How would I get started? • Hacker News Board

Re: How would I get started?

#131

Post by shurane » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 7:22 AM UTC

jt2190 wrote: post #88

astine wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ridiculous. RTFM isn't an attitude that arrose apropos of nothing. It comes from situations where newbies asking the same basic questions over and over again exhausting a community's patience with simple questions that can be easily looked up in a FAQ or manual. Asking an open ended question about starting a new kind of business isn't anything like that. There's no FAQ about starting an ISP* so it's difficult…

HN in this case is what a salesperson would call an "unqualified lead". A good salesperson tries to make sure that they sell their product to someone who will potentially buy it. Similarly, the person who asks a question should try to ask someone who can potentially answer it. Just as the HN community would reject a posting that is a sales pitch for many products, the HN community will reject a question that is too v…

If I was trying to gloss a reason for the OP posting on HN, I would think he asked here was because of HN's particular focus on startups and 'disrupting' traditional industries. Seems to fit for creating a cable company. That being said, the question is still a poor fit because, like others said, it lacks a lot of initial effort.

Re: How would I get started?

#132

Post by noonespecial » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 8:19 AM UTC

robryan wrote: post #103

crazygringo wrote: post #62

I love this idea. Not as something to realistically help you get started, but purely educational. There's so much knowledge tied up exclusively among people "in the industry", that would be great to get out into the public. I would love to know all the things involved in starting an airline. How are planes actually bought? How are mechanics actually procured? What kind of safety regulations are followed? etc. I once…

Yeah, I have always wondered about manufacturing. If I wanted to go out and manufacture a product of some sort, even something simple, where would I find the information on doing that. There is a bit of a difference too between manufacturing base parts and assembly. There are a lot of shows on car manufacturing but they mostly are focusing on assembling mostly parts that have already been formed. I watched one on mak…

Start here. It is a very good place to start.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-783...

Re: How would I get started?

#133

Post by token_female » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 8:22 AM UTC

peteforde wrote: post #130

xiaoma wrote: post #99

> "I’m really disappointed in the universally pessimistic and generally unhelpful answers this question received. Some people pitched some interesting ideas and helpful analysis, but most of the replies reinforced the notion that Hacker News readers are predominantly male know-it-alls and on the average, a bunch of snarky dicks." This would have been both more convincing and shorter without the anti-male bit. I reali…

I promised myself that I wasn't going to reply directly to any of the comments, but it's important to rebut this succinctly: so far as I can tell, 100% of the top 1oo contributors to Hacker News (by karma) are male. I am documenting my methodology and will publish my findings in the near future. Please remember that nobody has the right to not be offended. Meanwhile, if you can prove that HN has been taken over by Je…

I'm glad you're studying this. I think it would be useful to look at the comment threads about articles that have anything to do with sexism or women in tech - they are quite telling. Here are a couple of examples, but really, it happens every time there is an article about women that acknowledges the possibility that there might be some sexism in hacker culture.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4238254

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4087811

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3452516

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4679005

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4323091

Re: How would I get started?

#134

Post by krakensden » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 8:49 AM UTC

corford wrote: post #96

ovi256 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That there's no profit is something I've seen repeatedly, including written by Warren Buffet. So my question is where does the capital they burn through each year come from ? What kind of magic business is this where companies are eternally taking losses yet still around ? Is someone giving them money to burn ?

Unfortunately, explaining this will take more than a sentence and it's 00:30 where I am and I need to sleep. But in a nutshell, the whole industry relies on a heady mix of stupid investors, money launderers and state backing. The only people that make money are the brokers (as in most industries...).

But there's a lot of money in running the things: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/01/american_merg...

Re: How would I get started?

#135

Post by xiaoma » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 9:31 AM UTC

peteforde wrote: post #130

xiaoma wrote: post #99

> "I’m really disappointed in the universally pessimistic and generally unhelpful answers this question received. Some people pitched some interesting ideas and helpful analysis, but most of the replies reinforced the notion that Hacker News readers are predominantly male know-it-alls and on the average, a bunch of snarky dicks." This would have been both more convincing and shorter without the anti-male bit. I reali…

I promised myself that I wasn't going to reply directly to any of the comments, but it's important to rebut this succinctly: so far as I can tell, 100% of the top 1oo contributors to Hacker News (by karma) are male. I am documenting my methodology and will publish my findings in the near future. Please remember that nobody has the right to not be offended. Meanwhile, if you can prove that HN has been taken over by Je…

I don't dispute that it's a mostly male site. The problem is that unless you're claiming that being male is a negative thing, there's no reason to include it along with your criticisms of "know-it-alls" or "bunch of snarky dicks".

If, for example, you said that Hollywood producers were "predominantly Jewish know-it-alls and on the average, a bunch of snarky dicks," then a lot of Jewish people would take offense and rightfully so... dispite the fact that the vast majority of producers are in fact Jewish.

Similarly, the claim that elementary schoolteachers were "predominantly female know-it-alls and on the average, a bunch of snarky bitches," you would have offended a lot of women, and the fact that most elementary school teachers are female would be no defense.

There's no need to bash men to make your argument. Bash the snarkiness or the know-it-all attitudes. That's my humble request to make the discussion a bit friendlier, and incidentally more focused on what actually matters.

Re: How would I get started?

#136

Post by namdnay » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 10:14 AM UTC

corford wrote: post #91

crazygringo wrote: post #62

I love this idea. Not as something to realistically help you get started, but purely educational. There's so much knowledge tied up exclusively among people "in the industry", that would be great to get out into the public. I would love to know all the things involved in starting an airline. How are planes actually bought? How are mechanics actually procured? What kind of safety regulations are followed? etc. I once…

I worked in the aviation industry for 6 years, so here's a 20 second "Airlines for Dummies" guide :) 1). To acquire aircraft you either buy directly from the manufacturer (Boeing, Airbus, Embraer etc.) or (much more commonly and especially if you only plan on operating a small fleet) you lease them from someone like Macquarie or, in some cases, from another airline who has spare capacity (known as wet and dry leasing…

Then you have to choose if you're going to sell through a GDS (expensive and heavy, but mandatory if you want to codeshare, which can be a good way to bootstrap), or directly to customers over the internet (cheaper but more limited)

Re: How would I get started?

#137

Post by namdnay » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 10:17 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #101

corford wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the aviation industry for 6 years, so here's a 20 second "Airlines for Dummies" guide :) 1). To acquire aircraft you either buy directly from the manufacturer (Boeing, Airbus, Embraer etc.) or (much more commonly and especially if you only plan on operating a small fleet) you lease them from someone like Macquarie or, in some cases, from another airline who has spare capacity (known as wet and dry leasing…

There is plenty of profit in certain kinds of airlines -- cargo, certain kinds of business service (flight services to oil and gas, war zones, ...). I think there's money to be made in medical flights and maybe even pet flights (although I think the pet airline went under). Passenger service in the US, sure, no profit there.

European low-cost airlines are very profitable

Re: How would I get started?

#138

Post by namdnay » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 10:21 AM UTC

Mz wrote: post #114

fearless wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't being homeless generally accepted as being more detrimental to health than pretty much any office job? My only point is that you should start at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy and take care of the basics for yourself before trying to change the world. Seriously. Get off the internet, get off HN, and figure out some way to have a stable income(or apply for disability and welfare), get health insurance, etc. Af…

I am fixing the basics. I know you mean well, but you do not know what you are talking about when it comes to my situation. Also, I did not post in this thread to ask for support, but to make a point, and not about me per se. I am sorry you are so distracted by the particulars of my situation, which are really rather incidental to this discussion, which is about HN culture. Anyway, I have things to do. Logging out no…

> I am sorry you are so distracted by the particulars of my situation, which are really rather incidental to this discussion

Well, you did talk a lot about your personal situation in your original comment, so you shouldn't act surprised that the discussion took that turn

Re: How would I get started?

#139

Post by josephlord » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:47 PM UTC

Criticizing what someone has made with middlebrow dismissiveness is one thing but pointing out that taking on a legally and commercially entrenched industry will be hard and here are some of the specific challenges is entirely valid.

I think the original question is worth picking apart if the answers are being criticized.

>Ask HN: I want to build a cable company. How would I get started?

> I want to build a cable company that centers around viewer types. Basically, it is my understanding that the majority of my cable costs centers around channels (like fox) that I just dont watch, if I wanted to build a system that let customers limit this, where would I get started?

The original question is worse (by a long way) than most of the answers. Most of the answers pointed out the major challenges or suggested better ways to achieve the vaguely stated aims although there were some useless dismissals.

The question indicates (possibly wrongly) a massive lack of understanding of the business "Basically, my understanding...[something basically right but oversimplified]". It is badly punctuated "fox" rather than "Fox", 'dont' rather than "don't". The question also fails to really be clear about what he wants to do. Does he really want to run a cable company maintaining wires in the ground and boxes in homes? Or is this mostly about securing more favorable and flexible content deals? Or is there an implicit assumption that he needs to own the cables to get the deals? What scale does he want to start on? A small town/city or national?

I didn't see the original question while it was active but if I did I would have pointed out how hard such a business is to break into especially if top grade content is required due to the maze of exclusivity contracts and the value of them which means massive amounts of money are needed to make the sellers choose non-exclusive options. Even companies like Microsoft and Sony with massive deployed platforms (Xbox and PS3 in particular) need prolonged negotiations to get any content and aren't anywhere near being able to offer full cable replacements and even with their own content Sony can offer only what is not exclusively licensed elsewhere.

However that doesn't mean that the video space can't be attacked as Netflix is showing but it will in my view need to be an indirect attack that builds audience until it can compete head to head for the major deals and content as a viable distribution platform and pricing model. Note that when the competition really starts costs may rise not fall as the platforms will compete for the most important content potentially driving up content prices for all the distribution platforms.

Re: How would I get started?

#140

Post by josephlord » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 1:52 PM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #39

And of course this thread fills up with more of the same negativism trying to justify itself. PG nailed it with the term "middlebrow dismissal". Which is a politer term than what I think when I come across it. I never think to myself "Wow, what a realistic, practical, well-informed comment that generic negative feedback was. My respect for that commenter has certainly increased!" Particularly when it's the 500th exam…

Have you actually read the thread he was complaining about? Most (but not all) was very reasonable with specific challenges to be overcome (which if he really wants to do this he should want to know about) and in many cases some suggestions and/or alternative approaches to achieving his apparent aim (different subscription pricing model).