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Comment by funfunfunction | Hacker News Reader

It really does depend on the idea. Is it a consumer product? B2B? In the last few years I’ve seen a growing number of companies start with little or no seed funding and grow to a respectable size. If you’re technical, I would start by building a prototype and trying to get a few paying customers to prove it something people are willing to pay for.

I’m curious to learn more. Reach out to me at sam@sellout.io if you want to chat.

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It is a consumer facing product. Like the sites I mentioned (employment/dating, etc) it's driven by connecting people with a unique twist. I'm a little reluctant to discuss it more than this because I really do think this is the kind of idea when you hear it you think 'oh shit, yeah I'm surprised nobody thought of that already!' In fact I had this idea originally in 2005 but didn't have the confidence to try to go against the existing players (I also didn't know anything about incubators, or any of that world yet either).

So yeah I would reach out but I also don't really want to disclose any details until I've got something running and hopefully users using it. Of course there are NDA's but I've always wondered if those are worth anything.

Thanks for the response either way, appreciate the offer.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Execution is what matters.

Is your idea building "Tinder for job search"?

I don't say that to discourage you. Quite the opposite. If you're passionate about it, do it. As others have said, at the end of the day, it's quite a simple formula: build X, get people to use X.

Even more simply, "solve problem Y for lots of people".

Totally get it, and agree (and I have started building it - I am always down for a new fun, exciting side project).

But this one feels different... and no it's not 'tinder for job search', I was just trying to use something to compare my idea market/space, etc without giving away anything (I'm paranoid that way).

I have bootstrapped a few apps... most notably a signup system to manage pick-up hockey games... I knew writing it it was a niche 'product' and didn't expect to make any money off of it and mostly just wanted it to cure a bunch of personal pain points of running pick-up/drop-in hockey games. Truthfully I thought I could get rinks to adopt it but after meeting with 3 rinks all owned by local muni's that idea fizzled out quickly. I did get one privately owned rink to use it (and they still do and love it), so it's fine, I make a little off it every few months (like 50-100 bucks) and it made/makes running my skates a breeze so all good.

Which is why I am trying to avoid that same fate... aka if I bootstrap this idea, there is no way I'm going to be able to get the level of users to compete with a Linked-In or a Tinder. To me that requires something like Ycombinator getting onboard and throwing their weight and resources behind it.

So I guess I'm saying I am pretty realistic about this idea... it's not a rink management or drop-in/pick-up management type thing that is very limited in the scope/scale. That idea never had the potential of truly blowing up.

This idea is more like a linked-in, tinder, facebook, instagram, giant, massive, holy fuck type of idea... and yeah ideas are a dime a dozen, but to me that's only true when that idea is coming from a friend, an uncle, a buddies wife... aka someone that doesn't really know how to qualify an idea like this.

I think I have my decision though, I feel that apply for Ycombinator is the right way to go; I'm convinced it's that level idea, that warrants that level support to get it to world domination levels.

Thanks for the reply.

I think aiming for YC long term is smart, but YC doesn't really take ideas anymore as far as I know. To increase your odds of getting in you still need to do all the things that you would do anyway: build a prototype, get some users (preferably paid). You have to show the ability to execute to get YC on board these days.

Thanks - I would never apply with just an idea. I'm a senior software engineer and I've already started building the prototype.

My bigger challenge is whether to try to find 2 people to partner with, and if so who/what roles that would be. I know generally speaking solo founder startups are less likely to be picked up. Debating bringing on a designer or maybe a mobile dev(s) (I do back-end/db/web so I have that covered).

Interesting, I think the opposite. Of course there’s the bare minimum needed to execute properly, but past that I think the idea and market are much more important in the long run.

For example, if the TAM isn’t there, you can execute as well as you want, but you can’t increase the physical limit on number of customers.

Your opinion is totally valid, and I agree.

I should've been a bit more clear... On the list of things that are important, having a "good idea" is near the bottom ... unless you're lumping in market validation, timing, total addressable market, etc. into "good idea". In this case, I wasn't. Those are all on the list of things that need to be considered though, and to me, fall directly in line with "execution", rather than "idea".

Again, this is just the way I see it, and it's mostly a semantic argument. But to me, "Idea" is like the hypothesis, and problem statement. "Execution" is proving that out by building a really good product and iterating on it, along with analyzing TAM and PMF. If you're better at the "execution" component, you're going to find more success. Especially if you're good at doing that portion quickly and reliably and can cycle through several "ideas". Therefore, ideas are a dime a dozen (in my opinion).

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