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Comment by algo_trader | Hacker News Reader

The YC/hacker answer - make something that people want

2 skilled devs, should be able to build a functional MVP and get some traction/paying customers. If you cant, its a signal to rethink your product?

The hassler/MBA answer - everything has a price.

You should be making 10-100 cold calls/emails to any potential seed leads. If you are not, its a signal to rethink your team?

Painful but realistic...

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I've been both. I feel like both of these are a miss.

The goal is product-market fit. Hustlers get market fit, hackers get product fit.

You should have market fit before you build the product. You need to make the calls here, but it's not brute force. Every rejection, gather some data and get it closer to what people want.

Once you figure it out, build the product. No point spending 3 months on a prototype that nobody wants to buy.

It's iterative, hustlers gather data, hackers build it, hustler gathers more data by demo-ing it.

"make something that people want"

Is there some list somewhere of things that people might want? I can build stuff, I just have no ideas.

Also, while I would love to build a SpaceX competitor that mines asteroids, I don't have the capital to chase that. :/

I think this is really 80% of the seed stage work. It's sort of like how early pioneers discovered new lands, how geologists find oil deposits, how police catch criminals. There are techniques to do it, but it depends a lot on individual skill, willpower, and a little luck.

And generally people don't build SpaceX competitors, unless they're already millionaires or have a MBA from Harvard and such. There's a reason Elon started with fintech.

I am a programmer, love to build things but also love to learn different thought processes. How do I go from where I am to learning more about these techniques, learning how to do this seed stage work?

It's an iterative process. There's a few methodologies for it (e.g. lean startup). You build something, ask users what they think, fix it according to feedback. At some point, they'll ask you when they can buy it, which is when it becomes a business. Then business is just finding similar people who would buy the same thing or a variation of it.

Doing it in the wrong order (selling something, getting customers, then building a product around it) usually results in a bad thing, where you end up giving out $1 of value for $0.80.

There's a lot more details here: https://startupclass.samaltman.com/

Discovering America was a startup endeavour that pivoted from discovering new route to India

Then turned to slavery, then plantations, gold stealing, empire building, railroading.

Agree with both perspectives.

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