Ask HN: To Startup or not to Start-up? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: To Startup or not to Start-up?

2 pointsBlackstone45 comments

Hi HN!

Thanks for any comments in advanced.

I was looking for some advice about whether or not to launch my own start-up. As some background I used to be a software engineer for a bit under two years then I moved into quant analytics then an investment/front offices role. I’ve got a technical background with a masters in engineering / maths and I’ve used Ubuntu, Java, Python and SQL. I’ve started to learn Node.JS

My idea would be to create an API-first company with a UI to help automate a process whereby information is currently being transferred by PDF and manually entered or outsourced. I think the idea is pretty good and as such I was thinking of starting a company with a co-founder (I still need to find one). I have some savings which we can use to buy a small house and my wife earns a modest income which could support us while I work on this project. The goal would be to fund to myself for a while then maybe get into Techstars followed by some VC/Angel money when we had to.

The thing is that I have some savings and am fairly comfortable earning $150k+ in a role which I don’t think that I’m perfect for and I’m not using my technical skills. But I generally enjoy the work although I don’t think that my current career path has a great future…maybe I’m just glass half empty….

Starting a data/software company seems to make sense and I have a workable idea. The thought of taking the leap terrifies me and excites me at the same time. So is doing a start-up all it’s cracked up to be? …. I know it’s a lot of work and I’m ready for it.

If it fails then what? I don’t want to go back to coding for someone else. I’d rather go back to the investment world…..

Any thoughts or advice would be more than welcome

Honestly, if you do not have kids yet, I would start this venture as a side project. Renting a VPS is dirt cheap. Put up a landing page with your pitch and an email signup that connects to one of the main transnational email providers which is also a dirt cheap service.

Buy the book Running Lean and adapt the sample script to your product/industry then go do some customer development interviews. Be very careful not to pitch your solution. Focus on learning from people you think will be your customers. What are their pain points / problems.

Create a grid of all your answers from all your interviews and see if you can spot a pattern among the problems.

Make some adjustments to your landing page to reflect the keywords used when they discussed their problems.

Take it from there, it is a low risk approach that will save you a ton of time and effort.

Both yourself and Eridrus made similar points and I replied to his post below

First of all, now is probably the worst time to buy a house if you plan to start a startup, it's an illiquid asset that has a whole bunch of associated closing costs and you don't know what your monetary situation will be in the near future, you're just setting yourself up for a pile of stress.

It's always hard to step back from your idea when you're convinced it's a good one, but the most common advice is not to start with an idea, but to start with potential customers and find out what their pain points really are. If they're not spending a lot of money outsourcing this, it will probably be really hard to convince them they should pay you for your software. I thought this advice didn't apply to me and spent months of late nights and weekends working on a product, but it does. If businesses are not crying for your product, selling it to them will be hard. It can be done, but it will be hard.

As a technical founder, the things that are likely to kill your startup are not going to be technical implementation issues, and as much as the temptation will be to spend a lot of time at your computer working on your product, that is probably the least useful thing you can do.

Figure out if people want to pay for the product you have in mind. Don't just assume that they should. Talk to them.

I would not advise quitting your day job before getting started. You should start talking to people who may want your product and finding out if they really do, way before you have it built.

If you just start writing code you will likely spend months on a pile of software that no-one wants to even bother integrating, let alone paying money for and the only thanks you will get is a hole in your finances, and then after that you'll be stuck in job search that's even harder than it would be now because you have nothing to fall back on.

I don't want to get you down, but you need realistic expectations, not about the fact that it will be hard, but that you will most almost certainly fail; the best thing you can do is find the sources of risk for your fledgling startup and figure out if you can address them, which is all easier to do with the safety net of a job.

I've already spoken to 5+ people in the industry using my contacts and have already changed my idea once. I've shifted from an UI first approach to focusing more on the API.

I've also gotten feedback on data formatting and I have some ideas there on how to deal with it.

I'm still not there yet because my change in tack means that I need to speak to a slightly different set of people. So I'm getting out there and doing the research.

One of main concerns I guess is that if I stay in my job I will never get anything done or if I do it will be at a much slower pace...then the idea will fade and die...

PS on buying a house, it would be a small $150k house with the mortgage, tax and insurance coming to $1k pcm which I'm comfortable with especially since we'd have some savings.

> I've already spoken to 5+ people in the industry using my contacts and have already changed my idea once. I've shifted from an UI first approach to focusing more on the API.

Do they have the authority to authorize purchases or have very significant input on purchasing? Are those people telling you they would buy it at a price that it makes sense to develop this tech? Have you talked pricing with them? Can you get them to sign a contract saying they will buy it if you can deliver it by some date in the future? Can you get them to sign a letter of intent?

A lot of people will tell you that your idea is interesting, most of them will flake out on you.

> One of main concerns I guess is that if I stay in my job I will never get anything done or if I do it will be at a much slower pace...then the idea will fade and die...

The idea may die and fade, but that will be because you have decided it's not a good idea to continue with. You have way more free time than you think, you can spend all of that time on your startup idea.

If you really do want to accelerate development speed, consider using something like UpWork; you can find developers who are specialists at what you want for much lower than your current salary. IANAL, but you may even be able to write this off on your taxes if you file as a sole proprietorship.

> PS on buying a house, it would be a small $150k house with the mortgage, tax and insurance coming to $1k pcm which I'm comfortable with especially since we'd have some savings.

You know your own situation best, but make sure you understand all of the one time costs involved with buying a house and how much savings you will have left over and consider what will happen if things go much worse than expected.

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