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Comment by kowdermeister | Hacker News Reader

That's easy to say. I can deliver the product, but I'm worried about sales taxes, VAT, compliance with laws, administration, support, etc.

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Being a founder means solving all these problems everyday as a background task (usually by hiring a lawyer, payroll firm, accountant, etc). A mentor can help you with the basics and the timing for hiring professionals.

This, plus, just start. There are lots of things you won't know, always. You'll need to dig in and figure out what you need to know. Outsourcing is a good option for things if you have the money. However, you need to understand what you're paying for.

"just start", sounds like a minefield if you want to take money from day zero.

you either just start, and fumble through and make it or never start. there is no such thing as perfectly figuring it all out and then starting. I desperately wish there was, but it doesn't exist.

To clear the minefield someone has to step on them basically. Fortunately these mines won't kill you and you will learn how to disarm them as you walk through the minefield.

I'll try to automate all of this as much as possible. The sad thing is I just want a side project but all this seems mandatory like I'm building a full-blown startup, puts me off.

Taxes, VAT, compliance are mundane.

Marketing/Selling, and building the right thing ... this is the hard part.

If you can do the later, most of the ops becomes ... just ops. It's just work. It can be done.

So what do you suggest if the ops thing freaks me out to the extent of stress? I'd be happy to take on a cofounder to handle that.

Ops isn't a problem until you're successful, the taxman won't come after you if you have 10k in revenue, customers won't complain if you haven't sold things to them. It really isn't something to worry about now, at all. Get stressed over not getting any sales, that's what should be freaking you out.

Not knowing what your business is, those are probably minor things you don't need a co-founder for. Just get an accountant/bookeeper on the financial side, you'll need on anyhow. Do some online reading about cookies and GDPR if you have concerns there and don't stress about it - nobodies going to hunt you down if you're very small fish. If you have serious money coming in you can have a more serious look into it - those issues are not fundamental.

If you need to hire people, open an office, write up contracts, deal with immigration lawyers, deal with tricky shareholder stuff, manage customer accounts ... then maybe you need someone to help.

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