After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code • Hacker News Board

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#241

Post by jf22 » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 4:47 PM UTC

morkalork wrote: post #218

brabel wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is so out of touch it's like a cartoon. Like, right, why did they think of that?! Just create something that's worth several thousands a month instead of a small value product!!! And get all the big companies who can actually afford that kind of thing to buy your product!!! How hard can that be?

The only times I've seen anything remotely like that work, it's a situation like this: Two engineers work together at company A, become friends and gain experience in the domain. Both move on, progress in their careers and work other companies in the same domain. They meet for coffee and person 1 says: "hey remember that problem we had at A? I see it again at B", person 2: "me too and I've been working on a side proj…

I've heard this story dozens of times now.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#242

Post by meiraleal » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 5:08 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #176

meiraleal wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. was it? Or the inability of other countries to block US startups (because the US government will never let them) makes it impossible for local startups to compete leading to monopolies? If every country went US wa…

Your statement seems to assume that non-US startups are intrinsically worse than US ones. Why is that?

Money from customers of all non-US countries is the biggest reason. Where US tech companies can't grow, local alternatives grow to the same level (China, Russia).

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#243

Post by brabel » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 5:08 PM UTC

jf22 wrote: post #241

morkalork wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only times I've seen anything remotely like that work, it's a situation like this: Two engineers work together at company A, become friends and gain experience in the domain. Both move on, progress in their careers and work other companies in the same domain. They meet for coffee and person 1 says: "hey remember that problem we had at A? I see it again at B", person 2: "me too and I've been working on a side proj…

I've heard this story dozens of times now.

And that's almost exactly how the company I work for started.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#244

Post by brabel » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 5:14 PM UTC

technotony wrote: post #216

redeux wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not going to look for stats but as someone who’s been in the startup scene for a long time, it’s true and the stats are probably even worse than that. It’s totally inefficient for the entrepreneur but very efficient for the VC. One of my other observations is that the ones who do make it often come from families that have already made it and are able to leverage those connections and experiences.

This has not been my experience at all. I moved to the bay area in 2012 and 5 people I met living there have built unicorns/have net worth now around > $1BN. None of them leveraged family connections. this might be true in Europe but the best folks figure out how to move to america.

You know 5 unicorn founders? That seems pretty crazy given there's been how many in total since 2012, like around 60 from what I can find online?

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#245

Post by mediaman » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #136

jf22 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just go sell $2-4k/mo SaaS to a medium sized traditional industry that has ancient, crummy software with a target customer employee size of 50 - 1,000 people. As if that is easy.

The guy is so out of touch it's like a cartoon. Like, right, why did they think of that?! Just create something that's worth several thousands a month instead of a small value product!!! And get all the big companies who can actually afford that kind of thing to buy your product!!! How hard can that be?

I didn't say it's easy, and it's probably not the right fit for you. But it's at least a plan with a good end-game, which a lot of $10/mo online only business models simply cannot turn into something viable.

50-1,000 person companies aren't actually that big. You can get to know the decision makers and it's not like navigating 20,000 person corporate mazes (also possible if you have the stomach for it).

It does seriously benefit from industry knowledge though. The reason so many people think it's a ridiculous pipedream is because they have no industry experience outside of tech, and that's a big problem -- a solvable one, but most people will never do what it takes to solve it and instead say that it's not possible.

It takes a lot of willingness to do non-tech things though. You can't just set up an online marketing funnel and watch the cash come in. It's relationship driven. The advantage of going after a vertical is that the relationships start feeding each other -- you get social proof within the niche industry. And you don't compete with VC-backed software companies as much because they much prefer horizontal solutions (which can get bigger and achieve bigger exits) versus vertical solutions.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#246

Post by fsndz » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 5:34 PM UTC

giva wrote: post #168

fsndz wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True and what I find funny is that the same companies are often willing to pay a lot of money to consultants that will deliver a shitty streamlit POC. Like they will literally pay consultants the equivalent of 4 years of new SaaS cost to get a POC instead of using a product with rough edges and grow with it. Expectations can be really dumb and confusing.

I'd pay to buy a bad house and then spend money to improve it, rather than paying a full rent for the same bad house and hoping that the landlord uses that money to improve it.

I don't get the comparison. are you comparing a SaaS that is doing 70% of the job and a shitty streamlit POC that no more than 3 people can use in parallel ??

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#247

Post by tmcdos » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 5:53 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #124

Hendrikto wrote: post #118

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. […] We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product […, but] we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business. American startup culture is so weird. Not everything needs to be a hyper-scaler, not everything needs to be hug…

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

The person who you should expect (or look for) to buy your startup for $50M will reasonably expect to meet someone else in the future who will then buy the "startup" (probably at that time an established company) for $100M or maybe $200M - otherwise why would he want to buy your startup? People rarely buy startups just to extend their collection of statups ... If you build a staryup with the mindset of selling it to someone bigger - you will never grow to be the next BIG among the Big Guys. And if you are not looking to be one of the Big Guys (which implies you do not plan to sell your startup) - you can live happily on the plateau with 20 employees and a satisfying income.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#248

Post by ToDougie » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 6:17 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #124

Hendrikto wrote: post #118

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. […] We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product […, but] we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business. American startup culture is so weird. Not everything needs to be a hyper-scaler, not everything needs to be hug…

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

> I remember hearing a SV VC straight up say that if you consider selling your company for $50 million a win, the you don't have the right mindset and he doesn't want to do business with you.

Is there someone out there focused on selling ten $50m companies at the same rate that this guy is focused on being part of, I assume one $.5bn company?

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#249

Post by j45 » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

morkalork wrote: post #220

siva7 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recipe for your SaaS always being a hobby

Just gotta find that price point within discretionary spending where a manager can OK the cost without having to get a VP to sign off on it. It's definitely way higher than $10/mo.

Most businesses won’t have issue with $20-50/mo if it saves them time or money elsewhere

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#250

Post by CM30 » Wed, Dec 18, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

ianpurton wrote: post #106

The developer tools market is REALLY difficult. Nearly every architecture decision is "which open source tool can I use to solve [problem]". No one wants to pay for anything and that's ok.

What's more, developer tools are misleadingly difficult. Put simply, it's easy to think that creating developer tools is going to be a winning formula for a company/startup. After all, you're probably a developer, and you've probably identified a problem you personally had in the past.

And you know where developers hang out and what kinds of things do well there. So everything's good, right?

But as you said, many of them don't want to pay for things, and many will find open source solutions that'll do the job needed instead, even if it's a tad less convenient than your potential solution might be. Plus, you're literally selling people whose job/life involves creating software, so their answer could just as easily be "build something myself to do this" instead.