Earlier quoted context omitted.
A week? Maybe a month :-)
Software engineers make thousands of dollars per week. Even on the lower end, $120,000/52=$2.3k/w.
If US$ then that is top top end (Architect, Manager level or CTO) in Sydney.
How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
61–70 of 94 posts
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#62I hear this is what the creators of Pokemon Go used before they launched their product.
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#63I hear this is what the creators of Pokemon Go used before they launched their product.
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#64Great post Michael. Despite what people say about vanity metrics, I think proving people want what you're going to build before you build it is incredibly important.
I heard Flexport did this by getting 300 companies to sign up before Ryan (the founder) wrote any code.
Eliminating risk isn't entirely possible. You could create a website for DoorDash/Ladder or Flexport, get traction, build Version 1 and then get told NO but I bet statistically you're more likely to have success with this method than building V1 first.
As an example, Optimizely got something like a $2-$4k commitment to pay without writing any code.
Again not everything works out this way. Snapchat, for example, would be a terrible example for this methodology but it works for some ideas.
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#65I gave a talk at Dropbox called "How to start a business without quitting your day job" that I think delivers a lot of the punch on this page without the weird culty vibe. Give it a watch (for free, obviously) if you like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8UwcyYT3z0
Thank you for sharing. For quite awhile now I've had in the back of my mind that I want to develop some kind of side business. I'm perfectly happy at my full time job, and incredibly busy ... but I've always been the kind of person to spend my free time tinkering with hobby projects. It would be nice to pour that time into something that generates a little extra cash and has the potential to blossom into a small business.
Trouble is ... my ideas suck. Either I have a really good idea that requires inventing new technology, or I have a niche idea that I can't fathom how to monetize or market. I'll take your points about being boring to heart and hope something finally springs to mind under those constraints. But as of a month or two ago I already realized that I needed to tone my ideas down, and after all that time with it in the back of my mind ... I still have nothing. Frustrating.
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#66I gave a talk at Dropbox called "How to start a business without quitting your day job" that I think delivers a lot of the punch on this page without the weird culty vibe. Give it a watch (for free, obviously) if you like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8UwcyYT3z0
Haha I'm sorry if it came across as 'culty'. I'll check out the video thanks for sharing.
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software engineers make thousands of dollars per week. Even on the lower end, $120,000/52=$2.3k/w.
If US$ then that is top top end (Architect, Manager level or CTO) in Sydney.
And in most places in the world, that is basically unobtainable. A rather serious case of SV-myopia here I suspect.
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#68I highly recommend considering consulting/freelancing when looking at starting a company. Hourly rates generally price in an expectation of not having work full-time, so you work less than 40 hours/week to begin with. Drop an hour or two of commute every day on top of that and it's a big win in terms of time that can be spent on a startup or side-project. Of course consulting requires more in terms of people skills -…
Thanks for reading / commenting on the post. Just wanted to say I massively agree with you; it's exactly how we got started, and could afford to test these various business ideas and our agency business is what funds our tech. Everyone else has already mentioned the issues with focus, maker/manager schedule, etc, which are all valid in my experience.
However I have one more for you: the businesses that buy from you as a consultant are very unlikely to buy your product.
Why? Because if they need a freelancer / consultant / agency to do the work for them, they don't understand the work enough to do it themselves (or don't have enough time). Therefore any self-serve solution tends to be met with blank stares and confusion. Likewise, the people who use our product on a self-serve basis are typically not a good fit for our agency.
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beware if you think after reading this you know all about starting a startup. This is just 10% of material - mostly surface knowledge. Read a book such as Running Lean to get more in depth knowledge.
Agree Running Lean is the go-to book and of all the credits, the author forgot to mention this book and the author as well despite using The Lean Canvas as a base for the entire blog.
Hey - author here. Fair point, all credit goes to the various 'lean' books; Lean Startup, Running Lean, 4 Steps to the Epiphany and Lean Analytics all come to mind when I think what inspired this. I didn't mention as I didn't expect anyone to think I invented these concepts, but I'll add a disclaimer. Cheers. :-)
Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally get that. You've already got a great way to identify the meaningful problems - it doesn't come out of thin air, but out of your experience working with people, clients, etc... That's the point of Step 1: Wanna know what problems a client is facing? Ask. If you don't ask, you'll never know what solution to build. The quitting of the job can come later :)
I'm already a freelancer, so I don't need to quit much, haha. Point is, the people I work for see me as a tool. They pay me money for my time to solve the problems they identified themselves.
We just started by solving our own problems as a marketing agency. Eventually we found one that enough other people had (through this testing process).