Ask HN: Have any of you started a non-tech business?

#1

Post by seaports » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:38 AM UTC

Interested to hear about the industry, how you approached it, and how it's going now.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you started a non-tech business?

#2

Post by inemesitaffia » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:55 AM UTC

Search for the Vidalia person

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you started a non-tech business?

#3

Post by adi_kakarla » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 8:29 AM UTC

Did freelance marketing in high school and currently writing a sponsored newsletter. Approached both out of genuine curiosity.

I quit the freelance marketing gig once I started college (lost a big client at that point anyways), but I still write the newsletter if I finish my dsa homework lol.

Wouldn't really consider either to be businesses, moreso side hustles I was interested in.

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you started a non-tech business?

#4

Post by Harshani99 » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 12:29 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you started a non-tech business?

#5

Post by jameal » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 1:12 PM UTC

inemesitaffia wrote: post #2

Search for the Vidalia person

Peter Askew of Deep South Ventures started a handful of businesses just based on available domain names. Known for his Vidalia Onions business.

deepsouthventures.com

Re: Ask HN: Have any of you started a non-tech business?

#6

Post by vintageclothldn » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 4:46 AM UTC

Yes. I'm a co-founder of a Second Hand Clothing Start Up - https://streetgarms.co.uk/. We sell second hand streetwear from brands like Supreme, Palace and The North Face through our own website, and we've achieved top seller status on Depop while working toward power seller status on eBay.

The second hand clothing market is booming, particularly with Gen Z having a fundamentally different attitude toward pre-owned clothing compared to older generations. We've bootstrapped from just 3 items to over 1,500 in 4 years. Some interesting challenges we've faced:

- Scale is particularly difficult in this space - Finding software solutions for automation is challenging - Depop's API is - severely limited - Managing thousands of unique SKUs with single-unit inventory creates complex operational issues

Overall it's a solid business in a rapidly growing sector. Coming from a tech background, I'm fascinated to see how the scaling dynamics here differ from typical tech startups. The unit economics and operational complexity create an interesting contrast to pure software businesses.