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Comment by genbit | Hacker News Reader

Nice! what you describe is basically a standard sales process. You will very often be ignored, and people will not reply to you - don't get it personal. Read more about cold emailing and sales. It's a complex process, but essential for bootstrapping entrepreneurship.

> I really need a community to discuss these ideas.

there are local pitch events (at least in the silicon valley) where you can practice or sites like HN.

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Although at this stage it's less about sales and more about understanding your potential customers and what problem do they have. That's why I would recommend starting side business project by talking to customers first, understand what problem they have - what jobs they need to be done, and then actually coding

I don't live in Silicon Valley, and I don't think are pitch-events in Taiwan. Certainly not where I could give a presentation for free, I'd probably have to pay to join.

Customer-driven innovation means I have to find people who will give me money first, and then make a product to sell so I can take their money.

The problem is that I don't know anybody who will give money to me for any reason, even though I have plenty of friends. We're all too busy just trying to pay for food and shelter. I think that rich people can easily start companies because they have rich friends who will pay them. So the only products that get made are things that benefit rich people, not poor people.

By customer-driven, I mean the first talk to customers, then code. Understand what kind of job your customers are doing (don't talk about a product, just try to understand your customers), for example, people who study Chinese what kind of day to day tasks/job/activities they do related to learning Chinese? What gives them the most pain/problems? Is there anything that you can do about it?

Before trying to sell, try to understand your customers. If you really solve an important problem for them - people will pay.

I don't agree with "rich people statement". I started my first web-consulting company by self-learning how to code websites and then lived in a shitty room in Russia with my girlfriend, barely making money for a rent and food. I found first customers by browsing and phone-calling through local classifieds.

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