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Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime?

#11

Post by hhm »

rhyde wrote: post #6

This was just addressed today by Josh Coates of Mozy.com who talked to a small class of CS students. He said, "if your idea is good then there are six other guys out there working on it full time. If it's not good then don't work on it." On the other side I just finished the Chapter in Founders at Work on 37 Signals. David Heinemeier Hansson created BaseCamp and he only spent 10 hours a week on it. He was the only pr…

Also, if the market for your idea is very very good, and the company is offering a service, then this might work. You are already selling the service by now, within your limited time, and the competition doesn't care much as there is such a huge market for your idea. But these are not the conditions in all the cases...

Re: Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime?

#13

Post by edw519 »

yters wrote: post #9
JoeEntrepreneur wrote: post #8

It really does not matter much if you are doing it part-time or full-time except for the time it takes to get the first release out. I have been working on http://www.onista.com for almost a year now and I am doing it mostly in evenings and weekends. Bear in mind that I have one and half year old kid who takes lot of time away from me (Off course I enjoy it a lot). Recently two more friends joined me and we are prett…

Yeah, that would probably work as long as I don't have tough competition that can work full time. So when I release, I have to release pretty complete and bug free, and it'd help if the product was very hard to reproduce without knowing the internals. I can probably do those, since I currently have a year and a half of comp sci research ahead of me (getting a masters). Any recommendations on especially pertinent fiel…

I'm not sure that the "pertinence" of the field is what's important for a start-up. I'd be more concerned about the need for something (unless that's what you meant by "pertinent".)

If you have to look for something to do or ask for recommendations, you'll probably never have the passion needed to see it through.

OTOH, you probably already have what you need. What really bugs you? And others you know? When's the last time you said, "You know, someone really ought to make ." THAT'S what you should be pursuing.

Re: Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime?

#15

Post by yters »

edw519 wrote: post #12

"won't be able to do" You should have nothing to do with any start-up until you premanently remove those words from your vocabulary. Seriously.

You're right. I can have all the time I want at Fort Knox.

Anyways, this is part of thinking around the problem.

Re: Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime?

#16

Post by yters »

edw519 wrote: post #13
yters wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that would probably work as long as I don't have tough competition that can work full time. So when I release, I have to release pretty complete and bug free, and it'd help if the product was very hard to reproduce without knowing the internals. I can probably do those, since I currently have a year and a half of comp sci research ahead of me (getting a masters). Any recommendations on especially pertinent fiel…

I'm not sure that the "pertinence" of the field is what's important for a start-up. I'd be more concerned about the need for something (unless that's what you meant by "pertinent".) If you have to look for something to do or ask for recommendations, you'll probably never have the passion needed to see it through. OTOH, you probably already have what you need. What really bugs you? And others you know? When's the last…

A deep solution is better in my situation than scratching some random itch, since anyone can do the latter. So, to rephrase my question more exactly: what are the deep underlying problems of the web that need the type of strong theory I can learn at university?

In answer to your last set of questions, something that really needs to be made is an aggregation service for all the web 2.0 stuff out there. People want an integrated, secure, and trust based work/socializing platform, and my current research interests are geared towards solving this kind of problem. Facebook is trying to do this, but I don't think they have a good mechanism yet for integrating apps.

Re: Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime?

#17

Post by edw519 »

yters wrote: post #16
edw519 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that the "pertinence" of the field is what's important for a start-up. I'd be more concerned about the need for something (unless that's what you meant by "pertinent".) If you have to look for something to do or ask for recommendations, you'll probably never have the passion needed to see it through. OTOH, you probably already have what you need. What really bugs you? And others you know? When's the last…

A deep solution is better in my situation than scratching some random itch, since anyone can do the latter. So, to rephrase my question more exactly: what are the deep underlying problems of the web that need the type of strong theory I can learn at university? In answer to your last set of questions, something that really needs to be made is an aggregation service for all the web 2.0 stuff out there. People want an…

"Random itches" sometimes grow to be "deep solutions".

Hotmail was started because 2 guys didn't want to leave an email trail on their employers' systems.

Ebay was a hobby to help a guy sell his girlfriends stuff.

OTOH, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon were intended to be "deep solutions".

Sounds like you have the passion. No substitute for that.

Re: Ask YC: Is it possible to do a startup parttime?

#19

Post by yters »

rhyde wrote: post #6

This was just addressed today by Josh Coates of Mozy.com who talked to a small class of CS students. He said, "if your idea is good then there are six other guys out there working on it full time. If it's not good then don't work on it." On the other side I just finished the Chapter in Founders at Work on 37 Signals. David Heinemeier Hansson created BaseCamp and he only spent 10 hours a week on it. He was the only pr…

I like the notion of how constraints help. I think that's pretty key, prevents feature creep and the rest, which could easily overwork a full time team that gets to ambitious.
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