Ask HN: Web Startup versus Non-Web Startup
However, I have come across some interesting examples of really cheap businesses to start that have very high returns by comparison.
Case in point, a business that I heard about while working an on-site job. One of the technicians cousins had started a business affectionately named, "Scoopy Doo." The cousin paid some workers around $10 an hour to go around the local area and pickup dog excrement from customers yards. He worked approximatively two weeks a year, filling in for when people couldn't work. He has no marketing campaign, very little overhead, and stores the waste on his farm (does not use additional products).
His business nets him $100,000 a year (confirmed), and his market is only a series of small towns in Northern Michigan.
It seems that while there is great value in making a startup on the internet, old fashion entrepreneurship can be more hands on but is still amazing profitable.
Web based companies can grow fast, have huge markets and can be started for very little.
If you truly put your mind to it, you could make a business with very little overhead, very little startup cost and very little micro-management outside of the web.
At the end of the day it is about the percentage return on investment, correct?
So I ask HN, why do we focus on web startups? Why not pay attention on all types of startups?
What about the gray areas in between? For example, creating your own hardware but selling different software for it online.