your mental health even if it doesn't work out.

Now, onto my main comment that I think many people here will disagree with.

Conventional wisdom in life is bullshit designed to make yourself look good: you only have to look at the dumb advice given to distraught men about pursuing relations to recognize that. To me, it sounds like you're trying to take the startup community's bullshit about how to grow your business way too literally.

The good sounding advice that all of the bloggers out there give (stuff like writing high-quality content and contributing to the community) is all well and good and something you should strive towards, but you're a sucker if you think that this kind of advice is designed to do anything but make the writer of that piece seem like a noble individual. Yeah, maybe if you're Mark Cuban wealthy you can fund a big marketing campaign for your startup and do things entirely above-board and fund it until it wins out, but that's not 99% of us who are bootstrapping something.

You know what smart business minded people do to grow their startup when they have 20 followers? They go out there and spend a few dollars to buy a bunch of fake followers to appear way more popular than they actually are. It's social proof and is designed to persuade people that you're legit.

How did Reddit get their start? Wasn't it a bunch of fake bullshit accounts posting nonsense?

How do all dating sites get started? They find pictures of hot people online and make a bunch of fake profiles.

If you're pursuing your business entirely honestly, well you might win some points with the big guy upstairs, but it's not a path to business success unless you get insanely lucky. It sucks, but this is the way the world works.

Re: I am done. I give up

#543

Post by nprateem »

I think programmers are often dismissive of business people. Most of us could probably do marketing or managerial jobs if we were interested since we're the ones who really build the product. How hard can the business side be right?

People who are serious about business study MBAs for several years, because there's a lot to learn. You're not just going to learn it by reading some influencer blog posts.

When you're preinvestment, the best skills for entrepreneurs aren't technical, they're strategic. If you can assess a business idea like an investor you'll stop wasting time on things that are hopeless prospects to begin with. You also won't need to listen to influencers.

Steve Jobs said he was as proud of the things Apple didn't do as the things they did. They only took forward 20% of ideas IIRC, and probably canned a load of those too.

I'm working on a rapid innovation pipeline. I want to be able to brainstorm ideas, filter out the strategically weak ones, run quick tests on more promising ones, dig deeper into the target market/problem/technology that enables the idea, and move quickly. I want to do as much as possible without writing a line of code. That's the only way to keep things fast and low cost so I can carry on working in my cushy job and do this on the side. If one takes off, I'll then decide to focus on it, but by then the business model will be well validated and I'll be more certain about the potential.

Re: I am done. I give up

#544

Post by kolbe »

bumby wrote: post #375
safety1st wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the rich have more advantages than the poor. Always been that way and always will. In our culture there is an immense preoccupation with the unfairness of this but the reality is that if you don't come from wealth and privilege, you need a different playbook. Dwelling on the inequity neuters you. If you want to win you need to figure out what the playbook is and then do the right things. I found a playbook that…

>* move to a country …* I understand and agree with your overall point, but the fact that this an option underpins a certain amount of privilege.

[flagged]

Re: I am done. I give up

#546

Post by neon_electro »

kgantchev wrote: post #487
pavlov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the underappreciated benefits of the Nordic-style welfare state: everybody can afford to fail. Unfortunately it's rarely discussed in society as such. The political parties that built these welfare states have traditionally been associated with worker unions, and entrepreneurship isn't high on their agenda. The Nordic right-wing parties got ideologically married to Thatcher-style neoliberalism and pref…

Interestingly, the US still ranks #1 in the world in Entrepreneurship and Switzerland is #2. Source: https://thegedi.org/global-entrepreneurship-and-development-... I think the reason why welfare is irrelevant here is because the people going into entrepreneurship tend to be skilled enough to find a good-paying job even if their startup fails. Suppose that you're a good product manager or a good developer that's goin…

Except in years like 2022 when it seems harder than ever to get a job, even with a solid 10 year working history. I'm convinced it's a more competitive market than ever, and that means more rejections.

I'm being sort of picky, focused on quality over quantity of opportunities, but it doesn't mean your statement is true.

Re: I am done. I give up

#547

Post by kolbe »

ip26 wrote: post #485
bumby wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>* move to a country …* I understand and agree with your overall point, but the fact that this an option underpins a certain amount of privilege.

How much privilege does it take to move to Guatemala or Pakistan?

HN commenters are apparently privileged for having to move to Guatemala to get by, whereas Guatemalians are refugees when they move to the US.

Re: I am done. I give up

#548

Post by svnt »

koobe wrote: post #230
pavlov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the underappreciated benefits of the Nordic-style welfare state: everybody can afford to fail. Unfortunately it's rarely discussed in society as such. The political parties that built these welfare states have traditionally been associated with worker unions, and entrepreneurship isn't high on their agenda. The Nordic right-wing parties got ideologically married to Thatcher-style neoliberalism and pref…

Flip side of the welfare state is the heavy tax burden. Heavily progressive income tax makes it harder for individuals to accumulate capital for enterprenial endeavours, be it their own or investing in others'. This limits early stage investments and growth. Also, there are limited incentives in investing in careers and productivity as net income is surprisingly similar in lowest 10% and highest 10% income earners.

Early stage investment is usually paying below-market salaries of entrepreneurs — that is, doing exactly what the government would, except the government doesn’t take a big cut of your startup.

Additionally, the government doesn’t require you to network with the right people, come from the right subculture, etc.

Do you want your “taxes” to go to the needy or the wealthy? Because in startups angel investors are capturing bigger percentages of the capital from your labor than the government.

Re: I am done. I give up

#549

Post by _448 »

necovek wrote: post #278
_448 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A big fact of the entrepreneur world is that it is hugely based on luck. Luck of finding the right idea, the right market, the right timing, the right connections, the right customers, the right employees, the right financing. This is not true! I have seen successful business built from scratch by people who had no connections, no money and no privileged background (and no VC money). And I will say this for sure, i…

You are both right: hard work is a requirement. To make it really big (and sometimes to just make it), luck is a requirement as well. A simple "proof" using logic is finding someone who worked really hard and failed (called a proof by contradiction): this is not hard, many have worked really hard and don't have much to show for it. Thus, hard work does not lead to success. But it does enable it. Similarly, there are…

> A simple "proof" using logic is finding someone who worked really hard and failed (called a proof by contradiction): this is not hard, many have worked really hard and don't have much to show for it.

That "hard work" you describe is missing the component of "smart work". If people "have worked really hard and don't have much to show for it", then that is not smart work. When I used the words "hard work" it implicitly includes smart work. Otherwise the person should not be an entrepreneur. If I start digging a hole in the hope that some how I will build a castle is not smart work. Hard work, definitely but not smart work.

Re: I am done. I give up

#550

Post by fl_ciq »

TrackerFF wrote: post #477
opyate wrote: post #320

Succeeding in the startup world reminds me of the funfair analogy: The rich kid will have a go at throwing the dart at the balloon, and miss. But, because they're a rich kid, they just take out their wallet (or parents' wallet), get more stubs, and try again (and again) until they hit the balloon. The middle class kid will have a go at throwing the dart at the balloon, and also miss. Then they will walk away, saying…

Yes, money maters. Rich kids can conjure tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars from "friends and family" in a mater of days. Hours even, if they're really connected. They can then pump all that money straight into advertisement, barely even need a working demo - just something that looks like a product. They can do this many times over. If you're gonna bootstrap something with $0, then you need to win the algorith…

The pyramid of loserdom goes all the way down, unless you're Elon Musk there is someone richer, and there's always someone poorer. Winners figure out how to make it with what they have. Losers always blame lack of resources, look at people who win the lottery, most return to the same standard of living within a few years.

Almost anyone can afford $5 a day in ads to test market.

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