Comment by superasn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by superasn | Hacker News Reader

I think you should start something very very small and forget about the money part for now. For me, my most successful project ideas came from problems that I faced during my own site launches.

Since you don't have much knowledge of FE development, I would suggest you keep things Simple Stupid and try to do as much as possible with HTML and jQuery. I have created really complex websites using just PHP and jQuery (sites that have made me 6 figures over time), plus you will learn the real nitty-gritty like DOM manipulation, CSS tricks, etc - which you will need to use anyway at least a few times regardless of the shiny JS framework.

I would highly recommend at this time you don't get sucked into the React, Node, Vue, etc. You will only end up wasting months without nothing to show for it (but maybe I'm just too old school).

Whatever time you have left after that, use it to learn online marketing. Learn about list building, SEO, Copywriting, outreach and affiliate marketing. Because that's how you turn your technology into actual money.

Any resources you'd recommend for learning online marketing?

It's useful to start visiting https://growthhackers.com/posts and reading stuff posted there daily. It's like HN for online marketeers.

Here are three I like:

https://www.quicksprout.com/university/ (free)

https://moz.com/blog/category/whiteboard-friday (free)

http://tractionbook.com/ (chapters 1-3 are free)

Inbound is a great community for SEO related discussions - https://inbound.org

Assuming you are just starting out first make sure to get the basics right. What I mean by that is stay far away from these "growth hack" sites or any courses that promises you instant results and hacks. They can be useful but unless you are already getting 500 sign-ups / day you don't need them just now. Save your money because there is enough free information on the net to get some really good results and you'll often find more helpful information in the first 3 results of Google than a $2000 course or coaching.

Secondly, The best approach I have learned when it comes to online marketing is to learn from your competition, esp when you are just starting out. Need a catchy headline? Look at the best adword ads (these guys spend a ton optimizing for clicks), need a great landing page.. Ditto, want to learn how to write the best selling emails, subscribe to all your competitors. You never have to start at square one.

You dont really need anything to start. Simply do the following:

- Talk to people about whatever problem you are looking to solve. Leverage social media and join in the conversation. Twitter is a good place to find people to talk to.

- Pay attention to the words people use. All problems have a set of specific keywords that tell you everything about how people feel about it. Use these keywords to communicate with people. Talk with their own words.

- Be consistent. Repetition is key. Say the same thing in different words. Repeating is important. Communicate the same message in similar ways.

That's pretty much what you need. Once you've learned more about the problem and those who have it, you can then leverage that data by using tools to reach more people.

Marketing (all of it) is about comminication. Listen and oay attention. Good luck.

FWIW: If you're asking about marketing after you've built a product, you're doing things in the wrong order. That's why I've included Rob's Start Small, Stay Small as one of core ideas is market validation. From a review: "not about coding but about [finding] a great niche, building a product that executes at a plateau and make it run automatically"

"The other resource I'd recommend is the one I'm releasing in ~3 weeks :)" https://www.julian.com/learn/growth/intro -- julianshapiro | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14026863

Secret Sauce: The Ultimate Growth Hacking Guide "the only actionable Internet marketing guide out there" (2017) $40 https://www.secretsaucenow.com/ -- austenallred | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13807171

Marketing for Developers "Don’t build another software product no one uses. Discover what people will pay for before you start coding." (2015) $39 https://gumroad.com/l/devmarketingbook -- mijustin | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12034104

Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth "I started doing a series of interviews on my blog with successful founders about how they got traction" (2015, 2nd ed.) $15 https://amzn.com/dp/B00TY3ZOMS -- epi0Bauqu / yegg | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10346268

Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup "The book is approaching 11,000 copies sold to date, so it's obviously filled a need." (2010) $10 https://amzn.com/dp/B003YH9MMI -- rwalling | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5361601

These guys all use their own techniques so they love bundling additional stuff besides the ebooks.

Rob's book is a bit old at this point, but I'd heartily recommend it just the same.

Yes, it's easily worth the $10 before starting anything; the rest might pay off more once there's a product.

Very helpful, as a geek trying to build a real-world business selling honey.

Money is a good motivator but it is not the only one.

If you intend to switch to money later, you should probably at least validate the idea before having a great time building something only to find out no one wants it.

What is the website that made 6 figure ?

There are many, i can't name all of them here but a few old ones are listed in my HN profile.

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