Ask HN: I have a startup idea, the project is 90% done. But.. | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I have a startup idea, the project is 90% done. But..

30 pointsalifaziz39 comments

Hi everyone! I'm malaysian. Going to gradute in CS soon. Currently I'm working alone on my own web project in purpose to run a startup right after I've finish my last day in CS faculty or maybe before the last day.

But the problem is, I always doubt at my own ideas and potential to execute the idea. Yes, I'm ready to take any risks but at some times, severally, I feel unmotivated, uninspired any more because of my surroundings and friends network are not really into realistic interest in entrepreneurship.

Any positive constructive advice on how to overcome these emotional obstacles, how to manage poisonous unmotivated people around and how to stay persist on what I believe will work.

That's all. Thank you.

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First of all, it's nice to see Malaysians other than myself dabbling in entrepreneurship. As a Malaysian, I know what it's like trying to run a start-up locally; the environment is just too non-conducive, for various reasons I'm sure you're familiar with.

My advice is to try to dissociate yourself from all the noise out there (all the get-rich-quick seminars, how-to-make-millions-on-the-internet books, work-from-home business "opportunities", etc.) and immerse yourself in the real gems of knowledge (e.g. blogs by entrepreneurs, Hacker News, TechCrunch, etc.) to get the right paradigm.

Second advice, get new friends. Go to local start-up gatherings and know people. Best of all, get incubated in a local incubator. Unfortunately, if you depend heavily on social validation and you're not self-contained socio-emotionally (i.e. you feel the need to "hang out" and "talk" to someone all the time just to be functional), which you sound like you are, I think this might be a painful change to make. If you've identified your current friends as a negative influence on your ambitions and personal objectives, you know it's time to discard them.

The truth is that your current friends are probably a dime a dozen. If you want fight the negative influence, the only option is to dissociate yourself from them, not to try to "manage" it or, worse, to try to change them. Start spending more time with your family instead to fulfill your socio-emotional needs.

Terima kasih fezzl for the insightful advice.

seriously, where is the local startup gathering in Malaysia? anyone around KL?

I'm Malaysian too.

Whoa, I didn't know there are other Malaysians on HN. We should probably meet up.

We should do that!! ... Lets start a revolution! ;)

Would love to meet up with Malaysians on here. Not sure how that would be set up but I'm always open. If you need to get in touch, simply shoot an email my way.

There's a TechCrunch meetup in KL coming up: http://www.meetup.com/TechCrunch/.

Release as soon as possible so you can get started working on the other 90%.

the other 90%...lol....exactly, words of wisdom!

patio11 is refering to the 90/90 rule:

> The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-ninety_rule

Agreed, I was trying to show my agreement with this important principle. Unsuccessfully it seems. :)

A mentor of mine has saying that startups are an emotional rollercoaster. One week you are high of the positive feedback after pitching to an investor, next week you realize that they are still far from investing. One week you get tons of work done, next week you bang your head against some stupid technical problem that you thought was trivial. One week you have a spike in adoption curve for a random reason, next week it flattens for apparently no reason.

You just have to learn to ride the emotional rollercoaster. For some people, it comes naturally. They are confident and positive, constantly living in their own reality distortion field. Some analytical people have doubts all the time.

If you have doubts about your capability to execute, consider that as part of the business and just push through the emotional low back to high.

But if you have doubts about your overall idea, then you just have to go back to the idea. Why I'm doubting it? Idea should be something that you think has obvious potential and you just wonder why others aren't doing it. Often times it's enough to adjust your original idea a bit. Get feedback, fresh perspectives. Pivot. And you suddenly feel confident again.

Cool. I'm Malaysian too but located in East Malaysia. I'm working alone on a web project too. From my experience, going alone is emotionally tough, working first may help find people who share the same ambition. Don't give up...."how can you fail if you don't give up" :) Tell yourself you're going to take 4 years (or more if you're still young) and giving it all you have. Even if you fail, you would have gained valuable experience and knowledge.

Be careful of saying that the software is done and launching it big. What you have is probably a product that you think what others will want. Until you get feedback and slowly releasing it to the world, you do not know. Probably getting those unmotivated people around you to try your software might be helpful as a start.

I think historically there's been a higher chance of failure but as long as you learn from the mistakes, you'll do fine. Fail fast.

fyi, I used to lecture CS in Malaysia :) and I failed trying to launch an ecommerce site in Malaysia. But I'm at it again.:)

This article may shed some light on your dilemma http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/10/03/harnessing-e...

Keep reading and learning. If you don't already know, I find the following things helpful - http://ecorner.stanford.edu/ - http://steveblank.com - twitter

It's not about the idea. It's the execution. If it's a good idea, someone else is probably doing the same thing...unless you have a crazy idea. Know your competition and realised that you are one person against probably a whole team of people if it's not a niche enough market you're targeting.

Well that's my opinion anyway...:)

Get a beta out. Test the app against the many out there who might benefit from it, not the few you know who wouldn't. Totally different set of people, so one shouldn't influence your success with the other.

In terms of entrepreneurship, just spend more mental time with other startup-types. There must be some in your city/country. There are definitely more online, people who are in exactly the same situation as you and who have the same worries. Read what they have to say, forget about what salary-focused people tell you.

You might fail initially, but at least you can say you tried and even failure helps in terms of succeeding sooner or later.

Find a smart friend who has similar motivations as you do, even if they don't want to work with you. It's unbelievably helpful to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

Secondly, don't rule out working for someone else before you start your own company. It's very helpful to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses really are on someone else's dime. Of course, there are plenty of reasons not to work for a big company, but this is one reason to work for a big company. In a big company, you're forced to work with a variety of different people you might not work with on your own. This gives you an idea of what types of people you work well with, what kinds of people you don't, and will also make you appreciate working for a smaller company (at least it will if you're cut out for a smaller company).

I can't figure out a way to be both friendly and answer productively.

Stop blaming other people, it will seldom help. If you succeed, it will be because you got out there and did the work and got in the right place at the right time. If you don't succeed, it will be because you personally fucked up. You can get that attitude, and accept that finding some way to succeed is your responsibility. Alternatively, you can blame your friends and whine on the internet about how it's so hard and the people around you are all to blame for everything. I have a feeling I know what you are going to do.

Yeah, blaming others won't end anything. But I only seek advice, opinions how to manage this situation. So possibly afterwards I can inspire and motivate others too. Thanks btw :)

I didn't read the OPs question like "woe is me" at all.

I've been in their shoes. Feeling isolated, having doubts despite my optimistic nature, lacking sources of good advice. I'm sure it's a familiar story for many HNers.

I wasn't born knowing Paul Graham or the Church of Lean. I didn't always live in a city rife with smart people building startups.

It's a slow, steady process of learning, adjusting, and learning again. That the OP is here asking questions and seeking advice shows me they're on the right path.

Get a cofounder, there must be many good candidates in your CS class.

That's more likely to happen in the US and the least likely to happen in Asia. There might be good programmers, but that doesn't mean they will be good founders or even want to be founders! The cultural mindset to become Enterpreneur is very high relatively in the US, but in general in Asia it is not, and it is expected that you work for a big company after you are done with school, the bigger the better. Even though it's good advice, realize that it's not as easy as you make it sound!

Well that's very true in my situation here! Even some lecturers are so little minded in encouraging students into entrepreneurship. Yes, who does not wants secure safe job with big company, be a good worker and live happily.

But.. It sounds like no more better life than after getting hired. Risk and failure that frightening good potential people away from being an entrepreneur.

Unfortunately, shameful to say, I'm surrounded with these kind of people everyday. Talking about ambition in establishing your own company is hardly achievable. At the end I need to survive myself, home made self motivating.

Many advice here will be from people who are not aware of the Asian culture, hope you don't get too depressed by their responses. The truth is that your environment does matter! Just read this article: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/06/can-indonesias-ciputra-prov...

If you need an environment for motivation, consider relocating. Singapore is a nice option.

Another option is to go work for a startup, and after some more experience you will have a better network with other entrepreneurs and startup minded people.

I believe there are some startup groups in kuala lumpur too, try to hang out there.

Good luck

Pretty helpful! thanks for the advice tomh.

I don't think getting a co-founder is a universal answer for everything.

Agree fully. I see it as replacing a short-term problem with a long-term one, unless you find a really good partner. Many, aren't.

Here are a few things that might help:

1. Build the core product and launch a beta soon. Release early, release often. This will help you gauge the response and adapt. This will help you remove uncertainty about your own launch/idea etc.

2. You should definitely try to involve atleast one more person. As a lone founder, sometimes things can be a little dull.. However this should not mean you should force yourself to look at co-founders.. it's a tricky situation.. But, go out and talk to people, and meet more people and i'm sure you will come across people you want to work with.

3. Even if you do find someone to work along with, things can still be quite challenging for start-ups. It's something you should be prepared to face upto. This is exactly what makes the process rewarding and you should look at what you are learning from the process.

Why do you say the fact that you always doubt your ideas and potential is a problem? This is really a good thing, ask yourself a few times every day if you are going in the right direction, and most likely by answering honestly and adjusting your route on your way there you have a bigger chance to complete your journey.

You are young and the world doesn't expect from you the knowledge and experience to be confident about anything. There are very few (if any people) who are able to be confident about such things. So just take it easy and believe in yourself.

And based on what I've seen, it's the people with no sufficient knowledge and experience who are usually confident. The more you know, the more things out there for you to consider. So, as I said, believe in yourself and never give up.

No one understands you? Hang out online where people do. You're already here on Hacker News, so nothing to worry about.

Now, back to your 90% done project... ship something sooner rather than later. You're probably still missing a lot! If you think coding is most of the work, you are wrong. How will people know about your project (apart from telling us here on HN)?

It's not something to worry about, on the contrary. It's a great learning experience. So ship and iterate.

I suggest keeping a list of items you executed. Just anything that you accomplished in your project. So that way when you get down you can stare at the list and be reminded that you've already come this far and done this much.

Release it, market it, and let the people judge. If you get sales, you'll know you were wrong. Trust the data, not your fear.

Hey hey I'm Malaysian too! Just ignore everyone else around you and launch your project already! :)

One question, how you measured your done idea by 90%? Or it's just sheer metaphors?

#startups on freenode (irc)

Emotional obstacles? They are something you have to overcome by yourself.

You're like a shy person asking for dating advice.

No one can help you but yourself.

Well, a shy person asking for dating advice may get a good one and benefit. So I think I'm going to give one.

alifaziz, I often feel unmotivated too. I often feel like I don't care for the thing I'm working on anymore and that no one else cares and that I don't know why am I doing it. The solution is simple: ignore these periods (just say to yourself: I know what it is and it's temporary). They will pass. Then you get your motivation back and that's when you'd have to act.

Dating advice for a person who's shy are as useless as a chocolate teapot - the problems are in the fact that he's shy, not that he'd desperately need dating advice.

There is nothing wrong with this, good (or even any) advice will help gaining motivation!

Just release it. If you succumb to your own self doubt, it will self perpetuate until you're lost all desire to work on the project anymore. The faster you see that people like what you did and want to use it, the faster your motivation will come back and you'll be able to keep on working.

This is coming from a guy who struggles with the same stuff, so take it as you will

Every successful person has doubts about their own ability to execute and just keeps moving. Pretty soon you'll realize you are the best at what you do because you are focused on doing it well.

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