Ask HN: Anyone else doing a non-software startup? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Anyone else doing a non-software startup?

My wife and I recently kicked off http://wickhamhousebrand.com to sell men's accessories. Throughout the setup, business development, and so on I've used tons of stuff I've learned from HN in one way or another: culled marketing and business tips from the popular blogs here, developed software for running it using stuff I found out about from HN users, etc.

I'm always interested in people's software startup stories, but I can't help but wonder: is anyone else doing something similar?

Have other resources to share? Interested in some sort of "Getting Real in Other Markets" group or something? I know there have to be others who aren't necessarily doing "The Next Big Social Network 4.0™" but still hang around here for advice and ideas. :)

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I got out of computer programming a few years ago hoping to do something more tangible. From my interest in food, I ended up starting a sorbet business: http://screamsorbet.com. After two years, we're up to about a dozen employees, running about break even, and we're starting to get some good press: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/we-made-it-our....

Our strength is definitely product quality, stemming from our attention to detail, knowledge of theory, and direct ingredient sourcing. Our weaknesses are primarily lack of sufficient initial funding, launching a gourmet product into a weak economy, and our general lack of business savvy. Did I mention that the product is good?

While there are definitely overlaps between the thought process of programming and that of business development, every time I have to deal with a regulatory agency I definitely long for the orderliness of a xterm. Many days I hope that "spend time working on your weaknesses" turns out to be a good long-term personal strategy.

If you're in the Bay Area and like good food, do check us out. We're opening a store in Oakland in the next few weeks, and are at Farmers' Markets from Santa Cruz to Marin. Or if you're a frozen dessert fanatic somewhere else, we ship overnight on dry ice, although the shipping costs can be rather steep.

That's awesome! It seems like in a business like yours, product quality matters most for customer loyalty ("content is king" for business that aren't on the Web, if you will). Good to see that more food businesses (like yours and others like Kogi BBQ) are starting to care about what they turn out rather than how many tables they can turn over.

I also know as we grow, the lines will begin to define themselves between software startup and "real" business (just waiting to run into FCC regulations on clothing tags...egh).

We're enjoying it for now, though. :)

your product kicks ass. was in the sf for business and pleasure (from the east coast) and randomly stopped to have some (I am a sorbet fanatic). it was a real treat and probably the most memorable thing my wife and i had the whole time.

Considering what else SF has to offer, that's a wonderful compliment. Thanks!

I'm totally going to have to check out your Sorbet next time I'm in California. I just recently started getting into Sorbet because I found out I'm lactose intolerant. Wish we had a great Sorbet place in San Antonio, Tx.

Some high quality product and/or packaging photographs would help make my mouth water more when visiting your website. :)

I was about to buy your scarf until I got to the 'paypal' point :/

Could you add some more payment options? (It may also be worth tracking the number of people who get to the checkout page and then leave)

Please also make the 'more pictures' larger (or have thumbnails of all the photos), as it wasnt too clear at first that there were more. I like how BR does it:

http://bananarepublic.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=35356...

(thumbnails with mouseover)

Other than that, bravo!

Are you boycotting PayPal? You don't need a PayPal account to complete a purchase. If you have one, you can use it, but it's not required.

Yup as my sibling reply noted, you can just use a CC with no PayPal account. Otherwise, feel free to send me an Amazon Gift Card for the amount of the purchase (I think that'd end up being like $28 with shipping) to my e-mail (and a follow-up message with your address) and I'll get that going right out to you!

I run a small auto-brokerage / used car dealership called Autolicious, Inc ( http://autolicio.us ). This is my night/weekend gig and is very slightly profitable, although nowhere close to a successful business.

Here are some of my thoughts I'd like to share, especially applicable to a non-software startup:

1. Focus on selling. I know you can just tweet it, or FB update it, but selling something is difficult. Giving something away for free is easy. So don’t focus on getting 100,000 page views. Get only 10 visitors, BUT, convert ALL those into paying customers.

2. Most of my customers come from word-of-mouth. So the website is only a gateway for the random customer to come in. The whole-and-soul of my business is taking care of the customer, so that he or she recommends me to someone else. I focus on that, instead of adding a slick new feature to the website. The website, as such, is a MVP... something to keep me floating, till I make some money.

3. There are some big (YC backed) players in my field now. They have a huge lead (and huge money), so I clearly cannot take them on at their game. The only way I can survive, is by differentiating myself and that’s what I’m primarily doing.

Yup, I sell firearms, accessories, and ammunition - http://www.dallasshootingsupplies.com (I'm also doing software based startups since they're equally as fun).

It's awesome, I've learned a ton, and the firearm industry is met with it's own difficulties.

Worlds collide! I bought some Magpul magazines from you a year or so ago. Your outfit was great to deal with; highly recommend it to anyone else on here.

And in case you are tracking your marketing effectiveness, I first heard about you on the SA forums.

Awesome! It's cool hearing stuff like that. I've learned a ton about marketing here on HN and going to make 2011 a great year.

Interesting - I used to do this too, but I never really saw much profit on the firearms side - more on accessories / ammo. Is that your experience too?

Pretty much. Regardless, it's all retail so profit margins are pretty low.

I know trading isn't a popular topic, but I consider quantitative finance my one man startup.

I have to wear a lot of hats, am constantly learning new things, get frequent feedback that I have to use to refine my product, can't do everything so I have to choose what things I'm going to spend effort on and what things can be suboptimal. Release early and release often and I'm playing against better funded often slower moving incumbents.

Do you mean you have your own funds and trading algos? What kind of strategies do you follow? I assume 'traditional' HFT is out of reach for a one-man show, no? I've thought for a while now that there must be opportunities in niche markets that aren't profitable enough for big players to get into, but that someone with knowledge of the industry can exploit. I'd love to hear some details on what you do, and what kind of money you make!

I have my own trading algos, but I do not trade my own funds.

I have a single investor, so you could imagine that he's the web startup equivalent of an angel or venture capitalist. He's extremely knowledgeable about markets, and we keep open lines of communication about what I'm doing. He trusts that I'm a good founder and that I'm doing my best to capitalize on market opportunities, but he never tells me what to do. However, if I want his advice or access to his resources, he's happy to share.

It isn't HFT in the traditional sense (or maybe not any sense), but I do tend to prefer opportunities that are quantitative in nature and spend a lot of time programming.

Right now I'm making laughably small amounts of money (non-negative, but insufficient to support me), but I'm hoping that that will change soon. Again, very much like a startup -- I take a hit on the salary and stability because I want increased exposure to the success upside. And like a startup, my investor(s) win if I win.

However, I've recently seen an opportunity to join another such "startup" (currently 2 guys) and I'm considering that, which might be the death of my own little trading startup.

Thanks. I have a few more questions if you don't mind :)

"Right now I'm making laughably small amounts of money (non-negative, but insufficient to support me)"

Is this because of lack of volume (i.e., fund too small), or because of algo quality issues? Do you try to compete with the big boys heads-on (in generic stock trading) or do you specialize, trying to add market knowledge to your model?

I guess my question is, do you have purely statistical models or do you try to model process-based, with information from outside the exchange feed?

How do you handle this technically? Do you have direct access to a broker API? Don't the fees kill you on that?

I created a nutritional supplement to help me code longer and be more productive:

http://www.getinstantfocus.com

It's been an incredible learning experience in terms of building an ecommerce business from the ground up and putting all of the pieces together.

Plus I got to code a custom CRM for the backend because I couldn't find anything to fit my needs.

But I'm running into the serious limitations of having a physical product business-inventory, shipping, returns, phone support, etc. For example, due to various regulatory and logistical issues I can only sell to the United States, which severely limits my market size...I've had to turn away more than a few Canadians...so I'll be jumping into the SaaS startup world soon.

ECommerce is a LOT of work- for anyone choosing between selling a physical product or software, unless you have an awesome idea I would recommend software- a lot of the issues traditional stores face are automatically taken care of in a webapp.

How does the supplement work?

I checked out the ingredients and it looks pretty good. I bet this stuff really works. Focus supplements are BIG right now and I've always wanted to create something but just haven't had the time.

I know a guy who is a GENIUS at marketing stuff like this. Let me know if you want an introduction.

Yeah! Please email me, email in my profile.

Sorry for the nitpick, but I noticed that you misspelled "dimethylamylamine" on your product label.

What made you go into this market? It seems that this is a highly competitive product category.

I used to deal with products like this quite a bit. There's a huge segment of the industry that is involved in rebill scams and are almost impossible to cancel. Is your product like that as well? It looks exactly like the type of landing page that does scammy rebills for "free" trial offers.

It's a simple sale, no rebill or free trial just one charge of the purchase price.

I use that landing page style because it converts better than anything else I have tested :)

Did you get your inspiration from the 4 hour work week by any chance? This is exactly what Tim Ferris did to get started (only targeted at students).

We run a portable hookah pipe business: http://HoboHookah.com. Its pretty boutique, been around for 3 years. Its still a profit loser, but we've been featured on Thrillist, Swagapalooza (YC), WNBC (NY NBC affiliate) and Le Grande Fooding.

Whats been tough? Our first product was over priced by the manufacturer (although high quality) which did not make the first run profitable in any way. The other thing is lack of understanding of retail and manufacturing. We had no idea how the whole retail / wholesale / distributor / manufacturer business worked.

We've learned a lot (as they say: Starting a business is the cheapest MBA money can buy) and I think we'll be able to get profitable in 6-months and probably be able to exit in 2-3 years (there are some ideal buyers for the business).

My dad is trying to set up woodworking business selling hand-sculpted rocking chairs. He's great at the woodworking, but doesn't have the slightest clue how to start, run, or market a business. I'm leaving my job at the end of the month so I'll be able to help him organize finances and set up a proper website, but it's really out of my expertise as well. All I've had a chance to do so far is set up a wordpress blog for him to play around with: http://morrellwoodworks.com/

The chairs he builds are really nice though. He does everything by hand. Ex: http://morrellwoodworks.com/wp-content/gallery/double-rocker...

Wow, you rarely see that amount of craftsmanship these days. It's really great to see more businesses like that spring up simply because it's easy to get started and get your message out there thanks to the Internet.

Wow. At his level of quality, supply/production optimization side is critical for custom furniture. Too many times I've seen a great product be announced (at a very high end custom price point) and the craftsman gets bogged down in orders and interest due to a rush of demand from interior design blogs, etc.

I run gas stations. My underhanded motive for buying it earlier this year was to learn how the processes work and then develop products for this particular niche.

It's profitable and, on most days, pretty fun. :)

great chance to pivot. financed or cash? how many? there is a provider here in the d.c. metro making a killing off no-name stations.

Part cash, part financed (bank + previous owner). More than 1.

I'd love to talk to your friend. :)

This sounds like a good thing to get into. Any tips for someone looking to get into it?

Yeah, it's not too bad -- just need to be really careful before you bite the bullet. I wrote about the steps I took here: http://www.resultsjunkies.com/blog/how-to-buy-a-small-busine...

I am runing small winery. (4500 bottles of wine/year)

It is fun and if business go wrong you can always drink your end product. Ask anything if you like.

Can you give some super introductory pointers on how to start a "physical" business like this? My girlfriend and I have been batting around some coffee related ideas, but this domain is completely foreign to us.

all starts with the product. find an excellent offering, work on the costs then build a small service around it. the couple that runs the blog http://mywifequitherjob.com/ have a wedding linens business and share lots of data about optimizing and sourcing.

spend 50-100x more time on the product features than the website at the outset.

It was very simple in my case. Few generations of my family are making wine, so we own vineyards, wine cellar, equipment and such. Now it is just plain work, experimentations and more work.

It is actually very similar to software business: start small, create some product, learn from your mistakes and iterate.

You don't need tons of fancy equipment and huge infrastructure from the beginning.

Where are you located? Is your market local?

I am located at Czech Republic. All market is local and consist mostly of just one big wholesaler who takes most of my production. Rest of production is sold directly or consumed by myself or my family.

It will be much more better to sell directly, but it is still just kind of hobby as I spent most of my time writting software.

There's a stupid joke in the wine industry-whats the best way to make a small fortune in wine?

A. Start with a large fortune.

My company is working on that. We're designing a complete precision viticulture analytical tool based on the principles of sustainable organic agriculture (I'm pretty sure everything is headed this direction, it can be done cheaper then petro-based agriculture when managed correctly. I'm curious, as someone involved in vineyard management - do you agree with this idea? Have you noticed increased demand for organic products?)

We're starting with small, boutique vineyards in Northern California. Maybe if yr geographically located you'd like to join our upcoming beta program?

I suspect oil prices are going to collapse at some point in the next several years, once there are enough battery powered cars on the roads from Tesla and Nissan and others to reduce the demand for oil a bit. That may have some effect on the economics of organic vs not-organic farming.

Of course, that doesn't make organic farming pointless. Some people are willing to pay for quality. If organic farming reduces water consumption, there is also the issue that there are parts of the country that don't have unlimited water supplies, and I don't know of any plans to dramatically increase the water supply, other than perhaps there being a small decrease in corn farming as battery powered cars reduce the demand for ethanol to dilute gasoline with.

Non-software startup entrepreneurs:

What are your Hacker News alternatives? What forums do you use?

The OP should take a look at Bonobos. They're a startup in the same space, and they could offer a good partnership opportunity. They sell a lot of other companies' products.

Oh wow I didn't know they were that small. I should ping them just to see what the possibilities are...

Sorry, I accidentally down-voted you. To the contrary, your comment is thoughtful and helpful.

Running a Somali restaurant that the family bought. It's very tough, and with lots of gotchas. Would not recommend for the common person, but if you're dedicated, fast, sharp-eyed, have cash, and find a good location, go for it.

We at http://CastingWords.com are an interesting hybrid. We sell human transcription - everything we do is done by hand, and our costs are per item sold, much like a physical product.

Of course we also do it via CrowdSourcing so we're nicely techy, and buzzwordy. But boy is it not a software gig in the traditional sense.

nice site design.

We're doing hardware... a toy for kids that connects to your iPod/iPhone: http://xachipet.com

Very neat product. This further reinforces the idea that an iPod Touch is probably the right gift idea for my son this Christmas... and maybe this product next Christmas.

Thanks, Barry! Hardware can be a challenge as a startup, but we're almost there.

My startup is the employment industry, but it's more of a media property than a job board.

My sites are:

http://www.onedayonejob.com/ http://www.onedayoneinternship.com/ http://www.foundyourcareer.com/

The beautiful think about a content business is that it's much easier to build traffic—especially through SEO. I've seen a ton of employment industry startups fail because they built software that they couldn't market (I'm not sure that the software was very good either).

funny that HN wouldn't link httP://example.com :D

That is really odd. I just fixed my link, but I figured that I'd respond so you that your comment still makes sense.

I started http://www.littleheroes.com a little over a year ago. It's personalized books for kids. Running a company that involves "real" stuff definitely has its challenges (sourcing suppliers, shipping, customs etc.) but on the plus side, I enjoy the fact that we create something real and that our business model is simple and doesn't rely on AdSense or premium subscriptions.

With that said, we are making an iPad app because our customers want our books to read on-the-go for their kids.

Very nice. I write children's books as a hobby and was wondering how you select books for your service.

Very cool. You're probably going to get a few Xmas orders from my house!

I'm involved in a non software startup called WickWerks. We make high performing bicycle parts. http://www.wickwerks.com

I run a small publishing company that mostly sells physical books. We're not really consumer facing for the most part so we have no site yet, but we'll shortly open to manuscript submissions from outside authors, so our public site is very nearly ready.

'needmoney' runs a bakery - even thanked us after HN helped him get his 'startup- stable.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772205

I'm trying to get a couple (not video) games made and onto store shelves. I'm past the playtesting stage for one game and I'm looking to hire art from some locals artists, because I need a good-looking demo to show to publishers or distributors. I'm not so much a startup as a messy desk and closet for now, but I'm making slow progress because I'm pretty much feeling around in the dark and making my own mistakes.

I was about to pipe up that I've been working on a non-software product, not yet a startup, but it's not quite as "out there"[1] as yours, since it's still primarily based in computer technology.

Still, I expect to face some similar challenges due to the fact that my initial capital outlay won't be epsilon, unlike with pure software.

[1] That is, divergent from the typical HN startup.

I bought a bar

How's it working out for you? Any experiences you can share?

I am taking an existing business on-line that specializes in the marketing data of team sports (football, baseball, basketball, hockey, etc). I am looking for a partner to help out so If any one has an interest in team sports, marketing and technology send me an email.

It would be interesting to know from where you are purchasing the goods (if they are not self-made).

Do you get them directly from the manufacturer or do some of you have experience with importing stuff from China/etc.?

My friends and I run a franchised food stall. After few months, we learned that manpower management is very critical as the turnover rate is very high in this business. Also stock management, to save operation cost.

I'm working on a scheduled shuttle service from San Francisco to Oakland Airport. Was a huge pain point for myself personally to get to the airport. We're hoping to launch it in time for the holiday travel season!

http://www.difrwear.com

Also selling men's accessories (5+ years now) - send me some emails if you want war stories =)

I run www.freshsight.org a third sector organisation related to the Berkley Group in California. I also run www.mylash.org which has launched recently

www.kegstool.com

clever

WOW - What a great idea!!! I love it!!! Not sure how you are marketing this, but you could do great in anything related to "man-caves" -- super popular in the midwest and I'm sure other places as well.

Pretty cool site - best of luck!

I can join in with www.recojeans.com, sustainable, stylish jeans.

Not an equity founder, but as one of the first employees I have a lot of free reign in planning. HN has been quite useful.

Just checked out your site, I like some of those t-shirts. Might get one.

May I suggest you change the color of the top menu text. Thin blue Arial on a gray background is hard to read.

Oh wow nice! I like finding all these little jeans shops on the Internet. Each one has such a distinct style.

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