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The side hustle from hell

blog.jacobstechtavern.com

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Re: The side hustle from hell

#121

Post by bruce511 »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #62
bruce511 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you nailed it here. >> I hope that by reading this story, I can protect some of you from 11 months of pain. That's not how experience works. What you really did was get an 11 month business education. And again, you can tell your story, but you can't pass on that education. I'm glad you moved on to better things. And I think you're saying that this experience prepared you for that, and you were a better overa…

But maybe he can compress someone else's terrible experience down to 6 or 3 months, or stop them from sinking their own money (or that of family/friends) into an obvious faliure. There's another failures to go around; we don't all need to life every one of them.

It would be nice if it did, but that's not how experience works.

Which is to say that yes, we can learn from the mistakes of powers, and the story is worth telling.

For 99% of people, who want safety and security, they'll just ho get a job anyway. For the 1% who want to start something new, well 4 in 5 will fail either 5 years. Those failures are the experience needed to find success. Some get there quicker, some abandon good ideas too quickly or bad ideas too slowly.

That's how we learn along the way, and yes, absorb the lessons of others.

Re: The side hustle from hell

#122

Post by gosub100 »

wibbily wrote: post #9

Currently at a startup that did the same thing wrt having their app built overseas. Protip: don't. Endless bullshit, excruciating trying to get anything out of them. We ended up with an app just like this guy's, locked aspect ratio and all. If I find another startup whose product is an app, and they can't find a local developer to write that app, I'm running. Why outsource your core product!?

I can only guess, but maybe they think the product is just something you pay some of those "other people" to whip up, and the whole game is about your business and marketing and metrics etc. The app is just some necessary cost that must be minimized to check the box on their business template.

Re: The side hustle from hell

#123

Post by emmelaich »

dabinat wrote: post #82

This article reminded me of the time a guy wanted to pitch his startup idea for me to develop. He wanted me to sign an NDA before telling me, as the idea was so great that I would obviously steal it, which I refused. So all he would tell me is that it was “the next Twitter”, and from what I could gather, he would retain the majority of the equity and I would do all of the work, while he lobbed ideas at me from on hig…

I've seen this on reddit or similar. Guy has an amazing idea, all he needs is a developer, sales person, finance person, management team, ....

It reads like a parody but it was serious.

Re: The side hustle from hell

#124

Post by pduggishetti »

wibbily wrote: post #9

Currently at a startup that did the same thing wrt having their app built overseas. Protip: don't. Endless bullshit, excruciating trying to get anything out of them. We ended up with an app just like this guy's, locked aspect ratio and all. If I find another startup whose product is an app, and they can't find a local developer to write that app, I'm running. Why outsource your core product!?

I think there are ways to outsource too. Outsource to an international team that benefits from your success rather than viewing you as a money-making goose. Build a different incentive model, and give away some equity. Sell them the dream.

Re: The side hustle from hell

#127

Post by PeterStuer »

"Marketplace startups are often considered the hardest software startups to build, because you have to create two markets at once. They work best with frequent and inexpensive transactions (from which you can reasonably take a 20% cut)"

2 sided markets get started by buying one side of the market. This is why this model is very expensive to bootstrap. You typically start by offering free or very discounted services to the consumers and pay the difference to the producers until you have captured the consumers and the producers pay you for transactions. All the while you have to mitigate disintermediation, so that producers can't bypass you to access the consumers outside of your market platform.

Re: The side hustle from hell

#128

Post by koonsolo »

Can someone knowledgeable explain this part?

"The guy whipped out a rudimentary financial model in a few hours. Turns out it’s not that important—it’s for illustrating your runway and spending plan, not to justify an imaginary revenue number."

Re: The side hustle from hell

#129

Post by CPLX »

constantcrying wrote: post #72

Having non-technical founders who failed to even outsource their project is an enormous red flag. Nobody there knew how to make the product a reality and if it is you who is doing 100% of the work, then you obviously deserve 100% of the equity. "Having an idea" is not worth equity. If you thought the idea was great, there was an obvious golden opportunity for you, none of the people there are going to make this into…

In fairness I think "non-technical" needs to be clarified a little. I can easily envision (and have seen) founders who are not themselves actual software engineers but who have some background in project management or otherwise managing tech teams hiring an offshore team and moving very quickly to a viable product cost efficiently.

In fact I'd bet it's at least a coin-flip that this profile would actually be more effective than a hardcore CS background engineer who hasn't ever managed teams or launched and sold a product.

Of course that's a small caveat, since that's almost never what we're talking about, like in this example. But still, seems worth noting that the outsourcing of the build isn't necessarily the red flag, the red flag is the leader of the project having no experience in building and launching useful software.

Re: The side hustle from hell

#130

Post by sevensor »

aresant wrote: post #45
Aurornis wrote: post #6

This is the classic dead-end startup story from beginning to end. It checks all the boxes: - 3 non-technical cofounders - Flurry of activity for everything other than acquiring customers - Attempt to outsource development followed by disappointment - Relentless scope creep - Zero go to market plan, just an incessant belief that more features in the app will solve all problems There is also one less obvious point that…

"Flurry of activity for everything other than acquiring customers" In 16 years on HN this is one of the best pieces of startup advice I've seen. Default should be 10% of time on MVP and landing page, 90% on distribution until you smell PMF. Fight violently against any suggestion you invest more heavily in product until somebody is in tears about keeping up with demand for your MVP.

You see this with internal projects at larger companies too, just with fewer constraints. At big companies, the same impulse leads to empire building and vanity projects. Far too few people ask, “how does this deliver value for the company? How does this serve the mission? How does it benefit the customer?”
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