The general consensus seems to be, launch as fast as possible. Don't put a year into something only to find that your idea isn't as monetizeable as you thought.
Ask HN: Three years to startup
11–20 of 31 posts
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#12So Domain Pigeon is just a side project for you?
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#13Am I better off working on a a project that takes 4-6 month to build and launch or one that takes 18-24 months? Why not have both? What I mean is, take a big project, break it into smaller pieces of 3 months each (features 1-10 in first iteration, 11-20 in the second and so on). Since you'll be releasing early, you can gauge the response to your app, and adjust the next iteration according to the feedback (or even dr…
Exactly. Having a three year timeline allows you to have an overall strategy that you can incrementally build towards.
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#14So Domain Pigeon is just a side project for you?
Yes, primarily to learn Rails, among other things. Before I only had limited web development experience, mostly with some simple PHP sites.
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#15I don't have comments regarding the entire post, but I definitely have one regarding the size of the project: stick to something smaller that you can push out (at least in limited form) in your four-to-six-month timetable. If you choose something that will take you almost two years to launch but you can't commit full-time to it, then there will (most-likely) always be others with a similar idea who can work more hour…
Also keep in mind that your estimates may be way off (on the optimistic side). For my startup, we initially thought the idea would take 2 weeks to do. In reality, it took closer to 3 months. In my case, once we started working on the idea, we discovered it was quite a bit more complex than we anticipated.
I second this! I've taken to multiplying my time estimates by three as a way of working around the problem, but things will always take longer than you expect. There's debugging time, dealing with bugs in other peoples' code time, brain reset time when you need to stop and think, and let's not forget girlfriend time (they need attention, too).
The way that I've figured out how to deal with this, is to punt absolutely everything that isn't absolutely necessary into the next 'version' after launch. Throw all of those cool features into your feature bucket, and only implement them once you've gotten the existing feature set working.
Your mileage may vary, of course. :)
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#16I don't have comments regarding the entire post, but I definitely have one regarding the size of the project: stick to something smaller that you can push out (at least in limited form) in your four-to-six-month timetable. If you choose something that will take you almost two years to launch but you can't commit full-time to it, then there will (most-likely) always be others with a similar idea who can work more hour…
Thanks, this is great advice and likely what I'll wind up doing.
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#17Ok: 1. How can you know that you still want to do this same startup in 3 years? You might get married. Get a kid. Get a great job. Loose your legs. Google might have launched your idea and killed your chances. Just saying. 2. A project that takes 2 years to launch is a recipe for failure. Really. A startup should take, say, 6 months to launch first beta, another 6 months to get really going and get users, during the…
Peter, this is really good advice, thank you.
I'm not sure where I'll be in three years, but it does help to have a direction. I am married and we do want kids around the same time so that would obviously complicate things, which is partly why I'm trying to figure this out now. Again, thanks for the comments.
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#18simple: your gameplan is to sit down and start working. push to get the minimum viable product - the minimum product that will bring in users/feedback/revenue. plan your initial timelines around this instead of the time you need to do everything you want. learn more about the things you need to know when they come up. you don't need full-time availabitlity to make a startup happen.
Thanks. I'm halfway through Four Steps to Epiphany. Great book--made me realize I've been doing a lot of things poorly. I can't tell you how many times I've spent months working on an app with high expectations only to launch it and realize it didn't solve the user's actual needs. Doh.
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#19What markets/industries are you interested in?
Re: Ask HN: Three years to startup
#20Hi Matt, I understand your scenario. I am working a project on a part-time basis that might interest you. My mail's in my profile if you want to discuss it or anything else.